ML12300A368
| ML12300A368 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 10/18/2012 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| SECY RAS | |
| References | |
| RAS 23673, 50-247-LR, 50-286-LR, ASLBP 07-858-03-LR-BD01 | |
| Download: ML12300A368 (305) | |
Text
Page 2084 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD PANEL 5 + + + + +
6 HEARING 7 --------------------------------x Docket Nos.
8 In the Matter of: : 50-247-LR and 9 ENTERGY NUCLEAR OPERATIONS, INC.: 50-286-LR 10 (Indian Point Generating Units 2:
11 and 3) : ASLBP No.
12 --------------------------------x 07-858-03-LR-BD01 13 Thursday, October 18, 2012 14 15 DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Tarrytown 16 Westchester Ballroom 17 455 South Broadway 18 Tarrytown, New York 19 20 BEFORE:
21 LAWRENCE G. McDADE, Chair 22 MICHAEL F. KENNEDY, Administrative Judge 23 RICHARD E. WARDWELL, Administrative Judge 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2085 1 APPEARANCES:
2 On Behalf of Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.:
3 KATHRYN M. SUTTON, ESQ.
4 PAUL M. BESSETTE, ESQ.
5 MARTIN J. O'NEILL, ESQ.
6 MARTHA B. STOLLEY, 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 (713) 890-5710 (O'Neill) 13 (212) 309-6858 (Stolley) 14 ksutton@morganlewis.com 15 pbessette@morganlewis.com 16 martin.o'neill@morganlewis.com 17 mstolley@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 2086 1 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
2 SHERWIN E. TURK, ESQ.
3 BRIAN HARRIS, ESQ.
4 Office of the General Counsel 5 Mail Stop - O-15 D21 6 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 7 Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 8 (301) 415-1533 (Turk) 9 (301) 415-1392 (Harris) 10 sherwin.turk@nrc.gov 11 brian.harris@nrc.gov 12 13 On Behalf of the State of New York:
14 JOHN J. SIPOS, ESQ.
15 Assistant Attorneys General 16 Office of the Attorney General of the 17 State of New York 18 The Capitol 19 State Street 20 Albany, New York 12224 21 (518) 402-2251 22 john.sipos@ag.ny.gov 23 and 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2087 1 JANICE A. DEAN, ESQ.
2 KATHRYN LIBERATORE, ESQ.
3 Assistant Attorneys General 4 Office of the Attorney General of the 5 State of New York 6 120 Broadway, 26th Floor 7 New York, New York 10271 8 (212) 416-8459 (Dean) 9 (212) 416-8482 (Liberatore) 10 janice.dean@ag.ny.gov 11 kathyrn.liberatore@ag.ny.gov 12 13 On Behalf of Riverkeeper, Inc.:
14 PHILLIP MUSEGAAS, ESQ.
15 DEBORAH BRANCATO, ESQ.
16 Riverkeeper, Inc.
17 20 Secor Road 18 Ossining, New York 10562 19 (800) 21-RIVER 20 phillip@riverkeeper.org 21 dbrancato@riverkeeper.org 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2088 1 On Behalf of Hudson River Sloop 2 Clearwater, Inc.:
3 MANNA JO GREENE, Environmental Director 4 KARLA RAIMUNDI 5 Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc.
6 724 Wolcott Avenue 7 Beacon, New York 12508 8 (845) 265-8080 9 mannajo@clearwater.org 10 karla@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 2089 1 On Behalf of the Village of Buchanan:
2 RICHARD A. FUNCHION, Trustee 3 Municipal Building 4 236 Tate Avenue 5 Buchanan, New York 10511-1298 6 (914) 737-1033 7 RichardF@villageofbuchanan.com 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2090 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2
3 Exhibits: Mark Recd 4 None marked 5
6 WITNESSES 7 Robert M. Aleksick Joseph Jones 8 Nelson Azevedo Dr. Francois J. Lemay 9 Dr. Nathan Bixler Ian D. Mew 10 Dr. Allen Hiser Dr. Kevin O'Kula 11 Alan Cox Lori Potts 12 Donald Harrison Kathryn Sutton 13 Dr. Joram Hopenfeld Grant Teagarden 14 Jeffrey Horowitz Matthew Yoder 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2091 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 (9:04 a.m.)
3 JUDGE McDADE: Do any of the parties have 4 any preliminary matters before we get started?
5 MR. BESSETTE: Yes, Your Honor. This is 6 Paul Bessette for the Applicant. We just have one 7 witness availability issue we would just like to alert 8 the Board to. Dr. Tolley, who is our expert on the 9 land values contention, New York-17 has been 10 graciously supporting us this week and ready to 11 testify but like Dr. Shepherd, New York's expert, he 12 has teaching obligations that he -- in Chicago and he 13 has to get back next Tuesday. It is the middle of the 14 semester.
15 So if New York State-17 goes much beyond 16 Monday, we would like to discuss we may have a witness 17 availability issue. But I understand Dr. Shepherd is 18 not available to testify on Tuesday as well because of 19 his teaching obligations. So I just wanted to alert 20 that to you, Your Honor.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you.
22 MR. SIPOS: And Your Honor, this is John 23 Sipos for the State of New York. Mr. Bessette also 24 correctly described a constraint that is operating 25 upon New York. Dr. Shepherd, I think as the Board Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2092 1 knows, also has a teaching obligation at Williams 2 College on Tuesday.
3 So both those experts on NYS-17 appear to 4 have similar constraints, given their academic 5 responsibilities.
6 JUDGE McDADE: I not only would be very 7 disappointed, I would be very surprised if we are 8 unable to finish New York-16 and New York-17 on 9 Monday. And it would be my predisposition to make 10 sure that we finish those on Monday, even if it meant 11 starting a little bit early -- and starting early may 12 not be an issue because we have an issue with regard 13 to the room setup -- but going late in order to 14 accommodate both of them. We anticipated, quite 15 frankly, that we would be done with 16 and 17 already, 16 let alone by Monday. And certainly those individuals 17 have been available and have been inconvenienced and 18 we don't want to add to that inconvenience.
19 So I am confident that we can get through 20 16 and 17 by the close of our hearing on Monday.
21 MR. BESSETTE: We appreciate that. Thank 22 you, Your Honor.
23 MR. SIPOS: And Your Honor, the State has 24 another issue that it just wishes to alert the Board 25 about. I have been in consultation actually with Mr.
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Page 2093 1 Bessette about this. Entergy produced to the State 2 some computer runs on Friday evening of last week and 3 the State is not yet prepared to present its final 4 position on that. And as I said, Mr. Bessette and I 5 have been in consultation but the State and its 6 experts have not yet had an opportunity to review in 7 ground truth those calculations.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Relevant to which 9 contentions?
10 MR. SIPOS: Actually there is two 11 contentions. One batch of computer analyses pertains 12 to New York-16 and there is also an analysis by Dr.
13 Tolley for New York-17. And it may be that we are 14 able to come to some sort of meeting of the minds of 15 that but I just I wanted to, in the interest of full 16 disclosure, alert the Board to that as well.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Well at least they are not 18 on New York-12 or Riverkeeper-TC-2.
19 MR. SIPOS: Thankfully, Your Honor.
20 (Laughter.)
21 JUDGE McDADE: But hopefully tomorrow you 22 would have an opportunity to look at those, have your 23 appropriate expert look at them and if there is going 24 to be an issue, contact us either by phone or email 25 tomorrow with regard to it.
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Page 2094 1 MR. BESSETTE: Yes, Your Honor, I think we 2 would be able to advise the Board what the parties' 3 respective positions is and, if necessary, either 4 resolve it or take whatever action either party deems 5 appropriate.
6 Thank you.
7 MR. BESSETTE: Yes, Your Honor, and this 8 is Paul Bessette. We agree with that. We believe 9 that our sensitivity runs, our calculations that are 10 in the nature of what is very similar to what is 11 already produced and we would hope, given the 12 intervening week and the weekend, that New York's 13 experts could review those. We believe that is 14 reasonable. Thank you.
15 JUDGE McDADE: Prior to the hearing we 16 received sensitivity runs and testimony about 17 sensitivity runs assuming 50 percent of Dr. Sheppard's 18 estimate.
19 Are we talking about a run that includes 20 100 percent of Dr. Sheppard's estimate or is it 21 something else?
22 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, it is John Sipos.
23 That is what Entergy has represented to us. And the 24 State's attorneys have been here, experts have been 25 here, so we really have not had the opportunity to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2095 1 QAQC those runs. But Mr. Bessette can correct me if 2 I am wrong but I believe that Entergy asserts that it 3 hops from 50 to 100 percent.
4 JUDGE McDADE: From New York's standpoint, 5 in light of this new information, would we be able to 6 move ahead and start New York-16 today or is this 7 something that you would need to review before we 8 started New York-16 or before we finished New York-16 9 or is it something that we could go through New York-10 16 and then make a determination later whether or not 11 it needed to be reopened?
12 MR. SIPOS: One moment, Your Honor. The 13 State of New York recognizes that we have critical 14 mass here in this room and does not wish to unduly or 15 in any way delay the proceedings. While the State has 16 concerns about the late production, the State does not 17 wish to delay the proceedings so the State would be 18 willing to start evidentiary hearings on New York 19 State-16. However, the State would like to reserve 20 the right to QA/QC examine the sensitivity runs and 21 come to sort of a deliberate conclusion about how to 22 address it. And there could be a possibility of a 23 response from the State or potential additional 24 proposed cross-examination questions or things of that 25 nature. We just have not -- we received them about Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2096 1 7:00 p.m. on Friday and we were in the throes of 2 moving experts here and ourselves as well.
3 JUDGE McDADE: But even if we were to 4 start on New York-16 today, and even if we were to 5 finish New York-16 today, Dr. Sheppard is going to be 6 back on Monday with regard to New York-17, so we would 7 be in a position to reopen.
8 MR. SIPOS: That is correct. You know 9 depending -- the State would like an opportunity to do 10 a thorough review and it might take more than -- I 11 would suggest it might take more than the intervening 12 weekend. But again, the State does not wish to delay 13 the proceedings but doesn't wish to be prejudiced.
14 JUDGE McDADE: But you won't know that 15 until you and your expert have had an opportunity to 16 look at it.
17 MR. SIPOS: That is correct, Your Honor.
18 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
19 MR. BESSETTE: And Your Honor, not to 20 belabor this, but I think the Board has realized over 21 the last couple of days all the parties have had to 22 address documents that have been disclosed. We have 23 spent -- our experts had to review documents disclosed 24 by Riverkeeper at 10:00 the night before and testify 25 to them on the morning before. We believe this is Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2097 1 helpful to the Board. We think it is in the nature of 2 testimony we have already provided. Dr. Lemay is a 3 skilled expert we understand and we believe they have 4 had this for a week and it is certainly within the 5 realm to do it. But we understand and appreciate New 6 York's wanting to review and quality assurance this 7 information.
8 But again, we think it would be helpful to 9 the Board and we think by Monday it is certainly 10 reasonable for them to be able to address this 11 information.
12 JUDGE McDADE: And we are hopeful of that 13 as well but again we haven't seen the information at 14 all and, therefore, have no idea how long it would 15 take to review and New York hasn't had a chance to 16 review it. So hopefully Mr. Sipos will be able to say 17 no problem, you got it. But let's wait until they 18 review it and then if necessary the Board can review 19 it as well and decide whether or not it is reasonable 20 to delay or whether or not it is not putting New York 21 in an inappropriate position or an unfair position by 22 moving ahead.
23 But I think we have touched on that 24 enough. Why don't we see if -- we may not have to 25 worry about delays if we never get done with New York-Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2098 1 12.
2 MR. BESSETTE: Thank you, Your Honor.
3 MR. SIPOS: Thank you, Your Honor.
4 JUDGE McDADE: So let's get back to New 5 York-12.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you, Judge McDade.
7 MR. HARRISON: Excuse me, Your Honors.
8 This is Donald Harrison over at the staff. I would 9 like to see if I could make a comment regarding a 10 comment that was made by Entergy's applicant yesterday 11 regarding the use NUREG-1150, if that is acceptable.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Well we will, I am sure, be 13 asking you about that.
14 MR. HARRISON: Okay.
15 MR. JONES: Your Honor, Joe Jones with 16 staff. I do have a clarification to a statement that 17 I believe may have left the wrong intention to the 18 Board. And if I have the opportunity, I would like to 19 clarify that.
20 I may have left the impression that there 21 is a library of cesium data available from the cleanup 22 of the Department of Energy Weapons Complex. And that 23 is not what I intended to convey.
24 I intended to convey there is a lot of 25 experience available from the cleanup activities but Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2099 1 these cleanups were of weapons-type materials such as 2 plutonium, which is significantly more difficult to 3 clean up than cesium.
4 A lot of advanced technologies came out of 5 this program which are currently available today, some 6 of which are identified in New York State Exhibit 7 000259 and 000261; 000259 discusses strippable 8 coatings and 000261 discusses abrasive technologies 9 and techniques.
10 I have used a couple of those techniques 11 in the decontamination of cesium and that allowed us 12 to complete these activities much more cost-13 effectively than we would have been able to do 14 historically. And that was the message I had intended 15 to convey. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Okay but to state it now, 17 perhaps Dr. Lemay would disagree with you with regard 18 to which is easier to clean up plutonium or cesium but 19 that is something that we touched on yesterday and I 20 am sure we are going to touch on later today as well.
21 But you have made the correction to your testimony 22 yesterday and we appreciate it. Thank you.
23 JUDGE McDADE: Now was yours by way of a 24 correction to testimony if we have something that was 25 --
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Page 2100 1 MR. JONES: No, Your Honor.
2 JUDGE McDADE: I'm talking, sorry, to your 3 colleague. I cut you off. And if it was sort of a 4 new concept that you wanted to just elaborate on, we 5 will get to that later. But if it was a correction of 6 prior testimony such as Mr. Jones's, we would like to 7 get to that now.
8 MR. HARRISON: No, it is an elaboration.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you.
10 JUDGE KENNEDY: I wonder if I could ask 11 Mr. Jones if you could characterize the DOE experience 12 level with cleanup of cesium. I mean, is there an 13 amount of data or experiential information on the 14 cleanup of cesium from DOE lab facilities?
15 MR. JONES: Your Honor, I am not aware of 16 -- this is Joe Jones with staff. I am not aware of 17 any specific cesium-related characterization or cost 18 data.
19 JUDGE KENNEDY: So that was your 20 clarification, that the experience was more with 21 plutonium-type cleanup situations?
22 MR. JONES: My personal experience 23 included cesium but I also had other contaminants in 24 my facility and of course we don't distinguish as we 25 are decontaminating so I don't have cesium-specific Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2101 1 data.
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: All right, thank you.
3 I would like to start this morning's 4 evidentiary portion by taking us back to where I 5 believe we ended yesterday. We circled back around, 6 after much discussion of the MACCS2 input to Table 4 7 of Entergy Exhibit 000450. And again, we were talking 8 about some of the key inputs. And as I understand 9 where we ended yesterday, that in discussions with Dr.
10 Lemay and the Entergy witnesses and the staff 11 witnesses, that we are going to start today by 12 focusing on CDFRM parameter and TIMDEC, T-I-M-D-E-C, 13 and how it impacts the decontamination cost estimates 14 that are produced by MACCS2 or that are relevant to 15 the input to MACCS2.
16 I guess I would ask first Dr. Lemay if 17 that is your understanding of where we ended 18 yesterday.
19 DR. LEMAY: That is correct, Your Honor.
20 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you. Entergy, do 21 you have a different view of where we ended yesterday 22 and what parameters are of focus for today's 23 evidentiary hearing?
24 MR. TEAGARDEN: Grant Teagarden for 25 Entergy. No, sir. We agree.
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Page 2102 1 JUDGE KENNEDY: Staff, if you would like 2 to comment as well. Does that seem where we ended 3 yesterday? And I will take a representative.
4 MR. HARRISON: This is Donald Harrison.
5 Yes, I believe that is where we ended yesterday.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: All right, thank you. I 7 guess given that understanding, which was my 8 understanding as well, that let's -- I would like to 9 have the IT folks call up New York State Exhibit 10 000430 and in particular, page six of that exhibit.
11 (Pause.)
12 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you. The reason I 13 have asked this particular exhibit to be displayed is 14 it has the parameters of interest on it. It is not an 15 Entergy exhibit but it is one that was produced by Dr.
16 Lemay for the State of New York. But it has CDNFRM 17 and TIMDEC and cascades into ultimate OECR dollar 18 calculations.
19 It also has some of the other parameters 20 that we talked about yesterday that were on Table 4 of 21 the Entergy 000450 exhibit, in particular the VALWNF 22 and we can see the POPCST, which received some 23 discussion yesterday during the hearing.
24 I think it would be useful to have Dr.
25 Lemay orient to what is presented here. I would ask Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2103 1 you to focus on the CDNFRM and how TIMDEC weaves its 2 way, as I understand, it into that calculation. And 3 then we will have additional discussion from Entergy 4 and the staff and we will proceed down a path to 5 investigate the reasonableness of these input 6 assumptions.
7 So if you could walk us through what is 8 being presented here Dr. Lemay, that would be 9 appreciated.
10 DR. LEMAY: Dr. Lemay for New York State.
11 In Table 13 we summarize the result of the 12 calculations. The first column presents the 13 parameters --
14 JUDGE KENNEDY: I'm sorry, Dr. Lemay. Are 15 these MACCS2 calculations?
16 DR. LEMAY: These are MACCS2 calculations.
17 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you.
18 DR. LEMAY: These are MACCS2 calculation 19 and the results have been presented in OECR. So it is 20 the aggregate of eight release categories multiplied 21 by their respective frequency and sum to get an OECR.
22 So it is a single value which is compared to the SAMA 23 candidates.
24 So the first column gives the parameter 25 that we are discussing. The second column describes Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2104 1 the parameter. The third column gives the value that 2 was in the Entergy input deck. So this was the value 3 that they were using for their calculations.
4 The fourth and fifth column give, where 5 appropriate, the range of value that we considered in 6 our assessment based on different methods of 7 calculating the cost of decontamination or other 8 parameters.
9 When we use the minimum value of a 10 parameter, the corresponding OECR cost is in the 11 minimum column of the OECR. When we use the maximum 12 value of the parameter, the corresponding maximum 13 value is presented in the last column of the OECR.
14 Below the minimum and the maximum value we 15 presented the increase relative to the Entergy value.
16 So we can see the impact of each parameter on the OECR 17 separately and on the last column we can see the 18 aggregate of all these changes on the OECR.
19 To summarize, the value of the OECR could 20 triple or go up by a factor up to seven, depending on 21 the parameters that we select within our new assessed 22 value.
23 So it is not an insignificant change. We 24 are talking a factor of three to seven relative to the 25 current calculation performed by Entergy.
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Page 2105 1 So let's focus first on CDMFRM with the 2 decontamination factor of three.
3 We arrived at the minimum value and if we 4 can scroll back just one page to Table 11. So we have 5 here the range of values. So you can see that the 6 minimum value corresponds to the approach used by 7 CONDO for light decontamination, $15,422 per person.
8 And the maximum value corresponds to the Site 9 Restoration Report at $417,00 per person.
10 What we tried to do here is to bracket 11 what could be possibly the best value. In each of 12 these approach, A, B, C, D, has strengths and 13 weaknesses. As you can see, the Reichmuth approach 14 does not help us with light decontamination. It is 15 inherently a discussion of heavy decontamination.
16 The method in RISO focuses on light 17 decontamination. It doesn't help us with heavy 18 decontamination.
19 JUDGE KENNEDY: Dr. Lemay, could you 20 explain the distinction between light decontamination 21 and heavy decontamination?
22 DR. LEMAY: Right. Light decontamination 23 uses techniques that will lead to a dose reduction 24 factor of three. And these have been lumped together.
25 It is a bit of a loose arrangement but we are talking Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2106 1 about things like vacuuming, cleaning. You have to 2 understand that contamination is very fine radioactive 3 dust that is not visible to the naked eye. And so 4 essentially when we decontaminate, we try to clean and 5 we will use different techniques. Some of these 6 techniques achieve a low reduction in contamination 7 and have a cost associated with them. And other 8 techniques are more costly but also more aggressive in 9 removing the contamination.
10 So and that is why the codes has these two 11 families of decontamination factor because they have 12 a family of techniques associated with the 13 decontamination factor of three and a different family 14 of techniques associated with the decontamination of 15 15.
16 JUDGE KENNEDY: So does the light and 17 heavy then roughly correspond to the DRF of three and 18 a DRF of 15. Is that --
19 DR. LEMAY: Correct.
20 JUDGE KENNEDY: -- the consistency here?
21 DR. LEMAY: Correct. And sometimes a 22 match is not quite exact but it is good enough.
23 Anything between two and five we say well that is 24 about three and anything above ten we say that is 25 about 15.
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Page 2107 1 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: As another general 3 question, are you suggesting by these A, B, Cs, and Ds 4 techniques that you are recommending these be used in 5 lieu of MACCS or is there some other reason for 6 presenting these?
7 DR. LEMAY: What I am presenting here is 8 not a replacement for MACCS. This is the replacement 9 for a single parameter in the input deck that Entergy 10 uses. And these values represent site-specific 11 decontamination of costs for Indian Point.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: So is it fair to say that 13 they are presented more as an illustration to show 14 that there are values different than were used by 15 Entergy and now Entergy, who has the burden of proof, 16 should demonstrate that their values are sound for 17 Indian Point because there is some potential that the 18 values might be different for that site.
19 DR. LEMAY: Correct.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay.
21 DR. LEMAY: So I would like to point out, 22 for example, and we did not set out to get this 23 result. I had a team of nuclear engineers working on 24 this independently on each calculation method but when 25 we saw the result, we noticed that none of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2108 1 bracketed value is lower than the value used by 2 Entergy. In all cases, they seem to be higher. And 3 I was a little surprised by that because I did not 4 expect that result.
5 The site restoration report gives a very 6 complete and very descriptive way of calculating the 7 cost of decontamination but it is for plutonium so 8 that is a weakness of that method. The CONDO method 9 is very appropriate. It has been used in the UK. It 10 is specifically for reactor accident. It includes a 11 computer code that Entergy could run on its own data 12 to create a site-specific decontamination cost just 13 like we did. So CONDO is definitely probably the most 14 appropriate method in this whole set of data.
15 JUDGE KENNEDY: Dr. Lemay, so CONDO is 16 another calculational tool?
17 DR. LEMAY: To obtain a decontamination 18 cost at site-specific.
19 JUDGE KENNEDY: Okay, thank you and does 20 it use a reactor-type accident for want of a better 21 word source term? And is the contamination that is 22 being decontaminated here consistent with a reactor 23 accident?
24 DR. LEMAY: That is correct. This is 25 designed for deficient products released in a reactor Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2109 1 accident.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: But again, Dr. Lemay, is 3 that, to a certain degree, not important because you 4 are presenting these numbers merely to show different 5 values. Do we need to explore in much depth how you 6 actually did these besides the fact that they were 7 just run to come up with a range of numbers? And to 8 get into details of how you actually calculate them 9 for each one of these would be time consuming and I am 10 questioning you on whether you think there is -- to 11 what degree should we do this in order to justify your 12 number versus their number?
13 DR. LEMAY: Okay, I can certainly walk you 14 through every --
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Let me ask that question 16 simpler. Are you suggesting we replace their number 17 with your number?
18 DR. LEMAY: What I am suggesting is that 19 Entergy testified that they could not conceive of any 20 other value than the values from what they call NUREG-21 1150 but really we are talking about Ostmeyer 84. And 22 clearly there are other values out there. In the 23 literature there is a computer code that can be run by 24 Entergy to create decontamination costs that are site-25 specific. We have done it. It is definitely Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2110 1 possible.
2 So first it is a demonstration that it is 3 possible to create site-specific decontamination cost.
4 The second point is that when you look at the 5 literature out there and you try to derive site-6 specific decontamination cost, they tend to be higher 7 than the one used by Entergy and not by a small 8 factor, by a significant factor.
9 Now it is not our burden or duty to 10 actually do a full SAMA analysis for Indian Point.
11 That burden lies with Entergy. So my suggestion is 12 that given that these values are different, given that 13 they are higher, but given that they also exist, 14 Entergy should go back and redo the calculation using 15 one of the techniques we proposed or other techniques 16 that we discovered since we wrote this report and come 17 up with a site-specific decontamination cost.
18 I don't think we need to go through every 19 painful step of the calculation. I think you get the 20 gist of what I have tried to present.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Dr. Lemay, am I correct in 22 understanding that part of what you're saying is that 23 the methodology used by Entergy is insufficiently 24 site-specific and that, for example, the CONDO 25 calculation would be much more appropriate in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2111 1 identifying site-specific characteristics to underlie 2 their SAMA analysis?
3 DR. LEMAY: Exactly.
4 JUDGE McDADE: What about the CONDO makes 5 it more effective for site-specific analysis?
6 DR. LEMAY: In the CONDO program, you 7 enter the density of population. You can enter the 8 density of building, sector by sector. And you can 9 also enter the mix of buildings in each sector. Are 10 we talking about high rise or single home residential 11 dwellings? Are we talking about industrial building?
12 What's the fraction of the streets? What's the 13 fraction of parks and recreational areas?
14 And the code can take all this information 15 that's site-specific and look at all the techniques 16 that you apply specifically for this type of building 17 or surface area or land use and come up with the cost 18 that's representative for this area.
19 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Now going back to 20 the previous slide if we could.
21 DR. LEMAY: Which is the next page.
22 MR. HARRISON: This is Donald Harrison 23 from the staff. The staff do have comments on Dr.
24 Lemay's analysis here. So there are certain aspects 25 of the analysis that we believe if corrected would Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2112 1 actually be more in line with what the analysis from 2 Entergy shows.
3 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, but believe me.
4 We'll get to you here in a minute.
5 MR. HARRIS: I just wanted to make that 6 point.
7 JUDGE McDADE: If you look at this, it 8 talks about the decontamination here and I believe 9 you're anticipating a 90 day time period.
10 DR. LEMAY: Okay. TIMDEC, this is the 11 next set of values that are important for our 12 discussion. And we have Entergy's value. These are 13 values that are entered into the input file of MACCS2.
14 It says that the light decontamination would take 60 15 and the heavy decontamination would take 120 days.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. And that's the third 17 and fourth lines down and the third column in.
18 DR. LEMAY: Correct.
19 JUDGE McDADE: In these other codes that 20 you ran on the previous slide and going to something 21 else, I believe in your testimony you opined that the 22 60 day, the 120 day, time period would be for an area 23 like New York unrealistic. And I think at one point 24 you indicated that it would require a work force of 25 almost 1.5 million people in order to do the clean-up Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2113 1 within that period of time.
2 Do these other codes that you've used in 3 the calculations use a similar 60 day, 120 day time 4 frame? Or are they also adjusting for it? I think 5 you indicated that even with a one year it would 6 require 360,000-370,000 workers again which you viewed 7 as unrealistic in order to do the clean-up.
8 So are we looking at the 60 and 120 days?
9 Or are we looking at some period of year to four years 10 on these calculations?
11 DR. LEMAY: Okay. The other codes will 12 come up with an aggregate manpower requirement. How 13 many man-years? And then you would spread this effort 14 of man-years over as many years as necessary depending 15 on the resources you have available.
16 And I think when Entergy says we 17 scrutinized the input value to see if they're 18 reasonable, this is the kind of thing I'm expecting.
19 The MACCS2 output tells you how much it costs to 20 decontaminate. And internally if designs have that 21 cost to labor, that's again an input value that 22 Entergy entered. It then divides the labor cost by 23 the cost of one person-year, another value entered by 24 Entergy. And it gets the number of person-year 25 required to do the job.
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Page 2114 1 If you get the value of 1.5 million, 2 clearly you've compressed the time scale so much that 3 you need an incredible number of people that are 4 clearly not available. If you allow the time to 5 spread over several years, then it becomes you get a 6 reasonable number of people. And I would argue that 7 in the case of the massive decontamination effort 8 anything over 100,000 to 150,000 people is not 9 reasonable.
10 As guidance I would say if you get 360,000 11 people to decontamination a particular release 12 category, you should spread the time of 13 decontamination over several years so that you get 14 100,000 to 150,000 people working on it.
15 JUDGE McDADE: But do these costs that 16 you've calculated here on the other slide include 17 input for the indirect costs of per diem of people 18 being excluded from their homes because the whole 19 concept here is to bring it to the point whether it's 20 a factor of three or a factor of 15 to where the area 21 is habitable again. So this presumes that until --
22 and again depending on the level of contamination 23 whether it's necessary for a decontamination factor of 24 three or 15. Until that happens, people can't move 25 in.
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Page 2115 1 And I just want to know do these numbers 2 that you've calculated on the other slide include just 3 labor costs for cleaning up or did they also include 4 those derivative secondary costs based on a much 5 extended period during the clean-up will occur?
6 DR. LEMAY: They don't. This is strictly 7 the decontamination effort. The cost borne by society 8 and by the people that have been relocated or that 9 cannot return to their home is captured in other 10 parameters in this table, POPCST and DPRATE in row six 11 and eight.
12 So while people are away from their home, 13 their home depreciates at the rate of 20 percent a 14 year because it's not being maintained. And they 15 don't get to use it. And they have one-time allowance 16 of about $8,000 because they've been relocated. And 17 that relocation and interdiction can last anywhere 18 between a few months to 30 years. But that's the 19 amount of money you get for that inconvenience.
20 JUDGE McDADE: And that additional money 21 isn't capture on the other slide that you had.
22 DR. LEMAY: No. What we discussed in the 23 previous slide is strictly lines one and two, the 24 CDNFRM parameter.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you. I just Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2116 1 wanted to make sure I understood it correctly.
2 MR. JONES: This is Joe Jones with the 3 staff, Your Honor. Dr. Lemay indicated or stated that 4 none of the bracketed values were lower than those in 5 the Entergy estimate and I think there's reasons for 6 that. The numbers are quite sensitive as we've seen.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Can we go back to Table 8 12?
9 MR. JONES: Well, let's start with Table 10 11.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's what I meant. I'm 12 sorry.
13 MR. JONES: And let's look at that bottom 14 righthand value of $418,000. In the original 15 submittal that was $898,000. It has been reduced 16 $480,000 just in addressing a single comment in 17 testimony from Sandia and a single comment from 18 Entergy. So a half of million dollars per person.
19 That's a very sensitive number.
20 But I think one of the main reasons that 21 these estimates are higher than the Entergy values is 22 the approach taken in Dr. Lemay's analysis which do 23 not follow the rules of conservation of mass. I 24 believe using his analysis and following his 25 techniques he's decontaminating more cesium than Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2117 1 exists.
2 Now yesterday I explained that when MACCS 3 calculates the deposition on an area of land, it looks 4 at it as though it is a horizontal plane.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: Horizontal.
6 MR. JONES: Dr. Lemay says in his 7 testimony that all four of his approaches consider the 8 3D effects of buildings. He explains that the dry 9 deposition velocities account for deposition on the 10 buildings, on the trees and on the leaves of the 11 trees.
12 And MACCS doesn't see that. MACCS sees a 13 flat plane. So if MACCS calculates 100 curies falling 14 on this flat plane when MACCS implements the 15 decontamination factor of 15, it will reduce no more 16 than 100 curies. And let's say that it becomes 17 habitable at 99 curies. It certainly would not remove 18 110 curies. It removes, let's say, 99 curies.
19 Dr. Lemay in CONDO because CONDO provides 20 you some detail. It's more of a cost estimating tool, 21 not really specific to reactor accidents because the 22 parameters in there are largely plutonium based and 23 cesium based. It's both. So clearly it was not 24 developed specifically for reactor accidents.
25 But CONDO allows you to include Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2118 1 decontamination of the walls, decontamination of the 2 interior and exterior. So if you put a building on 3 this flat plane where MACCS calculates 100 curies, now 4 you've got four walls and a roof. And you've got four 5 interior walls, a floor and a ceiling. You have 11 6 surfaces.
7 In Dr. Lemay's analysis, he applies the 8 heavy decontamination activities towards all of those 9 surfaces. So he's removing effectively 100 curies 10 from each of those surfaces to reduce this below 11 habitability. So 11,000 curies of cesium are being 12 removed when only 100 is present.
13 JUDGE McDADE: Is he actually doing that 14 or is he just simply indicating that it would be much 15 more difficult and time-consuming? In reality, you 16 don't have just simply a horizontal plane. In 17 reality, you have horizontal, you have vertical, you 18 have interior building, exterior building. And that 19 all of those factors need to be taken into 20 consideration. And that significantly complicates the 21 decontamination process.
22 Your view is that not only recognizing the 23 increased complication, but that it actually is 24 multiple counting of the contaminants.
25 MR. JONES: It's multiple counting of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2119 1 contaminants and it's identified quite clearly in the 2 appendices where each of the exterior surfaces are 3 identified, the amount of roadway or trees, the 4 interior surfaces and they're still called heavy 5 decontamination.
6 Effectively, if we were to try to do this 7 in MACCS, we would try to -- Well, we couldn't do this 8 in MACCS. But to conserve mass we would have to make 9 some assumptions with regard to how that contaminant, 10 the 100 curies, is dispersed on these 11 surfaces. We 11 could assume it's evenly dispersed.
12 Well, now we've only got 9 curies per 13 surface. That might actually lower your 14 decontamination factor below a level of three. It 15 might for larger buildings, high-rise structures, in 16 the City of New York. You might through this type of 17 analysis realize you don't have any decontamination 18 because, sure, 100 stories were contaminated but to 19 such a small amount that the dose at any given point 20 does not require additional decontamination.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Dr. Lemay, how would 22 you respond to Mr. Jones? Do you believe that these 23 systems multiple count, the same contamination?
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Before we go, can I ask 25 a clarifying question of Mr. Jones? And Dr. Lemay can Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2120 1 proceed. It seems to me as I heard this that I was 2 convincing myself that while I'm a big proponent of 3 conservation of mass that clean-up is really based on 4 square footage. And clean-up cost would be based on 5 square footage until you're very last statement. And 6 then I started to appreciate you've only got so much 7 coming towards a high rise. And if it gets spread out 8 throughout the whole high rise, then you may not have 9 to do any clean-up because it's already diluted. Not 10 that we've ever used dilution as a solution to 11 pollution. But we've just achieved it here.
12 But there's got to be a drawing line 13 somewhere. I mean if you had a flat parking lot which 14 is what you're basically assuming that to me would be 15 the least expensive way to clean it up as opposed to 16 let's say we just had just a one story garage sitting 17 there. That still had levels above what you were 18 trying to achieve and some contamination had to be 19 removed.
20 Then it's really on square footage basis 21 because it's all there. And the way to get it you're 22 going to have to go in and clean the walls and clean 23 the ceilings and clean the roofs and other things just 24 in the process of this stuff getting into the building 25 as it naturally will through open doors or ventilation Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2121 1 systems. Isn't that correct?
2 MR. JONES: You're absolutely correct, 3 Your Honor. MACCS2 is not a cost estimating tool.
4 It's a cost accounting tool. We want to account for 5 the cost to determine if it's reasonable.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: I understand that. And 7 I heard that.
8 MR. JONES: CONDO.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'm not trying to compare 10 to CONDO. I'm trying to just defend the way you've 11 done it in MACCS. Is it fair to say that MACCS by 12 taking a flat surface has the lowest cost that might 13 be achievable for that mass balance?
14 MR. JONES: No, Your Honor. For two 15 reasons -- Well, primarily because we know there's a 16 building there. So if 100 curies are deposited, we 17 certainly know it's not a flat infinite plane. So we 18 know that the contamination will be dispersed to some 19 amount. Uniform distribution is not a good 20 estimation, but it's for planning purposes sometimes 21 you do this. But we definitely know it's not an 22 infinite plane. So it will be spread over some 23 surface area and it will be effectively diluted over 24 the surface area.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: But if it isn't diluted Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2122 1 enough and it's still all above the criteria you want 2 for the dose reduction, then, yes, there may be some 3 walls that are below the level, some portions of the 4 walls that may be below the level. But there may be 5 other portions that aren't. And you're still going to 6 have to go after that and basically clean everything 7 on a square footage area.
8 Let's just take for instance you had not 9 a flat surface, but you had a rounded surface. That's 10 a larger square area than the flat surface is.
11 MR. JONES: You're correct, Your Honor.
12 And in that rounded area you would have less 13 contamination per square foot.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: But you still have to 15 clean it up. And so the effort by that person going 16 over it, it's going to cost you more to clean that up 17 I would think.
18 MR. JONES: Well, maybe not because it's 19 less contamination. But it's taken into account, the 20 cost is taken into account, with regard to the 21 population density. So as Mr. Teagarden said 22 yesterday a 200 person apartment complex with a high 23 decontamination factor is going to cost -- I forget 24 the exact number, but $2.7 million. So it's taken 25 into account in that context.
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Page 2123 1 But MACCS looks at that apartment complex.
2 So it's flat plane. But then it adds the 200 people 3 from a population density perspective and assigns $2.7 4 million for that parcel of land. We don't try to --
5 You just have to make too many assumptions to try to 6 get any more precise when you're doing gross cost 7 accounting type estimates.
8 DR. O'KULA: Your Honor.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: Let me ask this one last 10 question and then although I'd like to stick with that 11 we'll start bouncing off and getting too many other 12 people involved in this discussion. And I'll be much 13 more confused than I am right now, right at the 14 moment. We'll get to this.
15 Is MACCS2 able to discriminate in this 16 situation assuming the same population exists between 17 a flat plane in Oklahoma where this same amount of 18 contamination comes and needs to be cleaned up as 19 opposed to the clean-up of an area that has --
20 downtown New York?
21 MR. JONES: I would like to let Dr. Bixler 22 answer that more precisely.
23 DR. BIXLER: It would just account for 24 that in terms of population density. He only had a 25 flat plane with, say, maybe single story buildings on Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2124 1 it. You wouldn't be able to put in so many people per 2 square mile. But in New York City, you obviously 3 could put in a lot more people because you have the 4 multi-stories. So it would account for the difference 5 in cost between those types of areas by means of 6 population density.
7 What I think the point is here is that if 8 you deposit a certain amount of contaminant into an 9 area, but you have a lot of surface area for it to 10 deposit onto, then effectively the dose to any one in 11 that building becomes much smaller than you might have 12 calculated it to be. And as a result you don't need 13 to decontaminate so much as you thought you needed to 14 do. In that sense, MACCS2 would give you a very 15 conservative over estimate of the level of 16 decontamination that you would really need compared 17 with reality.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: Let me rephrase this 19 then. You're accounting for the variations in 20 topography or structures by the population of 21 parameter.
22 DR. BIXLER: Effectively yes.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, Dr. O'Kula, would you 24 like to add anything to that?
25 DR. O'KULA: Kevin O'Kula for the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2125 1 Applicant. Your Honor, I think I can help in this.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: But be careful because 3 I'm pretty satisfied with what I heard. Don't confuse 4 me more. But go ahead. In the battle sometimes just 5 as well to --
6 DR. O'KULA: So, Your Honor, you're 7 suggesting maybe I should remain silent.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Trug along. But I get 9 confused easy. Then we're going to have another --
10 We'll be here until midnight today.
11 DR. O'KULA: I think, Your Honor, to help 12 in this analogy with the discussion in terms of the 13 context of both the CONDO methodology and the RISO 14 methodology all surfaces in a building whether they're 15 in New York City or a multi-rise in the Plains would 16 not be created equal in terms of contamination.
17 The reality is that if an area is 18 contaminated with a building that the building would 19 be monitored or surveyed first so that the priorities 20 would be set for the clean-up. All surfaces would not 21 be bulk decontaminated blindly. That's a key point 22 that we need to keep in mind.
23 Access ways, ventilation intake systems, 24 those would be hunted down first or surveyed first.
25 Contaminants would be fixed if they're of the nature Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2126 1 to be moved around with traffic. They would be fixed 2 in some way so not to be resuspended through ambient 3 wind conditions or population, residents returning or 4 work crews moving around.
5 So the point here being that if we look at 6 the methodology that was applied by ISR for methods C 7 and D we see multiple surfaces being equally attacked.
8 This would be an informed process. Certainly of those 9 surfaces would not be touched. They would not have 10 enough contamination. So this is where the reality 11 would be that I would concentrate where my survey 12 crews have determined to be the culprits or the true 13 places.
14 This is a highly prioritized process. I 15 only have a finite number of resources. And so I will 16 go for the biggest bang for the buck. Thank you, Your 17 Honor.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
19 JUDGE KENNEDY: You're not suggesting.
20 I'm sorry. This is Judge Kennedy. Dr. O'Kula, are 21 you suggesting that that's accounted for somehow in 22 MACCS2? Or is that a comment in CONDO and RISO?
23 I've lost my way. Judge Wardwell 24 understands it. Now I've lost my path.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: Well, Judge Wardwell Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2127 1 might think he understands it. Judge Wardwell might 2 pretend he understands it.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: I understood. I tracked 4 you with your discussion of how in the real world you 5 would decontaminate a facility. And that's what I 6 believe you described. Is that true?
7 DR. O'KULA: Yes, Your Honor. That was my 8 comment to try to focus on how multiple surfaces 9 wouldn't be cleaned altogether the same way. But this 10 would be an informed process.
11 But to support Dr. Bixler and Mr. Jones' 12 discussion, in the MACCS2 code there is not that 13 resolution to the techniques and the way they would be 14 applied. And as Dr. Lemay pointed out, these are 15 largely grouped in two families whether light or 16 heavy. But then where the nexus comes in to 17 application and MACCS2 code would be through the 18 population.
19 JUDGE KENNEDY: Yes, and I think that's 20 the thing that's caught my attention here. And we've 21 talked about the flat plane concept and the high rise 22 concept. And it makes me start to wonder where the 23 complexity of decontamination comes into play here.
24 I've heard some argument that by using the 25 population density, using the flat surface approach, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2128 1 that it's a, for want of a better term, bounding 2 calculation. But I'm almost concerned that somewhere 3 between the 25 story or 100 story high rise and the 4 one or two story building with a complexity of 5 decontamination that I don't know how that's accounted 6 for in this. And I guess maybe if you could try to 7 talk to how the population density approach with the 8 flat surface deals with the uncertainty and the 9 complexity of decontamination.
10 And I'll take that. Maybe Dr. Bixler 11 would be the -- But I'll take anybody.
12 DR. BIXLER: Maybe Mr. Jones would be 13 better at answering this question. But I'll take a 14 quick stab at it.
15 I think the way that you would account for 16 it in terms of applying the code is simply the way the 17 number that come up with for the decontamination cost.
18 But that number should -- When you come up with the 19 number it should realize the fact that you're not 20 going to decontaminate all the surfaces equally as Dr.
21 O'Kula just pointed out. You're going to 22 decontaminate preferentially some of them because 23 they're more heavily contaminated to begin with. And 24 it also should account for the fact that you have only 25 a finite amount of contaminant in that area and that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2129 1 now you're diluting it over a much larger surface.
2 So it all boils down to what you do to 3 estimate the cost. And I think our belief here is 4 that Dr. Lemay over estimated that cost by assuming 5 that all the surfaces need to be decontaminated at the 6 same level that you would have done if you'd had a 7 single flat plane surface that you were 8 decontaminating.
9 JUDGE McDADE: At the same level, I mean 10 what we're talking about is not the level at the start 11 or the level at the end. What we're talking about is 12 a level that's going to be habitable. And all of 13 those surfaces that individuals may be in close 14 proximity to need to be contaminated to that level.
15 Now as I understood some of -- Or at least 16 I thought I understood is that when you're dealing 17 with the complex geometry that you would have in a 18 real world situation that it's much more difficult to 19 do the clean-up. Same amount of curies that are 20 spread around, but if they're spread around on a flat 21 surface it's relatively easy to clean them up.
22 If they're spread around on a complex 23 geometry, you still have to clean all of those 24 surfaces. You can't just presume that there's going 25 to be a low level in some places and a high level in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2130 1 others and only clean those areas where you presume 2 there's a high area. So the cost is going to be 3 there. And I don't think you can figure out a cost 4 per curie. But the cost per curie is going to be 5 significantly higher in a real world situation than in 6 the assumption that goes in MACCS which is a flat 7 plane.
8 DR. BIXLER: First of all, I think you 9 would start out by characterizing the contamination 10 level on the various surfaces and then decontaminate 11 based on that. So you wouldn't end up decontaminating 12 all surfaces equally. You would focus on the ones 13 that had most of the contaminant on them and make sure 14 you clean up to a level that would get you back down 15 to habitability.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Would you do that on a 17 theoretical basis? Or would you be testing different 18 surfaces?
19 DR. BIXLER: You would be testing the 20 surfaces and with cesium it's fairly easy to do that 21 because it's a gamma emitter. So it's easy to detect 22 the level of contamination that you have there as 23 compared with plutonium on the other hand which is 24 alpha emitter and very difficult to detect that 25 radiation to determine what the level would be.
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Page 2131 1 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Dr. Lemay, we've had 2 several people criticize your analysis here over the 3 last several minutes. Would you respond?
4 DR. LEMAY: Yes.
5 JUDGE McDADE: Do you think that your 6 analysis over counts the level of contamination? In 7 other words, counts the contaminants multiple times?
8 And, if not, why not?
9 DR. LEMAY: I disagree completely. The 10 method we use is compatible with CONDO. It's 11 compatible with the DECON code that was commissioned 12 by U.S. NRC and NUREG/CR-3413, Exhibit New York State 13 000425, and in NUREG/CR-5148, New York Exhibit 000424.
14 So I'm not creating some new method. This is the way 15 people have done it in NUREG documents and in the 16 CONDO.
17 The second issue is that MACCS does not 18 have topography built in. It doesn't know about 19 topography. It has no knowledge of what the landscape 20 looks like.
21 It has what they call a source depletion 22 model for deposition. And the source depletion model 23 assumes that there is enough contamination in the 24 cloud that what you remove will not appreciably 25 disturb the cloud's shape. And the contamination will Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2132 1 get replenished by the eddies in the cloud. That's 2 the basic assumption of the model that's based in 3 MACCS. It's described very clearly that that's what 4 they do.
5 So there is no intention to do a mass 6 conservation according to surfaces the way Mr. Jones 7 described. In the code, there is a transfer 8 coefficient between the cloud and the surface.
9 And that transfer coefficient is blind to 10 the orientation of the surface. It just knows that 11 you have contamination in the cloud. You put this 12 type of surface near by. There is so much that will 13 move to the surface. And that's the deposition 14 velocity.
15 It's a transfer coefficient between 16 surfaces. And that transfer coefficient depends on 17 the chemistry of the contaminant. It depends on the 18 type of surface. It depends on the roughness of the 19 topography. And it depends on the size of the 20 particles.
21 And MACCS has deposition coefficient.
22 We're not going to discuss that. They are what they 23 are. We did not change them. We did not play with 24 them.
25 But MACCS expects that when you put the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2133 1 surface nearby contamination will stick to it. And 2 that's all it knows. And that's how these deposition 3 velocities are determined. They put the cloud of 4 contaminant and they put the surface and they see how 5 much sticks to it.
6 So this whole concept that we somehow have 7 to conserve the mass is simply not true. And that's 8 also not true because it's not reflected in the way 9 people have calculated decontamination costs. They 10 said, "Okay. We contaminate the surfaces. And then 11 we decontaminate them depending on how many surfaces 12 we have to decontaminate."
13 PARTICIPANT: Your Honor.
14 DR. LEMAY: I'm sorry. I'm not finished.
15 The contamination in MACCS is uniform and 16 in real life it would not be. And actually that's a 17 problem because we need to find out where the hot 18 spots are and we need to deal with them.
19 But I would argue that if you send a crew 20 of people in white suits to say "Go decontaminate this 21 building," they would probably apply some technique 22 uniformly first. And then they would check if they've 23 left hot spots of contamination and go back to clean 24 those.
25 I don't think they will go square Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2134 1 centimeter by square centimeter to determine which 2 technical they're going to use in that particular 3 wall. So I think that the approach of saying we have 4 contamination, we have to send crews in, they will do 5 their job and then this has a cost is reasonable. And 6 that's what people have done when they've tried to 7 come up with these costs.
8 And I wish I could scrutinize and examine 9 the way they came up with the cost that we have in the 10 Entergy sample Problem A. Presumably they did exactly 11 that.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Dr. Lemay, as I 13 think I understood Mr. Jones, he was saying that if 14 you have the same level of release and that amount of 15 contaminant falls on horizontal and vertical surfaces 16 it is going to be spread out. So, therefore, the 17 level of contamination on all of those surfaces would 18 be inherently less. Therefore, although you have more 19 surface to clean, you have less contaminant per square 20 foot of that surface.
21 And that your calculations according to 22 Mr. Jones don't take lower level of contaminant per 23 square foot into consideration. Do they?
24 DR. LEMAY: They don't because that's not 25 what happens. MACCS is not a mass conservation code.
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Page 2135 1 It does not subdivide the universe in small cells and 2 ensure that stuff that comes in must be balanced but 3 just comes out. It just assumes that there is enough 4 contamination in the cloud that when you deposit 5 contamination of the surface you don't really disturb 6 the shape of that cloud. There's enough stuff in that 7 cloud to contaminate whatever you contaminate.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Dr. Lemay, Dr. O'Kula, we 9 would like to conduct the interrogation if that's 10 okay. We will get to you, but we don't want to lose 11 our train of thought. And we will get to people when 12 they need to respond.
13 But we can't have witnesses interrupting 14 our thoughts because we have enough trouble up here as 15 it is keeping our thoughts together. So I appreciate 16 it if you'd let us continue with the witness. And 17 we'll get to other people as we get through it.
18 Hopefully, everyone will get a chance.
19 Dr. Lemay, the parameter we're dealing 20 with here though is on a per capita cost basis, is it 21 not? Doesn't that per capita allow for recognition of 22 this increased cost for that given square footage?
23 And by that I mean if it's a high rise there's going 24 to be a lot of people in that square footage. And so 25 what you're after is achieved by the fact that it's Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2136 1 factored by the population density.
2 DR. LEMAY: I think that whoever came up 3 with the decontamination cost per person it's a 4 brilliant insight because you think okay. One house 5 costs so much. It has 2.7 people in it. If I have 30 6 houses, I have 2.7 times 30 people. And so if you 7 start with a site with individual dwellings and you 8 just increase the density of these individual 9 dwellings, I think that what MACCS is doing is exactly 10 right.
11 But where you start to question the 12 approach is when you start to get into big buildings, 13 high rise and the kind of city we have in New York and 14 then you say, "Hm. You can't just keep extrapolating 15 that line to that building."
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: I understand that. But 17 I think as you said earlier with all of A, B, C and Ds 18 there are some advantages. They have some problems.
19 Every one of these models is not going to be able to 20 represent reality exactly.
21 DR. LEMAY: Correct.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: And so now then what do 23 we need for a SAMA? And at least in this situation as 24 I understand it, I can see how some of your concerns 25 are at least addressed by the way the parameter is Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2137 1 represented. Wouldn't there be a duplication of cost 2 if, in fact, they continue using the per capita cost 3 and multiply by the population density and also 4 doubling the square footage needed to be cleaned up in 5 a given square footage of plane that exists on the 6 ground? You'd be double-counting, would you not?
7 DR. LEMAY: Well, no. Sorry, Your Honor.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Or having some not 9 representative of what it would be? I don't know if 10 it would be double or not.
11 DR. LEMAY: I'll give you an example.
12 When we calculate the value of non-farm wealth we take 13 the value in each of the individual counties and we 14 divide by the total population. That's an average 15 value of non-farm wealth. When we calculated the 16 decontamination costs per person, we calculated the 17 decontamination cost for the 50 mile area and we 18 divided by the population by the 50 mile area.
19 So we get an average cost per person. And 20 we use it the way MACCS intended it to be used. It 21 will scale with population. But it's a site-specific 22 value that is based on the kind of mix of building and 23 building density that we observe in New York. It's 24 not based on I don't know what, some value that nobody 25 knows where it comes from.
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Page 2138 1 It based on we took the building density 2 and the types of building in the New York area. We 3 calculated the cost for the whole 50 mile area. Then 4 we divided by the whole population of the 50 mile 5 area. So we don't double-count. We simply calculate 6 an average cost that's site specific.
7 And then we apply it exactly the way MACCS 8 intended. So we're not questioning the way MACCS does 9 things. What we're questioning is where do these 10 values come from and how can we get site specific 11 values?
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: So now you're really back 13 to the origins of where did their number come from 14 that they selected as their starting basis. We've 15 been through that yesterday.
16 DR. LEMAY: And for better or worse, you 17 can criticize my values. You can examine them. You 18 can pull them apart. You can discuss the number of 19 floors I've used, the number of surfaces I've used and 20 it's understandable and it's something that you can 21 examine. We can't do that with the other numbers.
22 JUDGE McDADE: I could follow up on that 23 one thing. We talked about population density as 24 being a significant input into this calculation. Are 25 we talking here about population density as maximum Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2139 1 population, average population? What are we using?
2 For example, like in a certain area of 3 Manhattan, you may have 50-60 story buildings where 4 there is no residential population of those buildings.
5 But during the course of the day you might have tens 6 of thousands of people in the building.
7 Again, are you using a maximum? Are you 8 using an average? Or what population density are you 9 using?
10 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor. Grant 11 Teagarden for the Applicant. So the SAMA analysis is 12 a spatially-averaged, time-averaged analysis. It uses 13 -- Just to draw back to the big picture to help you 14 see where I'm headed. We examine releases that could 15 occur throughout the year, different times a day, 16 different seasons of the year, different 17 meteorological conditions to develop an average.
18 For population, we examine the permanent 19 population, the transient population, but maintaining 20 an average perspective. It's not a snapshot of a time 21 of one day. It's a here's what the number of 22 permanent residents are. Here's what the transient 23 additions would be as far as visitors and things of 24 that nature. And we have that extrapolated out to the 25 year 2035, a time frame that goes beyond the end of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2140 1 license renewal for Indian Point 2.
2 So this whole analysis is oriented towards 3 a time and spacial average approach. However, for 4 each sector, the population data is applied to each 5 sector, each grid element of that polar coordinate 6 system so that for the portions that are the very 7 small portion of the 50 mile radial region, the entire 8 analysis region, 7,854 miles, New York City, five 9 boroughs make up approximately depending on how you 10 calculate the numbers two to four percent of that. So 11 it's a small amount.
12 For those sectors in the grid, the 13 analysis region, we reflect the permanent residents 14 that are there and like we do for the others as well 15 as transients.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Again, we're going to get 17 into the population issues in some detail hopefully 18 soon.
19 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yeah, this afternoon.
21 JUDGE McDADE: But in any event I just 22 wanted to clarify that when you're talking about 23 population density we're not talking about the maximum 24 population that would be there at any given time. And 25 the calculations that are being used in your SAMA Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2141 1 analysis you're using an average. And that's correct?
2 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor. An 3 average that reflects the year 2035.
4 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess that raises a 5 question. You talked about the land mass that makes 6 up the boroughs of New York City being a small 7 percentage. I guess I'm asking a question back to the 8 CDNFRM parameter whether the population density, the 9 make-up of the land in the 50 mile radius. Does that 10 inform the choice of value for CDNFRM?
11 I mean if we're going to use population --
12 If population density is used to weight the 13 decontamination costs, it would seem to me you've got 14 all that data and all that information on population, 15 population density and types of structures in that 16 region if that informed the selection of what's 17 turning out to be an important parameter here. And I 18 know you've testified that it's the NUREG-1150 value.
19 So help me understand.
20 I mean I understand getting credit for the 21 population density. But to me if you turn that 22 around, getting credit for the population density 23 means you inform the choice of the decontamination 24 cost by the types of structures and the population 25 density in the 50 mile region. And I'm asking was Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2142 1 that considered in the selection of this parameter.
2 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your Honor, this parameter 3 we believe was costed based on a view towards a range 4 of land uses, residential, industrial, commercial, 5 open. For this particular variable, there would be a 6 different variable for farmland. So we're just 7 looking at the one for non-farmland. It would be 8 costed on a broad, spacial view similar to a 50 mile 9 region.
10 JUDGE KENNEDY: Do you have a sense of the 11 percentage of surface area that this parameter would 12 be applicable to? I mean, we've got the non-farm and 13 the farm value is the way I'm perceiving this. Is 14 this 50 percent of the land, 100 percent of that land, 15 that this decontamination percent would be assigned 16 to?
17 MR. TEAGARDEN: This would be assigned to 18 a very high proportion of the land because the 19 alternative would be farmland. So this would be 20 assigned to any location that is not farmland in the 21 site file for the IPEC SAMA analysis. For each of the 22 grid elements, they would list what the percentage of 23 farmland is in that particular sector. So it varies 24 across the grid. And I don't have the numbers at my 25 fingertips, but they're all relatively low as you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2143 1 might imagine.
2 DR. LEMAY: I can help you, Your Honor.
3 The metropolitan area of New York City is four 4 percent. The semi-urban area is 76 percent. And the 5 other 20 percent accounts for water and farmland 6 that's not included in the calculation.
7 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you, Dr. Lemay.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: And for the entire circle 9 area that we're dealing with.
10 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess the other thing 11 that I made a note of here that I'm not sure I heard 12 a response to and I guess I'll start with Mr. Jones 13 since he raised it is this mass balance argument. I 14 think we've been now on both sides. Let's start with 15 you, Mr. Jones, and does MACCS2 conserve mass?
16 MR. JONES: Absolutely, and I would like 17 Dr. Bixler to explain precisely how.
18 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you.
19 DR. BIXLER: Yes, it definitely does 20 conserve mass. So I want to correct what was said 21 earlier. The way that it's done is there is a source 22 depletion concept in MACCS2 and the source would be 23 what's in the plume, what remains in the plume.
24 That can be depleted in a couple ways.
25 One is radioactive decay. So you can lose particular Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2144 1 radionuclides because they've decayed and turned into 2 something else. So it accounts for that.
3 But the major thing that depletes the 4 plume is that things deposit onto the ground. The 5 deposition onto the ground as in part explained by Dr.
6 Lemay you have a transfer coefficient called a 7 deposition velocity and you have a surface area. But 8 the surface area is just a flat plane surface area.
9 So the amount that it accounts for that deposits is 10 that the amount that would deposit onto a flat plane 11 not including all the other surface area that might be 12 present like trees and tall buildings or whatever they 13 are.
14 So it does not deplete the plume by the 15 amount of actual surface you might have in some 16 location. It depletes it by this transfer coefficient 17 times a unit surface area that just represents the 18 flat plane area. What it accounts for as a loss from 19 the plume is not related to the tall skyscraper 20 buildings that you would have in New York City, for 21 example.
22 Another way that the plume can be 23 deposited is through rain. If it rains, then that 24 brings the plume down to the ground fairly rapidly.
25 But I think we're mainly talking here about what's Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2145 1 called dry deposition which is a slower, more gradual 2 process.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: The quantity of material 4 that's in the plume, is that based on the source term 5 from site-specific to Indian Point 2 or Indian Point 6 3?
7 DR. BIXLER: Yes, each calculation would 8 be specific in the sense that it would keep track of 9 a specific release that was postulated based on an 10 accident that was calculated. That would be part of 11 a level two analysis. And then that input goes into 12 the level three, the consequence analysis, and it 13 would account for that much material being 14 transported. Yes, that's right.
15 JUDGE KENNEDY: And this is probably 16 oversimplifying it, but the stuff is either in the 17 cloud, it's on the ground or falling towards the 18 ground.
19 DR. BIXLER: Yeah, it would be deposited 20 relatively slowly. The deposition velocity used here 21 is one centimeter per second. So if you think of 22 material spread over a large plume and you calculate 23 the concentration near the ground, then as it passes 24 through it's depositing it at a slow rate onto the 25 ground.
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Page 2146 1 JUDGE KENNEDY: And presumably once the 2 plume passes over the 50 mile region, MACCS, then it's 3 done. I mean the calculation is over.
4 DR. BIXLER: That's right. As soon as the 5 plume leaves the 50 mile grid, then it doesn't keep 6 track of it any longer.
7 JUDGE KENNEDY: Do you have a sense? Is 8 a large quantity of material still in the plume at 9 that point or has it been deposited? Or does it 10 depend?
11 DR. BIXLER: I think -- I don't know. I 12 don't have a definite answer for you on that, but my 13 belief based on past experience is that the majority 14 of the plume would be deposited by the time you exit 15 the 50 mile grid.
16 MR. HARRISON: And this is Donald Harrison 17 of the staff. Be aware also that that's based on the 18 release category you're responding to that smaller 19 releases wouldn't make it through the 50 mile corridor 20 at all. So You may have some very short distance 21 deposition as well.
22 JUDGE KENNEDY: All right. Thank you. I 23 guess what I was going to ask and again I may be 24 oversimplifying the problem. But is there a parameter 25 that's calculated within MACCS2 that does a continuous Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2147 1 mass balance? I mean the radioactive decay is a 2 complicated factor here.
3 DR. BIXLER: Yes, there is. There's a 4 parameter that's called Q in the documentation which 5 is the amount of material. And it's correct in terms 6 of activity. It would be the activity and it would be 7 tracked for each isotope.
8 So you start out with a certain amount of 9 activity. And that amount stays in the plume unless 10 it decays and turns into something else or unless it's 11 deposited. So it conserves that quantity as the plume 12 moves down wind. Yes.
13 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you. I guess maybe 14 Mr. Jones. How did you come to the conclusion that 15 CONDO is not I guess conserving mass? Or is this just 16 a difference in translation of parameters?
17 MR. JONES: CONDO doesn't care about the 18 mass. It decontaminates what you're asking it to 19 decontaminate. So if you put in a surface area at a 20 decontamination level, it gives you a cost estimate 21 that you should use for that level. And the reason 22 the application of it did not conserve mass is that 23 buildings were assumed to be decontaminated at a heavy 24 decontamination level without the consideration of 25 dispersion of the contaminant, you know, the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2148 1 equalization of the contaminant around all the sides, 2 interior and exterior of the building.
3 And Dr. Lemay's correct. The DECON model 4 does have an application to account for buildings such 5 as this.
6 But the DECON model in New York State 7 Exhibit 000425A gives you the percentages that it 8 assumes are going to be contaminated on a building so 9 much for the outside, so much for the roof, so much 10 for the landscaping. So it accounts for it in that 11 context, whereas, MACCS does not.
12 JUDGE KENNEDY: I mean the picture I'm 13 getting is that you contaminate a surface or a square 14 footage in different types of topography and calculate 15 a decontamination cost based on that.
16 MR. JONES: With MACCS2, that is correct.
17 JUDGE KENNEDY: Okay. And with CONDO do 18 you have a sense? It would seem like what I was 19 hearing from you is that it would be similar. It 20 doesn't do a deposition model. It starts a 21 contaminated surface of some type and then calculates 22 the decontamination cost.
23 MR. JONES: That's correct.
24 JUDGE KENNEDY: And so there is a possible 25 -- Your sense is that by just taking values from Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2149 1 MACCS2 and applying them to CONDO there's a 2 translation problem here in terms of using too much 3 surface area or too much concentration on a surface.
4 MR. JONES: Correct.
5 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess, Dr. Lemay, two 6 things. If you want to comment on the MACCS2 mass 7 balance.
8 DR. LEMAY: Can I? I need to look into 9 the MACCS1 user guide model description and I would 10 like to discuss this when I come back after the break.
11 JUDGE KENNEDY: That's fine.
12 DR. LEMAY: And you had a second question, 13 Your Honor.
14 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess it was to address 15 the way CONDO does its decontamination cost.
16 DR. LEMAY: Correct. You can assign 17 fractions of the contamination to different surfaces.
18 And ideally I guess if you get data that's what you 19 should be doing. I don't think it makes a huge 20 difference.
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: Did you take results from 22 MACCS2? I guess how did you get your starting point 23 for the CONDO decontamination? Where did that data 24 come from?
25 DR. LEMAY: What we did is we separated Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2150 1 the 50 mile radius in roughly three areas. And 2 actually when I flew in from Canada, that's what you 3 see. You have on the outer edge of New York a semi-4 urban area of fairly low density. And then you get 5 kind of a ragged edge where you see the building 6 density squeezing in and the houses are much closer.
7 And then finally when you come to LaGuardia you can 8 see the tall buildings. So that's roughly the 9 topography when you come. And I think that's a 10 reflection of how New York is.
11 So we did divide it New York into these 12 three very broad areas. And we tried to assign a 13 building density and a type of building typical of 14 each area. We calculated a cost per unit of land use, 15 one square kilometer of land use. We did that for the 16 50 mile grid using the correct population density in 17 each. And we calculated an average cost.
18 So what we tried to do is come up with a 19 number that scales with population accurately for the 20 Indian Point site. And that number should be 21 proportional to population within the Indian Point 50 22 mile site.
23 And for better or worse you can, Entergy 24 and NRC can, look at our numbers. They can poke at 25 them. They can change them. They can change a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2151 1 fraction of the contamination on each wall. It's all 2 there to examine and to modify and to improve.
3 And we took some of their comments to 4 heart because they were good comments and we tried to 5 incorporate them. And I'm actually interested to get 6 as close as possible to the truth. I'm not trying to 7 -- I don't have an agenda.
8 I think this is the approach we need to 9 take. We need to actually sit down and look at the 10 site around Indian Point and develop decontamination 11 costs that are specific to this site based on data 12 from New York and come up with some kind of average 13 cost of per person that would work for the Indian 14 Point site.
15 JUDGE KENNEDY: May I? Again, you pointed 16 out in your earlier testimony that CONDO would have 17 been maybe the most applicable tool here for coming up 18 with this parameter. And at least at the light 19 decontamination area we've been all talking about a 20 parameter that changes by a factor of three to a 21 factor of five.
22 I mean I think we have because there's 23 been a lot of issues raised about this CONDO 24 calculation. But again, taking a step back at this 25 point, these numbers are only different by a factor of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2152 1 three or a factor of five at the one end.
2 DR. LEMAY: Right.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: And only focusing on CONDO 4 which is where we've been which we've been here for 5 most of the morning.
6 DR. LEMAY: But that's a big difference 7 when you look at OECR cost.
8 JUDGE KENNEDY: Understand. But you could 9 appreciate the magnitude of discussion just on this 10 issue which I think is a complex parameter.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: Dr. O'Kula, do you have 12 some testimony that would add to some of the 13 discussion we've had here?
14 DR. O'KULA: Yes, Your Honor. Kevin 15 O'Kula for the Applicant. Several things would 16 support some of NRC staff witnesses in terms of the 17 characterization of these alternative models that have 18 been cited by ISR and New York State. I think first 19 of all I'm glad that NRC's staff clarified the nature 20 of the MACCS2 model in terms of being mass 21 conservative.
22 So what would be postulated to be released 23 in a severe accident from Indian Point is a finite 24 amount under the severe accident calculations that are 25 done as part of the PRA process that we discussed Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2153 1 yesterday. A finite amount of radioactivity is 2 omitted over time into the atmosphere, constitutes the 3 plume, travels downwind not in every direction. Every 4 hour4.62963e-5 days <br />0.00111 hours <br />6.613757e-6 weeks <br />1.522e-6 months <br /> that it's postulated to occur is in the direction 5 of a major metropolitan area such as New York City.
6 But that's where the meterological data site comes 7 into play.
8 But the point is that the plume only has 9 a finite amount of material. If it's not in the 10 cloud, if it's not still remaining the atmosphere, 11 then it's deposited out on the ground.
12 Therefore in the unlikely event of a 13 severe accident, the portions of the 50 mile radius 14 closest to the plant would receive, would see and have 15 the highest concentration of contaminants, radioactive 16 material, pass over it. So it would stand to reason 17 that this is a mass conservative model. As the plume 18 travels and goes downwind, those parts that are at the 19 24 mile level, that plume will be more concentrated 20 than the one that is leaving the 50 mile grid because 21 it's been depleted. So the closer you are to the 22 point of release, the more concentrated the plume 23 would be.
24 The SAMA analysis looks at all types of 25 release conditions. The focus by ISR and New York Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2154 1 State has been on one release category source term the 2 early high. And that is reflected of certain 3 combinations of failures, equipment calculations and 4 initiating events that would lead to the highest 5 source term including the highest amount of cesium-6 137.
7 But there are also out of the release 8 categories considered in the SAMA analysis lower 9 source terms, those that are very minimal, non-failure 10 of containment and other conditions that are addressed 11 and can be traced backwards into how they started, 12 what failures would have to occur for those to lead to 13 those releases into the environment. But the size of 14 the plume not in every case would be large enough to 15 reach a major metropolitan area such as New York City.
16 Okay. The smaller plumes would be depleted again 17 through the dry deposition velocity mechanism that's 18 incorporated in MACCS2 and has been discussed by Dr.
19 Bixler. It would take a count over the smaller plumes 20 being effectively depleted by the time they went too 21 many miles downwind.
22 So the basis of the SAMA analysis is to 23 reflect on a spectrum of potential source terms, model 24 each one randomly in terms of the meteorological 25 conditions. Some would go in different directions.
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Page 2155 1 A minor, small portion of those may make it as far as 2 the New York City metropolitan area. Many others 3 would not.
4 In terms of the database, just to look at 5 these alternative methods. I think some of the data 6 is interesting to look at in terms of the cost per 7 square footage and as a long-term study may be a basis 8 to say what was in CONDO, let's compare it to the 9 draft document NUREG/CR-4148. Let's try to make some 10 decisions about a path forward.
11 But I think the data for the most part in 12 all the approaches that have been cited by Dr. Lemay 13 in terms of -- let me clarify that -- methods C and D 14 seem to rely on internal surfaces where we run into 15 this dilemma on how those are accounted for and 16 whether they would equally contaminated and therefore 17 require equal decontamination to be habitable again.
18 So that to me at least in my expert 19 opinion is really the crux of what is at issue with 20 citing CONDO and RISO sources of data in constructing 21 data spreadsheets that were provided in the exhibit 22 from ISR in saying that these are comparable or a 23 referenceable point of using these numbers as 24 applicable potentially in a MACCS2 type SAMA analysis.
25 That's I think a real issue.
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Page 2156 1 It's the multiplication of surfaces within 2 the various types of building densities that have been 3 used by ISR that I think is really unrealistic and 4 leads to artificially high cost estimates. And if 5 that internal surface number is reflected 6 realistically as I think has been provided by Mr.
7 Jones and the NRC testimony from March, you could see 8 these numbers falling much closer to what, if not, 9 within the bounds of uncertainty, falling into those 10 same ranges that were used by Entergy in its SAMA 11 analysis. If we renormalize the numbers correctly to 12 account for surfaces being contaminated non-uniformly, 13 this would lead to a more closer outcome to what was 14 achieved in the -- that was incorporated in the MACCS2 15 SAMA analysis.
16 I think those points of clarification need 17 to be reflected in the Applicant's position.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
19 JUDGE McDADE: Perhaps some additional 20 points of clarification. I think we're getting to a 21 point here shortly where we're going to be taking a 22 break. But I would like to sort of pose a question 23 both to the Applicant and to the NRC staff and get 24 those answers and then take a break for a little bit.
25 Yesterday before we closed, it was sort of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2157 1 a summary of the position of Entergy. In preparing 2 your SAMA analysis you followed the guidance of NUREG-3 4551. You followed the guidance of NUREG-1150. You 4 followed religiously and you are not aware of any 5 better data, any better numbers, to plug in than what 6 was suggested to you by that.
7 I would anticipate not adopting this 8 argument at this point, but I'm anticipating that when 9 this hearing is over New York will argue to us that 10 the purpose of the SAMA analysis is not just to have 11 paperwork to fill out an analysis, but rather to come 12 as close to reality as possible. Here since the SAMA 13 analysis should be site-specific and there are many of 14 the parameters suggested by NUREG-1150 that aren't 15 site specific, that the resulting SAMA analysis 16 following the guidance in NUREG-1150 doesn't reflect 17 reality adequately for the NRC to be able to take a 18 hard look and make a judgment about the actual costs 19 associated with severe accident.
20 And Dr. Lemay has put forward in his 21 testimony and in the exhibits talking about Chernobyl 22 in Exhibits 000249 through 000251, Fukushima 000264 to 23 000269 and the various reports that he submitted 24 whether it be CONDO or RISO or Luna or site 25 restoration in Exhibits 000249 basically to 000255.
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Page 2158 1 He has put forward more sophisticated tools than the 2 MACCS system which basically is an older system, looks 3 at the best available back in 1984. But it really 4 needs to be updated because it is no longer reliable.
5 It just doesn't take into consideration enough 6 variables.
7 That's the argument that I anticipate 8 we're going to hear. Let's start with the NRC staff.
9 MR. HARRISON: I'll start on one point and 10 this is the primary opening. This is Donald Harrison 11 of the staff. And then I'll turn it to some technical 12 comments on top of this.
13 Yesterday the Applicant mentioned NUREG-14 1150 as being -- I believe it was referred to as a 15 seminal study at that time. The staff looks at it as 16 even more than that and even more than just providing 17 the best available information. It was used as a 18 significant document supporting the Part 51 rulemaking 19 activity and responding to comments in the regulatory 20 history of the FR, Federal Register, that under the 21 New York Exhibit 000127 I believe. It's mentioned in 22 there as making a statement of the analysis performed 23 for the GEIS, the Generic Environmental Impact 24 Statement, represents adequate plant-specific 25 estimates of the impacts from severe accidents that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2159 1 would generally over predict rather than under predict 2 environmental consequences. Most of this discussion 3 was in the terms of source term which is a starting 4 point for this analysis.
5 It's also repeatedly referenced within the 6 Generic Environmental Impact Statement for license 7 renewal which is NUREG-1437. That's New York Exhibit 8 000131. And if I may there's just a few places I want 9 to refer to within Chapter 5 of that NUREG-1437.
10 On page 513, there's a reference to in a 11 number of places to NUREG-1150. This is I believe the 12 1996 time frame of the FRN or the Federal Register.
13 So it refers to this as the most recent NRC studies 14 that severe accident consequences that are found in 15 the NUREG-1150 analysis. It used as an example at the 16 bottom of that page as the study of five plants. And 17 it used to say "Source terms and frequencies specific 18 to a plant were determined. Advanced computer codes 19 were used." And as an example it cites the MACCS code 20 for consequence evaluation was used instead of CRAC" 21 which was considered to be the older version that was 22 done during the time of the 1970s, early `80s for the 23 WASH-1400 which was the initial father of PRA analysis 24 if you will, level three analysis.
25 If I jump to page 520, there is a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2160 1 reference to NUREG-1150 in a couple of places. In one 2 place, it talks about there's been more than ten years 3 of additional knowledge about severe accidents. The 4 information on the distribution of risk at a specific 5 plant as estimated by NUREG-1150 report is considered 6 more realistic and representative of the actual 7 environmental impact due to the air pathway for severe 8 accidents.
9 And again, these are just a handful of 10 snippets if you will out of it. And I'll jump to the 11 conclusion after this next one.
12 On page 599, there are statements about 13 economic calculations were also benchmarked to the 14 MACCS computer code to ensure that the calculated 15 values were based on the most current models and data.
16 And I know we've had comments about the fact that 17 there's a report in 1984 that I'm not even going to 18 locate. That's four references away from NUREG-1150.
19 Within the Generic Environmental Impact Statement, it 20 states that MACCS is used as the benchmark.
21 And then finally if I jump to the section 22 55 which is the summary and conclusion of Chapter 5 of 23 the Generic Environmental Impact Statement, there's an 24 overarching comment that's also reflected in the 25 actual rule as Table B-1 which states that -- I want Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2161 1 to make sure I get the right one here -- "the expected 2 cost resulting from a severe accident at a nuclear 3 power plant during the renewal periods have been 4 predicted from evaluations presented for 27 FEISes."
5 And if I'm correct I believe Indian Point was one of 6 those 27. I'll have to confirm that. "Estimates of 7 the extent of land contamination have also been 8 presented in both cases. The conditional impacts are 9 judged to be of small significance of all plants or 10 for all plants. The staff concludes that the generic 11 analysis summarized above applies to all plants and 12 that the probability weighted consequences of 13 atmospheric releases fall out onto open bodies of 14 water. Releases to groundwater and societal and 15 economic impacts of severe accidents are of small 16 significance for all plants."
17 That being said, we still do SAMA 18 analysis. So it's not surprising to me with that 19 history that an applicant would actually refer back to 20 NUREG-1150 as available information and review it to 21 see if it's appropriate and applicable for this 22 application as being the available information that's 23 cited within the natural rule as part of that if you 24 take it into the Generic Environmental Impact 25 Statement. So with that statement.
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Page 2162 1 MR. JONES: Your Honor, part of your 2 statement indicated that there may be suggestions.
3 JUDGE McDADE: Actually, it wasn't a 4 statement. It was a question.
5 MR. JONES: Your question was that how 6 would you respond to the potential need to update the 7 code. Well, the code is not being challenged by Dr.
8 Lemay and his alternative approach has merely 9 developed an input value. So I think really the issue 10 is whether or not those input values, the alternative 11 input values, were developed in any more appropriate 12 manner than the input values we currently use.
13 Dr. Lemay made a statement just a few 14 minutes ago that we shouldn't extrapolate MACCS to New 15 York City. Well, in fact, two of the alternatives, 16 Alternative A and Alternative B, extrapolate data to 17 New York City when they specifically say they're not 18 applicable.
19 The site restoration study, Luna, site 20 restoration/Luna Alternative A specifically says it is 21 not applicable to commercial areas, heavy industrial 22 or high rise areas. Yet it's one of the alternatives 23 used here. It's also a plutonium study, but it was 24 extrapolated to New York City even though the study 25 itself says it shouldn't be.
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Page 2163 1 The Reichmuth study, Alternative Approach 2 B, used the data from the site restoration study. So 3 it in itself should not be applicable or extrapolated 4 to New York City.
5 So I think really the question is whether 6 or not the alternative input values are any more 7 reasonable than the input values that were used, not 8 whether or not any changes need to be made to the 9 consequence model.
10 DR. GHOSH: This is Dr. Ghosh of the 11 staff. I'd like to add an additional perspective. I 12 think there are two things at issue. I think we've 13 talked a lot about what we think about the methodology 14 that went into developing these alternate inputs and 15 why we think that they in some cases were 16 inappropriate, for example, the mass conservation 17 problem of applying the CONDO method. And in our 18 testimony I believe Mr. Jones tried to guess what the 19 effect of that might be if you took away that improper 20 application to the MACCS code.
21 But I think ultimately what all of this 22 comes back to is that when the NRC is taking a hard 23 look and looking at the list of potential re-cost 24 beneficial SAMA candidates that have been put forth by 25 the Applicant, would taking this approach or taking Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2164 1 into consideration some of the uncertainties and what 2 was done in the SAMA analysis make a difference in 3 which we would have put in our Final Supplemental 4 Environmental Impact Statement, in our FSEIS, for 5 Indian Point? And I just want to point out a couple 6 of things.
7 I don't believe it would. If you look at 8 the list of final potentially cost beneficial SAMAs in 9 the FSEIS, Final Supplemental Environmental Impact 10 Statement, that's in Table G-2 of page G-4 and we 11 don't need -- Sorry. That's in Table G-6. That 12 starts on page G-36. And I don't think we need to 13 pull it up.
14 But if you add up the potential benefit of 15 theoretically actually implementing all those SAMAs, 16 you come up with a much greater than 100 percent 17 benefit for Indian Point. And you get over 100 18 percent for Indian Point 3.
19 So for Unit 2 you eliminate the entire 20 risk from the plant almost twice over. And the 21 population dose risk which is one element of the total 22 economic risk you eliminate twice over completely.
23 And basically what that says to us is that 24 if you actually -- There are multiple SAMAs that are 25 already identified to mitigate the same types of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2165 1 accidents. So just to give you an example, this all 2 comes back to identifying what are potentially 3 incremental improvements you could make to the plant 4 to further reduce risk. And steam generator tube 5 rupture is one of the dominant accidents for both 6 Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3.
7 Entergy, of course, put forth candidate 8 SAMAs for that. The staff took a very hard look at 9 what Entergy had put forward and had asked a lot of 10 questions in the form of requests for additional 11 information. And Entergy produced additional analyses 12 and explained why some of the candidates we were 13 asking about were already implemented at the plant or 14 why they weren't applicable in this case.
15 In one case, they actually added a SAMA 16 candidate as a potentially cost beneficial candidate.
17 And in one case they did a sensitivity analysis for a 18 thermally-induced steam generator tube rupture and 19 came up with another potentially cost beneficial 20 candidate.
21 The point I'm trying to make is that if 22 you look at the existing list of candidates that are 23 there and if you actually started to implement some of 24 them, the incremental benefit of implementing 25 additional SAMAs just goes down.
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Page 2166 1 And we can't completely eliminate the 2 plant risk twice over. If we start to add more 3 candidates, we're going to towards eliminating the 4 same risk three times over. And I think that's 5 something that's worth keeping in mind in terms of 6 what would the real impact be on the endpoint that we 7 care about which is identifying a good list of 8 potential SAMA candidates for the plant.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you. Does 10 Entergy want to be heard or given the fact that 1150 11 is the NRC's guidance rest on their explanations?
12 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor. If we 13 could just take a moment. Grant Teagarden for the 14 Applicant. I would just echo Dr. Jones' clarification 15 and that is as we understand it New York State is not 16 criticizing the MACCS code per se in and of itself, 17 but rather just looking at the inputs to that.
18 Secondly, that the cost for the non-farm 19 decontamination is site-specific as we apply the 20 population density.
21 Third, the Approaches A and B come up with 22 very large cost estimates. And we haven't discussed 23 those too much and we may not need to. But it is I 24 think important to note that there are significant 25 aspects of the plutonium dimension of those Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2167 1 methodologies that need to be vetted if they become a 2 serious consideration in the matter.
3 In regards to C and D of the application, 4 the Approaches of C and D are CONDO and RISO. The 5 concept of mass conservation is a fundamental 6 technical principle as these two approaches would be 7 applied. You can't decontaminate more than you start 8 with.
9 And to use a bit of a positive 10 illustration, if I want to paint my house and I have 11 a single story house and I have a container of paint 12 and I want to put two coats on the walls, now my house 13 is two stories. My same container of paint I can only 14 get one coat on each floor. If my house goes to three 15 stories, I can't paint the third story. And it's that 16 fundamental that as these approaches are applied mass 17 has to be conserved.
18 And then I'll --
19 JUDGE McDADE: Could you address the 20 corollary of that which is your description of putting 21 paint on certainly is logical? But we're talking 22 about taking paint off. So if you have a situation 23 where now you have painted a two-story house as 24 opposed to a one story house and were scraping it off, 25 is it necessarily simply because you only have the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2168 1 same amount of paint? You have two coats on the one-2 story house and one coat on a two-story house that you 3 have a 50 percent reduction in work because --
4 MR. TEAGARDEN: The paint has to be 5 present to scrap off.
6 JUDGE McDADE: No, I understand. But it 7 seems that it would not necessarily be twice the work 8 to scrap off paint that has two coats than paint that 9 has one coat. And the corollary if it only had one 10 coat it doesn't mean you'd only have to do half as 11 much work in scraping it off as if you had the two 12 coats which I think is sort of as I interpret it part 13 of Dr. Lemay's argument.
14 MR. TEAGARDEN: And our numbers if we 15 consider heavy decontamination two coats we more than 16 double the cost for removing that paint than a single 17 coat where so $5,000 versus $13,800. Stepping back if 18 I have a plume coming towards a building, the windward 19 face will receive the most deposition. The sides will 20 receive significantly less. The back, depending on 21 eddies, may receive very little or more than very 22 little.
23 When it comes to decontaminating, certain 24 surfaces will have higher deposition, higher 25 contaminant levels. And when the costs are evaluated Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2169 1 and rolled together, mass conservation just has to be 2 viewed as a fundamental principle in my professional 3 judgment.
4 JUDGE McDADE: And not dismissing that, 5 but isn't part of this also that if you have a 6 uncomplicated geometry such as the flat parking lot 7 that Judge Wardwell referred to earlier that the cost 8 per curie of clean-up is going to be less? Same 9 amount of contaminants, but the fact that you have 10 inconsistent distribution makes the clean-up all that 11 much more complicated than if you just have one 12 surface where you have to do one thing. You treat the 13 whole thing the same. You go through. That's 14 conceptually and physically easy relative to doing 15 those same kinds of things; where as you postulated, 16 one side of the building has heavy concentration, two 17 sides of the building have low concentration, the back 18 of the building has no concentration, the roof may 19 have a different concentration. The ground areas 20 around the building may have different concentrations 21 because of runoff or because of other factors. All of 22 that makes it much more complicated which is why you 23 need a more complicated system.
24 MR. TEAGARDEN: We do not believe that 25 these cost estimates that were developed for NUREG-Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2170 1 1150 were developed based on decontaminating a 50 mile 2 region parking lot. We believe they were costed based 3 upon a mixture of residential and commercial and 4 industrial property and open land. So we believe that 5 those have been already costed into the parameters 6 that were incorporated and used with a NUREG-1150 7 study that then were used by Entergy, used by other 8 applicants and used in the latest, state-of-the-art 9 reactor consequence analysis performed by the NRC.
10 And I would like to ask Dr. --
11 JUDGE McDADE: Already having been 12 factored in it need not be factored in again.
13 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor.
14 JUDGE McDADE: And shouldn't be. Not only 15 need not, but shouldn't be.
16 MR. TEAGARDEN: Correct, Your Honor.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Before we have the break, 18 Doctor, do you have something to add to this?
19 DR. O'KULA: No, I do not, Your Honor.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Judge Wardwell and 21 Judge Kennedy, before the break, do you have anything 22 further? I would like to come back after the break 23 and ask Dr. Lemay to refer and comment on some of this 24 and specifically to focus from my standpoint on the 25 statements by Mr. Jones with regard to his focus and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2171 1 directing us to focus on the input values here as the 2 predominant factor that we should consider in our 3 analysis here.
4 And Dr. Lemay, you also wanted to review 5 the MACCS user guide in order to respond to an earlier 6 question.
7 DR. LEMAY: Correct.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. It's a little bit --
9 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, it's John Sipos 10 over there.
11 JUDGE McDADE: Yes.
12 MR. SIPOS: Hi. I have a clarification 13 matter.
14 JUDGE McDADE: You don't have to make the 15 argument I postulated. Was that the question?
16 MR. SIPOS: Actually my clarification 17 issue goes to something else. Mr. Harrison was 18 reviewing page citations in the GEIS and I think he 19 had talked about 520 and 599. And then he referenced 20 a Table B-1. I think I heard that. I was wondering 21 which Table B-1 that was.
22 MR. HARRISON: This is Donald Harrison of 23 the NRC staff. And I'm sorry I didn't -- I made a 24 backwards reference. That's Table B-1. That's 25 actually in the Part 51 rulemaking where it makes --
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Page 2172 1 It's the long table that talks about being small. It 2 uses the same concluding paragraph that I cited from 3 the summary.
4 MR. SIPOS: Thank you. In the appendix of 5 Part 51.
6 MR. HARRISON: Yes.
7 MR. SIPOS: Thank you very much.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Anything further before we 9 break?
10 (No verbal response.)
11 Apparently not. Why don't we take until 12 11:20 a.m. Off the record.
13 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
14 JUDGE McDADE: Any administrative matters 15 before we get started? From the staff?
16 MR. HARRIS: No, Your Honor, this is Brad 17 Harris for the staff.
18 JUDGE McDADE: Clearwater?
19 MS. GREENE: Not at this time.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Riverkeeper?
21 MR. MUSEGAAS: Nothing, Your Honor.
22 MR. SIPOS: No, Your Honor.
23 MR. BESSETTE: Just one point, Your Honor.
24 This is Paul Bessette for the Applicant.
25 With regard to Your Honor's question on Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2173 1 MACCS2 code, if it's helpful to the Board, I would 2 refer you to page 2 of our position statement where we 3 quote the Commission, where the Commission has 4 described the MACCS2 code as "the most current 5 established code for NRC SAMA analysis." And it also 6 "NRC endorsed guidance on SAMA analysis endorses use 7 of a MACCS2 code." And I would cite to CLI 12-01 and 8 CLI-10-22.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Which cases are those?
10 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, 12-01 is from 11 the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station license renewal.
12 And 10-22 is also from Pilgrim.
13 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you.
14 MR. BESSETTE: Thank you, Your Honor.
15 MR. SIPOS: And Your Honor, this is John 16 Sipos for the State of New York. I guess I would like 17 some guidance from the Board. Mr. Bessette has just 18 presented arguably illegal argument or mixed argument 19 based on fact and law. And the State would appreciate 20 some guidance as how the leeway that the Board is 21 planning to entertain in types of arguments like that.
22 It's not quite an objection, but I'd like to 23 understand the rules of the road a little more.
24 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, well, one, it's not 25 an objection because it wasn't evidence, so therefore Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2174 1 there wasn't anything really to object to. It doesn't 2 come in the record. Very quickly, Mr. Bessette made 3 a reference. It didn't take very much time. It's 4 there. Those cases exist. I didn't really take it as 5 had he stood up and started to explain the Pilgrim 6 case and why it would be controlling in this instance.
7 I would have asked him to please hold back until 8 later. But I had no objection to the quick reference 9 to the citation in a similar situation if New York or 10 the other parties believed that would be helpful 11 again, at a time not during the testimony, but when 12 I'm asking for administrative matters, if there's 13 something that you might -- that you think might be 14 helpful to the Board by way of a reference, whether it 15 be there and the statement of position did include a 16 bit of legal argument as did everybody's statements of 17 position included some legal argument.
18 And I think Mr. Bessette just wanted us --
19 to remind us of that as we listen to the testimony.
20 We hadn't forgot before we started the testimony, but 21 I can understand why he would suggest it to us. But 22 again, we're not inviting argument, sort of 23 interspersed within the testimony, but I don't think 24 that that went to the level of argument. And to the 25 degree that you or the others offer similar comments Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2175 1 that don't rise to the level of argument, we're not 2 going to dismiss them.
3 MR. SIPOS: Thank you, Your Honor. I 4 appreciate the guidance and we'll try to follow it as 5 well. Thank you.
6 JUDGE McDADE: Are we ready to proceed?
7 Dr. Lemay?
8 DR. LEMAY: Yes, Your Honor, Francois 9 Lemay for the State of New York.
10 The first thing I would like to say is 11 that the use of the MACCS2 code is not in question.
12 I'm quite fond of the MACCS2 code. I think it's the 13 right tool for doing this job. And all the statements 14 relating to the use of the MACCS2 code in the NUREG-15 1150 just reinforced the fact that it's a good tool 16 for these type of studies.
17 But what NUREG-1150 doesn't do is validate 18 the input parameters that were used in the Indian 19 Point SAMA analysis. And you can search all the 20 volumes of NUREG-1150. I certainly did. The only 21 references to decontamination costs are the two 22 references I found. So it leads me to believe that 23 that's a very specific part of the economic cost 24 assessment was not peer reviewed, at least in the 25 sense that U.S. NRC staff defines it. And it looks to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2176 1 me that the only reference to these input parameters 2 seems to be the Ostmeyer 84 report.
3 The second point is that the Applicant 4 said that the input values that are used, they believe 5 were calculated on the basis of mixed land use, with 6 different types of buildings, different types of land 7 use. We really have no way of knowing it, but how 8 could we find out if it's possible? I think the only 9 way to do it would be to actually do similar 10 calculations and benchmark them against what we have 11 as an unsupported and undocumented value. I think 12 that's the way we would decide if these values 13 effectively included mixed type of buildings or 14 farmland or desert or whatever.
15 So I think part of it is important. If 16 you don't have documentation to support a value, the 17 next best thing is to benchmark it by trying to come 18 up with similar calculations, similar values, and see 19 if they fit. If they fit, it's probably because the 20 people who calculated it in the first place used a 21 mixed type of buildings. And if it doesn't, then you 22 have to question why.
23 I have not yet found the information I'm 24 looking for, but I would like to concede to Dr. Bixler 25 that indeed MACCS has mass conservation between the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2177 1 plume and the contamination deposited on the ground.
2 So what goes on the ground is taken off from the 3 plume. That is absolutely correct. But we're dealing 4 with averages here and the average deposition velocity 5 needs to represent different types of surfaces, 6 different dimensions, and MACCS is blind to all those 7 complications. It just has one average, deposition 8 velocity in each sector, and for better or worse, 9 that's the value that's used, whatever surfaces we 10 have there.
11 So we have to be careful with how we 12 characterize the mass conservation. Yes, it's a valid 13 law of nature, but in this case we're dealing with 14 averages that may represent very complex situations.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is that transfer 16 coefficient an input parameter or is it fixed?
17 DR. BIXLER: It's a moot -- I'm sorry.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: It's my fault. I was 19 eyeballing back and forth. I didn't mean to interrupt 20 you.
21 DR. LEMAY: You enter which family of 22 radionuclides it belongs to and you enter the size of 23 the particles, but code has this internally.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: But it's based on those 25 parameters. So in essence, it is an input -- you can Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2178 1 adjust by how you adjust your input parameters.
2 DR. LEMAY: In a limited fashion, yes.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that is a fair 4 assessment of that?
5 DR. BIXLER: Yes, I agree. It's an input 6 parameter. Yes, thank you.
7 DR. LEMAY: There is also a discussion of 8 release categories and the Applicant said that we tend 9 to bias our calculation towards the worst case. I 10 think that's simply not true.
11 What we did is we looked at each release 12 category separately and we tried to calculate the cost 13 the most accurately possible for each release 14 category.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: And again, these are the 16 eight release categories?
17 DR. LEMAY: Right. Now the averaging 18 takes place when you combine them using the frequency.
19 You don't average things before you calculate. I'm 20 going to use an analogy. Let's say that we have a car 21 accident and the cost of totally wrecking the car is 22 high and we have breaking the tail lights is low.
23 Your premium for insurance will be based on the cost 24 of wrecking the car times the likelihood of wrecking 25 the car, the cost of breaking a tail light times the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2179 1 likelihood of wrecking of tail light and then the 2 insurance company will come up with a premium that 3 will take that into account.
4 You can't tell the insurance company well, 5 I would like you to average the cost of wrecking the 6 car and the tail light before you calculate my 7 premium. That wouldn't work. They will calculate 8 each cost for each type of accident, the most 9 accurately possible, and then do the averaging at the 10 end when they combine the frequency.
11 And the OECR is pretty much like an 12 insurance premium. That's the kind of liability that 13 we're looking at in terms of cost in a statistical 14 sense.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: So you don't have a 16 problem with the way it's done in MACCS?
17 DR. LEMAY: We don't and we actually 18 support that. But the suggestion that we somehow 19 biased our calculation towards the worst case is not 20 correct. What we tried to capture is if I'm going to 21 calculate the OECR, I just noticed that most of the 22 cost comes from the worst accidents and that's quite 23 logical. So we need to calculate those correctly.
24 If I make a mistake on the benign 25 accidents, it has no impact on the cost. If I make a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2180 1 mistake on the worst accident, completely changes the 2 answer. So I'm going to scrutinize the calculation of 3 the most severe accident more closely than I would 4 scrutinize the case of the accident where there is no 5 release. You had discussed that on the first day, why 6 do we bother with that one?
7 So off course, we spent more scrutiny on 8 the worst case accidents. And one of the things we 9 did is we look how realistic is it to say we can 10 decontaminate in 120 days when we're dealing with the 11 worst case accident? And we understand that it's not 12 realistic to assume that we would decontaminate --
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is this the TIMDEC 14 parameter now?
15 DR. LEMAY: It's the TIMDEC parameter.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: Well, why don't we get 17 into the TIMDEC parameter? Is that a good idea?
18 JUDGE KENNEDY: Well, are you done with 19 your opening remarks, Dr. Lemay?
20 DR. LEMAY: Well, yes. I think I 21 addressed all the comments.
22 JUDGE KENNEDY: If we could have New York 23 State 000430 again, Table 13 which is on page 6?
24 This morning we spent a lot of time on the 25 CDNFRM parameter and I think we would like to give Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2181 1 some time to the TIMDEC parameter.
2 This is your table, Dr. Lemay. We'll let 3 you start, but I'm sure we'll have questions for 4 others.
5 DR. LEMAY: Okay, the TIMDEC parameter 6 appears in rows 3 and 4 of the table. It is the time 7 required for decontamination and in the way MACCS 8 works. At the end of this average decontamination 9 period, people are allowed back in their homes. So 10 we're talking about the time between when we started 11 the contamination and on average people start to go 12 back in their home. And I think we all agree and the 13 NRC staff and I that whatever value we put in there, 14 there might be people that come back in that sector 15 before and some people will come back in after, but 16 we're talking about the average time.
17 And the third column represents the values 18 that were used by Entergy in the input file.
19 The fourth and fifth column represents the 20 value that we deemed more appropriate and then we 21 showed the effect that changing the TIMDEC would have 22 on the OECR.
23 So going from 60 days to 1 year for light 24 decon and 120 days to 2 years for heavy decon, 25 immediately increases your cost by a factor of 2.
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Page 2182 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: What's the justification 2 for your numbers?
3 DR. LEMAY: Okay, they are twofold. The 4 first one is we have unfolding experience at Fukushima 5 that suggests that these things don't happen in 120 6 days. Even if common sense did not prevail, we would 7 look at that evidence. The Japanese government took 8 about a year to get organized to be able to start the 9 decontamination in March 2011. And it's on-going now 10 and that they plan to continue doing it for quite a 11 while. It could be several years before it's 12 completed. And we've provided references that 13 describe that and it's an on-going story that -- and 14 you can get reports almost monthly on how much 15 progress they made in that decontamination effort, but 16 it definitely did not happen in the 120 days.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: Was Three Mile Island a 18 severe accident?
19 DR. LEMAY: It was a severe accident 20 because the core was damaged, but there was hardly any 21 release.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: So that's on our light 23 side. How long did it take for that to be 24 decontaminated?
25 DR. LEMAY: Offsite, they never got there.
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Page 2183 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Zero.
2 DR. LEMAY: Inside the plant, I think it 3 took them ten years.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: So it was basically no 5 time.
6 DR. LEMAY: No time.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: So that gets factored in, 8 doesn't it?
9 DR. LEMAY: When you do the examination 10 you don't spend time decontaminating.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you consider Fukushima 12 probably on one of the higher ends, would remain one 13 of the higher ends? I mean it's not necessarily the 14 highest. We don't know what the highest is.
15 DR. LEMAY: Well, we've presented --
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's certainly a very 17 severe accident, wouldn't you --
18 DR. LEMAY: It's a severe accident that's 19 exactly within the range of accidents that Entergy has 20 considered in its SAMA analysis. I would like to 21 bring to the attention of the panel --
22 MS. LIBERATORE: Your Honor, Kathryn 23 Liberatore for the State. I think it would be helpful 24 to bring up New York Exhibit 000420, page 12.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: And what is that?
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Page 2184 1 DR. LEMAY: It shows how much cesium was 2 released at Fukushima and how much cesium is released 3 in each of the release categories that Entergy has 4 modeled.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sounds good.
6 DR. LEMAY: So what I plotted here is data 7 from the -- the bar charts show the eight release 8 categories as defined by Entergy in its SAMA analysis.
9 And the blue bar charts are applied to IP2 and the red 10 one applied to IP3.
11 On the vertical axis we see how much 12 cesium-137 activity is released for each of these 13 release categories. And so you can see that, for 14 example, the first one is no containment failure, 15 hardly anything released. And early high is the 16 largest one and then you have a bunch in between.
17 The dotted line represents how much 18 cesium-137 was released at Fukushima based on two 19 different sources, the Japanese government and the 20 French government. And these seem to be the most 21 reputable sources I could find for how much cesium was 22 released.
23 What I would like you to note is that 24 early high is worse than Fukushima. And there is two 25 other release category, early medium and late high Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2185 1 that are roughly the same as Fukushima. And then we 2 have a gaggle of other release categories that are 3 lower. So Fukushima is a bad one, but it's not the 4 worst one. I would say it's in the range of the 5 things that are considered in the SAMA analysis.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: So likewise -- well, I'll 7 ask later.
8 DR. LEMAY: So I would argue that --
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay. You had a year for 10 your minimum, you're assigning that to Fukushima. I 11 look at this, if the distribution of the times for 12 clean up are somewhat representative by just the 13 activity released, I'm not -- it doesn't overwhelm me 14 with values less than a year that Fukushima, that year 15 to me would associate with Fukushima would be on the 16 very high end of this. And we do have a probabilistic 17 method here where we're trying to get, I hate to use 18 the average value because -- we're trying to be in the 19 middle. We're not trying to exaggerate one way or the 20 other.
21 DR. LEMAY: I think what we're trying --
22 okay, I'm a safety analyst and I'm reviewing my input 23 deck and my output and I'm trying to decide if I've 24 done the right thing. So when I run a pretty mild 25 accident like late low low, and I come up with a cost Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2186 1 of decontamination that requires 20,000 people, over 2 120 days, I would say that's reasonable and I can 3 probably stick with my 120 days.
4 When I get to early high, and I get a cost 5 of contamination that requires 1.5 million people to 6 decontaminate in 120 days, then I'm not using a 7 reasonable value for the decontamination time. I 8 should spread the decontamination time over a longer 9 period to make sure that I don't have much more than 10 100,000 people. So the decontamination time ideally 11 should change with the release category to make sure 12 that we use reasonable assumptions.
13 If we keep using the same cookie cutter 14 approach blindly, and not checking our output, we get 15 absurd results and people would say well, you just 16 simply can't do that.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Teagarden, what was 18 used in the Indian Point analysis to justify the 60 19 and 120 days?
20 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor. The 21 Indian Point analysis used the values used in NUREG-22 1150 and the justification would be that they were 23 used in the seminal document of NUREG-1150 and also in 24 recognition of how MACCS2 looks at TIMDEC in 25 comparison with other mitigating strategies such as Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2187 1 extended interdiction which is another means of 2 achieving a dose reduction that can be implemented 3 within MACCS that MACCS goes through the evaluation to 4 determine whether it's appropriate such that the time 5 frame for more severe contamination areas would be 6 extended and is addressed within MACCS under that 7 framework.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is there any information 9 -- two questions. Is there any information in 1150 10 justifying these numbers in a similar trail that we 11 tried to do with the CD? And I wish you would make 12 those pronounceable acronyms like TIMDEC.
13 And second question is could you elaborate 14 a little more on the interplay between this TIMDEC and 15 that period of whatever you called it, intercession or 16 something? I remember your testimony on it and I 17 wasn't clear on how that was. So if you could answer 18 both questions.
19 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor. To the 20 first question regarding a reference within NUREG-1150 21 on the TIMDEC values, offhand I do not know of a 22 specific reference to the bases of that value within 23 NUREG-1150.
24 Regarding your second question, how does 25 this apply with this, how MACCS utilizes extended Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2188 1 interdiction. Yesterday, I gave the illustration that 2 if there's a portion of land that would require a dose 3 reduction factor of 16, that is slightly above the 4 maximum dose reduction factor of 15 represented in the 5 second level and the highest level implemented in the 6 model.
7 So MACCS, therefore, would say what -- in 8 addition to my active decontamination, I will also 9 model a time period of interdiction when individuals 10 still remain away from their properties while the 11 passive processes of radioactive decay and weathering 12 work to lower the dose such that at some further time 13 they can -- the habitability criteria would be met.
14 So you could take an example of an area of 15 land that may require active decontamination 16 strategies and let's say five years of intermediate or 17 extended interdiction. MACCS will evaluate out to 30 18 years. So some active decontamination is required and 19 then for the more severely contaminated land a portion 20 of time is needed for the passive dose reduction 21 features to occur.
22 So now there is a period -- there is the 23 four months for active decontamination; five years for 24 extended interdiction. Now MACCS models, because a 25 computer model has to make some simplifying Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2189 1 computational what do I do first, MACCS puts the 2 decontamination up front. In real life that would be 3 the desired approach, to decontaminate before material 4 has -- migrates. However, for land that is severely 5 contaminated it may not be surprising that there's 6 going to be different priorities set. And if I know 7 individuals are going to be away from their property 8 for five years, I don't have to have all my workers 9 doing the same spot at the same time. The workers can 10 be doing this spot starting next year because I know 11 even after they finish the residents can't return for 12 another four years.
13 So there's this element of MACCS looks at 14 these strategies together in the time frames that are 15 represented are not meant to exactly mimic or the 16 order is not meant to exactly mimic a real-life 17 scenario. It's meant to put these strategies together 18 in a way that can computationally be addressed in a 19 manner for -- in a probabilistic manner where averages 20 are in view.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: Can you explain how the 22 situation that Dr. Lemay presented is handled by MACCS 23 or really is inapplicable to MACCS for whatever 24 reasons you can state? That being the fact that you 25 just couldn't get enough workers on site to do it Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2190 1 within the time frames that you have in regards to the 2 TIMDEC.
3 MR. TEAGARDEN: Well, I said not all areas 4 would have to be decontaminated at the same time. And 5 not all decontamination activities are going to 6 require the same amount of time and effort. And in 7 view of some of the time frames that Dr. Lemay is 8 proposing, time frames of 5 years and 15 years and 30 9 years, that time frame represents that people are in 10 the same place doing the same decontamination 11 activities for 15 years or 30 years. That's their 12 career to go and decontaminate this block of land.
13 That is not what we would judge as reality.
14 There's going to be a set of priorities 15 that are established as to what areas are addressed 16 first and which areas are addressed second.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: And so in regards to his 18 argument, is that while the maximum number there is 19 maybe say an artifact of the process, is it possibly 20 factored out by the frequency of events as it comes 21 down and is reflected in any OECR or PDR or whatever 22 else is subsequently used in the SAMA analysis?
23 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor. There's 24 a range of -- there's frequencies associated with each 25 release category and the lower release categories have Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2191 1 a significant part of the release frequency associated 2 with them. If you were to do an average basis of how 3 many workers are needed to achieve the average 4 accident, we calculate numbers of the order of 60,000 5 to 80,000 people, the amount of numbers that would 6 fill Yankee Stadium on any given Sunday. In view of 7 averages, these sorts of numbers are things that are 8 accomplishable.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: These release categories 10 are run all the way straight through the analysis 11 separately and then they're combined at the end? Is 12 that how they're performed or are they --
13 MR. TEAGARDEN: MACCS is run and the 14 conditional results are then applied with the 15 frequencies.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: MACCS is run and then the 17 frequencies for that particular one is multiplied by 18 it and then you rerun it and the frequency associated 19 with that is multiplied.
20 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor. MACCS 21 does not actually multiple the frequency, you do that 22 yourself at the end. So MACCS develops the 23 conditional results and you multiply it by the 24 frequency in a spreadsheet or some other fashion and 25 can total them up.
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Page 2192 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Dr. Lemay, would you like 2 to --
3 DR. LEMAY: Well, first point is that 4 MACCS internally needs to calculate how many workers 5 it needs because it calculates the collective dose 6 that these workers receive during decontamination. So 7 it's a number that's built into the code. The 8 calculation is so trivial that we can do it. It's 9 just the total cost of decon multiplied by the labor 10 fraction, divided by the cost of one person. That 11 tells us how many people.
12 And I think that's a parameter that we 13 need to look at because we want to make sure that we 14 are reasonable.
15 Regarding the way MACCS works, doesn't 16 expect 300,000 people to stay on the same spot. It 17 expects these people to decontaminate whatever area 18 needs to be decontaminated on average for that release 19 category. And I have NRC Exhibit 000060 and in the 20 case of early high the area that needs decontamination 21 is 282 square miles. So these people are definitely 22 not on the same spot. They are spread over 282 square 23 miles doing their decontamination job. And yes, it 24 would become a career. And I suspect that in Japan 25 some people will do this to the end of their useful Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2193 1 life. But that's what we're dealing with here.
2 It is not reasonable to assume that all 3 that activity will take place in 120 days. I think it 4 just stretches belief.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: But are we really dealing 6 with the fact that people are going to be there for 7 their careers? As I look at this diagram it says that 8 for most of these it's going to be much less time than 9 that.
10 DR. LEMAY: Well, in the case of early 11 high, we need 346,000 person years so if we have 12 100,000 people, we probably need 3.5 years. If we 13 have less, we probably need more. So that's really 14 the balancing act. Stretching it over time has an 15 impact on cost. And MACCS is blind to how you split 16 the time between the intermediate phase relocation, 17 the decontamination time or the interdiction because 18 in the equation where it calculates the cost it sums 19 the three times and it multiplies by the depreciation 20 rate. So you can slice it and dice it any way you 21 want. It doesn't matter. It takes the intermediate 22 phase temporary relocation plus the decon time plus 23 the interdiction time and then that's what goes into 24 the cost equation.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you have a feeling for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2194 1 what percentage of the OECR and I don't know if this 2 relates to PDR because we haven't talked anything 3 about that, but that each of these categories 4 contributes?
5 DR. LEMAY: Yes, if you just keep 6 scrolling on the same document, resuming on this one.
7 This is taken from the Entergy SAMA analysis. And the 8 values I've circled are the costs, the OECR. So we 9 see that early high is 1.33 E to the 5 and the total 10 is 2.12 E to the 5. So it's a big chunk of the 11 total.
12 The other ones are 10 to the 4, 10 to the 13 2, so that one weighs pretty heavily in the OECR.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: And the OECR has all of 15 the level 3 probabilistic risk analysis have been done 16 by the time we get --
17 DR. LEMAY: Correct, correct. So what we 18 did is we take these -- the frequency comes out of the 19 level 1 and level 2 analysis. Out of MACCS we get the 20 population dose and the offsite economic cost. The 21 population dose multiplied by the frequency gives us 22 the population dose risk. The offsite economic cost 23 multiplied by the frequency gives us the offsite 24 economic cost risk.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: How come -- as a kind of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2195 1 a sidebar, but how come we haven't talked much about 2 the PDR?
3 DR. LEMAY: The PDR does not contribute 4 quite as much as the offsite economic cost. If you 5 look at the two columns it's a small fraction, so --
6 if you make a mistake --
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: You're willing to concede 8 that?
9 DR. LEMAY: Yes. My focus is okay, let's 10 go for the stuff that really matters.
11 JUDGE McDADE: And just so the record is 12 clear, we've moved forward. This is page 14 of New 13 York 000420 that's up right now and this is excerpted 14 from Entergy's Exhibit 000464, these tables 5 and 6.
15 DR. LEMAY: Correct, and the same data for 16 IP3 is shown and it's roughly the same thing.
17 MS. LIBERATORE: Your Honor, Kathryn 18 Liberatore for the State of New York. If we scroll 19 down to the next page, these numbers are actually 20 illustrated in pie charts that might be helpful to the 21 Board.
22 JUDGE McDADE: Okay and referring to the 23 top of page 15 of Exhibit New York 000420?
24 MS. LIBERATORE: Yes, Your Honor.
25 MR. BESSETTE: And Your Honor, we would Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2196 1 object. I think Ms. Liberatore is moving into the 2 point of testifying on behalf of her witness. I don't 3 have a problem with her pointing out an exhibit, but 4 now she's pointing out particular elements of those 5 exhibits.
6 DR. LEMAY: Can I point you to the 7 exhibit, Your Honor?
8 JUDGE McDADE: I didn't find inappropriate 9 what was done there, referring the witness to another 10 portion of the exhibit. That was helpful. And I will 11 allow that from counsel for Entergy as well with your 12 witnesses.
13 Dr. Lemay?
14 DR. LEMAY: Yes, so this shows the 15 contribution to the OECR for each accident and early 16 high contributes over 60 percent of the cost. So 17 that's wrecking your car when you calculate the 18 insurance premium. And if we just combine early high, 19 early medium and late high, they contribute over 90 20 percent of the OECR.
21 So I would argue that we can't average the 22 time it takes to decontaminate a trivial or benign 23 accident with the time it takes to decontaminate these 24 more severe accidents. We need to take values that 25 are appropriate for each accident and ideally that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2197 1 should be done in the input file. It has not been the 2 practice in the past, but I think it needs to be the 3 practice.
4 DR. BIXLER: Your Honor, this is Dr.
5 Bixler for the staff. I'd like to make a few points 6 at some point, if this is a good time to inject a few 7 comments about a few things here.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Dr. Bixler, is it directly 9 related to what Dr. Lemay has just been talking on?
10 DR. BIXLER: Yes, it is. Can you flip 11 back to the previous page with those tables? The 12 first point is that the values there for the PDR need 13 to be multiplied by $2,000 per person-rem in order to 14 convert them into dollar values. And when you make 15 that correction to the values that are shown there, 16 they become comparable to the offsite economic cost 17 risk. That's a really important point I think.
18 JUDGE WARDWELL: But he's already conceded 19 he's not addressing the PDR, so it's of no issue here 20 at the hearing. Isn't that correct?
21 DR. BIXLER: It is somewhat of an issue 22 because it's really the sum of those two values that's 23 of importance, not just the OECR.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Right, we'll look to see 25 where we go from here and get through the SAMA Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2198 1 analysis. That will be reflected in it and that's 2 what it is.
3 JUDGE McDADE: Before we do if I could, 4 Dr. Bixler, where did the $2,000 come from?
5 DR. BIXLER: That's the current guidance 6 to use $2,000 per person-rem. It reflects medical and 7 other costs associated with exposure to doses.
8 JUDGE McDADE: And where is that guidance?
9 DR. BIXLER: I'm not -- I don't know the 10 answer to that. Do you know --
11 MR. O'KULA: Your Honor, Kevin O'Kula for 12 the Applicant. There are two NUREG/BR documents that 13 we did not -- we noted in our testimony ENT0000450, 14 but those are NUREG/BR-0084 -- I'm sorry, NUREG/BR-00 15 -- I'm sorry. I'm going to try a third time, 16 NUREG/BR--0184 and then a second one, NUREG/BR-0058.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you.
18 MR. O'KULA: The number, Your Honor, of 19 $2,000 is based on regulatory guidance that is cited 20 in one of those two BR documents.
21 MR. TURK: Your Honor, Sherwin Turk. Just 22 for clarification, we've had different documents 23 referred to as NUREGs or NUREG/CR or NUREG/BR. Could 24 we have an explanation from one of the witnesses what 25 those designations indicate because these are Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2199 1 different types of documents. I thought it might be 2 useful to have that clear on the record.
3 MR. HARRISON: This is Donald Harrison.
4 JUDGE McDADE: I thought we all were 5 dealing at least with the same lexicon here, but let's 6 just clarify. A NUREG/BR from one of the people --
7 MR. HARRISON: This is Donald Harrison 8 from the staff.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Mr. Harrison.
10 MR. HARRISON: BR refers to a brochure.
11 So it's one type of document. A CR is a contractor 12 report. And then if it's a straight NUREG without 13 following designation that means it was staff-14 developed guidance. So those are the different 15 groupings.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you, Mr. Harrison.
17 MR. O'NEILL: Your Honor, this is Martin 18 O'Neill, counsel for Entergy, disembodied voice over 19 here. Just for clarification on the record, the first 20 NUREG that Dr. O'Kula mentioned, NUREG/BR-0184 is 21 Entergy Exhibit 000010A-D. And the second NUREG that 22 Dr. O'Kula referred to is NUREG/BR-0058 and that is 23 Entergy Exhibit 000013.
24 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you, Mr. O'Neill.
25 DR. BIXLER: Your Honor, the other point Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2200 1 I wanted to make has to do with the time value as 2 money and other issues related to the use of such 3 large values of TIMDEC as are proposed here. Maybe 4 this is not the right point in the testimony to inject 5 those comments. If you think it is, I'll go ahead.
6 JUDGE McDADE: I think we're going to get 7 into that a little bit later. So let Dr. Wardwell 8 finish where he's going right now and as I said, we'll 9 get to that in a bit. Not a little bit, but a bit.
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Well, I'm not so sure it 11 isn't a good time if it relates directly to the time 12 associated with TIMDEC as opposed to the total time 13 frame, specific to that without getting into where we 14 go from OECRs to final SAMAs. Go ahead.
15 DR. BIXLER: One issue is that in the 16 MACCS framework the entire cost of decontamination is 17 attributed as if it occurred in Year 1. If we're 18 talking about expending money over 30 years, that 19 doesn't make any sense. You wouldn't spend all the 20 money up front. You'd spend it over that period of 21 time. So there really ought to be some accounting for 22 the fact that you're spending the money over time and 23 the current value of that money is less than it would 24 have been if you spent it all initially in Year 1.
25 For example, if you assume that you spent Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2201 1 the money over a 30-year time period, that means the 2 value in current dollars is only 27 percent of what it 3 would have been if you'd spent it all in Year 1. So 4 if you spent it over 30 years, it's 27 percent in 5 current value. So that's one issue.
6 A second one is that if you take these 7 times out to something like 15 or 30 years, you 8 basically defeated the possibility in MACCS to even 9 decontaminating at a DF of 15 because basically the 10 property is decreased in value over that time to such 11 a large extent that when you do the cost comparison, 12 does it cost more to clean up or does it cost more 13 just to condemn? When you make that decision if the 14 value of the property is essentially decreased to zero 15 or almost zero, then you're always going to just 16 condemn the property and you're not going to do the 17 decontamination. So that's another point I think 18 that's important is that it really makes no sense to 19 consider such long times as 30 years because it 20 defeats the logic in the code.
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: Consequently, does one 22 year make sense? I guess one year fits within that 23 constraint.
24 DR. BIXLER: One year is at least within 25 the allowable input parameters that MACCS would Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2202 1 normally allow you to consider.
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: So if you move closer to 3 the one-year time frame, you're more within the 4 construct of the MACCS2 code?
5 DR. BIXLER: That's true.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you. Have we 7 finished the TIMDEC? Do we need to go back to that 8 figure?
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'm done with TIMDEC.
10 DR. LEMAY: But Your Honor, on the two 11 points raised by Dr. Bixler, he's correct about the 12 tests for the condemning properties done at the 13 beginning of the time period, so that's a feature of 14 the code. That's the way it works.
15 The second point, if you -- if we need to 16 decontaminate over a longer period of time, it is not 17 like buying a piece of equipment. We're dealing with 18 people and presumably the costs would continue to 19 escalate over time as they get the increases, so I 20 think these two effects cancel each other. So I would 21 question the idea that the costs would be 27 percent 22 if you do it over 30 years. But apart from that, I 23 think it's correct.
24 JUDGE KENNEDY: I think the major point 25 that I took away from that is that as we move out in Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2203 1 time, using MACCS2 to calculate the offsite economic 2 cost risk is in question because there's other 3 contributing factors and there's limitations in the 4 code methodology, so I mean that was my takeaway.
5 And again, we may have to deal with that 6 yet going forward, depending on where we end up with 7 parameters, but I think it was a good caution that if 8 we start pushing these numbers, these input numbers or 9 these -- particularly TIMDEC, that there is some 10 implication on how the code moves through its 11 calculations. I think -- I'm not sure what to do with 12 that yet, but that was my takeaway from Dr. Bixler.
13 JUDGE McDADE: And Dr. Bixler, was Judge 14 Kennedy's takeaway what you intended for him to take 15 away?
16 DR. BIXLER: Yes, I think that's exactly 17 right.
18 JUDGE KENNEDY: I've got one question, at 19 least one question going back to the one year number 20 for TIMDEC. I understood it to be based on Fukushima 21 information. Is that true?
22 DR. LEMAY: That's correct.
23 JUDGE KENNEDY: What impact did the 24 tsunami have? Is this a pure decontamination time 25 estimate or does the -- was there any consideration of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2204 1 the fact that a tsunami also occurred and had a major 2 impact on the infrastructure of Japan?
3 DR. LEMAY: When I looked at the reports, 4 they seemed to indicate a series of steps that had to 5 be taken before you could undertake decontamination.
6 The Cabinet had to approve a special budget. That 7 took time. They had to draw up plans before they 8 could get a budget. That took time. They had to do 9 a pilot project of decontamination to see which 10 techniques were best and how to go about this thing.
11 And they eventually also had to negotiate with each 12 local community to find a location where they could 13 bury the waste. And as you can imagine this is highly 14 contentious.
15 I mean we have this case here, but you can 16 imagine if they decided to come into each community 17 and say where are we going to put decontamination 18 waste? So all these things took about a year before 19 they could really start. And so that could -- should 20 probably be better modeled by an intermediate phase 21 where you have temporary relocation.
22 The actual decontamination is ongoing and 23 it seems like it will be ongoing for quite a while.
24 And I believe that that will probably be the best data 25 point that we ever get to find a realistic value for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2205 1 how long it takes to decontaminate an area after a 2 reactor accident.
3 JUDGE McDADE: So even though in the 4 Fukushima circumstance, they were involved with 5 earthquakes, tsunami, and the contamination from the 6 nuclear facility, those same preliminaries would be 7 applicable if it were only for the nuclear 8 contamination?
9 DR. LEMAY: It seems to me that they 10 would. If you want to spend $50 billion, I think 11 there is going to be discussion about this. And you 12 need to find the people and you need to create plans 13 and you need to negotiate with communities. I can't 14 see this happening in 30 days or 15 days.
15 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess maybe a clarifying 16 question. Did you consider the need for planning, 17 testing, obtaining the funding and all that, is that 18 in these decontamination times or is this just 19 decontamination time?
20 DR. LEMAY: Well, it's hard for me to know 21 exactly how long it will take to decontaminate because 22 it's ongoing. But it seems to me that we cannot 23 assume it will take less than one year. It took -- it 24 was a year elapsed before they started. So at the 25 minimum, it's one year. It's probably a few years and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2206 1 like everything in this thing, I wanted to see what's 2 the range of values that people seem to believe in and 3 what's the impact on cost? So at the low end, one 4 year seems about right for a severe accident. At the 5 high end, God knows.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you.
7 MR. JONES: Your Honor, if I could discuss 8 a New York State exhibit with regard to the Fukushima 9 response?
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Go ahead.
11 MR. JONES: New York State Exhibit 000428, 12 the last page.
13 JUDGE KENNEDY: Should we put it up on the 14 screen?
15 MR. JONES: It might be beneficial.
16 JUDGE KENNEDY: Could we do New York State 17 000428?
18 (Pause.)
19 MR. JONES: Very last page. And I would 20 call your attention to just two items on this page.
21 Bullet 2 which is "removal of debris caused by the 22 disaster 386 billion Yen."
23 JUDGE KENNEDY: I'm sorry, we're not with 24 you. We're not on the last page.
25 MR. JONES: Page 34. That's a much better Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2207 1 page. Bullet 2, "removal of debris caused by the 2 disaster is 386 billion Yen." Down towards the 3 bottom, "reconstruction for nuclear accident, 355 4 billion yen." This is just something to put in 5 perspective because we don't have any documentation 6 that says that Fukushima took time to plan this 7 because they didn't have answers. I would interpret 8 this as they couldn't do anything anyway. They might 9 as well think about it for a while.
10 The area was so destructed that they had 11 to clean up debris and they will continue to do that 12 for years. So we really can't try to assume that they 13 took a nice, long drawn out planning process. They 14 may not have reacted because they couldn't react.
15 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess I'd like to go 16 back to Dr. Lemay again and clarify this 17 decontamination, the TIMDEC parameter. We're back to 18 how much planning goes into pure decontamination time 19 which factors into decontamination cost. And if I may 20 again get your perspective. When you try to assign 21 numbers for TIMDEC, 1 year, 15, so on, 2 years, 30, do 22 you have a significant amount of planning associated 23 with that which is now being factored into 24 decontamination costs?
25 DR. LEMAY: It's not the decontamination Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2208 1 costs, Your Honor. The decontamination costs is 2 solely controlled by CDNFRM. TIMDEC affects the 3 depreciation costs of the property while people are 4 away. And as I explained before, it doesn't matter if 5 the people are away because they were temporarily 6 relocated, because decontamination took time, or 7 because there was interdiction following the 8 decontamination. Whatever the cause of the delay for 9 people returning to their house, that's what drives 10 the cost associated with TIMDEC.
11 So if people cannot return to their house 12 for whatever reason, then we get a high cost 13 associated with that component of the cost equation.
14 So it's not just TIMDEC. So we could say yes, it took 15 longer to plan and then the decontamination was speedy 16 or we could say planning was very short, but 17 decontamination took time. The net effect on the cost 18 will be the same. The code cannot make a difference 19 because it sums these two values inside the code.
20 JUDGE KENNEDY: You're differentiating 21 between the parameter CDNFRM as that's decontamination 22 cost?
23 DR. LEMAY: Correct.
24 JUDGE KENNEDY: And it's your testimony 25 that that's not influenced by TIMDEC?
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Page 2209 1 DR. LEMAY: Correct.
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: That's another cost 3 calculation?
4 DR. LEMAY: Correct.
5 JUDGE KENNEDY: Dr. Bixler?
6 DR. BIXLER: Yes, I'd like to respond to 7 that. They are separate input variables, but they're 8 interrelated in the way that I was just explaining 9 earlier. If you increase the time of TIMDEC, you 10 ought to account for the decrease in the value of 11 CDNFRM to account for the fact that it's really 12 intended to be a present-day value of how much it 13 costs to do all the decontamination. So as you 14 increase the TIMDEC parameter, the value of the 15 decontamination costs should come down from what it 16 would have been if you're assuming that all that 17 expense were to occur in first year.
18 So there's a connection between those two 19 parameters and the analysts should consider that when 20 they choose the values for them.
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: Thank you.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Teagarden, I guess, 23 would you like to add any final comments in regards to 24 the selections that you used of 60 and 120 days after 25 hearing this testimony?
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Page 2210 1 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your Honor, with regards 2 to Fukushima, it was an extraordinary event as I 3 believe we all recognize, the fourth largest 4 earthquake in the last 100 years, followed up by a 5 tsunami that impacted a region.
6 It wasn't specifically a reactor accident.
7 It was a reactor accident based on an external event.
8 And in the Entergy analysis, we include multipliers to 9 address external events --
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sorry to interrupt you.
11 I'm going to have to and I'll probably be doing this 12 to everyone.
13 We're trying to get done this, this 14 afternoon. We've got a bunch more questions to 15 answer. I would like you to focus on any 16 justification. I don't need to be refreshed on what 17 Fukushima is.
18 I'm interested in whether or not you feel 19 any justification needs in regards to defending your 20 selections of 60 and 120. And if you could focus on 21 that, that was the heart of my question. And if you 22 don't have any, that's fine. You've already brought 23 up some, but I thought there was some testimony. Now 24 I give you the opportunity to focus strictly on that 25 as concise as you can. Thank you.
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Page 2211 1 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your Honor, the values 2 Entergy chose were consistent with NUREG-1150. They 3 are consistent with our knowledge of all the SAMAs 4 that we're knowledgeable on. Consistent with the 5 state of the reactor consequence analysis. And while 6 there may be lessons to be learned from Fukushima, 7 those are years in the making. Even as Dr. Lemay 8 noted, this continues to be a developing event.
9 The Entergy SAMA analysis was submitted in 10 2007, four years before the Fukushima event. So we 11 believe that these values are reasonable. Ten years 12 from now, we may have more data, but it's going to 13 take a lot of effort to sift through the data from 14 Fukushima to figure that out.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'll get back to you in 16 a short while hopefully in regards to where we go from 17 here, i.e., the OECR and move to the cost benefit 18 because this is still just a number. It's not the end 19 of the SAMAs, we're still on the costing things of 20 this. That has some implications.
21 Dr. Lemay, I'm back to your chart on 13 of 22 241. I just want to quickly just cover the other 23 parameters. You had some discussion in the testimony 24 on VALWNF, V-A-L-W-N-F. I guess I will give up trying 25 to pronounce it.
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Page 2212 1 Can you bring that up, Andy? 241, Table 2 13 and I don't know what page it's on. We were there 3 before. Exhibit 420, I'm sorry.
4 DR. LEMAY: It's Exhibit 430, and it's 5 Table 13.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: Good, that's right. You 7 had the VALWNF and the other ones below it, but I know 8 in the testimony you did talk somewhat about the 9 VALWNF based on the numbers I see here, there's really 10 no need to spend much time on it because --
11 DR. LEMAY: It was a minor correction 12 because the CPI was not adjusted.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's fine. Likewise, 14 the other ones seem somewhat non-influential except 15 for POPCST costs. Does this enter into you -- you 16 performed this, so obviously, it doesn't necessarily 17 be restricted to New York State 000016. So that does 18 have a fair amount of influence, at least in the 19 maximum level.
20 Do you want to talk about how you arrived 21 at your numbers so that we can see how Entergy might 22 want to defend their particular number based on your 23 comments?
24 DR. LEMAY: So Entergy used the value of 25 8,640 and that was based on a CPI adjustment of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2213 1 moving cost of $5,000 found in NUREG/CR-4551 in 1986.
2 And essentially, they said okay, since the content of 3 the house is contaminated, we're not going to move 4 very much. And they chose this value. And I think 5 that's probably an adequate value because really what 6 are you going to move if your house is contaminated?
7 And then there is the personal income per 8 day and the number of days of lost wages that are 9 considered into the rest of this value. The Entergy 10 value is based on the per capita income in the State 11 of New York in 2005 and they assume an interdiction 12 duration of 140 days based on NUREG/CR-4551.
13 We looked at this and we thought if there 14 was an accident and we had a few million people that 15 were relocated and lost their jobs, it would seem to 16 me that the unemployment caused by this accident would 17 be more similar to the unemployment we've lived 18 through after 2008 than the historical unemployment.
19 We're dealing with massive influx of new people that 20 need a job. And what the New York State has done is 21 during the 2008 crisis, they extended unemployment 22 benefits to 93 weeks.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's reflective of the 24 minimum versus the maximum in your chart?
25 DR. LEMAY: Right, so essentially for the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2214 1 minimum, we said okay, let's keep the value of 140 2 days and for the maximum we said let's use the current 3 value of the extended benefit following the crash in 4 2008. It's a range.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: So if you're only dealing 6 with one range here, the others we had different 7 decontamination factors which made sense to go high 8 and low. This one doesn't have that right, so you 9 just wanted to put bounding numbers on this.
10 DR. LEMAY: Correct, somewhere between 140 11 days --
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: So is it fair to say your 13 position is it ought to be somewhere in the 14 neighborhood of 25,000 is the average between the low 15 and middle to compare against the 8,000?
16 DR. LEMAY: Yes.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Teagarden, what is 18 the -- I assume 1150 is the basis of the 8640?
19 MR. TEAGARDEN: That's correct.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is there any information 21 that you're aware of at 1150 that justifies why that 22 number is appropriate for Indian Point?
23 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your Honor, that was a 24 value that looked at -- as a composite value for 25 individuals having a disruption time of approximately Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2215 1 100 days; of commercial establishments having a 2 disruption time of approximately 180 days. So they 3 took the median of 140 days and used that as a basis.
4 We did a check against historical unemployment figures 5 and found that the value used here exceed the 40 plus 6 years of historical unemployment and so we viewed that 7 as a check for reasonableness.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. If everyone 9 else is ready, I'm ready to move on to where we go to 10 SAMA now.
11 Mr. Teagarden, we've come down here and 12 we're now at the bottom of the page and we have a sum 13 of the OECRs. There's another chart that someone 14 could have with some of the PDFs and so yippee, we've 15 got these numbers.
16 Now what -- briefly, how do we get --
17 where do those numbers fit into the cost benefit 18 analysis?
19 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor, if I 20 could ask for our testimony exhibit number 000450, 21 Entergy 000450, page 64. Page 64. And we can look at 22 the top two tables there.
23 This, in essence, is the roll up of the 24 values. So we have the four cost categories that go 25 into the total for the SAMA cost benefit comparison.
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Page 2216 1 The top item being the population dose risk, labeled 2 also as the offsite exposure cost, followed by offsite 3 economic cost, OECR. So you'll see that those two 4 values added together are basically 90 percent of the 5 costs. And then the onsite costs are a smaller 6 fraction to reach the 100 percent mark.
7 It's worthy of note because there was some 8 discussion about OECR versus PDR. PDR contributes 40 9 percent to the total --
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: They had already said 11 that is not a concern.
12 MR. TEAGARDEN: But there is in the 13 standpoint that many parameter changes that would see 14 an increase in cost, see a reduction in dose.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay, explain that.
16 Thank you.
17 MR. TEAGARDEN: Particularly as we're 18 talking about cleanup attributes, if I am having 19 people from their land for a long period of time while 20 decontamination activities are occurring, or 21 especially in artificial environments, but in essence, 22 I'm spending more and they're going to have less dose.
23 So the more we spend, typically the less dose people 24 receive. So if I invest more in decontamination, 25 typically, my dose values will go down.
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Page 2217 1 Now it's not typically one for one. So --
2 but there is a measure and it depends on the parameter 3 how that interplay comes about.
4 So merely saying that -- well if the OECR 5 goes up 10 percent, doesn't that mean that the bottom 6 line goes up 10 percent is not correct.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, and that's why we're 8 going through this process and it will be reflected in 9 this process.
10 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: It's good to keep that in 12 mind, but we will see that in regards to seeing the 13 final cost benefit and those mitigation measures that 14 end up to be cost beneficial.
15 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes.
16 DR. LEMAY: Yes. And Your Honor, Mr.
17 Teagarden is absolutely correct and we did a 18 correction. We did calculate the PDR and it made a 19 very small change.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: It doesn't matter. We 21 will see whatever that is again. It's not defending 22 your numbers. They need to defend their numbers with 23 the input that you have and you don't have any inputs 24 into the PDR, so we don't have to deal with much more 25 than remember that in our minds that as we change, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2218 1 these things will be compensated for.
2 What are the differences between these two 3 tables?
4 MR. TEAGARDEN: The top table, Table 5 is 5 for Indian Point Plant 2. And the second table 6 --
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: Oh yes, 2 and 3. How 8 many times I read that and glossed right over the 2 9 and the 3. Good thing I'm not a witness.
10 Fine, we've got these. Now, what do we do 11 with them? Where do we go with the SAMA from here?
12 This isn't the end of the SAMA.
13 MR. TEAGARDEN: No, Your Honor. Now we 14 would compare these against the costs for 15 implementation for a given SAMA candidate.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: You don't compare these, 17 do you?
18 MS. POTTS: This is Laurie Potts for the 19 Applicant. Actually, these values represent the costs 20 that would occur right now without the SAMA --
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's the baseline 22 condition, if you will?
23 MS. POTTS: Yes. And then the next step 24 is to change -- you know if the SAMA decreases the 25 frequency of releases and comes up with a new value Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2219 1 and the delta between the two, the difference between 2 the two, then is the benefit of the SAMA.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: So you -- to put it in my 4 words so that I understand it, and thank you for that, 5 you're going to re-run these for the condition that 6 exists with a mitigation effort.
7 MS. POTTS: Correct.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: And see what you come out 9 and the OECR may be up and the PDF may be down 10 -- PDR may be down, or vice versa or who knows? It's 11 going to do what it's going to do based on whatever 12 technique you're evaluating and you're going to come 13 up with these same type of costs. You subtract the 14 two and that's the benefit of that cost. Is that 15 correct?
16 MS. POTTS: Yes.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: And now you have to think 18 -- go ahead.
19 MS. POTTS: I was just going to add it's 20 not the entire benefit because we also included --
21 these values come from our internal events PRA model, 22 so we also included a multiplier to account for 23 external events, such as earthquakes that is based on 24 prior analyses.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: That multiplier Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2220 1 multiplies what? The difference in the costs or --
2 MS. POTTS: Yes.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay.
4 MS. POTTS: And we also included a factor 5 that is based on the uncertainty in the PRA model. It 6 accounts for -- it's the 95th percentile, excuse me, 7 the ratio of the 95th percentile to the mean. And on 8 both Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3, the 9 combination of those two factors, the external event 10 factor and the uncertainty factor was a factor of 11 eight.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: I remember that number.
13 And that number is multiplied by the benefits.
14 MS. POTTS: Yes, we came up with the 15 difference --
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: The difference.
17 MS. POTTS: Multiply it by eight and now 18 that value is compared with the estimated 19 implementation cost.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: And all of that 21 multiplication makes things more attractive.
22 MS. POTTS: Correct.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: It's going to be higher.
24 MS. POTTS: Yes.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: And then you end up with Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2221 1 tableization of the cost benefits and what do you do 2 with that?
3 MS. POTTS: I think we discussed this a 4 little bit yesterday. The ones that -- where the 5 implementation cost is less than the benefit, then we 6 put those into Entergy's process for determining if 7 the modification would indeed occur.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is there a screening 9 process or anything and a step-wise process that's 10 used or is that by the staff or was that done earlier 11 in the process in regards to dropping some of these 12 out and evaluating others that you're aware of?
13 MS. POTTS: You mean as far as how one 14 might be impacted by another?
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, I wasn't thinking 16 that so much. It was more simplistic. Trust me, I 17 may have dreamt this. That's how shallow my life is.
18 I dream this stuff after reading all this testimony.
19 (Laughter.)
20 Is there any screening process that you 21 then use, once you've got all these calculations done, 22 in regards to ranking them?
23 MS. POTTS: There was a screening process 24 on the front end. We had come up with a list of many, 25 many different alternatives based on industry Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2222 1 documents, other plant SAMA analyses, and we went 2 through all of those and determined if we've already 3 implemented it here or if it wouldn't work here or 4 that kind of thing. That may be what you're --
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's exactly it. So 6 you screened the mitigation alternatives before you 7 reran it to come up with those that you thought might 8 be plausible or haven't been done yet at your 9 particular plant.
10 MS. POTTS: Yes, sir.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: Dr. Lemay, do you have 12 any -- that's the process you understood and the same 13 thing you would do?
14 DR. LEMAY: That's the same process as I 15 understand it, yes.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: Good. Staff, Entergy 17 will not provide to you in their application that 18 these are the SAMAs and these are the ones that are 19 cost beneficial. Yippee. What do we do with it?
20 DR. GHOSH: Yes, so I was trying to get to 21 that a little bit before my earlier comment. If we 22 look at the potential impact of taking in some of 23 ISR's calculations into how would it impact the bottom 24 line which is are we going to find additional -- are 25 we going to review additional SAMAs that are Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2223 1 potentially cost beneficial?
2 I just want to point out a couple of 3 things. We've established with the tables here and 4 these tables show the maximum benefit if you 5 eliminated all risk at the plant as it's operating.
6 So if you eliminated all baseline risks, this is the 7 maximum achievable benefit. And we see that the 8 offsite economic cost element is the only one we're 9 playing with. That's the one at issue here that we're 10 talking about. It might be higher.
11 That accounts for about 50 to 55 percent 12 of the total benefit that could be achieved by a SAMA.
13 Any one SAMA is only to act on particular accident 14 sequences. To date, we've never seen a magic SAMA 15 that takes care of all risk. It's typically to 16 mitigate a particular kind of accident. So the 17 example I used earlier, steam generator tube rupture 18 is an important type of accident for both of these 19 plants. And you'll see that there is quite a number 20 of SAMA candidates that are already identified to 21 mitigate those accidents.
22 Now if you go to the FSEIS, we don't have 23 to go there, and you look at the list of potentially 24 cost beneficial SAMAs that have been identified 25 already for Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3, as I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2224 1 mentioned earlier for Indian Point 2, you would have 2 eliminated the entire plant risk twice over by the 3 SAMAs that are identified. Why is that? Because some 4 of their multiple SAMA candidates that are identified 5 as class beneficial that act on the same types of 6 accidents.
7 What the staff has done in our -- in what 8 we particularly do in the review process is we 9 concentrate on which accidents, if we reduce the risk 10 from those, would give us the most bang for the buck 11 and we look to see did the Applicant explore all of 12 the low-cost alternatives to mitigating those types of 13 accidents and through the back and forth with Entergy 14 in this case, we got substantial discussion and 15 additional explanation for why there weren't 16 additional SAMA candidates that appeared to be 17 potentially cost beneficial for those key accident 18 scenarios.
19 So increasing 50 percent of the benefit by 20 some small amount, maybe even a factor of 2, and 21 considering that our existing list of SAMAs is already 22 eliminating entire plant risk twice over, we don't 23 believe we're going to come up with any more SAMAs 24 that would be potentially cost beneficial and that 25 they would be cheaper alternatives to mitigating the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2225 1 same types of accidents that were already looking at 2 mitigating with the list that we have.
3 So with everything we've seen, we don't 4 see a deficiency in what is in our FSEIS with respect 5 to what have we missed in terms of what potentially 6 cost beneficial SAMAs might have been revealed had one 7 of these cost elements been slightly higher.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you, Dr. Ghosh.
9 MR. HARRISON: If I could have one other 10 thought? This is Donald Harrison of the staff as 11 well.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: If it's very brief.
13 MR. HARRISON: It's very brief.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: That was very thorough.
15 MR. HARRISON: Yes, okay, the only point 16 I want to make is when we get the information from the 17 Applicant, we ask questions about additional things 18 that we may be aware of that are considerations for 19 cheaper cost beneficial benefits that we then pose as 20 questions back to the Applicant to have them respond, 21 to provide justifications for that detail.
22 So there's a thorough look at what's 23 provided as well as list of questions we tend to ask 24 about looking for other options as well to make sure 25 we have a complete list of what we propose as SAMAs Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2226 1 for the FSEIS. So I just wanted to make that clear.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you, Mr. Harrison.
3 Dr. Ghosh, is the Applicant required to 4 implement any of these by -- let me just leave it at 5 that.
6 DR. GHOSH: I think as we discussed 7 yesterday, that's the topic of a couple of different 8 SAMA contentions, so --
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's fine. We can 10 leave it until that.
11 MR. HARRISON: I will add again, this is 12 Donald Harrison, is that if the Applicant was asked to 13 implement, they could look at the ones that are 14 currently identified as potentially cost beneficial 15 and likely determine that by implementing just a 16 handful of those, they may have dealt with sufficient 17 amount of risk that the other ones are no longer cost 18 beneficial because the way the SAMAs are done one at 19 a time. When you start to go towards implementation, 20 they may actually look at the combination of SAMAs 21 that might actually give a better benefit.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: Could we go back to Table 23 13, Andy, again. This is for Mr. Teagarden.
24 We see here that what is New York State 25 said gee, it might be as large a difference as this Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2227 1 when we get down right to the bottom that at a 2 minimum, it might be about three and at a maximum it 3 might be seven times.
4 Have you rerun your analyses with their 5 changes to see what the change in the cost benefit 6 ratio ends up to be with these changes?
7 MR. TEAGARDEN: No, Your Honor, we 8 haven't. As a point to mention, I'm not sure it's 9 been clarified, although it's been touched on with 10 numerous comments. In actuality, you would want to 11 take and develop a suite that -- a suite of parameter 12 changes that you thought was representing a change 13 that you thought needed to be done in the technical 14 bases. So for instance, CDRFM and TIMDEC are related 15 to one another. The individuals would be in an area 16 for labor costs as related.
17 So implementing these particular changes 18 does not necessarily reflect a consistent approach for 19 application in MACCS. In actuality, you would need to 20 step back, try to say what are we really trying to 21 represent by some of the variability that's being 22 shown. Where then do I -- how do I put a new 23 combination, a suite of parameter changes together to 24 analyze?
25 We believe that the values presented have Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2228 1 -- we don't agree with the technical bases for those.
2 So then trying to take the next step and develop a 3 consistent suite of parameter changes just was not 4 something we attempted.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: Let me ask another more 6 fundamental question. If one was to say yup, boy, New 7 York State is spot on. As far as I can understand, 8 this should have been the justification for the 9 selection of numbers at Indian Point. That doesn't 10 necessarily mean that the cost benefit analysis is 11 going to change by the same percentage as these OECRs 12 do. Isn't that correct? Because you're taking the 13 same CDNFMs and TIMDECs would also be used when ran it 14 with a mitigation alternative in place, correct?
15 MR. TEAGARDEN: Correct, Your Honor.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: So those are -- yes, this 17 a lot higher number, but likewise when a mitigation is 18 run that will be a lot higher number than with a 19 mitigation now is run.
20 MR. TEAGARDEN: That's correct, Your 21 Honor.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: So by looking at the 23 difference of that, some of that gets factored out, 24 does it not?
25 MR. TEAGARDEN: That's true, Your Honor.
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Page 2229 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: But you don't have any 2 handle on how much that would here?
3 MR. TEAGARDEN: No, Your Honor. Ms.
4 Potts?
5 MS. POTTS: Laurie Potts for the 6 Applicant. You know, it would be different for ever 7 SAMA also.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: It certainly would, yes.
9 Maybe some wouldn't be a great deal, but fine, then 10 maybe it isn't -- yes.
11 Dr. Lemay, have you tried to put a handle 12 on how this results in the actual cost benefit 13 analysis because that's really what we're interested 14 in in the long run, isn't it?
15 DR. LEMAY: I don't, Your Honor, Francois 16 Lemay for State of New York. I don't have the 17 information to carry out this type of analysis.
18 I just don't.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: Anyone else on this topic 20 area?
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: Is it fair to compare, 22 again, Dr. Wardwell talked about for the argument's 23 sake just implementing or accepting this level of 24 change, this delta in OECR. What I understand him to 25 do is try to compare it to -- maybe -- this may not be Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2230 1 the right comparison, but in my own mind, there are 2 SAMAs that -- there's cost benefit analyses that have 3 been conducted. And this is suggesting a change in 4 the cost of a SAMA analysis looking towards is there 5 another mitigation alternative that would be cost 6 beneficial.
7 I guess what I'm looking for and does it 8 make sense to look where the line was drawn for the 9 last mitigation alternative if that cost is of such a 10 number that no matter what -- if we accept -- if these 11 values were accepted by Entergy as a delta towards the 12 last benefit calculation, would there be a potential 13 mitigation alternative that would be cost beneficial 14 or is that -- I see a lot of stares over there. I 15 mean is that even a meaningful comparison? I guess 16 maybe -- start with the staff.
17 What I was hearing from some of what you 18 were saying, Dr. Ghosh.
19 DR. GHOSH: If I could -- actually, I 20 think Ms. Potts brought up a point before about the 21 margin that is already in the existing analysis.
22 There is an uncertainty factor that's applied to the 23 combination of the internal plus external benefits.
24 The external benefits multiplier itself, we believe 25 adds a degree of conservatism because it is based on Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2231 1 an over estimate of the CDF for reasons that we talk 2 about in the FSEIS and that Entergy also discusses in 3 their application. So there's some degree of cushion, 4 you could say, in the external benefits multiplier and 5 then that combined internal and external benefits is -
6 - the total is again multiplied by an uncertainty 7 multiplier.
8 Now the origin of that uncertainty 9 multiplier happens to be the ratio of the 95 10 percentile CDF to the point estimate or mean of the 11 CDF which is what comes out of the level 1 analysis.
12 But the way that the NRC views the worth of that 13 multiplier is that, in essence, it provides some 14 cushion for any analysis uncertainties that may exist 15 in the total analysis.
16 And it's just been a kind of a rule of 17 thumb in SAMA analyses that the way you come up with 18 that multiplier to represent to any analysis 19 uncertainties as to take that ratio of the 95th to the 20 mean or point estimates CDF. So with this factor of 21 eight, that is applied to the initial calculation of 22 total internal benefits, we believe there's actually 23 a fairly large cushion that's already in there.
24 So let's say we were to look at the effect 25 of some of New York State's increase in the OECR. We Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2232 1 established earlier the OECR is on the order of 50 2 percent of the total benefit that we're looking at so 3 you could have to take these multipliers and bring 4 them down by on the order of 50 percent, just to 5 simplify because it does depend to some extent on SAMA 6 to SAMA.
7 So maybe instead of a factor of 3 to 7, 8 we're looking at a factor 1.5 to 3.5 as a starting 9 point.
10 Then we also have to look at the other 11 side of the equation which is the implementation costs 12 because ultimately we're comparing the total change in 13 benefit to the implementation costs. The 14 implementation costs part of the equation isn't 15 changing. So if you look at the net possible effect 16 of taking these numbers, it's going to be something 17 less than 1.5 to 3.5. And we're already using a 18 multiplier of eight to account for analysis 19 uncertainties. So I think we feel that to some extent 20 the existing conservatisms and uncertainty accounting 21 in the analysis may provide the boon to consider the 22 possibility of this type of sensitivity.
23 This is all hypothetical because I think 24 as we discussed, we don't really agree with the 25 methods that went into coming up with some of these Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2233 1 differences. So just hypothetically, if we did 2 believe them, we think that the existing analysis 3 already can accommodate some of this, or all of it.
4 MR. HARRISON: And if I could just add one 5 thought. This is Donald Harrison of the staff. just 6 to support the fact that we believe there's margin 7 because of the use of the 95th percentile ratio to the 8 mean, the staff's guidance for making decisions when 9 using probabilistic risk assessment and licensing 10 actions, we refer to those to being risk-informed 11 licensing actions.
12 The metrics that we use for accepting 13 those applications is using the mean value from those 14 analyses. So just that typically when we do a license 15 application, it's the mean value. Here, we actually 16 ask them to look for SAMAs and ratio them up to the 17 95th to provide that margin.
18 JUDGE KENNEDY: I don't know if you 19 remember, Dr. Ghosh, I don't know if you remember your 20 testimony just before the break. And I think you may 21 have been trying to talk about this margin concept, 22 but you were referring to some of the parameters that 23 Dr. Lemay has identified here. And my takeaway from 24 that and I'm really asking you to confirm that is that 25 yes, he has introduced some uncertainty in various Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2234 1 NUREG-1150 parameters, carried forward in this Indian 2 Point plant-specific analysis, but that you didn't 3 believe that it would have any impact on -- and I'll 4 use the word result. I'll let you put what word you'd 5 like in there.
6 And I think that's what I was hearing this 7 morning, just at the closure and that's why I didn't 8 want to leave this morning's activities without coming 9 back to that.
10 I mean we have a table here that tries to 11 provide some perspective on the potential impact on 12 the offsite economic cost risk, but --
13 DR. GHOSH: Yes.
14 JUDGE KENNEDY: Do you remember the 15 testimony from just before the break? You were 16 speaking and I think you were referring to this. I 17 believe you were referring to this table. If you 18 could confirm, deny, maybe just try to summarize 19 quickly that point.
20 DR. GHOSH: Sure.
21 MR. TURK: I'm sorry, Sherwin Turk. I'm 22 having a little trouble hearing the witness. Could I 23 ask her to move the microphone closer and speak a 24 little slower?
25 JUDGE KENNEDY: Sure.
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Page 2235 1 MR. TURK: Thank you.
2 DR. GHOSH: Yes. That was an additional 3 point I was making. The one I made just a little bit 4 earlier, but that is an additional aspect. So there's 5 two things. You're right that my fundamental point is 6 that the ISR New York State analysis introduces some 7 uncertainty and into particular elements of the 8 benefit calculation. And I believe that the existing 9 margin in the analysis can accommodate this 10 uncertainty already. That was one point.
11 The point I was trying to make earlier is 12 actually an additional point on top of that which is 13 that the final results that we really care about which 14 is what is a good list of potentially cost beneficial 15 SAMA candidates? There, I was referring to the final 16 safety evaluation impact statement, Table G-6 which 17 shows the final list of potentially cost beneficial 18 SAMAs.
19 Just as an example, if you look at the 20 candidates for Indian Point 2, if you actually take 21 credit for implementing all of those SAMAs, you 22 completely eliminate the plant risk twice over. So if 23 we were to say what would be the additional impact of 24 these uncertainties, can we find additional SAMAs that 25 might be cost beneficial, I think the answer is that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2236 1 is very unlikely because once you started to implement 2 the low cost alternatives for mitigating the dominate 3 accident sequences, the ones that are below the cut 4 off right now are going to be -- it's hard to imagine 5 that they would really become cost beneficial since 6 there is already alternatives on the table to mitigate 7 those same types of accident sequences that are 8 disclosed as potentially cost beneficial in the FSEIS.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: And there's no way to 10 calculate those out without just rerunning all --
11 you'd have to start from the first mitigation that you 12 implemented that value, but then you'd have to rerun 13 it based on the new one on top of that one. You 14 couldn't use the numbers from the previous one in any 15 manner to figure out what that would be. It's a 16 feature of a more independent analyses, is that 17 correct?
18 DR. GHOSH: That's right. If you did in 19 order, you'd have to re-baseline every time you took 20 credit for one. And right now, each one is done 21 separately, yes.
22 JUDGE KENNEDY: All right, that's good 23 clarification. Thank you, Dr. Ghosh.
24 JUDGE McDADE: It's just about 1 o'clock 25 right now. It may be an appropriate time to break Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2237 1 until 2 o'clock for lunch.
2 Before we break, are there any 3 housekeeping matters that need to be taken care of 4 during the lunch break from the staff?
5 MR. TURK: Not at this time, Your Honor.
6 JUDGE McDADE: Clearwater?
7 MS. GREENE: Not at this time, Your Honor.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Riverkeeper?
9 MR. MUSEGAAS: No, Your Honor.
10 JUDGE McDADE: New York?
11 MR. SIPOS: No, Your Honor.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Entergy?
13 MR. BESSETTE: No, Your Honor.
14 JUDGE McDADE: We're in recess until 2 15 o'clock.
16 (Whereupon, at 12:59 p.m., the hearing was 17 recessed, to reconvene at 2:00 p.m.)
18 JUDGE McDADE: The hearing will come to 19 order. By way of housekeeping, I had asked our law 20 clerks to inform you with regard to scheduling. It is 21 our firm intent, strong intent, crusade-level intent, 22 to finish up on New York 12 today. But the likelihood 23 of getting very far on New York 16, 17 are small.
24 So we advise that you could allow those 25 witnesses to go forth, and not hang around on the off-Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2238 1 chance we might get to them very briefly today. It is 2 our intent, as I said, to finish up. What we plan to 3 do is to ask additional questions right now.
4 At that point, when we're finished asking 5 those questions, to take a break. Given the nature of 6 the testimony that we have heard and to ensure our own 7 mutual understanding of the issues, we propose to do 8 the same process that we did at the end of Technical 9 Contention 2, which would be to allow interrogation of 10 these witnesses by New York, Entergy and the staff, 11 again with the concept that this will be brief.
12 It won't be repetitive, that if you 13 believe that there are aspects of the testimony of 14 your witness that either was susceptible to 15 misunderstanding on the part of the Board, or 16 testimony from the opposing witnesses, that you 17 believe did not accurately reflect reality, that you 18 will have an opportunity to do that.
19 Again, we're not looking into a lot of 20 background about the witnesses' credentials, the 21 witnesses, you know, who they're employed by. We have 22 some -- I don't know who else was speaking. But so we 23 will do that, again with the idea that the entire 24 process should take no more than an hour, and we will 25 do that in that order, New York, Entergy and then the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2239 1 NRC staff.
2 It is our even stronger intent on Monday 3 to ensure that we finish New York 16 and 17. I've 4 been advised that I have a button up here that I can 5 turn off all of the microphones, and that includes the 6 microphones of Judge Kennedy and Judge Wardwell. So 7 now we can test that. They would not be able to be 8 heard.
9 So one way or another, we are going to 10 finish 16 and 17 on Monday. But let me stop talking, 11 and see if we can finish 12 here quickly. Judge 12 Kennedy.
13 JUDGE KENNEDY: This is Judge Kennedy. I 14 have just a couple of follow-up questions, and I'd 15 like to go back to my favorite exhibit -- oh no, not 16 my favorite exhibit, but the exhibit that we've been 17 using for most of this contention, which is New York 18 State 430, page six again, if you could. Probably 19 burned into the screen by now.
20 VOICE: I'm sorry, which exhibit?
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: New York State 430. There 22 it is. Thank you, thank you. I guess I'd like to 23 turn back to the TIMDEC parameter. We've heard some 24 discussion here during the hearing about its origin, 25 and we've heard Dr. Lemay provide some counter views Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2240 1 on how to compute that number.
2 I guess just to close this issue, I'd like 3 to go back through, first starting with Entergy, and 4 talk about the TIMDEC parameter for DF 3 and DF 15, 5 and discuss its origin, why it was selected to be 6 plant-specific for Indian Point.
7 So if we could start there, and then I'm 8 going to pass to the staff, just to keep this going.
9 Thanks. Mr. Teagarden.
10 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor. TIMDEC 11 represents the time that individuals are maintained 12 away from their residence while decontamination 13 activities are occurring. The costs accrue during 14 this time while the individuals are away, such that it 15 establishes a cost basis.
16 So if individuals are modeled to be away 17 from their home or one year or five years or ten 18 years, then the costs are being accrued for that time.
19 Individuals are not relocated back. For NUREG, I'm 20 sorry, for the Entergy analysis, we used the NUREG-21 1150 basis for those values.
22 We believe that's appropriate because of 23 the way that MACCS models TIMDEC in conjunction with 24 evaluating the potential for extended interdiction, 25 for the more severe cases where there could be Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2241 1 contamination. So that's the basis, Your Honor.
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: Is there any other, 3 speaking mostly to the 60-day, 120-day, is there any 4 guidance, any basis information coming out of NUREG-5 1150 that would be useful for the Board to hear, that 6 would convince us that these would be appropriate 7 values for use on Indian Point?
8 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your Honor, the FERC 9 document, NUREG-3673, has a development where it goes 10 through and puts the model in essence together. It 11 looks at a time of 90 days, and then as it was 12 implemented in NUREG-1150, they moved in one version 13 up to 60 days, and then a further 30 days to reach the 14 120 days.
15 So there's, you know, there's a technical 16 basis that's developed there. But it's, you know, as 17 implemented in NUREG-1150, and then as carried forward 18 in the latest state-of-the-art reactor consequence 19 analysis.
20 JUDGE KENNEDY: Not putting words in your 21 mouth, are you pointing us to this specific document, 22 so that we could explore a basis for its use at Indian 23 Point, recognizing that the number has changed going 24 to 1150?
25 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your Honor, can we just Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2242 1 confer for one moment?
2 JUDGE KENNEDY: Sure.
3 (Pause.)
4 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your Honor, I think we'll 5 just leave it as is.
6 JUDGE KENNEDY: Okay. Let's go back and -
7 - let's go back through the 60-day, 120-day. Should 8 we be looking at NUREG-1150, or should we go farther 9 back to look at NUREG-3673?
10 MR. TEAGARDEN: NUREG-1150, Your Honor, I 11 don't think has much discussion on this particular 12 point. It's more just that we see in evidence that 13 within NUREG-1150, they selected the 60 days and the 14 120 days. When you go back to the FERC document, 15 there's just a discussion of the model development, 16 where they explore how the model is developed. They 17 use a basis of 90 days.
18 But then when it's carried forward in the 19 NUREG-1150, that's modified to reflect the 60 days and 20 the 120 days.
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: Well, when you say "model 22 development," what are speaking of? Is that the MACCS 23 code, or is it an input DEC for a particular plant 24 site?
25 DR. O'KULA: Your Honor, Kevin O'Kula for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2243 1 the applicant. That indeed is correct, and going 2 forward from the 1984 Entergy Exhibit 466, the Burke 3 documents, as we've been describing it, there was then 4 the generation or the development of the predecessor 5 to MACCS-2, the MACCS code, which preserved, at least 6 initially, the thinking captured in Burke in the Table 7 4-5 that we pointed to previously, on the three levels 8 of decontamination factor, the three TIMDECs values 9 that were quoted then.
10 And then the original basis for the three 11 levels of per capita decontamination costs. Those 12 were carried forward in the MACCS code documentation, 13 and I can pull out the Entergy exhibit number. But 14 suffice to say, this was a 1980, a late 1980's 15 development, and the thinking was that the CRAC2 code, 16 that was developed and supported early documentation 17 on safety from, with respect to severe accidents, was 18 being retired and evolved in a MACCS code.
19 So the three levels were maintained, as 20 well as the values of TIMDEC, and those were later 21 incorporated in NUREG-1150, Your Honor, with the 22 adjustments made as discussed by Mr. Teagarden with 23 respect to deciding that a 60-day period would be 24 appropriate, and looking at the upper bound to that 25 period of 120 days.
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Page 2244 1 I would like to just incrementally add, 2 Your Honor, that sort of another qualitative 3 discussion point out of 3673, Entergy Exhibit 466, is 4 found in the middle of page 4-17. I think we've 5 referred to this document over and over again.
6 But it does qualitatively discuss a 7 sentence or maybe a little bit of a description, and 8 it may be worth putting up Entergy 466, and paging to 9 4-17 in the middle of the page. Can we do that, Andy?
10 Thank you very much, Your Honor.
11 Now I think the key set of sentences are 12 after the first sentence, decontamination cost 13 estimates incorporate information on a multitude of 14 possible methods, to be used in the decontamination of 15 non-farm areas, and have been weighted to account for 16 residential, commercial and industrial and public use 17 land areas on national average statistics.
18 There's a follow-up sentence that I think 19 also could be added. The methods to be employed for 20 each level of effort in each type of area include 21 combinations of decontamination techniques.
22 So we wanted that to be added to the 23 record, in terms of the basis out of Entergy Exhibit 24 466, in terms of those three levels that then evolve 25 to two levels. We've associated two levels of TIMDEC.
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Page 2245 1 JUDGE KENNEDY: It's interesting looking 2 at this, and I think that this was up on the screen 3 yesterday, and it didn't occur to me until all the 4 discussion today.
5 The concept that these have been weighted 6 by land use, different types of commercial industrial 7 properties, open up the question of a, and we probably 8 don't know the answer, but what type of land use was 9 used in this study, and at least it opens the door 10 that the value could be adjusted for the land use 11 profile around Indian Point.
12 And again, I think we're going to go back 13 and bite our tail again, because since we don't know 14 the original basis for the number, and then this opens 15 the door that it has a weighting factor based on land 16 use or a land use profile, I guess I'm wondering if 17 any, did it occur to anyone on Entergy's side that 18 this paragraph that you're pointing us to goes 19 contrary, at least in my mind, contrary to the 20 position you're trying to take, that this is a good 21 value for Indian Point, unless the land use profile in 22 this number is consistent with the profile around 23 Indian Point?
24 I guess I'm asking if you would comment on 25 that please. Either Mr. Teagarden or --
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Page 2246 1 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your Honor, Mr. Teagarden 2 here responding. Yes.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: Go ahead.
4 MR. TEAGARDEN: We wanted to, I guess to 5 highlight this particular text as it relates to the 6 discussion that we had on, you know, flat plane 7 versus, you know, MACCS distributing, depositing 8 material on a flat plain, versus the costs being 9 reflective of decontaminating a mixture of land uses.
10 Now the fact that this, the values 11 developed in NUREG-1150 were applied universally 12 across the five different sites means that in their 13 minds, in the developer's minds, those values were 14 sufficiently applicable to each of the sites, that 15 they could be used that way.
16 That's, I think, generally consistent with 17 the fact that the SAMA analysis is a spatially 18 averaged analysis. It's looking at a mixture that 19 would be reflective of 7,800 square miles. So it's 20 kind of a global value that it reflects.
21 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess now that I'm 22 focusing again, is this more -- this sentence, two 23 sentences more applicable to the CDNFRM parameter, as 24 opposed to TIMDEC?
25 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor.
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Page 2247 1 JUDGE KENNEDY: Is that -- yeah, okay.
2 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor.
3 JUDGE KENNEDY: So we shouldn't take this 4 as being supportive of T-I-M-D-E-C?
5 MR. TEAGARDEN: No, Your Honor, not 6 specifically, although the variables, as I mentioned 7 earlier. The individual values with individuals 8 variables are related to, have to be related to one 9 another.
10 They form a suite of variables that 11 reflect how the decontamination is modeled in total 12 within the MACCS-2 code. So if the cost is linked to 13 the time, which is linked to the dose reduction factor 14 achieved.
15 JUDGE KENNEDY: So there is a linkage?
16 MR. TEAGARDEN: There is a linkage.
17 JUDGE KENNEDY: If I was to summarize and 18 ask Entergy to confirm, it seems like to me, hearing 19 the discussion here, that the TIMDEC values have their 20 root in 1150, NUREG-1150?
21 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor.
22 JUDGE KENNEDY: And the CD --
23 MR. TEAGARDEN: CDNFRM, sir.
24 JUDGE KENNEDY: We need a phonetic version 25 of this, but that parameter, the C-D-N-F-R-M parameter Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2248 1 is also based in NUREG-1150?
2 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor. All of 3 these related, interrelated values for these 4 interrelated variables we take consistently from 5 NUREG-1150, and you wouldn't want to arbitrarily 6 change just one of those values, because without 7 evaluating the impact upon the other related 8 variables, to make sure that what you're seeking to 9 model is being appropriately reflected in the model.
10 JUDGE KENNEDY: So that the Entergy view 11 is, and maybe others hold the same view, is that these 12 parameters are linked in a complex way, that the user 13 of the -- developing the input deck needs to be 14 careful as to how they assign those parameters?
15 MR. TEAGARDEN: Very much so, sir.
16 JUDGE KENNEDY: So in addition to pointing 17 to NUREG-1150 as the source of the parameters, I guess 18 confirm that I see a reluctance to change either one 19 of the values, without exploring the need to change 20 the other parameter?
21 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor.
22 JUDGE KENNEDY: I guess at this point, I'd 23 like to give the staff a chance to help us -- if 24 you've said it already, it's a confirmation. But at 25 least give us your perspective on why the staff Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2249 1 believes that two TIMDEC parameters for the different 2 dose reduction factors are reasonable and appropriate 3 for Indian Point, and why the CDNFRM parameter is an 4 appropriate parameter for Indian Point?
5 MR. HARRISON: This is Donald Harrison of 6 the staff. I would just say, again within the 7 NUREG/CR-3673 that we have up here, there's one of the 8 things that the staff looked for was other places that 9 identify the mean time or an average time tor 10 decontamination.
11 There's a comparison in the later part of 12 this document, between what they call the new economic 13 model and the CRAC2 code, where they just have a 14 sentence that says the mean time to decontamination is 15 90 days.
16 So we looked at that as, if you will, 17 confirmation of the reasonableness of the numbers that 18 were being used today, given the history of where 19 these documents are from the mid-80's. They came 20 forward 60 and 120 days in NUREG-1150. Do we want t 21 talk about the non-farm factors or -- because it 22 seemed like you were asking about the other values as 23 well as TIMDEC?
24 JUDGE KENNEDY: I was. I think these are 25 three we've been -- and I'm not sure you had a chance Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2250 1 to confirm the reasonableness of the CDNFRM parameter 2 this morning. So I'll give you that chance to 3 enlighten us.
4 MR. JONES: Your Honor, this is Joe Jones 5 for staff. When you're asking when the value was 6 confirmed, are you asking with regard to the initial 7 review, or the review of the testimony that has been 8 presented to date?
9 JUDGE KENNEDY: That's a good question.
10 I guess what I have in mind is the staff has, in the 11 final supplementary Environmental Impact Statement, 12 has acknowledged, at least in my mind, the 13 reasonableness of Entergy's analysis.
14 I'm just, I'm asking to confirm that this 15 is the value that was used, and the basis of that 16 confirmation of its reasonableness. So it's that time 17 frame, I guess, is what I'm looking for.
18 MR. JONES: Okay. One moment, Your Honor, 19 please.
20 (Pause.)
21 MR. HARRISON: Yes. Well, I believe what 22 we would stand behind is NUREG-1150 provides the basis 23 for the use of that factor as well, as the value for 24 the TIMDEC values.
25 JUDGE KENNEDY: And also for all three Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2251 1 parameters? Is that -- I'm sorry. Is that what you 2 said?
3 MR. HARRISON: Yes. That's what our 4 position would be.
5 JUDGE KENNEDY: It seems to me, and I 6 guess I'm going to ask the question, that there's a 7 level of confidence in the historical perspective of 8 these values, that at least Dr. Lemay has pointed out 9 another set of approaches that we've all -- we've 10 heard testimony here today where we've gone back and 11 forth on how well he did it and how, what the flaws 12 and what the strengths are.
13 Do I understand the staff to believe that 14 the values that are rooted in 1150, that go back in 15 time and have maybe an older heritage, are still good 16 today? Have you done, has the staff done an 17 assessment, that these values have stood the test of 18 time, and that there is no need to do additional 19 analysis, to come up with better numbers?
20 MR. JONES: Your Honor, this is Joe Jones 21 with staff. I think this exercise of reviewing the 22 alternative input parameters has given us a great 23 degree of confidence that the original values are 24 reasonable.
25 If we look at the four approaches Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2252 1 presented by Dr. Lemay, and account for things like 2 conservation of mass, the time value of money, the 3 variability in the variables that were, the dependent 4 variables that were changed, and if we look, and if we 5 consider that the 15- and 30-year durations cause 6 condemnation that would normally be decontaminated at 7 a cheaper amount, we start to see those numbers coming 8 down very close, and certainly within reason, within 9 a level of uncertainty of the original values used in 10 the analysis by Entergy.
11 JUDGE KENNEDY: All right, thank you.
12 I'll pass the microphone to Dr. Wardwell.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'd like to switch gears 14 for a while, and cover a bunch of miscellaneous items 15 that we haven't touched upon yet, just to make sure 16 we've got, any questions we might have in regards to 17 these issues aired here in a public format.
18 The first one I think I'd like to go to is 19 Entergy's testimony on page 11. That's Exhibit 450 on 20 page 11. I'm not sure you have to pull it up, and it 21 deals with the NUREG/CR-5148, the draft NUREG/CR-5148, 22 and I think I'd just like to ask a question.
23 Regardless of its origin or the quality of 24 the document whatever, isn't it fair to say that it at 25 least is an analysis or is it analysis of a SAMA at Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2253 1 Indian Point that did not use Sample Problem A. I 2 direct this to staff, anyone on the staff that would 3 like to answer that.
4 MR. JONES: This is Joe Jones for staff.
5 If you'll let me take one moment to get to this page.
6 We're talking about the draft document, NUREG/CR-5148, 7 and the question is it effectively a SAMA analysis for 8 Indian Point.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: Is it a SAMA analysis at 10 Indian Point, specifically tailored to Indian Point, 11 that doesn't use Sample Problem A values?
12 MR. JONES: This particular document 13 actually says it is not representative of Indian 14 Point. It analyzed an accident at Indian Point, but 15 it did some things that aren't in direct conflict with 16 the SAMA analysis. It pointed the wind direction 17 directly at the highest population areas.
18 So it calculated the highest cost, and 19 that was the intent of this document. But it 20 specifically says in here, and I have the page number 21 referenced. If you'll give me a moment, I can 22 identify where it says it is not applicable to Indian 23 Point, or any other specific site.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay. Let me ask you 25 this then. Did it use parameters that site-specific Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2254 1 to Indian Point, in whatever analysis that then did 2 you do in that particular document?
3 MR. JONES: This particular document in 4 general did not use parameters, in my belief that are 5 specific to Indian Point. It identifies the sources 6 of information in, I believe, Appendix C, and most of 7 those sources of information are traced to West Coast 8 vendors, where the analysts made calls to local 9 people.
10 The analysts were at Pacific Northwest 11 Laboratory in Washington State, and out of about 178 12 references, we see that most of these are West Coast 13 references. Other parameters developed in here were 14 developed using the RS Means Manual, which provides us 15 -- this is a construction manual that provides kind of 16 national level data.
17 They use those values directly. That's 18 not a bad source of information. It's used widely.
19 But the Means Manual provides an extensive list of 20 multipliers to take into account the locality, and 21 there would have been at least dozen specific locality 22 multipliers that should have been applied that 23 weren't.
24 So when I look at the analysis, I do not 25 see enough specificity to say that it was New York-Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2255 1 specific, and that's consistent with what the document 2 says.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you recall if any of 4 the parameters were, input parameters were site-5 specific to the Indian Point region?
6 MR. JONES: I would have to review the 7 document for a moment, Your Honor.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay. I was even going 9 to let you off the hook more than that, but you've 10 offered to -- I thought you were going to say you have 11 to look it over again at some point. But if you're 12 going to look it over now, fine.
13 While you're doing that, I will move on to 14 Dr. Lemay. How would you characterize this document?
15 The same way that you heard Mr. Jones from staff, or 16 do you have a different interpretation of it, now that 17 we've all had a chance to review it in more detail 18 since it came to everyone's attention?
19 DR. LEMAY: Francois Lemay for the State 20 of New York. Before I started, I just want to correct 21 the record, because I misspoke this morning. I said 22 that the decontamination at Fukushima started in March 23 2011. It started in March 2012.
24 Regarding your question Your Honor, this 25 document is an analysis of the decontamination costs Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2256 1 around Indian Point. Are we talking about the Terrell 2 document?
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: We're talking about 4 NUREG/CR-5148. It's a draft that was never finalized, 5 I believe, and was discovered.
6 MS. LIBERATORE: Your Honor, Kathryn 7 Liberatore for the State. Is this New York State 8 Exhibit 424-A through BB, just for clarification 9 purposes?
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: 424, yes.
11 DR. LEMAY: So it's 424, which is the --
12 yes. That document, NUREG/CR-5148, is the analysis of 13 a decontamination cost around Indian Point, and it is 14 true that many sources of data are from the West Coast 15 and other places, but they used site data, they used 16 the population density, they used the land use around 17 Indian Point to calculate the cost.
18 I want to be clear. I'm not advocating 19 that the results of that assessment should be used for 20 a NEPA analysis. That's not, and we were not aware of 21 this document when we developed our four methods. But 22 it seems to me that NUREG, the NRC in the 80's was 23 exploring how to calculate decontamination costs at 24 various sites, and this is one example.
25 They used a methodology that is very Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2257 1 similar to CONDO. They partitioned the land in 2 different types of land use; they looked at building 3 density. They looked at the number of surfaces in the 4 building; they looked at the labor fraction and they 5 tried to come up with the cost.
6 Then if we divide that by the overall 7 population, we can get a cost of decontamination per 8 person. So I'm not advocating this particular example 9 as a NEPA-type and site-specific analysis for Indian 10 Point. I'm presenting it as one example of what can 11 be done if you decide to do a site-specific analysis.
12 And many of the parameters that are in 13 that example are wrong. They are not what we're 14 talking about today. But it's an example.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you recall any of the 16 input parameters that were site-specific to Indian 17 Point, that aren't site-specific in the SAMA analysis 18 that Entergy has performed?
19 DR. LEMAY: Population density. The land 20 use, the building density in each of the grid sectors.
21 The document takes a database of Census data, and maps 22 it over the grid, and it tries to extract as much 23 information as possible from the Census data, to do 24 the best possible mapping of the land use.
25 So it goes a little in more detail than Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2258 1 what MACCS does, and I guess that was the purpose of 2 this research project.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Teagarden, do you 4 have any comments in regards to those parameters that 5 he mentioned, that he alleges have, were specific to 6 Indian Point, and to what degree does MACCS address 7 those in the SAMA analysis, those same site-specific 8 parameters in the SAMA analysis?
9 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your HONOR, the draft 10 NUREG-5148 reflects a stylized assessment, to 11 demonstrate a code that we understand is a -- no 12 longer around, available, operable, not clear. How it 13 ever continued on past this document, we don't find 14 much of any reference to literature.
15 To the degree that they used an Indian 16 Point population density, the Entergy analysis uses an 17 Indian Point population density. To the degree that 18 Indian Point uses land use, the SAMA analysis uses 19 appropriate land use and this used reportedly a 20 representative land use for New York.
21 However, there are other important 22 elements, just one of which are the source terms. The 23 source terms that were used as part of this analysis 24 were generic source terms.
25 JUDGE WARDWELL: I'm not trying to focus Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2259 1 on that. I'm more focused on what are those that were 2 site-specific inputs? That's all I'm interested in, 3 the inputs, and it seems that it's your position that 4 MACCS has addressed those that were brought up by Dr.
5 Lemay.
6 I assume that you've done it on the 7 various grid sectors within the radial area that you 8 provided uniquely to each one of those, representing 9 what is there in that particular condition. Yes. Dr.
10 Lemay.
11 DR. LEMAY: Yes. Your Honor, in MACCS-2 12 we have only, in the grid elements, we have very few.
13 There is not much we can say. We can say if it's 14 land, if it's farm or if it's something else, or 15 water. So that's the extent of the land use.
16 Then there is the value of non-farm 17 wealth, for grid elements. So there is not the level 18 of detail that -- it doesn't say if we have, if we're 19 dealing with tall buildings or we're dealing with 20 industrial area or anything like that. It's not 21 there. That's the kind of thing that I believe Dr.
22 Terrell was trying to integrate in his analysis.
23 Can I comment, because Entergy seems to be 24 going back to this mass balance thing. Can I just 25 comment on this for a moment?
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Page 2260 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: The answer is yes, 2 possibly not right now. I don't multi-task very well.
3 Flag me again if I breeze through, once we get 4 through. I've got several topics to cover. I will 5 get back to you after I resolve this topic. If I 6 forget, too bad. No. Just flag me.
7 JUDGE McDADE: Actually, excuse me. Dr.
8 Wardwell, before you do, if we could just take a very 9 brief break in place. I just, I'll be right back.
10 Excuse me.
11 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
12 JUDGE McDADE: Excuse me. For a moment 13 there I started to feel a little bit nauseous, and it 14 wasn't as a result of the testimony. I think it was 15 the result of my lunch. But thank you for indulging 16 me there. Judge Wardwell, we're back in session.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Jones, you must have 18 had plenty of time now to peruse that.
19 MR. JONES: Yes, Your Honor, and I would 20 agree. Land use and population density are about the 21 only two Indian Point-specific parameters that I've 22 identified here.
23 I did find it on page 1.11, where it 24 specifically said that the results that are reported 25 should not be considered as representative of a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2261 1 reactor accident consequences, either for pressurized 2 water reactors in general, or for the Indian Point 3 reactors.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: I think we're aware of 5 that. We're again focusing on the input parameters.
6 That's what's of interest to us. If in fact they were 7 site-specific input parameters that weren't done by 8 Entergy, that would be of interest, that someone else 9 has done something like that, regardless of the 10 adequacy or the effectiveness of the model that 11 they're plugging it into is somewhat irrelevant.
12 DR. O'KULA: Your Honor, Kevin O'Kula for 13 the applicant. We'd just like to Point out that the 14 database that is provided with the New York State 15 Exhibit 424, one of the letter divisions there. But 16 after examining the document for the weeks following 17 its disclosure, it does appear that the sources of 18 data that were used in the development of the document 19 for decon, are of the same vintage, if not earlier, 20 than those that would have been accessed with by Burke 21 at the same Point.
22 They're both vintage documents. This one 23 stemmed from the same time. 3413, which was the basis 24 for the later document that's being discussed, 25 NUREG/CR-5148 or New York State 424, all did their Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2262 1 data review as far as methods on various substrates or 2 surfaces to be contaminated, roughly about the same 3 time.
4 If not moreso, that the draft NUREG/CR-5 5148 was somewhat earlier, in fact. Mr. Jones has 6 made the Point previously that West Coast resources 7 were evaluated for methods and costs per unit area, on 8 various techniques.
9 But if you look at those dates in the 10 techniques that were assessed, those are, to a large 11 extent, no different from what was largely in place in 12 the late 70's early 80's.
13 So I would conclude, based on my opinion, 14 that the database that is encoded into decon, a cost 15 of that accountability code is much similar to what 16 has presently been more homogenized, but also is 17 incorporated in the cost figures that were included in 18 Burke, and then later made their way into the basis 19 for NUREG-1150, and that we draw upon in the 20 Entergy/SAMA analysis.
21 MS. LIBERATORE: Your Honor, Kathryn 22 Liberatore for the State. Just a Point of 23 clarification. It appeared Dr. O'Kula was reading 24 from a document. I was just wondering if that was a 25 particular page of NUREG/CR-5148 that we could cite?
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Page 2263 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Can you reference, if you 2 were reading from something, were you reading from 3 some page, and could you --
4 DR. O'KULA: Could that have been -- Your 5 Honor, could that have been Mr. Harrison?
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: Dr. O'Kula.
7 DR. O'KULA: I was not reading. My 8 discussion was based on just comparing my notes on the 9 draft NUREG/CR-4158 (sic).
10 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Dr. Lemay.
11 DR. LEMAY: Yes. The same, in roughly the 12 same section, and unfortunately I don't have the 13 document in front of me, but Dr. Terrell also says 14 that one of the things that could be seriously in 15 error is the decontamination factors, and the 16 techniques used in the cost.
17 He warns that given the limited data 18 available, they could be seriously in error. That's 19 a warning he gives in the document. So if they're the 20 same vintage and the same sources, and they seem to be 21 comparable to the Burke document, maybe the same 22 warning should apply.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Now you had 24 another area you wanted to discuss.
25 DR. O'KULA: Your Honor, thank you. One -
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Page 2264 1 -
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: No, no. Dr. Lemay.
3 DR. LEMAY: Yes.
4 DR. O'KULA: I'm sorry.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: We're through going back 6 and forth on 5148.
7 DR. LEMAY: Before lunch, we discussed the 8 mass balance between the plume and the deposition, and 9 MACCS uses an average deposition velocity to 10 contaminate the ground. That's a single value that is 11 average. But it's a known fact that deposition of 12 velocity increases with surface roughness.
13 So as the surface goes from a plane of 14 water, to a plowed field, to a forest, to a city, the 15 deposition velocity increases. So we use an average, 16 which is appropriate on average. That means that in 17 some area, the actual contamination would be lower 18 than the average, and in the cities, it would be 19 higher than the average.
20 So although MACCS uses that uniform 21 average value, we're justified to spread the 22 contamination, because that's what's going on, and the 23 actual value would be higher. And that's just the way 24 MACCS work. It's using this average, and it is 25 understood by everybody using it that that's an Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2265 1 approximation.
2 In some areas, it will overestimate; in 3 some area it will underestimate, and it comes in in a 4 wash.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: Have you made any 6 attempts to quantify any differences associated with 7 any of the cost parameters, or even the resulting OECR 8 or PDR, that might result from getting more refined in 9 that area?
10 DR. LEMAY: No. But what I'm saying is 11 that although there is a mass balance on average, we 12 can't use that as a basis to say that a code like 13 CONDO is inapplicable and useless and should not be 14 used. That's simply not true. There are some physics 15 behind it, and there is a reason why people who use 16 CONDO think it's a good approach.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: But you're not advocating 18 the use of CONDO for a SAMA analysis, is that not 19 correct?
20 DR. LEMAY: I don't -- well, I'm not 21 advocating the use of any code for a SAMA analysis.
22 What I'm saying is let's try to look at methods to 23 hone in on what is the cost of decontamination.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Dr. Lemay, one thing based Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2266 1 on what you just said, and you were referring that the 2 code looks to averages. The fact that here, the most 3 densely populated part of the area of concern is 4 toward the far outside of the 50-mile radius, would 5 that, given the nature of the MACCS code, tend to make 6 it more conservative than otherwise? Looking at the 7 site-specific geography around Indian Point.
8 DR. LEMAY: The U.S. NRC and the European 9 Union have done studies to study how much conservatism 10 there is and how much uncertainty there is, and it 11 very much depends on a lot of things. The wet 12 deposition velocity is so much bigger than the dry 13 deposition velocity. Any time it rains, that skews 14 the results completely.
15 It's very hard to generalize and say the 16 results would be -- there would be more contamination 17 on the edge or less contamination. I'm not willing to 18 make general statements like that.
19 JUDGE McDADE: So it's not your assumption 20 that there would be, if there had been a plume, and if 21 the prevailing wind direction were to the south, that 22 the level of contamination, say in Peekskill would be 23 significantly higher than that in Staten Island?
24 DR. LEMAY: I'm not sure I understand the 25 question. You mean close by the Indian Point site, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2267 1 and in the city itself?
2 JUDGE McDADE: Yes. Close by, within a 3 few miles, as opposed to within 45 miles.
4 DR. LEMAY: Well, given the same airborne 5 concentration, if you are dealing with a smooth 6 surface like a plowed field, you will tend to be a 7 little bit below the average, and you probably would 8 have a little bit less contamination than what the 9 average suggests.
10 If you're dealing with Manhattan, where 11 the ground roughness is much, much bigger, you would 12 tend to have a little more than the average. So 13 that's what I'm saying.
14 JUDGE McDADE: Even though it was more 15 geographically removed?
16 DR. LEMAY: Well, given the same 17 concentration. So on top of that, we have to allow 18 for dilution as you spread out where the cone spreads, 19 and it gets more and more dilute.
20 But MACCS will calculate that dilution and 21 grid element by grid element, it will look at the 22 airborne concentration, and then it will deposit that 23 on the ground, and then it will calculate a 24 decontamination cost, based on CDNFRM.
25 So the code takes care of that for us. It Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2268 1 will spread the contamination in a given series of 2 sectors, based on its model. Then it will try a 3 different wind direction and do the same thing. It 4 keeps doing that to build those histogram of costs, 5 and we're always interested in the average for the 6 histogram.
7 So the contamination in close by to the 8 plant tend to be higher, and it tends to be lower as 9 you move outward. But clearly there are scenarios 10 where the contamination in Manhattan is sufficient to 11 require decontamination.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you, Doctor.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: Dr. Lemay, in your study, 14 you went in and modified the code for some of your 15 analyses. In what situations did you do that, and why 16 did you do it?
17 DR. LEMAY: When we started to model to 18 calculate those costs, we realized that we would enter 19 a value that we wanted to enter, like three years for 20 TIMDEC, and the code would stop and say you entered an 21 incorrect value.
22 So what we did is we looked into the 23 source code, and there was a line of code that said, 24 you know, check if the DEC is between this and that.
25 We simply increased the upper range. We compiled, re-Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2269 1 ran the test problems, and then carried on with our 2 original program.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: So the limits of 10 DEC 4 was one that you changed, and do you remember what you 5 changed it from and to?
6 DR. LEMAY: Yes. The one with CDNFRM, 7 Your Honor.
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: Okay.
9 DR. LEMAY: Again because, as we tried to 10 different values, it said can't do that. I won't even 11 look at your input.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Teagarden, do you 13 have any idea why MACCS would put a limit on things 14 like the CDNFRM?
15 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your Honor, I'll be glad 16 to briefly note that for codes, you typically would 17 put limitations, because putting a value beyond that 18 may not be appropriate for algorithms that are within 19 the code, perhaps formulas or algorithms that have a 20 range of applicability, or secondly, because just the 21 value might be judged as an unlikely value; it would 22 never be expected to be used.
23 Such that it's a way to flag the user, 24 that you probably don't really mean to do this, do 25 you, put in a value that is outside the range of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2270 1 normal practice. So I mean those are two reasons, but 2 I also defer to Dr. Bixler.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: And this is merely your 4 hypothesis, based on experience. It's not knowledge 5 of the MACCS-2 limitations?
6 DR. LEMAY: That's correct, Your Honor.
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: When was this code 8 written? In the 80's was it, if I remember correctly?
9 DR. LEMAY: The code has been 10 progressively developed, with major releases at 11 different times. So the date for Version 113.
12 JUDGE WARDWELL: How about the latest 13 version, the oldest? When was it first written and 14 put out.
15 DR. BIXLER: I can clarify that. It was 16 originally released in 1997. There are a couple of 17 dates for early documents that were published along 18 with the code. There's originally a 1997 SAND report, 19 that's a Sandia report. That was 1997. A year later, 20 it was republished as a NUREG report in 1998. So you 21 could use either of those two years as a reference 22 point for when it was first released.
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you, Dr. Bixler.
24 JUDGE McDADE: But the input factors go 25 back to the mid-80's; is that correct?
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Page 2271 1 DR. BIXLER: Some of the inputs were 2 modified along the way, or added along the way. Some 3 of the older code versions, going back to CRAC 4 particularly, didn't even allow a lot of the user 5 inputs that are now available to the user as inputs.
6 They were just hard-wired in the code.
7 So these particular ones that we're 8 talking about now, I'm not sure what the origin of 9 them was or when they were first added as input 10 values. But they certainly are part of MACCS-2, since 11 the beginning of MACCS-2.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Then we had talked 13 yesterday or the day before or the day before that, 14 I'm not sure at this point, about the use of the five 15 different plants, Surry, Zion, Grand Gulf, that they 16 took data from that and they developed the input 17 factors from a compilation of that data. That 18 occurred back in the 1980's, the mid-80's, '84-'85?
19 DR. BIXLER: Well, for NUREG-1150, that 20 was done at -- that was published, I believe, in 1990, 21 and in the late 80's was when the work was actually 22 done. So that would be the right time frame.
23 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, and one thing, and 24 again, it may be in my notes from yesterday. But with 25 regard to that, the data from those five plants, were Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2272 1 we looking at high value, low values, average, median, 2 mode? What exactly, what was our takeaway from that -
3 -?
4 DR. BIXLER: Yeah. The intention of most 5 PRAs, and I believe that, I'm quite confident that 6 includes NUREG-1150, is to do a best estimate 7 analysis. It's not intended to be conservative or 8 anti-conservative. It's intended to be best estimate, 9 whether you interpret that as a median or a mean. But 10 something in the middle of the range certainly.
11 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you. Sorry, 12 Dr. Wardwell.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: Mr. Teagarden, what does 14 this model run on? Can you run it on a laptop?
15 MR. TEAGARDEN: You can, Your Honor.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: Staff, do you have any 17 other insight in regards to any MACCS-2 information 18 that has been provided to you, that indicates why 19 these limitations were placed on these N/A values?
20 DR. BIXLER: I don't know for sure, 21 because I wasn't involved with MACCS-2 at its onset.
22 I became involved around 2000, the year 2000. So a 23 few years after it was first published.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Have you seen anything in 25 the documentation that you could cite in regards to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2273 1 the reasoning for limitations of these import 2 parameters?
3 DR. BIXLER: I haven't seen that. But my 4 strong belief, as a pretty knowledgeable MACCS user, 5 is that some of the things that we talked about 6 earlier, that if you go much beyond one year; one year 7 was set as the upper bound, because the framework of 8 the code was based on one year, not more a year.
9 As soon as you start to get into multiple 10 years, then you have to worry about the time value of 11 money. You have to worry about some of the logic 12 regarding the choices of decontamination that are 13 made.
14 One example that I could give for that is 15 that you make -- in MACCS-2 framework, you make the 16 decision at the beginning of the long-term phase, do 17 I need to decontaminate or don't I, and if the time 18 frame that you're going to decontaminate is long 19 enough, it could be that just radioactive decay and 20 weathering would have gotten you below the 21 habitability criterion level, and you wouldn't need to 22 decontaminate it.
23 But the decision is made up front. It's 24 made at the beginning of the long-term phase, and you 25 may have decided that you needed to decontaminate and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2274 1 spend that money, when in fact because you're going to 2 interdict for 15 years anyway, because of the long 3 decontamination period, you really didn't need to make 4 that decision. So there are a number of --
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: How about the CDFRM 6 value?
7 DR. BIXLER: The CDFRM?
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: CDNFRM. It's the way I 9 read it; I know what you mean. Decontamination cost 10 for non-farm.
11 DR. BIXLER: Well, as we've said, that 12 that -- the value of that --
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: It appears that your 14 previous reasoning doesn't apply to that, does it?
15 DR. BIXLER: That's a different issue. I 16 believe that the value that we're using, or was used 17 by Entergy, and we used most recently in the SOARCA 18 study, the state of the art reactor consequence 19 analysis study, is a reasonable one.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: That's not my question.
21 My question is why -- do you have any insight into why 22 these limitations are placed on the magnitudes of 23 input parameters in the MACCS-2 code? You related the 24 TIMDEC one, but that reasoning wouldn't apply to this 25 particular parameter, would it?
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Page 2275 1 DR. BIXLER: Okay. Now I understand your 2 question. Yeah, there is a limit in the code, but I 3 don't recall right now what it is. But it's 4 significantly higher than the value used by Entergy, 5 but not as high as some of the values used by ISR.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: So the answer is you 7 don't know why there's a limitation on it?
8 DR. BIXLER: That limitation, I would 9 believe, is somewhat more related to just reasonable 10 bounds, that the original authors of the code thought 11 should be applied to those parameters, and not that 12 they necessarily would modify the functionality of the 13 code itself.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: They do that for all 15 parameters?
16 DR. BIXLER: Most every one, yes.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: So most every parameter 18 is bound, in regards to the input values?
19 DR. BIXLER: Right.
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that's not listed in 21 the users guide?
22 DR. BIXLER: Yes, it is listed in the 23 users guide.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: Oh, the bounds of them 25 are listed?
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Page 2276 1 DR. BIXLER: Yes.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: Dr. Lemay, do you have 3 any comments in regards to what you heard, in regards 4 to the reasoning or the lack thereof, of why those 5 parameters were selected?
6 DR. BIXLER: I think they just picked a 7 value and said well, part of the reason for bounding 8 value is to make sure that if the user makes a typo, 9 and types the wrong number. We're trying to help him 10 locate that mistake.
11 So they would say well, I don't think it 12 has any impact on the model. Simply it's trying to 13 help the user identify typing mistakes, and that's 14 common in these codes.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Moving on to 16 the next topic area, Entergy testimony 450 on page 31, 17 the second paragraph, and I'll just read it. There's 18 no need to refer to it necessarily, but it says "The 19 exposure pathways considered during this period are 20 ground shine, resuspension and inhalation, and food 21 and water ingestion."
22 I was curious, Mr. Teagarden. Is that 23 water ingested including ground water ingestion?
24 MR. TEAGARDEN: MACCS has a model that 25 models, in essence like I said, the atmospheric Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2277 1 deposition onto ground water bases, and then it has 2 some very, what we describe as simple models for an 3 assumption of individuals will ingest that water.
4 So I don't know that I would describe it 5 was much as it's not a detailed, you know, model that 6 models that migration of contaminants into an aquifer 7 in the local region. It's not at all complex --
8 JUDGE WARDWELL: So it's more of a surface 9 water than ground water --
10 MR. TEAGARDEN: Surface water that is --
11 I would characterize it as probably more assumption-12 driven, but Dr. Bixler may have a more nuanced 13 explanation of it.
14 JUDGE WARDWELL: Dr. Bixler, do you have 15 a more --
16 DR. BIXLER: Yeah. I would agree with 17 what Mr. Teagarden just said, and add just a little 18 bit more to it. There are a couple of -- it really is 19 more of a surface water model, not a ground water 20 model. It has a portion of the model that has to do 21 with direct deposition onto surface water, a lake, a 22 reservoir, whatever it is, and the consumption of 23 that.
24 It also has a runoff contribution, where 25 things that are initially deposited onto land Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2278 1 eventually make their way into the surface water. So 2 it has those two contributions that are accounted for.
3 JUDGE WARDWELL: But it doesn't have a 4 contribution from the soluble portion of any of these, 5 that might migrate into the ground water. Is that 6 what you're saying?
7 DR. BIXLER: No. It does not consider the 8 migration through the ground water. That's right.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
10 JUDGE McDADE: In that regard, again 11 perhaps a little bit definition of the word 12 "migration." But you mentioned reservoirs with regard 13 to water.
14 Is there anything in this calculus, site-15 specific? For example, if a reservoir is located in 16 the center of the affected area, very close to the 17 facility, but it is going to supply drinking water to 18 a more remote location, is there any way that this 19 particular code can pick that up and factor in those 20 costs?
21 DR. BIXLER: It does account for the water 22 being consumed. It doesn't really consider who would 23 do the consuming. The ingestion of water and also of 24 food is considered as societal dose. So it's 25 attributed to the society, you know, in that region.
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Page 2279 1 But it doesn't necessarily assign that dose to an 2 individual.
3 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. But for example, and 4 we're going to talk tomorrow or Monday about 5 commuters, water commuting.
6 If you have a reservoir located in the 7 immediate zone, but you have water being consumed by 8 people, either at the periphery of the zone, say like 9 New York City and tens of millions of people, or 10 outside the zone, can this, as a site-specific factor, 11 a site-specific parameter, adjust those costs?
12 In other words, for example, if there were 13 an accident, the area around Indian Point were 14 contaminated. The drinking water for New York City 15 was contaminated. You would have tens of millions of 16 people having an issue with drinking water.
17 Would this code pick that up as a cost to 18 be factored into the SAMA analysis, and if so, how?
19 DR. BIXLER: It would include it as part 20 of the population dose that gets turned into the PDR, 21 the Population Dose Risk.
22 So yes, it would account for it. It 23 wouldn't consider whether it was New York City 24 drinking the water or someone else. It would just 25 calculate the total dose that would occur from someone Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2280 1 drinking the water, and add that into the overall 2 population dose.
3 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. So we're not looking 4 at say just the square footage of the surface of the 5 reservoir. There's a factor in there, that there are 6 X million people drinking the water?
7 DR. BIXLER: Yeah. I would think of it 8 more in terms of a mass balance in this situation.
9 You deposit so much onto the water that based on the 10 surface area of the water. So that, and then so much 11 runs off into the water from the surrounding land.
12 That much contaminant accumulates into the 13 water. Then the model assumes that all of that is 14 consumed. Whatever got into the reservoir or lake 15 gets consumed by someone. It doesn't really consider 16 which one, which person or persons or group of people 17 that might be. It just accounts for the total dose of 18 consuming all that contaminant.
19 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, and I'm not talking 20 right now, and we're talking about a couple of 21 different things.
22 I'm sorry for my question being less clear 23 than it should have been. I'm not talking right now 24 about the impact of the dose, or the fact that people 25 drinking the water and receiving a dose of a Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2281 1 radionuclide.
2 Rather, what I'm talking about is, for 3 example, if there were a significant population that 4 would be deprived of its source of drinking, because 5 they wouldn't be able to use it for a significant 6 period of time. Would that, the economic costs of 7 replacing that water be captured in this code, and if 8 so, how?
9 DR. BIXLER: No Your Honor, it would not 10 be. It would attribute the, a dose from the water.
11 It wouldn't -- so there would be an economic impact 12 from consumption of that water, but it wouldn't -- it 13 would not attribute an economic cost to that.
14 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. It wouldn't pick up 15 an economic cost for the non-consumption of the water, 16 and requiring an alternate source?
17 DR. BIXLER: That's correct.
18 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: Dr. Lemay, did you have, 20 need a response to any of the information just 21 discussed?
22 DR. LEMAY: On this issue, my belief is 23 that the water is consumed in each sector. You 24 calculate a collective dose.
25 So if there is few people living near your Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2282 1 hypothetical reservoir, they get collective dose for 2 drinking the highly contaminated water. But the 3 people that are in a different sector don't 4 necessarily consume that contaminated water.
5 DR. BIXLER: Could I respond to that?
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: Yes.
7 DR. BIXLER: Yeah, that's true in a sense.
8 It comes to the definition of how you're calculating 9 things.
10 But in essence, it is true that if the 11 water body was in a particular sector, then it would 12 assign the population dose to that sector. In effect, 13 it doesn't matter, because if it had assigned it to 14 any other sector, the value would have been the same 15 anyway.
16 It's accounting for the entire consumption 17 of all that water. Whatever the quantity of water is 18 that's now contaminated, it's all being consumed.
19 It's just a matter of, you know, which group actually 20 consumes it.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: So really the analysis, 22 if I hear you correctly, is essentially consuming the 23 radionuclides, not the water? Mass balance again.
24 DR. BIXLER: That's right, that's correct, 25 yes.
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Page 2283 1 JUDGE McDADE: And again, perhaps I 2 apologize for the clarity, but both Dr. Lemay and Dr.
3 Bixler, my question had to do not with the dose 4 factor, but rather whether or not the economic cost.
5 For example, you have a water supply. People, 6 millions of people turn on their faucet and get water 7 to drink.
8 The economic cost, if for a period of time 9 during clean-up, they couldn't turn on their faucet 10 and get water, but rather would have to have water 11 trucked in from other locations. Whether or not those 12 kinds of economic costs are captured, and from what I 13 understood you saying, there is nothing in this code 14 that would capture those economic costs?
15 DR. BIXLER: That's correct. Let me add 16 an additional detail to what I said about consumption 17 of the water. There is a limit on -- a dose limit 18 that's imposed in the input, that says that quote 19 "people cannot get more than a certain dose per year."
20 There's an upper limit, based on 21 regulations, that would impose a limit, and if things 22 were too contaminated to meet that limit, then there 23 would be -- there would be an accounting for 24 interdiction of food and water.
25 So that would, that could be implemented Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2284 1 in the code. It may say that particularly food from 2 farmland is too heavily contaminated, nobody can eat 3 it. So we're going to count that as a loss instead of 4 -- so that could become an economic loss.
5 But it doesn't do that for water in 6 particular. It does not account any economic value to 7 the loss of the water. I think what would probably 8 happen in reality is that people would buy bottled 9 water in that area, and consume that. Lots of people 10 already do that anyway.
11 So I think it would maybe stimulate more 12 use of bottled water than you would have otherwise.
13 But no, that would maybe be the primary remedy to the 14 situation.
15 JUDGE McDADE: But in any event, that 16 economic, additional economic cost is a factor?
17 DR. BIXLER: It is not factored in.
18 That's right.
19 DR. GHOSH: May I add something? This is 20 Dr. Ghosh of NRC staff. I think what you're getting 21 at is the potential economic accounting for something 22 like a resource, like a natural resource, that you 23 have a body of water that becomes contaminated.
24 MACCS does account for the doses from 25 that, and because we use a linear, no threshold dose Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2285 1 model, to some extent it doesn't matter who's drinking 2 that water. We're going to add up all the doses and 3 get the similar number, approximately the same number.
4 I think your second issue was aside from 5 this dose accounting, are we accounting for the 6 economic impact of losing some resource? I just want 7 to comment on that.
8 Certainly, MACCS does not do that. That 9 is not part of our NRC guidance right now. The NUREG 10 BRs that I believe Dr. O'Kula referenced before, those 11 are the primary guidance documents we have for doing 12 any kind of cost-benefit analysis, which includes the 13 guidance that the applicants used and that we review 14 to for the SAMA analysis.
15 That's NUREG/BR-0184, as well as NUREG/BR-16 0058. They do not talk about that economic loss as 17 being required to be part of the accounting. So right 18 now, by NRC policy, we don't consider that. However, 19 you may know that there is what's called a SECY paper 20 in front of the Commission on, you know, reevaluating, 21 potentially reevaluating how economic consequences are 22 dealt with with the NRC.
23 This is a policy issue that the Commission 24 will be looking at. But our current policy is not to 25 include those in the economic cost accounting.
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Page 2286 1 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: Moving on to the next 3 topic, I'll refer to page 57 of Entergy's testimony, 4 and at the very top it says "Based on the pedigree of 5 NUREG-1150 and NUREG/CR-4551 data sources, we know of 6 no more appropriate data that is readily available for 7 licensees to use in a SAMA analysis, to satisfy the 8 purposes of NEPA."
9 There has been a recent email that's come 10 of note, in regards to some statements made in that, 11 specifically that the pedigree of some of these NUREG-12 1150 values is not known, and is offering a research 13 project to help improve the pedigree of these values.
14 I'd ask the staff, are you aware of any 15 other documents besides this email that has advocated 16 the need to improve the pedigree of these NUREG-1150 17 values?
18 DR. GHOSH: No, we are not aware of any 19 other documents, and I explained in an affidavit that 20 I believe has been filed for this proceeding, on 21 giving context to what that set of emails, plus what 22 looked like an attachment to an email that in fact 23 wasn't an attachment to an email. It was a separate 24 document that was all bundled together in an ADAMS 25 package, as part of a FOIA information request.
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Page 2287 1 Even that particular line in that 2 document, just so we know the context of it, that 3 proposal was submitted as part of, as a staff proposal 4 for long-term research.
5 The NRC has a program called the Long-Term 6 Research Program, where we try to identify research 7 projects that will be useful to the NRC five to ten 8 years down the line, to fulfill some critical 9 knowledge gap or maybe up and coming technology that's 10 going to be coming down the pike.
11 We want to make sure we have this forward-12 looking view, to get ready for any issue, regulatory 13 issues that will come up. Now as part of this Long-14 Term Research Program, staff were allowed to submit 15 any proposal that an individual wishes to have 16 considered.
17 Then there is a committee set up, a review 18 committee of senior level staff from across the 19 agency, with very diverse expertise, to evaluate those 20 proposals. That particular proposal was submitted by 21 a staff person who unfortunately is deceased at this 22 point, so we could not have him clarify what he meant 23 by that line.
24 But his proposal was evaluated by the 25 review committee of eight people, and they ranked his Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2288 1 proposal as one of the lowest among all of the 2 proposals that were submitted that year, in part 3 because the committee did not feel that he had 4 identified any critical knowledge gap or technology 5 gap or problem with the way we are doing things 6 currently. So just to give some background of --
7 JUDGE WARDWELL: What year was that?
8 DR. GHOSH: This was, his proposal was 9 submitted at the end of 2010, as a proposed project 10 for fiscal year FY '13.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: So this study obviously 12 hasn't been funded, and do you know of any other 13 studies that have been proposed or funded with regards 14 to modifying the 1150 values?
15 DR. GHOSH: No. That particular project 16 was not funded. Just in general, as part of, you 17 know, NRC has a number of codes, primarily through 18 Sandia in the arena of severe accidents, that we 19 routinely maintain and update as we go along.
20 You know, we have our planned maintenance 21 and update activities, and certainly as part of that, 22 you know, we can envision that we might be revisiting 23 some of these issues down the line. But there's no 24 concrete project at this point for that particular 25 issue.
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Page 2289 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you, Dr. Ghosh.
2 Dr. Lemay, do you have any comments on that?
3 DR. LEMAY: I think it would be useful to 4 get a good pedigree, Your Honor.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Dr. Ghosh, 6 earlier today you nicely summarized the SAMA process 7 and how you evaluate the various cost beneficial ones 8 that were generated from this process, which is 9 primarily a probabilistic analysis; correct?
10 DR. GHOSH: Yes.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: Have you ever seen any 12 facility then step back and say fine, we've done that.
13 But let's just take a look at, I guess I would call it 14 a semi-deterministic, still using a probabilistic 15 Level 1 and Level 2 really.
16 But you know, we do not know which 17 direction the wind will be going, as one example. So 18 let's take a look at what would happen, just so we 19 know what it is in a deterministic manner, if it went 20 in only -- if it went in that direction during the 21 time the action did occur, because you don't know that 22 it isn't going to.
23 Again, I want to back up a bit and just 24 emphasize that I'm fully aware and fully appreciate 25 why the probabilistic method is used, and that makes Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2290 1 sense.
2 What I'm just saying now is has anyone 3 just stepped back and say let's add onto that, at 4 least one pass of this analysis, doing something like 5 forcing the wind directly towards the New York City 6 area.
7 Run the MACCS code, but force it to be in 8 that direction. I guess you just put the wind in all 9 the directions. I don't know how you do it, but if --
10 you get my drift. Have you ever considered, or do you 11 know of anyone that has considered just doing a 12 deterministic pass at this analysis, to really get the 13 upper bound, if you will, of what the impacts might 14 be?
15 DR. GHOSH: Yeah. I personally am not 16 aware of -- certainly MACCS can be run in a mode, 17 where you look at a particular weather sequence and 18 then blow it towards a particular, in a particular 19 direction. I personally am not aware of a study that 20 has been done like that.
21 However, MACCS always produces a 22 statistical output of results, based on different 23 weather conditions and, you know, for different wind 24 directions. The one thing that we do know is that 25 these distributions tend to be a lot more normally Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2291 1 distributed.
2 So that if, for example, you're looking at 3 the mean value, which is the one we used by our 4 regulatory policy, it tends to be skewed towards a 5 higher percentile.
6 So the mean -- if you had a perfectly 7 normally distributed outcome, the mean would be the 8 same as the median, which means half the time it's 9 higher, half the time it's lower.
10 In fact, what we find with most 11 applications that we've done, and my colleagues have 12 done more than I have. But and I think they found the 13 same thing. The mean tends to be skewed more towards 14 the 70th percentile, sometimes even a little bit 15 higher.
16 So we already know that by looking at the 17 mean, that the majority of, perhaps up to 70 percent 18 of the outcomes in terms of weather conditions and 19 where the wind's blowing, is going to be lower than 20 what we are using, for example.
21 So we have some data. We haven't maybe 22 looked at a specific, more specific than that. But we 23 do have a statistical measure to do that.
24 JUDGE WARDWELL: And that percentile deals 25 mostly with the velocity rather the direction though?
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Page 2292 1 DR. GHOSH: That would lump everything 2 together. So all meteorological conditions, which I 3 think Mr. Teagarden explained we looked at a year's 4 worth of weather data, and made sure that that year's 5 worth of weather data is representative of the general 6 meteorological conditions, and there's a statistically 7 significant sampling that's done.
8 So this is based on thousands and 9 thousands of weather trials, and then looking at the 10 statistical.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: I understand that, but in 12 fact, if the prevailing wind is from the east, then in 13 fact your analysis would blow it away from one of the 14 most sensitive receptors, who is pretty much south?
15 DR. GHOSH: Yeah. But in this case --
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: So that's what I'm 17 saying.
18 DR. GHOSH: Yeah.
19 JUDGE WARDWELL: Do you take this -- and 20 I understand you say you do not know of this. I think 21 you've answered my question, that you do not know of 22 anyone that's then just stepped back and said "okay, 23 in addition to these analyses, I want to see what 24 would happen if this occurred when there is a 25 northerly wind blowing everything towards the south, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2293 1 because that is a very sensitive receptor in that 2 particular location at this site, where lots of other 3 facilities don't have quite this sensitive receptor."
4 It might be prudent for me to do that.
5 You don't know of anyone that's done that?
6 DR. GHOSH: Right. But you know, the mean 7 result in general is skewed towards those sensitive 8 areas. That's kind of why the distribution of results 9 has a lot of normal distribution, because the average 10 tends to be skewed towards --
11 Let's say only 20 -- this is completely 12 hypothetical, but let's say only 20 percent of the 13 time the wind is blowing towards the major 14 metropolitan area. But that 20 percent of the time, 15 the consequences are greater, could be a lot greater.
16 That gets weighed much more heavily in the 17 average than the 80 percent of the time that it's 18 blowing towards forest land, where you know, people ma 19 not be living. So that's naturally accounted for in 20 the statistics, which is why the mean, the average 21 tends to be skewed towards those heavy results.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you very much. I 23 appreciate that testimony. Again, Dr. Lemay, do you 24 have any comments on that?
25 DR. LEMAY: That's actually -- I believe Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2294 1 that for the Indian Point, the wind is predominantly 2 from the north. Maybe Entergy can confirm that, but 3 that's my belief.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you. Does anyone 5 have any knowledge of what the predominant wind is 6 here just quickly?
7 DR. LEMAY: Your Honor -- oh, go ahead.
8 Go ahead.
9 DR. O'KULA: Your Honor, Kevin O'Kula for 10 the applicant. There is some seasonal variation.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: But keep it simple.
12 DR. O'KULA: On average, the wind would be 13 blowing north to south. But it can be balanced 14 seasonally.
15 (Off record comment.)
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: You support Dr. Lemay's 17 statement? Is that a yes.
18 DR. O'KULA: It is bar-bell shape, and 19 there is some, also some preference based on 20 seasonality, of going in the opposite direction.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: Sure. Thank you. My 22 last topic here is an area that I tend to get a little 23 confused on, and I'll refer to 450 of Entergy's 24 testimony on page 66, and again I think I can read it 25 to you, to get us off and rolling.
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Page 2295 1 It deals with the dose reduction factor 2 and the difference between that and the 3 decontamination factor, and I think I'll just ask Mr.
4 Teagarden to explain that a little more indepth for 5 me, and the nuances associated with it, and when you 6 should or shouldn't be using it, especially in regards 7 to the testimony that was brought up here. That was 8 kind of long discussion.
9 I don't want to get into the details of 10 that discussion, because I'm not sure it's really 11 relevant to the key matters that we have to deal with 12 here. But when I review the testimony, I'd like to 13 have more information in this area, so I can come from 14 a better position.
15 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor. We 16 highlighted the distinction, because MACCS works off 17 of a dose reduction principle. When you look at data 18 sets for how effective decontamination activities may 19 be, they don't always include activities that don't 20 remove material.
21 So if I have a -- if I have open land, I 22 can reduce the dose by deep plowing, where I 23 essentially take the surface material and plow it over 24 and shove it down a foot or two. Then I get natural 25 shielding from the new soil above it.
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Page 2296 1 That gives you a dose reduction. However, 2 from a decontamination factor, it doesn't give you 3 anything, because you haven't removed the 4 contaminants.
5 That's what we wanted to highlight, is 6 that when you go to some of these data sources for 7 picking out decontamination efficiencies, you know, 8 you can have elements that are, that may provide you 9 some dose reduction, but they would say that they 10 don't have any effective decontamination factor 11 reduction. That can play an important role in dose 12 reduction strategies.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: Say that sentence over 14 again. I'm sorry. I was writing a note right in a 15 key spot.
16 MR. TEAGARDEN: Many of these data sets 17 for decontamination techniques will not represent the 18 dose reduction that can be achieved, because their 19 focus is on removing material, not reducing dose. So 20 sometimes you can look in these data sets and now have 21 a decontamination factor of one, even though meaning 22 nothing is being removed, even though you can achieve 23 dose reduction.
24 So we wanted to highlight that, because 25 just skimming through a library of decontamination Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2297 1 techniques, if they are listing things in the form of 2 decontamination factors, it can be misleading, because 3 it doesn't mean that they can't provide effectiveness 4 that goes beyond the value that's listed.
5 JUDGE WARDWELL: How do the techniques 6 come into play and inputted in SAMA? I guess that's 7 something we really haven't talked about, because 8 there's a plethora of them that could be chosen. Are 9 they randomly chosen again, or is it input-selected?
10 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor. They are 11 built into the variables within MACCS. If you can 12 imagine you have a library of potential 13 decontamination techniques, you would, for a 14 particular, you know, application, you could pick 15 different ones that would be appropriate to the 16 facility that's right before you.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: So you can input that 18 selectively? Is that what you're saying?
19 MR. TEAGARDEN: Well, I'm saying that a 20 range of techniques would be used, and there's a 21 library of techniques that could be applied. And you 22 know, in the decontamination strategy, you would be 23 saying this technique makes the most sense here.
24 All that has to be rolled together into a 25 very homogenized manner, as Dr. O'Kula mentioned Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2298 1 earlier, or used a term in this regard, in that you 2 apply this technique and maybe that gives me a dose, 3 a decontamination factor of five, and this one gives 4 me a decontamination of seven.
5 All I'm really going after is a dose 6 reduction of three, and I need these different pieces 7 to come together, to achieve that for the particular 8 structure or area that I'm looking at. So it's a 9 matter of compiling these, and having --
10 This is why I think it's important for 11 subject matter experts to be involved in the 12 development of values for these sorts of parameters, 13 because you need to recognize which techniques will be 14 employed from this library of perhaps 100 techniques, 15 and what order might they be applied in, and what does 16 each one give you within the variables of what you're 17 looking towards.
18 But from MACCS, they all have to be 19 assimilated into it cost me this much to get a dose 20 reduced by three. It cost me that much to get a dose 21 reduced by 15.
22 JUDGE McDADE: Well, are those site-23 specific, or are those taken from 1150?
24 MR. TEAGARDEN: They're taken from NUREG-25 1150. These are the values for CDNFRM.
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Page 2299 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Say that again?
2 MR. TEAGARDEN: What we're talking about 3 is what gets rolled up into the cost for non-farm 4 decontamination, CDNFRM, and the associated dose 5 reduction factor.
6 JUDGE WARDWELL: Those are the only 7 parameters that represent the selection of the --
8 MR. TEAGARDEN: The suite of techniques 9 that would be chosen for the range of facilities that 10 you are looking to decontaminate.
11 JUDGE WARDWELL: So in actuality, there is 12 no designated suite of any decontamination activities 13 that are going on here. It's all represented by that 14 number, of which we already have a discussion of the 15 foundation of that number?
16 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes, Your Honor.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, and let me just --
18 excuse me if I'm confused. But you have a facility, 19 for example, like one of the facilities that was 20 described, Grand Gulf. Within ten miles around Grand 21 Gulf, within 50 miles of Grand Gulf, there's virtually 22 no concrete. It's primarily farmland.
23 You would be able to reduce, as you've 24 described, the dose by plowing under contamination in 25 the farmland. You would have very little material to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2300 1 remove. If you were in an area surrounded by 2 concrete, and particularly and you had cesium and the 3 cesium bonded with the concrete, in order to conduct 4 a decontamination, in order to reduce the dose factor, 5 you wouldn't be able to just run a plow acre after 6 acre.
7 You would need to pick up concrete and not 8 only pick it up; you would then need to transport it 9 and you would then need to store it someplace. Are 10 those differences of sites, and say from -- you know, 11 we talked about Zion being similar to Indian Point, 12 Grand Gulf not being.
13 Are those variances picked up in the code?
14 Is there any kind of input factor that would pick that 15 up, or would the decontamination costs appears for the 16 same overall dose to be the same, whether it was 17 outside of Grand Gulf or outside of Indian Point?
18 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes. For the distinction 19 that you used in your example, of farmland versus non-20 farmland, those are evaluated within MACCS, because we 21 have two separate cost values, one for farmland on a 22 per acre basis for decontamination, and then one for 23 non-farmland.
24 Then the one for non-farmland, as we read 25 earlier from the Burke document, is based on a mixture Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2301 1 of residential, of commercial, of industrial. And you 2 know, that mixture then was viewed as applicable to 3 all five sites for the NUREG-1150 study.
4 JUDGE McDADE: But there would be nothing 5 that would figure the difference, say in disposal 6 costs, between an urban area like New York and an 7 urban area like Chicago? You would look to any site-8 specific information, as far as disposal costs of the 9 contaminants?
10 MR. TEAGARDEN: There is not a distinction 11 within here, such that they had a difference between 12 Zion outside of Chicago and another site somewhere 13 else, Grand Gulf.
14 JUDGE McDADE: So the only difference 15 between contamination costs is just that one bright 16 line between farmland and non-farmland?
17 MR. TEAGARDEN: And with the levels of 18 dose reduction, that's correct.
19 MP Your Honor --
20 JUDGE WARDWELL: It's DFs; is that 21 correct?
22 MR. TEAGARDEN: Sorry?
23 JUDGE WARDWELL: When you said "dose 24 reductions," that's the DF value?
25 MR. TEAGARDEN: That's correct.
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Page 2302 1 JUDGE WARDWELL: Now does this -- if one 2 was trying to derive these values on their own, and be 3 consistent with what has been presented, consistent 4 with the approach that's been presented in 1150 or 5 assumed by 1150 or inherent in 1150, whichever way we 6 want to word it, would one lean towards complete 7 removal, or in fact would always go to removal, or can 8 in fact some of them be buried and still there, but 9 just reduced? Getting back to the DF versus the DRF 10 again.
11 MR. TEAGARDEN: And this is where perhaps 12 it emphasizes the two aspects, one of, you know, the 13 importance of the right people evaluating this, to 14 have a breadth of understanding of the different 15 techniques.
16 But each of those techniques has an 17 associated cost, and if one particular technique may 18 have a higher removal rate but three times the cost, 19 when trying to apply that everywhere may result in 20 condemned land.
21 So there are, you know, it's there are 22 multiple trade-offs that have to be evaluated in 23 regards to the cost of the individual techniques and 24 their application, and their application on particular 25 substrates. I'm not sure if I've fully answered your Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2303 1 question.
2 JUDGE WARDWELL: Well, you haven't. You 3 have and you haven't. You've emphasized the 4 complexity of this, and aren't we paralyzed to say 5 what went into the ones at Indian Point, because in 6 fact we have no information really how that number was 7 derived.
8 We can't make a comment on whether that 9 weighted more towards burial or removal or what 10 technique. It's just a number that's there, that we 11 have to live with. Is that correct, for the non-farm?
12 MR. TEAGARDEN: For the non-farm? Yes.
13 It's the value that was from NUREG-1150, that you 14 know, we hold to be a seminal document.
15 JUDGE WARDWELL: Dr. Lemay, would you like 16 to comment?
17 DR. LEMAY: Okay. First, to be absolutely 18 clear on the record, yes, that's true. MACCS-2 has no 19 way of specifying techniques or anything at that level 20 of detail. It has only one aggregate value, the cost 21 of decontamination per person.
22 JUDGE WARDWELL: And is there any guidance 23 on what that value should reflect, like oh, the goal 24 is to have removal. But if you can't have removal, it 25 should be --
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Page 2304 1 DR. LEMAY: The only guidance is that you 2 have to achieve a dose reduction factor of three or a 3 dose reduction factor of 15.
4 JUDGE WARDWELL: So they don't care 5 whether it's buried or it's --
6 DR. LEMAY: And they don't care if it's 7 semi-urban, residential, parkland. It's a very simple 8 model, and that's the only value we have to play with.
9 JUDGE WARDWELL: Well, would you really 10 characterize it as a simple model? I mean certainly 11 this --
12 DR. LEMAY: That part, yeah.
13 JUDGE WARDWELL: This parameter carries a 14 lot of weight, it seems like, if it's --
15 DR. LEMAY: Right, right.
16 JUDGE WARDWELL: If this is the burden it 17 has to also carry, in addition to just, I mean, the 18 cost. I guess it makes sense it would have 19 represented these various mitigation alternatives.
20 Not mitigation, decontamination alternatives.
21 So back to where I started with this.
22 Again, Mr. Teagarden, why were you interested in 23 clarifying the DF versus the DRF, the decontamination 24 factor for the dose reduction factor? Say that one 25 more time, now that I understand where we end up.
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Page 2305 1 MR. TEAGARDEN: Contention 12 took some 2 different shapes and forms throughout its history, and 3 one element of that was that a view that dose, a dose 4 factor, I'm sorry, a decontamination factor greater 5 than 10 was not readily achievable.
6 Some of that flows from the Sandia site 7 restoration report. They were working with plutonium; 8 they were working to, where they have concerns that 9 because of the alpha nature of the radiation, the 10 toxicity, the long half-life, they tend to say it's 11 better just to demolish things and take it away.
12 In the midst of all of that, and some of 13 these discussions and references where decontamination 14 factors were applied and specified, in saying things 15 like see, none of these DFs are very high. That's 16 because they weren't reflective of the variety of 17 techniques that can be used to reduce the dose.
18 We didn't want a mischaracterization of 19 what was achievable for dose reduction, by looking at 20 individual techniques for removing contaminants.
21 JUDGE WARDWELL: Thank you.
22 JUDGE McDADE: Before, just one quick 23 question, sort of a follow-up on some of the one that 24 I was asking before about input parameters. Is there 25 any input parameter for the interdiction of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2306 1 infrastructure, to be a site-specific factor?
2 For example, in the New York metropolitan 3 area, if a certain area around Indian Point were to be 4 closed off for a period of time to outside people, and 5 you didn't have access over the Tappan Zee Bridge or 6 the George Washington Bridge, the economic impact of 7 that could run into the tens of billions of dollars.
8 That same situation occurring in Chicago, 9 that would limit people driving north from Chicago to 10 Milwaukee, maybe I'm showing a regional bias here, but 11 would have less of an economic impact. Is there any 12 way of, in this system, to identify those costs 13 associated with the interdiction of infrastructure on 14 a site-specific basis?
15 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your Honor, the variable 16 POSCST represents the disruption cost. It's a one-17 time payment. You know, we've talked about it. It's 18 reflective of loss of income for a time, associated 19 with that disruption, of approximately 100 days for 20 individuals, 180 days for commercial establishments, 21 and therefore a median of 140 was used.
22 You know, that variable, because it's a 23 per capita value, represents, I believe, a site-24 specific nature, where when you have, where you have 25 particular locations with high population density, and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2307 1 those individuals are removed from their land for 2 decontamination purposes. So they are undergoing a 3 disruption for some period of time. Because of the 4 per capita value, those values are scaled accordingly.
5 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. But what I'm talking 6 about are not the populations who reside or even work 7 within the area. The example that I gave, for example 8 of the George Washington Bridge and the Tappan Zee 9 Bridge, probably on a daily basis, tens of millions of 10 dollars' worth of commerce pass over those bridges, 11 either going up the East Coast or down the East Coast.
12 And my question is, and again even in a 13 similarly dense area such as Chicago, you don't have 14 it as a transit corridor the way you do in the New 15 York metropolitan area. I was just wondering if those 16 kinds of economic disruptions are captured on a site-17 specific basis anyway, and if so, how?
18 DR. BIXLER: Your Honor, I think I can 19 help with the answer to this question, if that would 20 be okay.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Please.
22 DR. BIXLER: Yes. The value that goes 23 into the site file, that captures the wealth 24 associated on a per capita basis, includes the value 25 of land, the value of all improvements both on the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2308 1 land, utilities, infrastructure, everything. That all 2 needs to be captured as part of the value that is 3 included in that file.
4 So for an area like New York City, that 5 would be included in the value on a per capita basis.
6 So that if you either interdict or you condemn any 7 land, it accounts for those values.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. I'm not really sure 9 how, Dr. Bixler, and again, we're not talking about 10 tearing down the Tappan Zee Bridge.
11 We're talking about the economic costs 12 associated with if for a period of time, such as 60 13 days or 120 days, individuals were not able -- not 14 people who live in the area, not people who work in 15 the area, but people from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, 16 who are manufacturing or are purchasing manufactured 17 goods, that they can't transit that corridor without 18 a significant detour.
19 Are those -- and I don't want to belabor 20 the point. Are those economic costs picked up any 21 place?
22 MR. TEAGARDEN: Your Honor, if I may add 23 to my original answer, because Entergy did do 24 something that other applicants I'm familiar with have 25 not. Only a few have done it; Entergy was one, where Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2309 1 they ran a sensitivity case for adding to, in addition 2 to the tangible wealth, the potential for loss of 3 tangible wealth, tangible property that Dr. Bixler 4 noted.
5 Entergy ran another case to look at the 6 economic impacts from a gross county product basis, a 7 gross domestic -- a smaller version of the gross 8 domestic product basis. It's what's produced in the 9 area. So they did this in terms of, you know, so loss 10 of tourism income, loss of business income.
11 So they took that value, and they added it 12 to their tangible wealth value, such that their site-13 specific value incorporates two dimensions. One is 14 the tangible wealth, and the other is the loss of 15 produce income, so to speak, for a given period of 16 time.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you. Dr.
18 Lemay, do you think these costs are picked up?
19 DR. LEMAY: Okay. Francois Lemay for the 20 State of New York. What my colleague said is exactly 21 true, but the precision that needs to be made, the 22 calculation is sector by sector. MACCS has no way of 23 modeling transit or things that are outside. It 24 cannot move wealth between sector or account for 25 something outside a 50-mile zone. That's not the way Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2310 1 it's designed.
2 Everything that's in, that's been said is 3 absolutely true for sector by sector. That's the way 4 MACCS works. It looks at the wealth in a sector; it 5 looks at interdiction in a sector; cost of relocation 6 in a sector, and it just sums them.
7 I think we would get into a very complex 8 model if we tried to move people around and wealth 9 around and account for stuff outside the 50-mile zone.
10 But that's not the way MACCS work. Is that --
11 DR. BIXLER: Let me just dd a little bit 12 more to that explanation. If a bridge, for example, 13 that was your example that you brought up, happens to 14 be in a grid element in the MACCS-2 calculation, it 15 would be considered as part of the infrastructure that 16 would be assigned.
17 It would have a value and it would be 18 divided per capita, and included in the overall value 19 of the property in that area, in that grid element.
20 If that grid element were interdicted for some period 21 of time, like 30 days or 100 days or whatever, 120 22 days, then there would be a loss of value associated 23 with not being able to use that property.
24 So it would include bridges. It doesn't 25 account for necessarily people coming in from outside.
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Page 2311 1 But it does account for the fact that the bridge is 2 not being able to use, and there's a loss of economic 3 value associated with it.
4 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you Dr. Bixler.
5 DR. GHOSH: Could I add just one more 6 thing? This is Dr. Ghosh for staff. The sensitivity 7 that Mr. Teagarden mentioned, the NRC adopted that as 8 the base case for the SAMA analysis. So the FSEIS, 9 the numbers that are in the FSEIS reflect that bumped 10 up value.
11 So in addition to the infrastructure 12 losses, the GDP losses are also accounted for in the 13 base case SAMA analysis.
14 JUDGE McDADE: Okay, thank you. No more 15 questions?
16 JUDGE KENNEDY: No more questions.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: No questions.
18 JUDGE McDADE: Once again, a statement I'm 19 sure you thought you'd never hear, is that the Board 20 has no additional questions on this contention. Based 21 on what I said earlier, it's now about five minutes of 22 4:00. If we stood in recess until 4:15, would that be 23 enough time for the parties to pull together their 24 questions, or would you request a longer period of 25 time than 4:15?
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Page 2312 1 Again, what we anticipate doing is going 2 for about another hour, once we come back, and not 3 more than that. Mr. Sipos, would you suggest 4:15, 4 4:30? What would you suggest?
5 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, I'd like to split 6 the difference. How about 4:20?
7 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
8 MR. SIPOS: I'll be conservative, and I'll 9 go with 4:20 in splitting the difference.
10 JUDGE McDADE: From Entergy's standpoint, 11 would that be sufficient time for you?
12 MR. BESSETTE: Yes, Your Honor, and before 13 we adjourn, I do have one housekeeping matter. But 14 I'll let you finish on this issue.
15 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Mr. Turk?
16 MR. TURK: We just wanted to note a 17 potential scheduling problem, Your Honor. One of our 18 witnesses may not be able to join us again next week, 19 if we need to do Contention 16 on Monday. There's a 20 medical issue that may need to be dealt with.
21 MR. HARRIS: Your Honor, this is Brian 22 Harris for the staff. This is with Mr. Harrison, but 23 his testimony is not really directed to New York 16.
24 So it shouldn't affect the staff's or the Board's 25 ability to go forward on New York 16.
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Page 2313 1 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. It's your view that 2 it would not significantly compromise the staff's 3 position, if Mr. Harrison were not here. It would be 4 helpful to you if he were, but it wouldn't 5 significantly compromise?
6 MR. HARRIS: That's correct, sir.
7 JUDGE McDADE: So what you're saying is 8 that you wouldn't object to going forward on 16 on 9 Monday, even and unfortunately hopefully he will be 10 here. But under the unfortunate circumstances if he 11 were not, you would still be prepared to go ahead?
12 MR. HARRIS: Correct. But if there was 13 some question that Your Honors may have already 14 determined you need to ask him in particular, then it 15 would be useful to do that today. But there may not 16 be anything about his personal testimony that you 17 intended to question, that somebody else couldn't 18 answer.
19 JUDGE McDADE: I mean my first reaction to 20 that is that, and I don't mean this to be 21 inappropriate, but the staff witnesses on Monday would 22 be somewhat fungible; but the witness who would be 23 able to answer one question would be able to answer 24 the other. Perhaps one would be better able to answer 25 it, and would feel more confident in doing so.
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Page 2314 1 But it doesn't appear that there would be, 2 that you would be left totally and, you know, being 3 very selfish, the Board would be left totally at a 4 loss, to be able to get its questions answered?
5 MR. HARRIS: No, Your Honor. I think that 6 we'll be able to answer any questions that you have, 7 going forward on Monday.
8 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Do you want to 9 rethink the -- since we've been talking?
10 MR. SIPOS: I actually do, Your Honor, but 11 I also know Mr. Bessette has a housekeeping. So 12 before I move the chains, I'd like to turn it over to 13 Mr. Bessette.
14 MR. BESSETTE: Thank you, Your Honor.
15 During lunch, Mr. Sipos and I consulted with regard to 16 New York 17, and we wanted to note that if the Board 17 has any concerns about completing New York 17, the 18 parties would be amenable perhaps to a schedule 19 change, to moving that to December, if that's 20 something that would make the Board feel more 21 appropriate for timing of that contention.
22 It was somewhat mooted by Your Honor's 23 statement that we plan to get through that. But we 24 have consulted, and wanted to let you know that was an 25 option, that both New York's experts and Entergy's Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2315 1 experts could support. That's all.
2 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you. Should we just 3 say then 4:30 that we come back?
4 MR. SIPOS: Yes. Thank you, Your Honor.
5 JUDGE McDADE: We are in recess.
6 (Whereupon, the proceedings in the 7 foregoing matter went off the record at 3:58 p.m. and 8 went back on the record at 4:30 p.m.)
9 JUDGE McDADE: The hearing will come to 10 order. Any other new administrative matters before we 11 get started?
12 (No response.)
13 Apparently not.
14 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, this is Paul 15 Bessette.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Apparently. Okay.
17 MR. BESSETTE: Just before we begin the 18 cross-examination, we understand the process the Board 19 has outlined for this contention. But for the record, 20 as Mr. Fagg noted yesterday in his oral motion, we 21 believe such procedures are inconsistent with the 22 Commission direction on this.
23 But we understand the Board's ruling, and 24 we don't want to take up much time of the Board. But 25 if the Board would recognize this as a standing Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2316 1 objection for any other contentions that may have 2 these procedures, we are ready to move on.
3 JUDGE McDADE: We understand, and we will.
4 And, you know, the Board felt that the very limited 5 examination that we had on Tuesday was very helpful to 6 the Board and increased our security that we 7 understood the issues, and, therefore, we think we are 8 optimistic that this will be as helpful as was that 9 brief interrogation on Tuesday. So --
10 MR. BESSETTE: Thank you, Your Honor.
11 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, a housekeeping 12 matter. I'm sorry. Ten minutes ago I got an email 13 from one of our -- one of the State's witnesses on New 14 York-37, who is encountering some -- a medical issue.
15 And I'm happy to discuss it, mindful of HIPAA, I 16 believe.
17 But right now the witness seems to be 18 bedridden, and perhaps I will talk to Mr. Bessette and 19 Mr. Turk about how that impacts things next week. I 20 literally got it 10 minutes ago.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Who is the witness 22 and --
23 MR. SIPOS: Mr. David Schlissel, S-C-H-L-24 I-S-S-E-L.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Well, he -- I'm not Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2317 1 really sure of the legal term, but is pretty much the 2 whole ball of was for New York on 37?
3 MR. SIPOS: He is a large part, yes, Your 4 Honor.
5 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Did he give you any 6 reasonable estimate as to his anticipated recovery 7 period? Because we're talking now -- today is 8 Thursday. We're talking about Monday.
9 MR. SIPOS: He did not provide a 10 prognosis, and we will do everything we can to find 11 more about the situation. I just -- I wanted -- I 12 literally opened the email, and I'm letting everyone 13 in the room know about it.
14 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Let me --
15 MR. SIPOS: Do you think we will get to 37 16 on -- well, this gets to the issue of 17 and I guess 17 5, good old contention 5, which is out there as well.
18 JUDGE McDADE: Well, I mean, let me go 19 back. I mean, here is kind of the thing, and to a 20 degree I want to kick it back to you all. I would be 21 hopeful of getting to 37 on Monday, certainly if not 22 on Monday on Tuesday. It is scheduled to go after 16 23 and 17.
24 On the other hand, there is a possibility 25 -- and ---
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Page 2318 1 MR. SIPOS: I misread the email. I 2 misread who it was from. It's actually from former 3 Commissioner Peter Bradford, not -- it's the same 4 situation and the same contention. Sorry to 5 interrupt, Your Honor.
6 JUDGE McDADE: No. But -- okay. My sort 7 of question to you all is this. One would hope that 8 we could get to 37 on Monday, and, you know, based on 9 how long it has taken us for the first two, you can 10 sort of dismiss my optimism with -- you know, with a 11 shrug. But we would hope to get to it by Tuesday at 12 the latest.
13 That said, we may not get through all of 14 the contentions that are currently on track -- the 10 15 or the nine contentions that we had by the end of next 16 week, and that is why we had time set aside in 17 December.
18 If it appeared that, one, he is not going 19 to be available next week, we could remove it from the 20 schedule and move it to the end of the Track 1, which 21 would mean that it probably then would be heard in 22 December. But what I'd like you to do is just consult 23 among yourselves tomorrow, because, you know, once we 24 start this it's the same thing, that, you know, you've 25 advised witnesses and they're on schedule.
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Page 2319 1 So when you change it from one to another, 2 you know, to accommodate one witness, you know, and we 3 certainly need to accommodate if it's a significant 4 health issue, it then can adversely impact the 5 schedules of other witnesses. So I don't want to make 6 an absolute pronouncement on this.
7 So -- at this point, so if you could 8 consult among yourselves tomorrow, hopefully you will 9 have a better idea of what the medical circumstance 10 is. And then, in the event you desire to have it 11 taken off the schedule, either, you know, to have it 12 move after, you know, the -- some of the other 13 contentions that we would have next week -- in other 14 words, if he says, "Well, I know I can't be there 15 Monday, but I think I can be there Tuesday, but I 16 definitely can be there Wednesday," you know, then we 17 can, you know, try to do that again if it doesn't mess 18 up significantly other witnesses.
19 On the other hand, if it's something that 20 there is no reasonable likelihood that he is going to 21 be recovered by next week, then the sooner we can 22 start trying to adjust.
23 So, again, if you could inquire further 24 tomorrow, Friday, we've got that day, consult with the 25 staff, consult with Entergy, and then, you know, have Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2320 1 one of the parties deputized to contact us, either 2 with a consensus -- you know, a joint request that we 3 do A, or, alternatively, expressing the parties' 4 different views of how we should proceed on New 5 York-37.
6 MR. SIPOS: Very well. And I would be 7 also willing to explain to Your Honors and to Entergy 8 counsel and NRC counsel the condition possibly -- I 9 don't know if there is a sidebar in this proceeding, 10 but I am just a little reluctant to put everything on 11 the record, given the medical issue.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Well, I'm -- you know, I'm 13 sort of predisposed at this point in time for the 14 Board not to inquire further. I am willing to take 15 your representation that the witness, for medical 16 reasons, is not able to be here, and, you know, there 17 is no predisposition to inquire beyond that, you know.
18 But --
19 MR. SIPOS: Very well, Your Honor. Thank 20 you.
21 MR. BESSETTE: And, Your Honor, we'll be 22 available to confer tomorrow.
23 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Sipos.
24 MR. TURK: Your Honor, for the staff, 25 Sherwin Turk. Just let me note for the record that we Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2321 1 have a witness on both contention 17 and 37 who will 2 not be available in December. I will discuss that 3 with the other parties, hopefully this evening, 4 because a lot of us will be packing and traveling 5 tomorrow.
6 So I would propose that the parties talk 7 tonight to see if we can come up with a joint proposal 8 for a schedule and get that to you as quickly as 9 possible, hopefully tomorrow, so that Your Honors will 10 know which contentions we would like to proceed with 11 on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.
12 JUDGE McDADE: And, again, you know, that 13 is part of, you know, hopefully we will have a better 14 feel for the medical condition, and the witnesses' 15 availability, you know, again, if not Monday, would 16 Wednesday work? And is this Dr. Hiser?
17 MR. TURK: No. It's Mr. Stuyvenburg.
18 JUDGE McDADE: Okay.
19 MS. GREENE: Your Honor?
20 JUDGE McDADE: Are we ready?
21 MS. LIBERATORE: This is Kathryn 22 Liberatore for the State of New York. Your Honor, I 23 just have a few targeted questions directed to clarify 24 the witness' testimony.
25 MS. GREENE: Your Honor, I'm sorry. I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2322 1 apologize --
2 JUDGE McDADE: I'm sorry.
3 MS. GREENE: -- for interrupting. I was 4 trying to get your attention.
5 JUDGE McDADE: I'm sorry, Ms. Greene.
6 MS. GREENE: And I would rather do that, 7 because it's an administrative matter now. Not to add 8 confusion, but we also have some witness availability 9 issues, which we have been trying very, very hard to 10 resolve. But perhaps in crisis, there is opportunity.
11 I don't know.
12 But I can tell you that all of our 13 witnesses but one are available on October 24th. That 14 one is available in December. However, in the first 15 few days of December we actually have three witnesses 16 that are not available. So I don't know whether that 17 would help solve a problem, if -- and perhaps 18 accommodate everyone. But I do agree that perhaps we 19 -- the parties should meet amongst ourselves and see 20 if we can create a proposal that will work.
21 But I did want to let you know we have 22 been trying very, very hard to solve it, and I didn't 23 even want to bring it to your attention. But at this 24 point, it is pretty clear what we can and cannot do.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. But are you Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2323 1 suggesting the possibility of moving up the Clearwater 2 contention that currently would be scheduled for 3 Wednesday, and trying to move that earlier in the 4 week?
5 MS. GREENE: No. Wednesday would work for 6 all but one witness, and perhaps that witness could, 7 if we need to go into December, come back and be the 8 first person on December 10th.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. And -- fine. We 10 will get into this -- and, again, if you can be part 11 of those consultations among the parties and, you 12 know, hopefully we will be in a better position. Is 13 it just the 24th that that one witness wouldn't be 14 available?
15 MS. GREENE: It is only on the 24th that 16 that particular witness is not available. But in 17 December, of our witnesses, there are -- there is one 18 day in December when all three of the witnesses --
19 anyway, I can explain the configuration. I actually 20 have an Excel spreadsheet of it, but --
21 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. And if you could 22 perhaps just send us an email with that --
23 MS. GREENE: Yes.
24 JUDGE McDADE: -- information, with the 25 copies to the parties, either this evening or Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2324 1 tomorrow.
2 MS. GREENE: I will do that.
3 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you.
4 MS. GREENE: Thank you.
5 MS. LIBERATORE: Your Honors, Kathryn 6 Liberatore for the State of New York. I just have a 7 few targeted questions directed to clarifying witness 8 testimony that was offered on contention 12 yesterday 9 and today.
10 Dr. Lemay, Dr. Ghosh earlier today 11 discussed an uncertainty factor of eight. What does 12 this uncertainty factor account for?
13 DR. LEMAY: The uncertainty factor of 14 eight accounts for external events such as seismic 15 events and the uncertainty in the Level 1 and Level 2 16 PSA.
17 MS. LIBERATORE: So is it true that the 18 uncertainty factor of eight was not designed to take 19 into account uncertainties in the Level 3 PRA?
20 DR. LEMAY: That's correct.
21 MS. LIBERATORE: If we could bring up 22 Entergy Exhibit 466, please, and go to page 4-17.
23 This is NUREG/CR-3673. I believe witnesses have been 24 referring to this as the "Burke document." If we 25 could highlight the area that we had highlighted Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2325 1 earlier.
2 This question is directed to Dr. O'Kula or 3 Mr. Teagarden, whoever prefers to respond. Isn't it 4 true that the entire context of this portion states 5 that non-farm area decontamination cost and 6 effectiveness have been weighted based on "national 7 average statistics," is that what the document says?
8 MR. TEAGARDEN: Yes. Yes, based on 9 national average statistics.
10 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you, Mr.
11 Teagarden.
12 MS. LIBERATORE: I have one question for 13 Ms. Potts. Yesterday you testified that analysts 14 performing a SAMA analysis would have determined that 15 Sample Problem A values, adjusted for the Consumer 16 Price Index, were reasonable. You also mentioned that 17 you review the analysts' work.
18 Could you please point me to any documents 19 that describe your role in the review process or that 20 demonstrate your review of the analysts' determination 21 that the Sample Problem A values were reasonable?
22 MS. POTTS: Yes. The RAI response that we 23 talked about yesterday does provide some information 24 that you are looking for.
25 MS. LIBERATORE: Is that the only Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2326 1 document? This question was just directed to --
2 MS. STOLLEY: I'm sorry, Your Honor. I'm 3 sorry, Your Honor, to interrupt. If it would help, we 4 do have the exhibit number. My name is Martha Stolley 5 for Entergy. I apologize. The exhibit number is 6 Entergy Number 000460, if it might help Ms. Potts.
7 JUDGE McDADE: I'm sorry. Could you 8 repeat that?
9 MS. STOLLEY: Entergy 000460 is the number 10 of the exhibit that Ms. Liberatore is referring to, 11 and it might be helpful to pull that up on the screen.
12 MS. LIBERATORE: And I believe this is a 13 document that we discussed yesterday. I was really 14 inquiring as to whether there is any other documentary 15 evidence of your review of the analysts' determination 16 that Sample Problem A values are in fact reasonable.
17 MS. POTTS: I don't believe there is 18 anything else that has been entered into the record.
19 I could speak to what I reviewed, if you would like, 20 but I don't believe there is any other documentation 21 that is in the record.
22 JUDGE McDADE: Well, if you could, 23 describe what it is your review consisted of and then 24 how, if at all, it was documented. In other words, is 25 your review something that is documented internally at Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2327 1 Entergy, or is it --
2 MS. POTTS: Yes, Your Honor. When the 3 engineer did the analysis, it was written, of course.
4 And it was also reviewed by another engineer in the 5 Fuels and Analysis Department, and as well as his 6 manager. And when I performed my review, it was a 7 little bit higher level review, but it was to bring in 8 my experience with the SAMA analyses in general, 9 because I have worked on several of them.
10 And my comments that I provided were in an 11 -- on an Entergy comment form and the engineers 12 responded to my comments and made appropriate changes.
13 MS. LIBERATORE: Did any of those comments 14 address the reasonableness of Sample Problem A or 15 NUREG-1150 economic cost input values?
16 MS. POTTS: I honestly don't remember at 17 the moment if they did.
18 MS. LIBERATORE: Are those comments an 19 exhibit in this hearing?
20 MS. POTTS: I don't believe so.
21 MS. LIBERATORE: Okay. Now, turning to 22 Dr. Ghosh -- and I apologize -- I can't see you, and 23 I haven't been able to see you for this entire 24 proceeding. But I just have a few questions for you 25 as well.
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Page 2328 1 Today you indicated that Mr. Lee's 2 proposal -- and this is his proposal relating to the 3 pedigree of the Sample Problem A input values -- so 4 you indicated Mr. Lee's proposal was evaluated by a 5 Review Committee of eight people and was ranked the 6 lowest.
7 I have three very basic questions about 8 your testimony. First question is, did you or anyone 9 on this panel participate in the review of Mr. Lee's 10 proposal?
11 DR. GHOSH: Let me first clarify one 12 thing. I said that Mr. Lee's proposal was -- I don't 13 remember the exact language I used, but his proposal 14 was ranked one of the lowest. I can't say with 15 certainty that it was the lowest of all of the ones 16 that were considered.
17 So now going back to the end of 2010, I 18 had just assumed a new position at the NRC. The 19 previous project manager for the long-term research 20 program had just passed away, and I kind of inherited 21 the project management of that temporarily for a few 22 months to fill in for the staff person who had passed 23 away, different person than Mr. Lee who also 24 subsequently passed away.
25 So I was involved in the process, but I Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2329 1 entered the process in the middle. So I wasn't the 2 project manager when the proposals were first 3 submitted. And when I did review the exhibit by New 4 York State, it was kind of the first time that I 5 recollected seeing anything about that particular 6 proposal, because I wasn't part of the original 7 submission process.
8 I did coordinate the activities of the 9 review group, who subsequently reviewed all of the 10 proposals. And I went back to my notes, and my 11 affidavit explains what the Review Committee had done 12 with the -- that particular proposal.
13 MS. LIBERATORE: Were any other panel 14 members part of that Review Committee?
15 DR. GHOSH: No, they were not.
16 MS. LIBERATORE: And how did the Review 17 Committee conduct its review? For example, were there 18 meetings? Were there emails exchanged? Could you 19 just give us a little insight as to that?
20 DR. GHOSH: Sure. I believe there were 21 three separate meetings where they sequentially 22 reviewed all of the staff proposals that were 23 submitted that year. And as I said, there was a 24 committee of about eight senior staff people from 25 across the NRC with different areas of expertise.
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Page 2330 1 And they deliberated amongst themselves to 2 rank these proposals along five elements, which really 3 go to, does this proposal talk about a fundamental 4 knowledge gap that we need to remedy, is there 5 something that is wrong with what we are doing 6 currently in our regulatory application or that is 7 forward-looking that needs to be fixed, just to give 8 a couple of examples.
9 MS. LIBERATORE: Was there a decision-10 making matrix applied to Mr. Lee's proposal, for 11 example?
12 DR. GHOSH: Mr. Lee's proposal, along with 13 all of the other staff proposals that were submitted 14 that year, were ranked alongside evaluation criteria, 15 which I believe I laid out in my affidavit. Each of 16 those criteria were -- are assigned a weighting, and 17 the final rank was determined by adding up the scores 18 across those five evaluation criteria.
19 MS. LIBERATORE: Did the Review Committee 20 document these five criteria in writing, or are there 21 any meeting minutes or any other documentary evidence?
22 I understand you have submitted an affidavit, but 23 there -- you haven't submitted any evidence of the 24 Review Committee's determination of the ranking of Mr.
25 Lee's proposal?
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Page 2331 1 DR. GHOSH: Because this is part of the 2 NRC's budget formulation process, the Commission paper 3 itself is Official Use Only. And my understanding is 4 that because budget information -- internal budget 5 formulation information is typically non-public.
6 And I guess it's beyond my state of 7 knowledge in terms of the criteria that the NRC uses, 8 but I know that the documentation for this process and 9 the Commission paper is not public. The final results 10 in terms of which projects are funded eventually do 11 get documented in a NUREG that is periodically 12 updated. That is NUREG-1925.
13 If you go to the latest version of NUREG-14 1925, it lists all of the ongoing research projects of 15 the NRC. And the ones that are being conducted as 16 part of the long-term research program are identified.
17 MS. LIBERATORE: But that document would 18 not discuss the reasons why Mr. Lee's proposal was 19 ranked as it was.
20 DR. GHOSH: That's right. What that --
21 there is -- that NUREG describes the evaluation 22 criteria that are used to evaluate the various 23 proposals. And there is information on the proposals 24 that do survive and get funded. There is information 25 about what those projects are and what the status of Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2332 1 those projects are.
2 MS. LIBERATORE: Dr. Ghosh, moving on to 3 one other topic you discussed that I would like to 4 clarify, you took us through the SAMA cost-benefit 5 analysis. But would you agree that as costs increase, 6 the difference between the costs and benefits of the 7 SAMAs are cost beneficial, so that -- that delta or 8 that difference actually decreases?
9 DR. GHOSH: When you say "costs increase,"
10 which costs are you talking about?
11 MS. LIBERATORE: The total cost that's 12 used in the SAMA analysis.
13 DR. GHOSH: Implementation cost or averted 14 cost from --
15 MS. LIBERATORE: Implementation cost.
16 DR. GHOSH: You are talking about the 17 benefit side of the equation? I'm sorry. Can you 18 repeat your question?
19 MS. LIBERATORE: That's okay. I'll 20 rephrase. So as the costs associated -- the onsite 21 and offsite costs associated with a severe accident 22 increase, for SAMAs that have already been determined 23 to be cost beneficial, wouldn't the difference between 24 the costs and benefits of those SAMAs decrease? So 25 they would become more cost beneficial?
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Page 2333 1 MR. TURK: Your Honor, I would ask for the 2 question -- Sherwin Turk. I find the question 3 confusing. I would object to it and ask her to ask it 4 again in a more clear manner, because I can't 5 understand it.
6 JUDGE McDADE: The objection is sustained.
7 Would you please rephrase? I think it was actually 8 clearer the first time you asked it.
9 MS. LIBERATORE: When we are looking at 10 SAMAs that have already been -- SAMA candidates that 11 have already been determined to be cost beneficial, if 12 the costs associated with a severe accident, the 13 onsite and offsite costs increase, wouldn't the delta 14 between the costs and benefits of those SAMAs actually 15 decrease, such that those costs -- already cost 16 beneficial SAMAs become more cost beneficial?
17 DR. GHOSH: Okay. I think I understood 18 your question. I believe your question is the 19 implementation cost is staying the same. If the 20 benefit term, which is the averted cost element, were 21 to increase, would the net benefit increase for a 22 given SAMA? I believe that is your question.
23 MS. LIBERATORE: Yes.
24 DR. GHOSH: Yes. That is correct. And as 25 I pointed out earlier, I think a couple of times, the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2334 1 SAMA analysis is done on a per SAMA candidate basis.
2 So if you were to look at the list of potentially cost 3 beneficial SAMAs that are provided in the FSEIS, and 4 you added up the total benefit of all of those, for 5 Indian Point 2, for example, you are going to 6 completely eliminate the plant risk twice over.
7 So while -- so in that set of SAMAs alone, 8 you are -- there is more than twice -- you know, there 9 is twice the entire plant risk. So it is true that 10 you can increase the benefit of a particular SAMA 11 candidate, but in terms of the results of the SAMA 12 analysis, you know, that -- my thought still holds in 13 terms of, what more would you be achieving?
14 MS. LIBERATORE: Ms. Potts, didn't you 15 testify earlier that when Entergy is looking at these 16 cost beneficial SAMA candidates they put those into an 17 internal process to determine which candidates to 18 input?
19 JUDGE McDADE: To input --
20 MS. LIBERATORE: Implement.
21 JUDGE McDADE: -- or implement?
22 MS. LIBERATORE: Implement.
23 MS. POTTS: Yes.
24 MS. LIBERATORE: And would Entergy look at 25 the delta or the difference between the costs and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2335 1 benefits of a factor in deciding which cost beneficial 2 SAMAs to implement?
3 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, this is Paul 4 Bessette. Again, we have to object as this question 5 is beyond the scope of SAMA 12. Again, it is going 6 into implementation requirements, which is beyond the 7 scope of this contention.
8 MS. LIBERATORE: Your Honor, this --
9 JUDGE McDADE: I think it is within the 10 scope, as I understand the question. As the SAMA has 11 become more cost beneficial, does that increase the 12 probability of their being implemented?
13 MS. LIBERATORE: Or is it a factor that 14 Entergy would look at in determining whether to 15 implement a SAMA. For example, if, you know, there is 16 a $100 difference versus a $5 million difference, I 17 mean, is that something that you would consider?
18 MS. POTTS: I believe that that would be 19 one of the factors that would be considered.
20 MS. LIBERATORE: Okay. And the following 21 question is for, really, anyone on the Entergy panel.
22 Isn't it true that Entergy determines that to render 23 IP2 SAMA 025 cost effective its benefit would have to 24 increase by 11 percent?
25 MS. SUTTON: Your Honor, this is Kathryn Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2336 1 Sutton. Could counsel please direct the witness to 2 that particular line item?
3 MS. LIBERATORE: Yes. It's Entergy 4 Exhibit 000003, answer A89.
5 MS. SUTTON: And can we please put that up 6 on the screen?
7 JUDGE McDADE: What page is that on?
8 MS. LIBERATORE: It's answer A89. Let me 9 see if I can find the page.
10 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. We have it up.
11 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, this is Paul 12 Bessette. I believe that's testimony in a different 13 contention.
14 MS. LIBERATORE: Yes. That is testimony 15 on a different contention, but it was offered -- as 16 you can see, KRO, GAT, and LAP. I believe those stand 17 for the panel we have here. And I think this is 18 relevant to the Board's questions as to what effect an 19 increase in OECR -- a factor of three to seven 20 increase in OECR would have on the ultimate SAMA cost 21 beneficial analysis.
22 JUDGE McDADE: It may well be that the 23 witnesses on this panel aren't able to answer the 24 question. But the question is, at this point, for 25 Indian Point 2, SAMA 025, having to do with the cost Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2337 1 effectiveness and whether or not these witnesses are 2 able to address that. Is that correct?
3 MS. LIBERATORE: Yes, Your Honor. There 4 is a statement -- and I'm reading verbatim -- "For 5 IP2" --
6 JUDGE McDADE: You don't have to read 7 verbatim.
8 MS. LIBERATORE: Oh, okay.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Just ask your question.
10 And the witnesses -- these witnesses may or may not be 11 able to answer your question.
12 MS. LIBERATORE: Okay. This is --
13 JUDGE McDADE: If this document helps 14 them, then it can help them. It is just simply there 15 for their reference.
16 MS. LIBERATORE: Okay.
17 JUDGE McDADE: We're not, you know --
18 MS. LIBERATORE: This is prefiled 19 testimony, sworn testimony, that is attributed to 20 these three panel members.
21 JUDGE McDADE: I understand.
22 MS. LIBERATORE: Okay. So given the 23 testimony that IP2, SAMA 025, to become cost effective 24 its benefit would have to increase by 11 percent, 25 wouldn't it be true that SAMA would become cost Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2338 1 effective if the OECR were to increase by a factor of 2 three to seven?
3 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, we renew our 4 objection. I think it is highly abnormal, and beyond 5 the scope of this contention, to go ask witnesses on 6 -- testimony on other contentions. This is just 7 completely inappropriate and beyond the scope of this 8 contention, so we're going to renew our objection.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. I'm going to sustain 10 that objection. The evidence will be in the record.
11 New York will be able to make arguments with regard to 12 it. I don't know that the testimony of these 13 witnesses, even though they did enter this testimony, 14 it is not testimony that the Board needs clarification 15 on on this contention.
16 The argument can be made based on the 17 evidence that will be in the record when you make the 18 argument. But at this point, you have identified 19 that, you know, as the averted costs increase, it 20 makes the SAMA more cost beneficial and, you know, 21 so --
22 MS. LIBERATORE: Your Honor?
23 JUDGE McDADE: Cutting to the chase, I 24 sustain the objection.
25 MS. LIBERATORE: Okay. Our position is Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2339 1 that this relates directly to questions Judge Wardwell 2 was asking earlier.
3 Okay. Two final questions. This is for 4 staff. Has a MACCS2 code ever been promulgated as a 5 regulation?
6 MR. HARRISON: This is Donald Harrison of 7 the staff. The answer to that is no. We don't 8 typically promulgate regulations for specific computer 9 codes.
10 MS. LIBERATORE: Does any regulation 11 require the use of MACCS2 or Sample Problem A in 12 NUREG-1150?
13 MR. HARRISON: Again, NUREG-1150 -- this 14 is Donald Harrison -- is a NUREG document. It does 15 not establish regulation or requirements of such for 16 requiring specific things to be done.
17 DR. GHOSH: If I could add -- this is Dr.
18 Ghosh for the staff. Again, those two NUREG/BR 19 guidance documents that we talked about earlier --
20 that's NUREG/BR-0184 and NUREG/BR-0058 -- does 21 specifically call out the MACCS2 code as an 22 appropriate code to use for cost-benefit analyses.
23 MR. HARRISON: And if I may --
24 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. But, Doctor, that's 25 a guidance document, not a regulation.
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Page 2340 1 DR. GHOSH: That's right. That's a 2 guidance document, not a regulation. The only other 3 thing I would point to, I believe Mr. Harrison this 4 morning cited to a number of places in the GEIS a rule 5 from 1996 where MACCS was used as the basis for the 6 findings in the Generic Environmental Impact Statement 7 for license renewal, which is a Commission rule. So 8 it has been used as the basis for Commission findings 9 in a rule.
10 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you.
11 MS. LIBERATORE: Nothing further. I turn 12 it to my --
13 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, I would like to 14 pick up from Ms. Liberatore. I just have a few 15 questions. I have a rule of the road question for 16 you. Is it acceptable if I stand? My sight lines are 17 pretty flat out on the left side of the table.
18 JUDGE McDADE: It is fine.
19 MR. SIPOS: Thank you, Your Honor. And 20 can everyone hear me?
21 JUDGE McDADE: Yes.
22 MR. SIPOS: Okay. Very good.
23 First question is to Mr. Harrison. Mr.
24 Harrison, the SAMA analysis performed by Entergy for 25 Indian Point's Unit 2 and Unit 3, and approved by the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2341 1 NRC staff, examines severe reactor accidents at those 2 facilities, correct?
3 MR. HARRISON: I guess I am not quite 4 following your question, but, yes, the severe accident 5 mitigation alternatives that are evaluated are for the 6 evaluation of severe accidents using a probabilistic 7 approach.
8 MR. SIPOS: Right. And they are severe 9 accidents for the reactors, are they not?
10 MR. HARRISON: Yes. What you review is --
11 the Level 1 is for core damage within the reactor.
12 Level 2 takes you through releases from core damage 13 event through the containment to a release point, and 14 then Level 3 takes you from the release point to 15 actually the calculation of doses and land 16 contamination, that type of thing.
17 MR. SIPOS: And those SAMA analyses did 18 not examine severe accidents to the spent fuel pools 19 at Indian Point Unit 2 and Unit 3, correct?
20 MR. HARRIS: Your Honor, the NRC staff 21 would object. This is Brian Harris for the staff.
22 JUDGE McDADE: Sustained.
23 MR. SIPOS: Dr. Ghosh, I believe this 24 morning you testified that the existing list of SAMA 25 candidates would eliminate all risk posed to the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2342 1 plant. Is that correct?
2 DR. GHOSH: What I said is that if you 3 were -- no. I don't necessarily believe that to be 4 the case. But I said if you add up the benefit that 5 is attributed to that list of SAMA candidates that are 6 in the FSEIS, that they would -- for Indian Point 2 7 they would essentially completely eliminate the plant 8 risk twice over.
9 And the reason that that -- of course that 10 doesn't make sense, right? And the reason for that is 11 that many of the SAMA candidates are acting on the 12 same accident sequences. So that if you were actually 13 to implement one of them, it would of course change 14 your baseline risk.
15 And we talked a little bit about this when 16 Judge Wardwell asked a question about that. It would 17 bring down your baseline risk. And when you relooked 18 at the risk profile, a SAMA that is acting on those 19 same accident sequences would no longer be as 20 beneficial as is shown in that list of -- in that 21 table, that final table in the --
22 MR. HARRISON: This is Mr. Harrison. If 23 I can just add to that. The reason that happens is 24 because the SAMAs are evaluated one at a time. And so 25 you can have multiple SAMAs that essentially address Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2343 1 the same calculated risk, and artificially, then, if 2 you try to sum them, so you would get a number bigger 3 than the actual calculated risk at the plant.
4 And so it is not to mean that if you fix 5 these things the risk at Indian Point goes to zero or 6 even better. It is a calculation and how the 7 calculation is done.
8 DR. GHOSH: Right. So there are 9 essentially diminishing returns. As you -- if you 10 were to do it in a sequential manner, you have 11 increasing diminishing returns for implementing 12 subsequent SAMA candidates.
13 MR. SIPOS: And so when you were talking 14 about the existing list of SAMA candidates --
15 DR. GHOSH: Can you use your mic?
16 JUDGE McDADE: Yes. If you could move 17 back and at least be behind the microphone, we --
18 MR. SIPOS: Sorry, Your Honor. And sorry, 19 Dr. Ghosh. When you were talking about the existing 20 list of SAMA candidates, you were talking about the 21 list that appears in the FSEIS, correct?
22 DR. GHOSH: That is correct.
23 MR. SIPOS: Thank you. Why would you not 24 want to have the fuller list of potentially cost 25 beneficial SAMA candidates before you decide which Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2344 1 ones should be implemented?
2 DR. GHOSH: If we were to look at the 3 effect of some of the potential uncertainties in the 4 Level 3 portion of the analysis, which has been the 5 subject of this contention, there is no reason to 6 think that they would disproportionately affect 7 particular SAMAs more than others.
8 Now, if you look at the initial -- if you 9 look at the full list, for example, in the ER and the 10 responses to the Requests for Additional Information, 11 which kind of provide the full record of all potential 12 candidate SAMAs, the ones that appear in the FSEIS 13 generally are the more cost effective ways of 14 mitigating the most important accident sequences at 15 Indian Point.
16 So as you -- and so for the reasons we 17 mentioned, as you sequentially start going down the 18 list, you are reaching diminishing potential returns 19 for implementing other SAMAs. The ones that are 20 further down the list typically are starting out as 21 being less potentially cost beneficial.
22 So if you were to bump up the benefit for 23 all of those SAMAs, there is no reason to think that 24 the ranking of the SAMA candidates would change.
25 MR. HARRISON: Your Honors, can I ask to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2345 1 clarify? Because I thought there was a phrase there 2 that was, at least in my mind, misleading. And it's 3 the word "potential." Could we maybe clarify what the 4 question meant in the context of --
5 JUDGE McDADE: Are you saying that Dr.
6 Ghosh believes --
7 MR. HARRISON: The way the question was 8 worded was the fully potential --
9 JUDGE McDADE: Mr. Harrison, are you 10 saying Dr. Ghosh's testimony was unclear?
11 MR. HARRISON: I'm saying the way she 12 responded was to infer that there is some full 13 potential list out there that -- and the word 14 "potential" means something in the context of SAMAs.
15 So I just wanted to make sure Dr. Ghosh --
16 JUDGE McDADE: Dr. Ghosh, do you feel that 17 you need to clarify your answer?
18 DR. GHOSH: Did I answer your question?
19 I --
20 JUDGE McDADE: Doctor, the question is to 21 you, whether you wish to clarify your answer. Do you 22 think it was -- that you understood the question and 23 you are satisfied with your answer?
24 DR. GHOSH: I think I understood the 25 question. If --
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Page 2346 1 MR. SIPOS: Thank you.
2 MR. TURK: Your Honor, may I -- Sherwin 3 Turk. I'm sorry, Your Honor. What Mr. Harrison was 4 pointing out is that the term "potential" --
5 JUDGE McDADE: No. I understand --
6 MR. SIPOS: Objection, Your Honor.
7 JUDGE McDADE: -- what --
8 MR. SIPOS: It's a state of --
9 JUDGE McDADE: I understand what Mr.
10 Harrison was trying to point out. There was a 11 question asked of the witness. There was no objection 12 to the question. The witness says that she understood 13 the question and that she is satisfied with her 14 answer. It is not up to Mr. Harrison to try to 15 rectify.
16 As you know, Mr. Turk, you are going to 17 have an opportunity here in just a few moments. And 18 if you feel something needs to be clarified, that is 19 the appropriate procedure for doing it --
20 MR. TURK: Thank you, Your Honor.
21 JUDGE McDADE: -- and the appropriate 22 time.
23 Mr. Sipos?
24 MR. SIPOS: Yes, Your Honor. A question 25 for Mr. Jones and Dr. Bixler. Did you come onto the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2347 1 NRC team in approximately the September/October 2009 2 timeframe?
3 MR. HARRIS: Objection, Your Honor. What 4 is the relevance? This is Brian Harris for the staff.
5 JUDGE McDADE: I'm going to allow it.
6 MR. JONES: This is Joe Jones for staff.
7 As I sit here, I know this has been a long contract, 8 but I cannot answer that question. I do not recall 9 specifically when we came onto this project.
10 MR. SIPOS: Was it around the time that 11 there was a discovery of an error in the wind 12 direction calculations?
13 MR. JONES: It was prior to that time.
14 MR. SIPOS: And who discovered that error?
15 MR. JONES: Sandia performs an independent 16 review. That is what we are looking at when we review 17 a SAMA analysis, and Dr. Bixler discovered the error.
18 MR. SIPOS: Thank you. I would like to 19 ask Mr. Wilkie if he could bring up New York 20 Exhibit 000131C, and specifically I'm looking at 21 Table 5.3 at page -- I'm going to be starting out at 22 page 5-23, if you could get that up.
23 Mr. Jones, yesterday you testified in 24 response to some questions from Judge McDade that the 25 Indian site is "similar" to the Indian Point site. Do Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2348 1 you recall that? I'm sorry. The Zion site is similar 2 to the Indian Point site?
3 MR. JONES: I recall discussing it with 4 respect to population density and --
5 MR. SIPOS: Yes.
6 MR. JONES: -- some attributes.
7 MR. SIPOS: And when NUREG-1150 was being 8 prepared, do you know approximately how many people 9 lived within 50 miles of the Zion reactors?
10 MR. JONES: I reviewed the population 11 density at that time, and it was on the order of 13-12 or 1,400 persons per kilometer squared. I do not know 13 the 50-mile population.
14 MR. SIPOS: And, Mr. Wilkie, I'm trying to 15 get to -- I believe it's page -- it's PDF frame 46 of 16 148. I hope I'm in the right -- and specifically --
17 and if we could go to PDF page 49 of 148.
18 Your Honor, I apologize. I'm trying to 19 get to page 5-24. I have -- I have mixed up my PDF 20 references. Oh, that is it. Your Honor, if I could 21 just have -- is this New York 000131C? Yes, it is.
22 Your Honor, may I have one moment?
23 JUDGE McDADE: Sure.
24 MR. SIPOS: I'm sorry.
25 JUDGE McDADE: While you're looking for Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2349 1 that, let me just clarify one thing. Mr. Jones, there 2 was a question asked that presumes some testimony that 3 you gave yesterday.
4 My recollection of your testimony -- and 5 I'm trying to find out whether it is correct -- is not 6 that the Zion was inherently similar to Indian Point, 7 but, rather, that it was the most similar to Indian 8 Point of the five that were reviewed. Do you recall 9 what your answer was?
10 MR. JONES: I don't recall my answer from 11 yesterday. But of the five sites, that is correct.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. And would you adopt 13 the presumed testimony that it is in fact not only the 14 most similar but that it is objectively similar to 15 Indian Point?
16 MR. JONES: I believe I would, yes.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you.
18 MR. TURK: Your Honor, this is Sherwin 19 Turk. My notes indicate that the question was, is 20 there any area that is even remotely similar to New 21 York City regarding population density, building 22 density, and property values? And the answer was, 23 yes, the Zion site. The question was, anything 24 remotely similar.
25 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. And the answer that Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2350 1 we just got from Mr. Jones is that he viewed it as the 2 most similar, and also objectively he viewed it as 3 similar. And one of the reasons we are having little 4 sessions like this is so that we can clarify and make 5 sure that we all recollect what the witnesses say 6 exactly the same.
7 Mr. Sipos?
8 MR. SIPOS: And, Your Honor, I apologize 9 because apparently my version of this document is 10 slightly different. I am in the NUREG-1437 Volume 1, 11 and I am trying to get to page 5-23.
12 And, Mr. Jones, I would just like to 13 direct your attention to the entry for Surry. Would 14 you please read what Table 5.3 lists for the 15 population within 50 miles of Surry as of 2030?
16 MR. JONES: Could you clarify which 17 document this is, please?
18 MR. SIPOS: Yes. I believe this is NUREG-19 1437, Volume 1. This is the GEIS from 1996.
20 MR. JONES: We will need to go back to 21 that page, then.
22 MR. SIPOS: And Surry is at the bottom of 23 the -- sort of the lower third of that page. Thank 24 you, Mr. Wilkie.
25 MR. JONES: If the third column is Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2351 1 population, then that says the 2030 population is 2 about 2.5 million.
3 MR. SIPOS: Thank you. And could you go 4 to the next page, please, Mr. Wilkie? Bring that up 5 for Zion?
6 And, Mr. Jones, would you please read what 7 Table 5.3 lists for the population within 50 miles of 8 Zion as of 2030?
9 MR. JONES: As of 2030, the population for 10 Zion reads "approximately 8.2 million." You need to 11 consider that Zion sits on a Great Lake.
12 MR. SIPOS: I'm just asking if you could 13 read what the chart says.
14 MR. JONES: Okay.
15 MR. SIPOS: Thank you. And if we could go 16 back, then, to page 5-22, two pages back. And, Mr.
17 Jones, would you please read what Table 5.3 of the 18 GEIS lists for the population within 50 miles of 19 Indian Point as of 2030?
20 MR. JONES: It lists a population of 21 approximately 15.2 million.
22 MR. SIPOS: Thank you. One moment, Your 23 Honor. No further questions, Your Honor.
24 JUDGE McDADE: From Entergy?
25 MR. BESSETTE: Your Honor, Ms. Stolley Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2352 1 will be asking the questions.
2 MS. STOLLEY: I'm Martha Stolley, for the 3 record. Thank you, Your Honors.
4 Dr. Lemay, my first questions are 5 addressed to you. If we could put up on the screen 6 New York State Exhibit 000242. And, actually, I'm not 7 sure whether the revised tables are a different 8 exhibit number. One moment.
9 DR. LEMAY: If I may help, the revised 10 tables are from Exhibit 000430, New York State --
11 MS. STOLLEY: Thank you.
12 DR. LEMAY: -- 000430.
13 MS. STOLLEY: Thank you, Dr. Lemay. So 14 000430 instead, on page 6. I'm sorry. It's page 5, 15 I apologize.
16 Dr. Lemay, this is the revised Table 11 17 that you provided, correct?
18 DR. LEMAY: Yes, it is.
19 MS. STOLLEY: And those numbers -- all of 20 the parameters, other than Entergy's of course -- oh, 21 you can't hear me? Sorry. All of those parameters 22 have changed since the original report, which you 23 submitted in December of 2011, is that correct?
24 DR. LEMAY: It is correct. We made 25 changes following the comments provided by Entergy and Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2353 1 the staff, and some of the comments were valid and we 2 revised our calculations.
3 MS. STOLLEY: And the numbers I just want 4 to go through for a second. The original report that 5 you prepared based on your analysis and your testing 6 and your examination, for the site restoration for 7 Approach A, for light decontamination, the range was 8 from 136,000 to 272,000. Is that correct?
9 DR. LEMAY: If you'll give me a second.
10 MS. STOLLEY: Page 23 of New York State 11 000242.
12 DR. LEMAY: It is correct.
13 MS. STOLLEY: And for heavy 14 decontamination, the original parameters or the 15 original range -- excuse me -- was 449,000 to 898,000.
16 Is that correct?
17 DR. LEMAY: That is correct.
18 MS. STOLLEY: And as you can see from the 19 screen here, they dropped substantially to 91 --
20 92,000 to 184,000 for light decontamination -- and I'm 21 rounding. And for heavy decontamination, 209,000 to 22 418,000, correct?
23 DR. LEMAY: That is correct.
24 MS. STOLLEY: For Reichmuth, the numbers 25 were originally 200,000 to 252,000, is that correct, Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2354 1 in your original report?
2 DR. LEMAY: It is correct.
3 MS. STOLLEY: And now dropped by about 4 150,000, 130,000. And then, for CONDO, Dr. Lemay, the 5 original numbers were 19,000 to 30,000 for light 6 decontamination, and for heavy decontamination 90,000 7 to 140,000. Is that correct?
8 DR. LEMAY: That is correct.
9 MS. STOLLEY: And then, finally, for RISO, 10 the numbers were originally 36,000 to 59,000, correct?
11 DR. LEMAY: That is correct.
12 MS. STOLLEY: So your lower dropped from 13 19,000 to 15,000, and the upper dropped from 898,000 14 to 418,000, correct?
15 DR. LEMAY: Correct.
16 MS. STOLLEY: And those original numbers, 17 again, were based on your original analysis before 18 hearing comments from NRC staff and Entergy, correct?
19 DR. LEMAY: Correct.
20 MS. STOLLEY: And just briefly, I wanted 21 to go through what those changes were based on.
22 Approach A, as far as I can tell, you originally 23 erroneously included the cost of compensation in the 24 CDNFRM figure.
25 DR. LEMAY: That's correct. We included Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2355 1 this cost at 60 percent of the cost of 2 decontamination.
3 MS. STOLLEY: And that actually caused 4 that number to drop by --
5 DR. LEMAY: By 60 percent.
6 MS. STOLLEY: -- 60 percent. Sorry. You 7 just said that. Because those numbers should have bee 8 included or were accounted for in the POPCST number, 9 correct?
10 DR. LEMAY: Absolutely correct.
11 MS. STOLLEY: For Approach B, the 12 Reichmuth, you erroneously included the total 13 $8 billion to clean up costs -- $8 billion Canadian, 14 that is -- when only a fraction of that, about 15 15 percent, was actually cleanup cost versus lost 16 earnings, worried well treatments, tourism reduction.
17 Is that correct?
18 DR. LEMAY: That is correct.
19 MS. STOLLEY: And for Approach C, you 20 erroneously included surface water and farmland in the 21 area used to calculate CDNFRM, correct?
22 DR. LEMAY: That is correct.
23 MS. STOLLEY: And that is the same for 24 RISO, you erroneously included surface water and 25 farmland in the area used to calculate the CDNFRM?
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Page 2356 1 DR. LEMAY: That is correct.
2 MS. STOLLEY: One other thing, Dr. Lemay.
3 And you have essentially acknowledged this in your 4 testimony. For the CONDO and RISO approaches, you 5 incorrectly assumed uniform deposition of 6 contamination, correct?
7 MS. LIBERATORE: Objection, Your Honor.
8 I believe that mischaracterizes the witness' 9 testimony.
10 JUDGE McDADE: Sustained. Just ask the 11 witness the question. We don't need to go back into 12 -- we don't have the transcript, and, you know, one of 13 the things, you know, witnesses should never do is 14 just accept when someone says that is what they said 15 necessarily that that is what they said. We don't 16 have the transcript, so just ask the question as to 17 what his view is.
18 MS. STOLLEY: Do you acknowledge that you 19 treated this as if the contamination was uniformly 20 deposited on all surfaces?
21 MS. LIBERATORE: Objection. I don't know 22 what "this" refers to. I think the question is 23 unclear.
24 JUDGE McDADE: Sustained. If you could 25 clarify "this."
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Page 2357 1 MS. STOLLEY: Do you acknowledge that in 2 your calculations, in your use of the CONDO code and 3 in RISO, that you modeled it as if there were uniform 4 deposition of contamination on all surfaces? Equal 5 decontamination/deposition on all surfaces.
6 DR. LEMAY: We modeled the decontamination 7 effort for all of the outside surfaces of the building 8 and some outside surfaces inside the building, 9 assuming a uniform contamination. That is correct.
10 MS. STOLLEY: And in your testimony, in 11 your rebuttal testimony -- well, withdrawn. Just a 12 moment, Your Honor.
13 In your -- and you acknowledge that that 14 was incorrect, that that was incorrect, to calculate 15 it as if there were uniform deposition of 16 contamination.
17 DR. LEMAY: I disagree with that 18 statement. I think that you illustrate the value of 19 having documented basis for the cost of 20 decontamination, because we can get a peer review and 21 identify mistakes, and then correct them. I think 22 that's a valid point, and I am happy with that.
23 Regarding the decontamination, as I have 24 explained, MACCS uses a uniform deposition velocity 25 for the whole 50-mile site, and that value is an Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2358 1 average. And for plowed fields and surface water, the 2 actual deposition would be a bit lower. And for urban 3 areas, the deposition would be a bit higher.
4 So we are justified to distribute the 5 contamination that is in the plowed over all surfaces, 6 because in actual fact the deposition velocity 7 transfers more contamination. But MACCS does not 8 capture that. It calculates an average.
9 So I would reject the -- what you just 10 said.
11 MS. STOLLEY: Well, Dr. Lemay, I would 12 like to draw your attention to your rebuttal 13 testimony, which is New York State 000241.
14 MS. LIBERATORE: This is Kathryn 15 Liberatore for the State. I believe it is actually 16 000420. There was -- New York State 000420. I think 17 there was an error in labeling it the first time.
18 MS. STOLLEY: Thank you.
19 JUDGE McDADE: We're talking about the 20 rebuttal testimony.
21 MS. STOLLEY: Yes. New York State 000420, 22 I apologize.
23 JUDGE McDADE: New York 000420.
24 MS. STOLLEY: Mine says 000241.
25 Page 45. The question was, "What is your Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2359 1 response to NRC staff's testimony in A74 that ISR's 2 assumption of uniformity for the exteriors and 3 interiors of buildings renders ISR's cost estimates 4 unrealistic and unreasonable?"
5 Your answer was, "NRS -- NRC staff is 6 correct that contamination would not be uniform on 7 building roofs, exterior walls, and interior space, 8 but it is not cost effective to differentiate between 9 the portions of surfaces which would require 10 decontamination and those that would not -- those that 11 would not in any given building. It is more likely 12 that bulk decontamination, such as hosing or 13 vacuuming, would take place first, followed by 14 verification for hot spots."
15 Dr. Lemay, firstly, do you acknowledge 16 that you did -- do you -- reading this, do you now 17 recall acknowledging that you made a mistake in your 18 calculations in terms of uniform deposition of 19 decontamination -- of contamination?
20 DR. LEMAY: It is not a mistake. The 21 MACCS is full of averages. It contains average 22 numbers for many quantities, and we cannot capture all 23 of the details of what is going on in terms of 24 evacuation time, in terms of population, and in terms 25 of all of the details of where the contamination takes Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2360 1 place.
2 So it is appropriate to use averages, and 3 it is understood that these averages will not 4 represent the fine details of what is going on. And 5 I think the answer I am providing here is consistent 6 with that picture. So when we do the calculation, we 7 use averages. And in the details, there might be 8 things that are different from the average.
9 And when we talk about average, it means 10 that sometime the actual situation is above the 11 average, and sometime it is below the average. And 12 that captures the non-uniformities that you are 13 discussing right now.
14 MS. STOLLEY: Then, I guess my question 15 is, where does average -- where do averages come into 16 place in terms of uniform -- assuming uniform 17 deposition of contamination? What are you saying you 18 are using as averages with regards to that?
19 DR. LEMAY: MACCS produces an average 20 contamination per unit area. That is the level of 21 understanding that MACCS has. But if you actually 22 look at Fukushima, you would see differences between 23 deposition over a plowed field and over an urban area, 24 and you would see differences within the same 25 building.
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Page 2361 1 And these differences would sometime be 2 above the average and sometime below the average. And 3 what I said is that in urban area it would tend to be 4 above the average because the surface roughness is 5 higher. And, as it is well known, the deposition 6 increases with surface roughness.
7 So although over the whole 50-mile area we 8 have some average value, in the case of the urban area 9 we tend to get more deposition, more contamination.
10 This is not captured by MACCS, but we can use it when 11 we distribute the activity over many surfaces.
12 So we cannot -- we cannot try to make 13 MACCS do things that it was not meant to do. But we 14 can use our knowledge of what is going on to interpret 15 the results.
16 MS. STOLLEY: Dr. O'Kula, can you comment 17 on Dr. Lemay's response?
18 DR. O'KULA: Kevin O'Kula for the 19 applicant. In terms of -- in terms of using averages, 20 I, again, would reflect on the fact that these 21 postulated, highly unlikely accidents that are severe 22 accidents of -- that are being evaluated in a SAMA 23 analysis context, are occurring at a point 20, 30, 40 24 miles away on reaching urban areas, suburban areas, 25 and so on, and as well as close into the site of the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2362 1 point of release.
2 And so appropriately it would be useful to 3 look at average values as reflective of the amount of 4 deposition that would occur, the type of building 5 structures in an area, because, consequently, the 6 resolution quality of the code is such that these 7 results make sense in an average to each grid element.
8 But in terms of this specific issue, in 9 terms of the uniformity of contamination to a 10 structure, a building, what we are trying to -- what 11 we are trying to integrate is the fact that worker 12 contamination -- or decontamination costs would be 13 assessed for every surface no matter if it's 14 contaminated or not, or some gradations in that 15 distribution.
16 And what is -- the best of my opinion, 17 what is being accounted for in internal building 18 surfaces make the assumption that all surfaces need to 19 be remediated to come up with some degree of 20 habitability.
21 And this is really not the case. Work 22 crews would not be assigned with a uniformity of 23 surfaces and just do what you can blindly. Some 24 surfaces would be decontaminated, and others would 25 not.
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Page 2363 1 So I think this drives the fact that the 2 costs are assessed in both CONDO and RISO databases on 3 a per unit surface area basis. And when all surfaces 4 need to be remediated or decontaminated, then all 5 surfaces have to be addressed. The costs are then 6 determined in a commensurate way.
7 And it is as if all surfaces in the 8 building that are being decontaminated, regardless of 9 the cost per unit area, are being remediated to the 10 same level that the contamination might exist on the 11 rooftop. And this is unrealistic, in my opinion.
12 MS. STOLLEY: Now, you mentioned -- I 13 believe there was testimony yesterday about a 14 multiplier that Dr. Lemay applied in his CONDO and 15 RISO --
16 DR. O'KULA: Yes, I did. This I think was 17 referred to in NRC staff testimony in March of this 18 year by Mr. Jones. And this multiplier accounts for 19 the multiple surfaces, principally in the space of --
20 in the context of internal walls, as well as external 21 walls, in both cases with the dominant approach being 22 internal walls.
23 It was noted that there is a multiplier 24 there to account for the fact that urban settings and 25 semi-urban settings have slightly larger, based on Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2364 1 building type and the type of structure that is being 2 decontaminated, would scale by the number of surfaces 3 in those buildings.
4 And so there is a judgment call made in 5 the CONDO approach to multiply surfaces to be 6 decontaminated. And, unfortunately, I think, again, 7 as a cost accountability tool, the code is blind to, 8 are all surfaces the same contaminated level? And 9 they wouldn't be, in reality, but the costing is done 10 as if all surfaces needed to be remediated.
11 So the multiplier comes into play by 12 building type, the average number of floors, and the 13 average number of internal surfaces that would need to 14 be remediated. So they are, in a sense, in the 15 spreadsheets that Dr. Lemay provided.
16 In the December 2011 exhibit, there are 17 calculations for these surfaces that come into play.
18 And as observed by Mr. Jones, and also that we 19 understood to be the case, these unfortunately are 20 painting the picture of an unrealistic decontamination 21 effort that would be required.
22 MS. STOLLEY: So when you said "judgment 23 call," you meant, in this case, by Dr. Lemay, in terms 24 of what multiplier to use.
25 DR. O'KULA: Correct.
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Page 2365 1 MS. STOLLEY: Okay. If you applied a more 2 reasonable, realistic scaling factor, what would 3 happen with the bottom line number, with the CDNFRM?
4 DR. O'KULA: Okay. And I need to be clear 5 that this is in -- with respect to Approaches C and D 6 in the revised table.
7 But doing a quick glance at the scaling 8 factor that I think was inappropriately added to the 9 spreadsheet to apply the CONDO methodology, again, in 10 spreadsheet form, not by running the code but in the 11 spreadsheets that were performed by ISR, if those are 12 renormalized back to I think a more common sense 13 value, the values for both light contamination and 14 heavy decontamination for Approach C, as well as 15 Approach D, the RISO approach, fall very close to the 16 values estimated by Entergy in its SAMA analysis.
17 MS. LIBERATORE: Objection, Your Honor.
18 I asked "more normalized value." I'm not sure this 19 analysis has been disclosed, and I am not sure if this 20 is a guesstimate that Dr. O'Kula is coming up with on 21 the spot. I'd just appreciate a little more detail so 22 the record is clear.
23 JUDGE McDADE: This is the opportunity of 24 Entergy to ask the question. I think it was an 25 appropriate question. I'm going to allow the witness Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2366 1 to answer in the way he thinks is most responsive, and 2 the objection is overruled.
3 You can continue, Doctor.
4 DR. O'KULA: Thank you, sir, Your Honor.
5 In the informal look I took at the CONDO and RISO 6 values, the surfaces -- the surface factor for both 7 internal walls and exterior walls have renormalized 8 that value or made it more realistic to one.
9 When I did that, the values in the end 10 product of the spreadsheet, in my informal look, 11 became much like those applied in the Entergy SAMA 12 analysis.
13 MS. STOLLEY: While we are talking about 14 CONDO, is there any indication that you have found 15 that Dr. Lemay actually used the CONDO code?
16 DR. O'KULA: To the best of my reading 17 of --
18 MS. STOLLEY: Ran the code, I should say.
19 I apologize.
20 DR. O'KULA: I'm sorry?
21 MS. STOLLEY: Ran the code, used the code, 22 whatever the proper verbiage is.
23 DR. O'KULA: Yes. I understand -- I have 24 read the CONDO base documents, and I have read Dr.
25 Lemay's report produced in December of 2011 and the Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2367 1 rebuttal testimony provided in July of this year. And 2 I think the point needs to be made that the code was 3 not exercised.
4 The spreadsheets were provided, which are 5 illustrative of the approach taken by ISR, but the 6 code in fact furnished the database and a methodology, 7 but there is no way to know if the code would have 8 calculated the same answers that were provided by ISR 9 in the spreadsheets.
10 MS. STOLLEY: With regards, again, to the 11 CONDO code and RISO code and Dr. Lemay's use or not 12 use of the code, can you explain for us what this 13 category is called hyper-urban?
14 DR. O'KULA: Yes. My understanding is 15 that hyper-urban refers to a building density and a 16 population basis of a highly urban area. That is 17 beyond the definition or beyond the defined level of 18 urban that the CONDO computer code authors defined, 19 and so it was felt -- this, again, is my judgment, 20 that it was felt by ISR that they needed to account 21 for particularly highly urban areas that went beyond 22 the bounds determined by the original CONDO code 23 authors.
24 MS. STOLLEY: Now, the CONDO code, that is 25 a UK code, is that correct?
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Page 2368 1 DR. O'KULA: Yes, it is.
2 MS. STOLLEY: So one would assume that 3 they could use it for analyzing a situation in London, 4 correct?
5 DR. O'KULA: It would be -- not knowing 6 specifically the building density and population 7 exactly to the tee in London, but it would be my 8 assumption that it should work for a situation such as 9 London.
10 MS. STOLLEY: And there is no hyper-urban 11 category in the CONDO code, correct?
12 DR. O'KULA: As far as I can tell from the 13 CONDO documents, there was not a defined density that 14 was used as hyper-urban.
15 MS. STOLLEY: And presumably, if it did 16 exist, it would be used in an analysis of a plant 17 accident outside of London, which is comparable in 18 size to New York City, right?
19 DR. O'KULA: That would be my 20 understanding.
21 MS. STOLLEY: So this is something that 22 Dr. Lemay invented?
23 DR. O'KULA: Again, reading from the CONDO 24 documentation, I would -- and also the reports 25 prepared by ISR, I would -- I would concur that it is Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2369 1 a -- it is an additional category of building density 2 and people density that was uniquely determined.
3 Dr. O'Kula, I want to go -- or, Mr.
4 Teagarden or Ms. Potts, I would like to ask briefly 5 about the NUREG-1150. Can you tell us about the 6 pedigree, everything about -- we talked very briefly 7 yesterday about peer review of NUREG-1150.
8 MS. LIBERATORE: Your Honor, I would 9 object to this as repetitive. We have gone through 10 the history of the --
11 JUDGE McDADE: Well, I don't know if it's 12 going to be repetitive yet or not until I hear the 13 question. Please continue.
14 MS. STOLLEY: Dr. Lemay seems to contest 15 the pedigree of NUREG-1150. We went over very briefly 16 yesterday about one -- first draft and second draft.
17 We did not go into detail about the actual pedigree of 18 NUREG-1150. So if you could please detail that for 19 me. Dr. O'Kula, if you can go ahead?
20 MS. LIBERATORE: Your Honor, same 21 objection. I believe we did go through the history in 22 gory detail yesterday.
23 JUDGE McDADE: And I want to make sure 24 that I've got a correct understanding of it. The 25 objection is overruled.
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Page 2370 1 Doctor, you can answer.
2 DR. O'KULA: Yes. Thank you, Your Honor.
3 And in terms of the -- I think we addressed two 4 comments that were contained in the final wrap-up to 5 NUREG-1150 that turned out to be public comments.
6 Just for the record, there were additional subject 7 matter and independent peer reviews of the information 8 of NUREG-1150.
9 There were three formal peer reviews 10 completed on the 1987 first draft of the report in 11 February. Two were initiated by the NRC, and one was 12 initiated by the American Nuclear Society. I need to 13 point out that these are independent reviews.
14 The national laboratories that did the 15 work are then not counted as reviewers, so --
16 JUDGE McDADE: Doctor, excuse me, just for 17 clarification for me. Three peer reviews of exactly 18 what? Of --
19 DR. O'KULA: Of the initial draft to the 20 document, to NUREG-1150.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. The initial draft, 22 are we talking about the document that is unpublished, 23 or are we talking about further down the road?
24 DR. O'KULA: This was the 1987 draft, 25 which is fully retrievable.
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Page 2371 1 Okay. There was also associated with this 2 work -- NRC also discussed the methods of the draft 3 NUREG-1150 with the ACRS, the Advisory Committee on 4 Reactor Safeguards, on several occasions.
5 Secondly, the NRC also formed a Peer 6 Review Committee under the provisions of the Federal 7 Advisory Committee Act to review the second draft 8 which was published in 1989, and answer followup 9 questions with respect to its adequacy of the work.
10 So it is important before -- so two 11 drafts, several rounds of review, before the document 12 and its associated set of supporting documentation on 13 all three levels of the PRA, before that became 14 finally published in December of 1990, gives some 15 confidence to the nature and breadth and depth of the 16 work that was done.
17 MS. STOLLEY: Was the second draft also 18 reviewed and commented on by NRC's Advisory Committee 19 on Reactor Safeguards?
20 DR. O'KULA: I believe that's correct.
21 MS. STOLLEY: In your experience, Dr.
22 O'Kula, how would you compare the level of review and 23 scrutiny that was given to NUREG-1150?
24 MS. LIBERATORE: Your Honor, I'm going to 25 object on relevance here. No one -- we are not Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2372 1 disputing --
2 JUDGE McDADE: I'm going to overrule the 3 objection.
4 MS. LIBERATORE: -- portions --
5 MS. STOLLEY: Do you want me to repeat the 6 question?
7 DR. O'KULA: No, I understand. The level 8 of peer review and independent subject matter expert 9 review, in my opinion, was unprecedented.
10 MS. STOLLEY: Just a couple more 11 questions, Your Honors.
12 We heard mention -- we have heard mention 13 several times throughout this proceeding of -- to 14 SOARCA, the State of the Art Reactor Consequence 15 Analysis -- Assessment, sorry. If you could comment 16 on that, Dr. O'Kula?
17 DR. O'KULA: Yes, I would like to, and I 18 will be brief. The SOARCA analysis was a long-term 19 project begun in 2006 and concluding this year. Two 20 computer codes were supplied in support of the 21 analysis. Indeed, this was not a PRA analysis, but 22 severe accident sequences were identified on the parts 23 of two public -- two lightwater reactors -- Surry and 24 Peach Bottom, and then specific sequences were 25 identified.
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Page 2373 1 And understanding that we wanted -- or the 2 NRC wanted to understand, are we improved or have we 3 -- with more accurate analyses, are we better able to 4 understand the nature of severe accident risks? But 5 the second part, not only to identify the sequences 6 and see what new mitigation measures and understanding 7 of -- better on the research that has been done over 8 the last 20 years, if we have made any gains in 9 understanding the nature of severe accidents.
10 The second part was a computer code 11 analysis to look at the effects to individuals or --
12 in the 50-mile region around Peach Bottom and Surry.
13 Now, the SAMA type quantities were not 14 evaluated in SOARCA. But the decontamination model 15 was employed in SOARCA, the same one that is in the 16 part of the successor to MACCS2, WIN-MACCS, the same 17 model was employed in terms of habitability criterion, 18 when to bring populations back onsite to their 19 residences in terms of cleanup criteria.
20 So those quantities are different in 21 terms, but the model had to be set up and run as if it 22 was a SAMA-type analysis to make sure that the 23 returning residents would not receive long-term doses 24 above the same threshold habitability criteria that we 25 talked about.
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Page 2374 1 So the SAMA analysis -- the SOARCA 2 analysis is contemporary. The final documentation was 3 publicly disclosed in the early part of this year --
4 2012 -- and it remains a reaffirmation of the 5 techniques applied in the Indian Point SAMA analysis 6 with respect to decontamination model as -- with 7 respect to the same TIMDEC quantities, as well as the 8 same scaling practice that was done for 9 decontamination per capita.
10 MS. STOLLEY: So, Dr. O'Kula, just to 11 clarify, were the CDNFRM and the TIMDEC parameters 12 that we have been talking about these last two days, 13 were those considered -- those 1150 values considered 14 in the SOARCA study?
15 DR. O'KULA: Yes, they were.
16 MS. STOLLEY: And did the SOARCA study 17 team use the same parameters for CDNFRM and TIMDEC, 18 the same values as Entergy used in its IPEC SAMA 19 analysis?
20 DR. O'KULA: There were -- for TIMDEC and 21 the level of decontamination reduction factors, the 3 22 and 15 that we have discussed previously, those values 23 were identical. There are some differences in terms 24 of CDNFRM that are still within the range of those 25 used by Entergy in its SAMA analysis, but they are Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2375 1 similar.
2 MS. STOLLEY: They used the base of 3,000 3 and 8,000.
4 DR. O'KULA: That would be my 5 understanding.
6 MS. STOLLEY: Okay. And then, the 60 days 7 and then 120 days for DF 3 and DF 15, respectively?
8 DR. O'KULA: That's correct.
9 MS. STOLLEY: And that was -- the SOARCA 10 study -- and I know it hasn't been finalized, but that 11 came out in January of 2012?
12 DR. O'KULA: Originally, the draft summary 13 report and a brochure document came out in the early 14 part of this year. And then, two supporting plant-15 specific volumes, which we have in our testimony as 16 exhibits, were also noted and came out about the same 17 time. Yes.
18 MS. STOLLEY: Nothing further, Your 19 Honors.
20 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Dr. O'Kula, very 21 quickly, are any of the three peer reviews of the 1987 22 draft in front of us as an exhibit?
23 DR. O'KULA: My understanding, at least 24 mentally, with respect to the Entergy exhibits, we 25 have not provided any of those peer reviews.
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Page 2376 1 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. So the same would 2 be --
3 DR. O'KULA: As exhibits.
4 JUDGE McDADE: The same would be true of 5 the ACRS review and then the peer reviews of the 1989 6 draft?
7 DR. O'KULA: Your Honor, I believe that is 8 correct.
9 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Dr. Lemay, the CONDO 10 code, did ISR develop that code?
11 DR. LEMAY: We did not.
12 JUDGE McDADE: Do you know who did?
13 DR. LEMAY: NRPB and the United Kingdom.
14 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Did you run the 15 code?
16 DR. LEMAY: We did not.
17 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Where did those 18 inputs on the spreadsheet come from?
19 DR. LEMAY: They come from the models that 20 are described in the CONDO manual.
21 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. And Dr. O'Kula 22 talked about normalizing values to make them more 23 realistic. In your view, should he have done that, or 24 was that an inappropriate step?
25 DR. LEMAY: Well, if I understand Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2377 1 correctly, it is difficult to speculate on what he has 2 done. But I think he said that he went to the 3 spreadsheet and replaced the area multiplier that 4 accounts for the multiple floor in the building and 5 set them to one. So now we are back to 6 decontaminating a parking lot. So in that -- from 7 that point of view, I think that is not justified.
8 JUDGE McDADE: So in your opinion, that 9 was not scientifically sound.
10 DR. LEMAY: Well, of course, if we take a 11 calculation that tries to account for a building with 12 multiple floors, and we go back to decontaminating a 13 parking lot, it seems to me that we lost the intent of 14 this calculation.
15 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Thank you.
16 The NRC, are you ready?
17 MR. HARRIS: Yes, sir.
18 Mr. Jones, you just heard both Dr. Lemay 19 and Dr. O'Kula talk about having to normalize the 20 CONDO code calculations. Can you explain whether or 21 not you agree with what Dr. Lemay said or Dr. O'Kula?
22 MR. JONES: Excuse me. Yes. This is Joe 23 Jones with staff. I am not sure I followed Dr.
24 Lemay's response with regard to normalizing to one it 25 turns this into a parking lot. The approach to Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2378 1 normalizing this would have been to distribute the 2 contamination equally, so that you don't -- so that 3 you maintain conservation of mass.
4 You still only have, as I described 5 earlier, you know, a set amount of curies in a 6 specific area. So if you are going to add floors, you 7 have to decrease the -- you have to ensure that you 8 are not decontaminating more than the fixed amount of 9 contamination that the MACCS code has calculated.
10 MR. HARRIS: What impact would that have 11 on Mr. Lemay's numbers that he has in his chart --
12 it's Table 11 -- on the CONDO numbers that -- that's 13 Exhibit New York State 000430.
14 MR. JONES: That would have an effect of 15 artificially increasing the cost, because you are 16 applying a heavy decontamination factor to areas which 17 likely, by the time you disperse contamination over 18 many, many floors, is now a light decontamination 19 factor or even less.
20 MR. HARRIS: Do you have some -- an 21 opinion on how big that impact would be?
22 MR. JONES: I looked at this from a very 23 basic perspective of a simple building with four walls 24 and a roof, so we have five exterior surfaces and six 25 interior surfaces, four walls, a floor and a ceiling.
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Page 2379 1 So if there are 11 surfaces, I believe we simply 2 divide by 11 to conserve the contamination, in which 3 case if we had a DF of 15, a decontamination factor of 4 15, we are -- and this is not precise -- but we are 5 effectively reducing that to something on the order of 6 one and a half or two, which is now a much lower cost 7 to decontaminate.
8 MR. HARRIS: Thank you. You were cut off 9 when you were trying to explain about the location of 10 the Zion plant. Could you finish your answer?
11 MR. JONES: Yes. The Zion plant, as I 12 read in the specific NUREG, has a population of about 13 8.5 million projected in 2030. But the Zion plant 14 sits on the shore of Lake Michigan, so half of the 15 SAMA area is effectively water.
16 So if you have eight and a half million 17 people in half of a SAMA area, you can look at that as 18 17 million people in a whole SAMA area. Population 19 density-wise, it is not dissimilar from the Indian 20 Point SAMA area.
21 MR. HARRIS: Thank you. Dr. Bixler, 22 earlier today we were talking about what would happen 23 if you contaminated a source of drinking water. And 24 Judge McDade had asked you, how do we account for the 25 cost of if you had to interdict the drinking water if Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2380 1 it was contaminated, so that people wouldn't receive 2 the dose? Can you elaborate on your answer earlier?
3 DR. BIXLER: Sure. There are two ways 4 that you could do a cost accounting for the 5 contamination of the water. One would be to interdict 6 it and to attach some cost to that. The other option 7 is to assume that people drink the water, which they 8 may really not do. But if you assume that they did, 9 then there is a dose attached to that, and then a --
10 that shows up as a population dose and gets assessed 11 as a cost.
12 So you can do one of two things. You can 13 either attach a cost to the dose that would be 14 attributed to that water, or you could attach a cost 15 directly to the remediation of the water.
16 MR. HARRIS: And if you interdicted the 17 water, would anybody experience any dose?
18 DR. BIXLER: No. If you interdicted it, 19 then you would be precluding people from drinking the 20 water. So you are assigning a value in one place or 21 the other. It's not both. It is one or the other.
22 Either there is a dose and a cost associated with 23 that, or a cost of remediation.
24 MR. HARRIS: Dr. Ghosh, earlier we -- Mr.
25 Sipos had discussed about, you know, how the NRC Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2381 1 considers this -- I will try to use his term -- a full 2 list of potential candidates for SAMAs. Does the NRC 3 actually not look at any -- do they exclude any SAMAs 4 from consideration that are provided by Entergy? Any 5 mitigation -- well, let me rephrase that.
6 When the NRC gets the environmental report 7 and the SAMA analysis from an applicant, does the NRC 8 staff exclude any mitigation measures from that --
9 from being analyzed?
10 DR. GHOSH: Okay. I think I understand 11 the question. The answer is, in the NRC staff's 12 review of a SAMA analysis and the environmental 13 report, we would look at the full list of candidates 14 and review the entire process of the analysis that was 15 described yesterday.
16 So we would look at the -- how that 17 initial list was generated, how some of them were 18 screened out in what is called the Phase 1 analysis, 19 and then the detailed analysis. And I think, as I 20 mentioned today, we typically ask a lot of questions 21 about even additional candidates beyond those that are 22 provided in the environmental report.
23 So I think the answer to your question is 24 no, we don't exclude from consideration any candidate 25 -- you know, SAMA -- possible SAMA candidate that is Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2382 1 identified in the application.
2 MR. HARRIS: Thank you. No further 3 questions, Your Honor.
4 MR. TURK: Your Honor, I would like to ask 5 a few additional questions on behalf of the staff.
6 Thank you, and I'll keep them very brief.
7 To Mr. Jones, earlier you were discussing 8 some of the factors mentioned in the report about 9 Fukushima, and you highlighted that perhaps some of 10 the reason for a year delay by Japan commencing 11 efforts to remediate involved earthquake-related or 12 tsunami-related factors.
13 Did you also notice anything else in that 14 list that might be relevant to why Japan may have 15 taken so long to begin efforts?
16 MR. JONES: I did. If we could call up 17 that exhibit, that would be helpful. It was the Road 18 to Recovery. I don't recall the exhibit number.
19 MR. TURK: I believe it's New York 000428.
20 MR. JONES: And I think we were on page 34 21 of that document.
22 MR. TURK: That's my understanding.
23 MR. JONES: If you notice on this 24 document, most of the costs or many of the large costs 25 are attributed to the disaster. We have disaster Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2383 1 relief. We have removal of debris caused by the 2 disaster. We have additional public infrastructure 3 projects.
4 Now, that is replacement of damaged 5 infrastructure from the tsunami, and that is 1.4 6 trillion yen. Those huge numbers indicate to me that 7 the response in Japan had a lot of things they were 8 looking at, and decontamination might not have been an 9 initial priority.
10 MR. TURK: And when you refer to disaster, 11 are you referring solely to the nuclear accident 12 there?
13 MR. JONES: No. This is with respect to 14 the tsunami. The reconstruction for the nuclear 15 disaster is a separate cost.
16 MR. TURK: And just one point of 17 clarification. Earlier today you were talking about 18 an adjustment to a study, said that you were confident 19 that the original values are reasonable if you account 20 for the conservation of mass, the time value of money, 21 a change in other values.
22 When you were talking about adjusting a 23 study and finding in the end that it came close to --
24 reasonably close to the numbers used by Entergy --
25 those were your terms as I recall -- what study were Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2384 1 you referring to as doing that adjustment to?
2 MR. JONES: I was referring to the values 3 in the ISR report, as revised with the subsequent 4 submittal.
5 MR. TURK: We have nothing further, Your 6 Honor.
7 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. That should do it, 8 then. We are done with --
9 MS. LIBERATORE: Your Honor, just one 10 quick question. I would like to -- Kathryn Liberatore 11 for the State of New York. I would like to request 12 that any spreadsheets or analyses documenting Dr.
13 O'Kula's informed review of the "normalized results 14 for CONDO" that he referenced be disclosed to the 15 State.
16 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. Basically, we are 17 done with this particular contention. I'm not going 18 to rule on that right now. We will have the 19 transcript here shortly, and New York would then be 20 able, at that point, to file a motion that we could 21 have a response to, and we could then rule on it at 22 that point in time. But you certainly wouldn't be 23 prejudiced by not having us rule on it at this 24 particular point in time.
25 MS. LIBERATORE: Thank you.
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Page 2385 1 JUDGE McDADE: Anything, before we break, 2 from Entergy?
3 MR. BESSETTE: No, Your Honor. Thank you.
4 JUDGE McDADE: Okay. At this point, then, 5 Ms. Greene, you are going to get back to us tomorrow 6 with regard to the problems you have on witnesses for 7 next week and for December.
8 We are going to have consultation among 9 the parties with regard to the availability of your 10 witness on New York 37, and to have either a joint 11 request, either a statement that let's leave 37 where 12 it is, that hopefully the witness should be able to 13 appear on Monday or Tuesday of next week. If we need 14 to change that, hopefully we can have an agreement as 15 to that. If not, we can have expressed, via email, 16 the parties -- the positions of the different parties.
17 Anything else that we need to take up 18 before we break?
19 (No response.)
20 And other than that, we will wish you a 21 good weekend, and see you at 9:00 on Monday morning.
22 I have been advised by Mr. Wilkie that it is 23 realistic, given that we have set this room up once, 24 that we will be able to set it up in time to be able 25 to start at 9:00, and would then hope that we can get Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
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Page 2386 1 through at least, you know, New York 16 and New 2 York 17 on Monday.
3 MR. TURK: Your Honor, Sherwin Turk. May 4 I ask one question about scheduling?
5 JUDGE McDADE: You can ask maybe two or 6 three.
7 MR. TURK: Well, we are going to be 8 talking with other parties about witness problems, 9 but --
10 MR. SIPOS: Your Honor, could I just 11 interrupt one moment? Dr. Lemay and his colleague 12 have a plane. Could the witnesses be excused while 13 the lawyers chat with Your Honors?
14 JUDGE McDADE: Thank you very much. You 15 are excused.
16 DR. LEMAY: It was a pleasure, Your Honor.
17 JUDGE WARDWELL: And I'd like to comment 18 that everyone did a very nice job with this 19 contention, by the way. I was impressed with all of 20 the witnesses.
21 Thank you.
22 MR. SIPOS: Thank you, Sherwin. Sorry to 23 interrupt.
24 MR. TURK: Your Honor, we could do this 25 off the record. I wanted to --
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Page 2387 1 JUDGE McDADE: That's fine. Then, we are 2 -- the hearing is adjourned until 9:00 tomorrow 3 morning. Okay? 9:00 Monday morning, excuse me.
4 (Whereupon, at 6:10 p.m., the proceedings 5 in the foregoing matter were adjourned, 6 to reconvene at 9:00 a.m., on Monday, 7 October 22, 2012.)
8 9
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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Proceeding: Entergy Nuclear Operations Docket Number: 50-247-LR and 50-286-LR ASLBP Number: 07-858-03-LR-BD01 Location: Tarrytown, New York were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken and thereafter reduced to typewriting under my direction and that said transcript is a true and accurate record of the proceedings.
Official Reporter Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com