ML13023A334
| ML13023A334 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | South Texas  |
| Issue date: | 02/25/2013 |
| From: | Tam Tran License Renewal Projects Branch 2 |
| To: | David Wrona License Renewal Projects Branch 2 |
| Tran, Tam, 415-3617 | |
| References | |
| TAC ME4938, TAC ME4939, TAC ME5122, TAC ME5123 | |
| Download: ML13023A334 (82) | |
Text
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20555-0001 February 25, 2013 MEMORANDUM TO: David J. Wrona, Chief Projects Branch 2 Division of License Renewal Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation _
/ /
FROM: Tam Tran, Project Manager /, ( f;vv.--;,
Projects Branch 2 ,I I /i1I/f/1 r Division of License Renewal 1/ P-Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation SLlB..IECT:
SUMMARY
OF PUBLIC MEETINGS CONDUCTED TO DISCUSS THE DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT RELATED TO THE REVIEW OF THE SOUTH TEXAS PRO ..IECT, UNITS 1 AND 2, LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION (TAC NOS. ME5122, ME5123, ME4938, AND ME4939)
On January 15, 2013, members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff held public meetings in Bay City, Texas, concerning the staff's environmental review of the application submitted by STP Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC) for renewal of the South Texas Project (STP), Units 1 and 2, operating licenses. The purpose of the meeting was to provide the public with an opportunity to comment on the draft supplemental environmental impact statement (DSEIS) which was issued in December 2012. The public meetings were held at the Bay City Civic Center, 201 Seventh Street, Bay CitY,TX 77414. Presentations were made by the Division of License Renewal staff, with participation from Region IV staff_
The DSEIS is a plant-specific supplement for STP license renewal to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants (NUREG-1437). The NRC staff described the overall license renewal process, provided a description of the National Environmental Policy Act review process, and discussed the environmental requirements outlined in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations Part 51 (10 CFR Part 51). The NRC staff also described the preliminary results of its analyses. The environmental impacts of continued operation were predicted to be small to moderate significance in all areas. The impacts of alternatives (including the no-action alternative) were predicted to have impacts in at least some environmental aspects that could reach moderate or large significance.
After the presentations were given by the NRC staff, members of the public were invited to provide comments. Approximately 30 people attended the two sessions .. Attendees included members of the public, representatives of the NRC, STPNOC, and the news media_
CONTACT: Tam Tran 301-415-3617
-2 In an effort to improve communication and increase interaction with members of the public, the NRC staff conducted open houses for one hour before each meeting and encouraged the public to submit meeting feedback forms. The staff provided brochures and met with members of the public to answer questions about the proposed renewal of the STP operating licenses.
A combined listing of attendees for both sessions is provided in Enclosure 1. Enclosure 2 is a copy of the meeting agenda. Enclosures 3 and 4 contain the official corrected transcripts for the afternoon and evening meetings, respectively. Enclosure 5 contains a copy of the slides used during the NRC's presentation.
Docket Nos. 50-498 and 50-499
Enclosures:
As stated cc w/encls: See next page
LIST OF ATTENDEES SOUTH TEXAS PRO ..IECT DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT PUBLIC MEETINGS JANUARY 15, 2013 Particioants Affiliation David Wrona U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
Tam Tran NRC Emily Larson NRC Binesh Tharakan NRC Lara Uselding NRC Susan Salter NRC i Bob Hagar NRC
- Marub Johnston Palacios Chamber of Commerce Owen Bludau Matagorda County Economic Development Corporation (MCEDC) i Heather Mencies MCEDC
. DC Dunham I Bay City Economic Development Corporation Carolyn Thames Bay City Resident I Eugene Davis Crisis Center
- Terry Farrar Farrar Financial Group Susan Dancer muth Texas Association for Responsible ergy (STARE)
Lisa Keonitzer STARE Karen Hadden Sustainable Energy and Economic I
Development Catherine Gann STP Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC)
- Charles Bowman ~OC i Ken T aplett PNOC
AGENDA FOR PUBLIC MEETINGS TO DISCUSS THE DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR THE LICENSE RENEWAL OF SOUTH TEXAS PROJECT Tuesday, January 15, 2013 Two Meeting Sessions - 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
I. Welcome and Purpose of Meeting 10 minutes (Susan Salter)
II. Overview of License Renewal Process 10 minutes (Tam Tran)
III. Results of the Environmental Review 30 minutes (Tam Tran)
IV. How Comments can be Submitted 5 minutes (Tam Tran)
V. Public Comments 2 hours2.314815e-5 days <br />5.555556e-4 hours <br />3.306878e-6 weeks <br />7.61e-7 months <br /> VI. Closing/Availability of Transcripts, etc. 5 minutes (Susan Salter/Dave Wrona)
ENCLOSURE 2
Welcome to the NRC's Open House Associated with the Environmental Review for the Proposed License Renewal of South Texas Project, Units 1 and 2 This open house is intended to provide an opportunity for interested members of the public and staff from other Federal, State, and local agencies to interact with the NRC staff in an informal information exchange.
The NRC is gathering information necessary to prepare an Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GElS) for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants, regarding the proposed renewal of the operating licenses for South Texas Project, Units 1 and 2. Please note that if you wish to provide formal comments regarding the draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (DSEIS) to the GElS, they must be presented at today's transcribed public meeting, or provided in writing or by electronic mean at www.regulations.gov, docket 10: nrc-2010-0375, by February 22,2013. Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practicable to do so, but the NRC staff is able to assure consideration only for comments received on or before this date. Written comments on the DSEIS should be sent to:
Chief, Rules, Announcements, and Directives Branch (RADB)
Division of Administrative Services Office of Administration Mailstop TWB-05-B01 M, Faxes: 301-492-3446.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555-0001 Comments may be hand-delivered to the NRC at 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, between 7:45 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays. Submittal of electronic comments may be registered at www.regulations.gov, docket 10: nrc-2010-0375.
Tnank you for your partiCipation.
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Title: South Texas Project License Renewal Public Meeting: Afternoon Session Docket Number:* (n/a)
.Location: . Bay City, Texas
.Date: Tuesday, January 15, 2013
. .
Work Order No.: NRC-3030 Pages 1-34 NEAL R GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
PRELIMINARY SITE-SPECIFIC RESULTS OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW FOR 6 SOUTH TEXAS PROJECT LICENSE RENEWAL 7 + + + + +
8 PUBLIC MEETING 9 AFTERNOON SESSION 10 + + + + +
11 Tuesday, January 15, 2013 12 201 7th 13 Bay City, Texas 14 2:00 p.m.
15 1 ON BEHALF OF THE NRC:
17 SUSAN SALTER, Faci1
.18 19 OTHER NRC STAFF:
20 TAM TRAN 21 BINESH THARAKAN 22 DAVE WRONA 23 EMILY LARSON 24 LARA [USELDING]
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, DC. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
2 1 CONTENTS 2 PAGE 3 NRC Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4 NRC Presentat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 5 5 Publ Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 NRC Closing Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
. Adjourn 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 1
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS .
1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.w.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www:nealrgross.com
3 1
2 MS. SALTER: Welcome to NRC's public meet My name is Susan Salter, and I'm going to be your litator for the meeting this ernoon. Bob Hagar is going to be helping me litate, and our role as ilitators is really just to the meeting run 7 smoothly, keep us on time, make sure everyone who's 8 come out to make a comment has an oppo ty to do so.
A couple of housekeeping We are 10 having transcribed. Leslie Be dge is our 11 recorder, and to help Leslie get an accurate ng, 12 we ask you to us with a couple of thi 13 One is to keep background noise or sidebar 14 conversations to a minimum. In addition, if you have 15 elect c devices, please put them on silent mode. If 16 you need to ta a 11, we certainly understand that and 17 just ask that you outside of the meeting room to do 18 that.
19 Restrooms: If you go out this door to 20 left, the first left is women's room; straight is the 21 exit; and right next to exit is the men's room. You 22 can also go to the ght and there are some other 23 restrooms and exits out , but I think the closest 24 one is to your left as you t out of this room.
25 So let me get by just restating the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
4' 1 purpose tonight's meet , which is to ent the 2 findings and collect publ comment on the Ora Environmental Impact Statement the proposed renewal of the South Texas Project nuclear power ,s 6per~ting licenses for an additional 20 years.
Now, during th meeting you may hear 7 indi viduals re r to the Environmental Impact Statement 8 as the EIS or the OEIS, for Ora Environmental Impact 9 Statement, and I know NRC staff t s to keep those 10 abbreviations to a minimum, but ones I'm sure wi 11 probably up.
12 agenda for the meeting this afternoon, 13 as well as the meeting tonight, which will begin at 7: 00, 14 is to have a sentation by NRC sta ,and following that 15 we'll have a brief, maybe ten-minute, Q&A session.
1 And reason for that is during the publ 17 comment period, which will follow Q&A, the NRC sta 18 is really in a listening mode so they don't engage in a 19 dialog with the pUblic; they really just listen to the 20 public's comments. That's why they're here.
21 But to provide any cIa cations on what 22 you may hear during the presentation or to answer any 23 questions on the NRC process, they want to give the public 24 abo~t 10 or 15 minutes or so to ask those questions and 25 to get those cIa cations.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgr'oss.com
5 So I'll go over process that we'll use for the public comment period when we get to that point, but just as a reminder, as I said, if you want to make a comment, you do need to fill out a yellow card. Those are helpful for I to make sure we have accurate spelling of your names.
So se, if you change your mind during the meeting, if you 't signed up yet, you can always sign up during meeting. Bob has cards as well. You 1 can raise your or get his attention and get a 11 from him, out, give it back to him.
12 with that, I think I've covered all 13 house items. I think I'm going to turn over 14 to Tam Tran.
15 Tarn is the project manager in the Division 1 of cense Renewal in the NRC's office of Nuclear Rea 17 Regulat and he is going to provide t NRC 18 ion for this afternoon.
19 MR. TRAN: Thank you, Susan. Thank you all 20 taking the time to come to s meet My name is 21 Trani I'm the project manager ronmental 22 ew of the South Texas Project license renewal.
23 I hope the informat we provide. wi th this 24 presentation will help you to rstand the process 25 we're going through, what we done so far, and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW, (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D,C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
1 role that you can play in helping us and make sure that 2 the Final Environmental Impact Statement is accurate.
3 With that, I would like to acknowledge a few 4 NRC staff here today. First of all, I would like to 5 acknowledge our South Texas Proj ect resident inspector, 6 Binesh Tharakan. Next I would like to aCknowledge our 7 branch chief for the Environmental Project Branch for 8 License Renewal, Dave Wrona.
9 Next Emily Larson's our social scientist 10 who contributes significant review to our draft 11 supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. Also we 12 have today Lara [Uselding], who is from Region 4, 13 representing our regional office.
14 Next I would like to start off by briefly 15 going over the agenda for today' s presentation. I will 16 explain the NRC license renewal process for nuclear power 17 plants, with emphasis on the environmental review 18process,whert we are going to present the preliminary 19 finding of our environmental review, which assesses the 20 impacts associated with extending the operating license 21 of the South Texas Project for an additional 20 years.
22 Then we'll give you some information abbut 23 the schedule for the balance of our review and how you 24 can submit comments in the future, and then finally 25 really the most important part of today's meeting is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
7 1 where we receive any comment that you may have for this 2 review.
3 Before I get into the discussion of 'license 4 renewal process, I would like to take a minute to talk 5 about the NRC in terms of what we do and what our mission is.
7 The Atomic Energy Act authorizes the NRC to 8 regulate the civilian use of nuclear materials in the United States, including the use of nuclear materials for 10 power production.
11 In exercising that authority, the NRC's 12 mission is threefold: To ensure adequate protection of 1 public health and safety, to promote the common defense 14 and security, and to protect the environment.
15 The NRC accomplishes its mission through a 16 combination of regulatory programs and processes, such 17 a reviewing license applications, conducting 18 inspections, issue enforcement actions, assessing 19 licensee performance, and evaluating operating 20 experience from nuclear plants across the country and 21 internationally.
22 The Atomic Energy Act is the legislation 23 that authorizes the NRC to issue licenses. The Atomic 24 Energy Act provides for a 40-year license term for power 25 reactors. This 40-year terms is based primarily on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D,C, 20005-3701 www,nealrgross,com
8 1 economic considerations ant rust factors, not on 2 safety limitations of 3 NRC conducts license reviews for ants 4 whose owners wish to them beyond their initial 5 license period.
This slide s an overview of the South 7 . Texas Proj ect license renewal process. The 8 process involves two paths: the safety 9 . and environmental For the purpose of today's 10 meeting, we will discuss the environmental review.
11 The sta ronmental review consists of 12 the Generic Environmental Impact Statement and 13 Supplemental Envi Impact Statement.
14 Generic EIS examines possible environmental impacts 15 that could occur as a t of renewing licenses 1 nuclear power plants 10 CFR Part 54.
17 The Generic EIS, to the extent poss 18 established the bounds and significance of these 1 potential impacts. The analyses in the Generic EIS 20 encompasses all operat light-water power reactors.
21 These analyses attempt ish a generic f 22 covering as many plants as possible.
For some ronmental issues the EIS found that the generic ion was not suffi 25 and that a plant~speci analysis was required.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.w.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
9 1 To supplement the Gene c EIS, the staff 2 conducted site-specific reviews of the South Texas 3 Project. The site fic findings for South Texas 4 ect are cont in the Draft Supplemental 5 Environmental Impact Statement. This document contains analyses of all appropriate site-specific issues as well 7 as a ew of issues covered by the Gene c EIS. This 8 is to determine whether the conclus the Generic 9 EIS are valid for South Texas Project.
10 In this ss NRC staff also reviewed the 11 environmental impacts potential power generation 12 a ives to license renewal to dete ne whether-or 1 not impacts expected from the license renewal are 14 uhreasonable.
15 Together the Generic EIS and the 16 Supplemental EIS form staff's analysis of the impact 17 of license renewal South Texas ect.
18 This slide shows the approach that the staff 19 used r environmental ysis. The NRC evaluates 20 impacts of all plants across the entire country to 21 det if there were impacts that were common to all 22 operating plants.
23 NRC looked at 92 separate areas and 24 found 69 issues. The impacts were the same r plants 25 with s lar features. NRC called these Category 1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 wwW.nealrgross.com
10 1 issues and made the same, or generic, determinations 2 about the 'impacts in the Generic Environmental Impact 3 Statement for license renewal.
4 NRC was not able to make generic conclusions 5 about the remaining 23 isSues. Twenty-one of these 6 issues, which the NRC called Category 2 issues, the NRC 7 decided to prepare site-specific supplements to the 8 Generic EIS that address these 21 issues.
9 For example, electromagnetic field acute 10 effects are electric shock associated with the 11 electrical lines at South Texas Project, is a Category 12 2 issue.
13 In addition, two issues are referred to as 14 not categorized, and therefore a site-specific analysis 15 is also needed.
The Supplemental Environmental Impact 17 Statement for South Texas Project license renewal is 18 . being discussed today. The NRC did not rule out the 19 possibility that the generic conclusions in the Generic 20 EIS may not apply to any specific plant in all cases.
21 If new and significant information is found 22 that would change the generic conclusions in the Generic 23 EIS, then the staff would perform a site-specific 24 analysis on that issue.
25 This slide shows important milestones for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
11 1 the environmental review process. The highlighted 2 dates indicate opportunities for public involvement in 3 the environmental review.
4 As each plant comes ln for license renewal, 5 we publish a plant-specific supplement to the Generic 6 EIS. The Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact 7 Statement for South Texas Project was published on 8 December 5, 2012, and also known as Supplement 48 of the 9 Generic EIS. And we are currently accepting public 10 corrunents on this document until February 22, 2013.
11 Today's meeting is being transcribed, and 12 corrunent provided here will be considered the same way as 13 written corrunent submitted to NRC. Once the corrunent 14 period closes, we will develop the final Supplemental 15 EIS, which we expect to publish in 2013, approximately 1 seven months from the draft.
17 Now I'm going to discuss in more detail 18 about the preliminary result of the review. For each 19 environmental issue identified, an impact level is 20 assigned.
21 For a small impact, the effect is not 22 detectable or too small to destabilize Dr noticeably 23 al ter any important attribute of the environmental 24 resource being reviewed.
25 For a moderate impact, the effect is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.w.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
12 1 sufficient to alter noticeably but not destabilize 2 important attributes of the resource.
3 And finally, for impact to be considered 4 large, the effect must be clearly noticeable and 5 sufficient to destabilize important attributes of the 6 resource.
7 For example, the operation of South Texas 8 Project may cause the loss of adult and juvenile fish at 9 the intake structure. If the Idss of fish is so small 10 that it does not appear to have noticeably altered 11 population of those species found in the lower Colorado 12 River, the impact will be small.
13 If losses cause some population to increase
.14 or decrease and then stabilize at a different level, the 15 impact would be moderate.
16 If losses at the intake structure cause the 17 fish population to decline to the point where it cannot 18 be stabilized and continue to decline, then the impact 19 would be large.
20 For South Texas Proj ect, the impact to the 21 fishery are small.
22 In conducting the review, an environmental 23 review t~am from NRC and Pacific Northwest Laboratory 24 analyzed [the] various impacts to the environment. This 25 review involves a wide range of expertise illustrated on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
1 this sli The team examined ronmental justice, 2 ecology, land use, regulatory compliance, climate 3 change, et cetera, for the supplement.
4 This slide lists the site-specific issues 5 that the NRC staff reviewed for the continuing of . South Texas Proj ect during the proposed license 7 renewal period. Each issue is assigned a level 8 environmental impact of small, moderate, or large by the 9 environmental reviewers.
10 In addition, there are two uncat ized 11 issues. Those are environmental justice and 12 e romagnetic field chronic effect. For 13 e romagnetic field chronic effects, staff 14 considers the Generic EIS finding of unce a impacts 15 is still appropriate. No further review was formed 1 on the chronic effects exposure to electromagnetic 17 elds, because currently there's no scientific 18 consensus on this issue.
19 The st 's preliminary conclusion is that 20 the si te-specific impacts related to license renewal for 21 South Texas Project are small, except the impact of 22 electromagnetic Id acute effects, or current-induced 23 electric shocks are small to moderate.
24 For license renewal, South Texas Project 25 reported that r transmission lines from South Texas NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
14 1 Project to the electric grid, which exceed the national 2 electrical safety code, South Texas Proj ect Nuclear 3 Operating Company also listed potential mitigation 4 options to reduce or avoid impacts.
5 These options are reexamining the induced 6 current calculations for some transmission lines; 7 raising the transmission towers at potentially affected 8 road-transmission line intersections; modi fyirig the 9 double-circuit lines to reduce the current-induced shock 10 potential, or placing caution signs under the
'11 transmission lines.
12 The staff review concludes that impact of 13 electromagnetic field acute effects would be small to 14 moderate.
15 The staff also reviewed cumulative impact 16 associated with the continued operation of South Texas 17 Project. For cumulative impacts, the NRC staff looked 18 at the effects on the environment from past, present, and 19 reasonably foreseeable future human actions.
20 The impacts include both from the South 21 Texas Project operations and from other activities near 22 South Texas Project, such as the development of the 23 proposed Whi te Stallion Energy Center, the Texas Prairie 24 Wetland Project, climate change, et cetera.
25 Past actions are those related to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
15 1 environmental resourc~s at the time of the power plant 2 licensing and construction. Present actions are those 3 related to the resources at the time of current 4 operations of the power plant. And future actions are 5 considered to be those that are reasonably foreseeable 6 through the end of the plant's operations, including the 7 period of extended operations.
8 In other words, the cumulative impact 9 analysis considers potential impacts through the end of 10 the current license term as well as the 20-year renewal 11 license term.
12 While the level of impacts due to the direct 13 and indirect effect associated with the continued 14 operation of South Texas Project are mostly small, the 15 staff preliminarily concluded that cumulative impacts 16 are small to moderate.
17 For the term beyond the 20-year period of 18 extended operations, the NRC addresses the management of 19 spent nuclear fuel in the waste confidence decision and 20 rule.
21 Previous license renewal Supplemental EIS 22 noted that the environmental impacts of temporary 23 storage of nuclear fuel for the period following the 24 reactor operating license term were addressed by this 25 rule.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
16 1 The Draft Supplemental EIS does not discuss 2 the potential ronmental impacts of the storing spent 3 nuclear 1 for an extended period a er the plant 4 ceases tions. That address will be addressed in 5 the NRC Waste Confidence Environmental Statement and Rule. document is expe to be issued by 7 September 2014.
8 In August of 2012 the Commission decided 9 that the agency will not issue final licensing decisions 10 for reactors, uding license renewal until waste 11 confidence e is completed. If at that time 12 site-speci c issues related to the spent 1 storage 13 at South Texas ect remain unresolved, Y will be 14 addressed separate The National Environmental icy Act mandates that Environmental Impact Statement 17 consider alternat s to any proposed or federal 18 actions. A maj or step in determining whether a 1 19 renewal is reasonable or not is comparing the likely 20 impacts of continued operation of nuclear power plants 21 with the likely impacts of alternatives of power 22 generation.
23 In the dra supplements, the NRC sta 24 itially considered 18 fferent alternatives to
.25 license renewal at the South Texas Proj ecL After this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
- . .
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
17 1 ini tial consideration, the staff then chose the five most 2 likely alternatives and analyzed these in depth.
3 Finally the NRC staff considered what would 4 happen if no action is taken and South Texas Proj ect shut 5 down at the end of its current license without a specific 6 replacement alternative. This alternative would not 7 provide power generation capacity, nor would it meet the 8 needs currently met by South Texas Project.
9 The NRC preliminary conclusion is that 10 there is no clear environmentally preferred alternative 11 to license renewal. All alternatives capable of meeting 12 the needs currently served by South Texas Proj ect entail 13 impacts greater than or equal to the proposed action of 14 license renewal.
15 This slide identifies me as your primary 16 point of contact with the NRC for the preparation of the 17 Environmental Impact Statement, and it also identifies 18 where documents related to our review may be found in the 19 local area.
20 The South Texas Project Draft Supplemental 21 Environmental Impact Statement is available at the Bay 22 Ci ty Library. All documents related to the reviews are 23 also available on the NRC website listed on this slide.
- 24 This slide provides the status of the safety 25 review. In December 2012 the applicant requested the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
18' 1 safety review be suspended until January 1, 2014. As a 2 part of the license renewal process, the Advisory 3 Committee for Reactor Safeguards will provide 4 independent review for this review.
The members of the Advisory Committee for Reactor Safeguards consists of nuclear experts from the 7 industry and academics.
8 NRC staff will address written comments in 9 the same way we address spoken comments received today.
10 You can submit written comments either online or via 11 conventional mail, meaning Postal Service.
12 To submit written comments online, visit 13 the website regulations.gov and searCh for docket 10 14 nrc-2010-0375. If you have written comments today, you 15 may give them to any NRC staff member today .
16 . This concludes my presentation, and I'm 17 turning the meeting over to Susan.
18 MS. SALTER: Thank you, Tam.
19 So as I said, before we go into the public 20comffient period, let me just take a few minutes for any 21 questions or clarifications you may need -- questions 22 you have or clarifications you need on what Tam has 23 presented this afternoon.
24 So we're just going to have folks raise 25 their hand. If they have a question, we'll bring you the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
listening mode.
7 And we don't have very many speakers this 8 afternoon, but if you change your mind or if you decide during the course t comments that you now would like 10 to make a comment, you can always fill out a yellow card 11 and give it to f or to Bob.
12 I'm going to call up our first speaker, is 13 Owen Bludau. then we have Carolyn Thames and Terry 14 Farrar, '. in that order.
15 ease introduce yourself with your name 1 and any a I ion you have when you're at 17 microphone.
18 MR. BLUDAU: Okay. I am Owen Bludau, 19 director of the Matagorda County Ec.onomic 20 Corporation.
21 The results that were sent are exactly 22 . as I anticipated they could be, that t were small to 23 minimal impacts of any kind. I k the proof of the 24 pudding is that STP has been here well over 20 years 25 pow, and we have an environment t we appreciate and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
20 1 admire.
2 We went through a lot of internal furor two 3 years ago over a coal plant, and the people who opposed 4 that kept saying we have such a great environment here, 5 we don't want to destroy it. That means STP has not done 6 anything adverse to it, and I don't think renewal of this 7 permit is going to do anything that's going to change 8 that, so I firmly am in support of the findings of this 9 environmental impact study.
10 MS. SALTER: Thank you, Mr. Bludau.
11 Our next speaker is Carolyn Thames.
12 MS. THAMES: Good afternoon and welcome to 13 Bay City. My name is Carolyn Thames. I'm a business 14 cortsultant with Workforce Solutions, a local workforce 15 office here in Bay Ci ty, as well as a council member with 16 the City of Bay City.
17 I am here today to strongly support the 18 license renewal for STP Units 1 and 2 for an additional
'19 20 years. STP is the largest employer in Matagorda 20 County, with approximately 1200 employees.
21 STP's license renewal will provide jobs for 22 our children and build a strong, stable economic base for 23 our community.
24 In my two terms on council, I've had the 25 opportunity to serve with several employees. These NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701
- www.nealrgross.com
21 1 people donate their time, their talents to make a 2 difference in our community.
3 We trust the employees of STP; they're 4 experts at engineering, operations, maintenance, and the 5 environment. They are our neighbors, they are our 6 friends.
7 Thank you for being here. Thank you for 8 consideration of the license renewal.
9 MS. SALTER: Thank you, Ms. Thames.
10 And our next speaker is Terry Farrar.
11 MR. FARRAR: Thank you, Susan.
12 I am Terry Farrar. I own a business in 13 town, Farrar Financial Group. I serve on the Bay City 14 ISD school board, and I am also the chairman-elect for 15 the Bay City Chamber of Commerce.
1 I've been here for 28 years. The entire 17ti~e I've been here, STP has been, without a doubt, the 18 lifeblood of this community. I do not know. anybody who 19 donates as much money to civic purposes, fund raisers.
20 They're very good about being a part of this community 21 with the Chamber.
22 Buddy Eller is the current chairman of the 23 Chamber of Commerce. He works at STP. Tim Powell, the 24 vice president at STP, is the president of the school 25 board here. Bart Brown is the department director of my NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N.W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 \/IIWw. nealrgross.com
22 1 Sunday School class there where I'm a School 2 Tim is a Sunday School teacher at ist 3 Church.
4 The people at STPare not only -- do not only 5 just the money that they give to make this community Ie, but they give their time. The that 7 we ence because of the training that e 8 reCei ved at STP has made a dif s 9 community. This community is what is ly 10 of STP and their influence in this community.
11 And I strongly support that we rei e 12 them and ask them to continue to partie and do what 13 they've in this community for the last 25, 30 s.
14 Than 15 MS. SALTER: Thank you, Mr. rrar.
16 Those are all of the individuals who s 17 up to k.
18 I have your card, but it said the evening; 19 didn't -- but you are more than welcome to do both.
20 Would you Ii to do both?
21 Karen Hadden.
22 MS. HADDEN: Good afternoon. I'm Karen 23 Hadden, and I am the director of a statewide organization 24 called SEED Coal ion, Sustainable Energy and Economic 25 Development Coalition.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
23 1 I'm going to speak in opposition to 2 relicensing Units 1 and 2. In fact, the option that I 3 think should be pursued is not actually on the list of 4 options.
5 I understand the importance of a maj or 6 industry in this community. I understand the importance 7 of jobs, and our organization does as well, and we support 8 that. We want every community in Texas to be 9 economically viable and thriving.
10 But what I think should be happening, 11 instead of relicensing two nuclear reactors that are set 12 to retire in 2027 and 2028, this is the time to plan for 13 a transition, to plan for worker training, to plan to move 14 toward cleaner, safer energy for the future.
15 And with 14 and 15 years to work with, that 16 is a doable goal. It's also very doable in today' s world 17 to replace the energy with renewables combined with 18 energy efficiency, and that can be backed up with natural 19 gas. This is affordable; this is real. Other 20 communities are looking at these options. It can be 21 done; it is being done.
22 For an example, right now wind turbines are 23 booming across Texas. We've already had a point in time 24 where wind was producing 25 percent and more of the power 25 that was Up on the ERCOT grid. Nuclear reactors at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
24 1 time were around 11 percent.
2 We can do this; we are doing this. Granted, 3 the wind comes in and out. That's why you combine with 4 energy storage, that's why you do backup. And ERCOT is 5 becoming very expert in making these things level out.
6 What could this do for the community?
7 There could still be jobs, and lots of them, and hopefully 8 even more. This could be growth for the community. So 9 I think the thing to do is to plan.
10 Nuclear reactors were used in this country 11 as a bridge between the time when we could get to the point 12 wh~re renewables were viable. That day is here; ~hat 13 time is now.
14 I'm personally using this in my own home.
15 I have solar panels on the roof that do more than I ever 16 thought they would. There are days when I can run the 17 whole house and charge an electric car, which does most 18 of my daily driving. That's possible, that's doable.
19 We're doing it. It's here today.
20 There are many ways to move forward. The 21 risks of continuing with nuclear power are great, and 22 that's because of the inherent nature of nuclear power.
23 There are accidents; there are fires. We've just been 24 through that.
25 There's an increasing amount of fracking, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.w.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005*3701 www.nealrgross.com
25 1 .and fracking has been linked to earthquakes, and who 2 knows what will be happening over time. I think the 3 environmental impact research needs to look further at 4 that question.
5 In the case of Fukushima, reactor number 1 6 had been set to retire one month before the accident 7 there, which, you know, involved their diesel 8 generators, to large extent, as well as tsunami and 9 earthquake.
10 So if that plant had been shut down as it 11 should have been -- they were given 10 more years, not 12 20, like we're looking at in this case -- then that would 13 be one less reactor that had a meltdown. And the whole 14 world is feeling the impacts of that disaster in many 15 different ways, including radiation that travels around 16 the globe and impacts fisheries , it impacts products and 17 workers' lives and people who live in Japan, as well as 18 in the US it's been measured. This radiation does reach 19 the US.
20 I'm concerned about at the plant -- and I 21 think there needs to be further look at tritium. There 22 are tritium problems at the site. There's monitoring 23 wells that show that.
24 When you combine that with the fact that the 25 botto~ of the main cooling reservoir has some leakage NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
26 1 going on -- this is documented; this was in the 2 '. application South Texas Project 3 and 4 -- okay, where is research? Where is that t ium going? Is 4 it going out bottom of the cooling reservoir and going 5 into the f of Mexico?
6 Is going into sh? Is it going into the 7 food ? I s it impacting an Is feed upon these 8 spec s? Could it be a factor impacting whooping 9 cranes, which are endangered?
10 Nobody has looked at this, and it needs to 11 be ked at. This is part environmental impact 12 assessment. You've already factor that the 13 amount of water being used to cool these reactors means 14 less fresh water can Gulf of Mexico; le 15 That impacts 16 But in addit to that, we need to be 17 looking at, at this point in time, whether the radiation 18 is getting into these species; not just the numbers 6f 19 fish. There needs to be additional ana is.
20 There been problems with s reactor 21 over the years, and they seem to be increasing. While 22 we read about safety reports and at numbers of 23 days without shutting down, well, that I s good, and great 24 worker safety: 's what the reports say.
25 But when you look across the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234*4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005*3701 WINW.nealrgross.com
27 1 country -- there's an expert by the name of David 2 Lochbaumi he has worked for the NRCi he's also worked for 3 the Union of Concerned Scientists, and he did a report 4 called The Nuclear Tightrope.
5 And he looked at plants where they had 6 year-long outages. What he found was a typical pattern, 7 that in a reactor that had a serious accident, serious 8 problem, there would be glowing reports, right up until 9 the accident happened. Nothing was wrong, everything 10 was perfect, and then all of a sudden, catastrophic 11 problem that had been missed all along that just wasn't 12 showing up. And then we had this major problem.
13 So this has happened over and over, and I
.14 think it's time for this report and for the NRC in general 15 to look deeply into what's going on.
1 Now, in 2003 there was leakage of 17 radioactive material outside the reactor, at the base of 18 it. That's not where radioactive material's supposed to 19 be, ever.
20 And I remember when these reactors got 21 built. We were told there was a backup system and then 22 another backup system and then another. In fact, there 23 were 12 -- there used to be 12 backup systems, and 24 radioactivity would never escape, and yet it did. It 25 has, within this operating lifetime.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE;, N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
28 1 We still have quite a ways to go be 2 retirement dates of these reactors, and we've se 3
- 4 Recently there have been problems with 5 .. control rods getting stuck, not being ab to* ion
- y. We had an outage just last week that involved 7 , control rods dropping when they're not supposed 8 That is unsafe. That means we don't 9 1 control of this reactor. I'm concerned. I 10 ly live in Austin, Texas, and Austin is an owner
~11 bf this reactor. I'm happy that we get some pbwer from 12 it, but I'm very concerned about this safety a , for 13 people who live here, for people downwind and 14 state.
15 Metal fatigue increases as reactors most dangerous years are the early startup and 1 years of a reactor. So to consider a 18 reactor 20 more y~ar~ of time to operate 14 arid
.19 ahead of time, to me this is li t ling 20 somebody you're going to sell them a used car, but you're 21 ing to sell it to them today, and they're to 22 . rece 14 and .15 years later. That doesn't ma 23 24 This decision is being looked at and s 25 . meeting is being held way, way too early. This is wrong NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
29 1 timing, needs to hold, it needs to wait.
2 Short of declaring that it's time to look 3 at t i tiCm away, I would urge you to do no action for 4 now and to delay until we know more. With the current 5 with the reactor, with the current fire, that to ly investigated.
7 And it's good that it appears that no
.8 ty got released, but ~hat if this fire was 9 What if it was elsewhere? What if 10 rcumstances had somehow been different?
11 It concerns me that reactors are operating 12 a community that, after all of these years, still 13 no id professional fire department. I'm sure the 14 vo rs are very good people and probably trained, but 15 if you've got nuclear reactor in your backyard, that 16 means thete should be a paid professional fire 17 rtment can be called on.
18 Furthermore, I think everyone should
.19 asking the question, if this was a very large 20 extensive, how long would it take to get kup re 21 departments here; for example, from Houston? e 22 I a ing that it's longer than just t to 23 here.
24 are serious safety concerns.
25 There are questions about the s of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com .
30 1 when the reactor is down. It becomes expens With 2 16 percent ownership of Austin Energy, the months 3 that they were down, roughly from November till almost 4 1 of 2012 -- November 2011 to almost Ap l, that cost 5 Austin 42 million, and so I think it's s y as we have these outages. These react have 7 part of the year-long outages in years t.
8 Preliminary findings of small to 9 terms of cumulative impacts, that should none.
10 's a serious problem here. If thiscornrnunity was
- 11 ing wind energy or solar, I don I t think you 12 having these same impacts.
13 . Moderate is not acceptable. And it matters 14 to whom? Who is it moderate for? To whom is low?
15 workers on site? I'm concerned about t 1 as contract employees get laid off, as some the 17 existing workers are impacted in the world job cuts,
- 18 t sa y is taking a backseat to economics and trying 19 to costs.
20 That means workers on the site have to work 21 r hours, have to work more, and potent lyare 22 to more radioactivity. That is of 23 concern, and these things need to be addres 24 ronmental Impact Statement.
And so for a worker, that impact not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
31 1 be moderate; that impact might be huge. It depends on 2 who we're talking about.
3 I think I'll wrap up my remarks at this point 4 in time, and I thank you for this opportunity.
5 MS. SALTER: Thank you, Ms. Hadden.
6 So that was all of the folks that signed up 7 to make a comment. I'll give one last chance.
8 (No response.)
9 MS. SALTER: All right. Well, thank you 10 again for coming out this afternoon. We will be having 11 another meeting this evening at 7: 00. You're welcome to 12 join us again for that. It will be the same meeting as 13 this was but with probably different folks making 14 comments.
15 I also want to let you know that we had 16 feedback forms at the front table when you came in, and 17 the NRC is always looking to improve their public meeting 18 format and process, so please take some time to fill those 19 out on your way out. You can leave them here or drop them 20 in the mail to the NRC.
21 So with that, I'd like to turn the meeting 22 over to Dave Wrona, Branch Chief in the Division of 23 License Renewal in the NRC's Office of Nuclear Reactor 24 Regulation, for some closing remarks.
25 MR. WRONA: Thank you, Susan.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 wWw.nealrgross.com
32 1 Tam, wouid you mind going back to sl 2 that shows the various ways that folks can comment on our 3 Ora Environmental Impact Statement.
4 First of all, I want to thank you all for 5 . comi out tonight this afternoon and taking some time out of your schedule to actually contribute to the 7 ss to help us make our nal Environmental Impact 8 Statement the best it can be.
9 I want to let everybody know doesn't 10 matter whether you commented today, you comment in the 11 evening, you write us a letter, you go on internet.
12 1 the comments are treated the same.
13 The NRC will consider all these comments, 14 go through them as we develop our final impact -- Final 15 Environmental Impact Statement.'
1 If you get your comments in by February 22, 17 we can guarantee they will be consi We will 18 include them all the final report, and responses to 19 all those comments.
20 Again, I just want to thank everybody 21 the time coming out and helping us with our.
22 environmental review process.
23 Thank you.
..
24 MS. SALTER: Be k at seven 0' clock; 25 . house at 6:00 if you'd like to j us again this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234.4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005*3701 www.nealrgross.com
33 1 (Whereupon, at 2:47 p.m., the hearing was 2 concluded. )
3 4
5 7
8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 1
17 18 19 20 21 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS ANDTRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 wwW.nealrgross.com
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Title: . South Texas Project License Renewal Public Meeting: Evening Session Docket Number: (nta)
Location: Bay City, Texas Date: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 Work OrderNo.: NRC-3030 Pages 1-22 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers
. 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
+ + + + +
PRELIMINARY SITE-SPECIFIC RESULTS OF THE ENVIRONIV(ENTAL REVIEW FOR SOUTH TEXAS PROJECT LICENSE RENEWAL
+ + + + +
PUBLIC MEETING 9 EVENING SESSION 10 + + + + +
11 Tuesday, January 15, 2013 12 201 7th Street 13 Bay City, Texas 14 7:00 p,m, 15 16 ON OF THE NRC:
17 HAGAR, Facilitator 18 19 OTHER NRC STAFF:
2o SUSAN SALTER 21 TAM TRAN 22 BINESH THARAKAN
- 23 DAVE WRONA 24 EMILY LARSON 25 LARA USILING 26 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE" N,W, (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 WWIIII. nealrgross.com
2 1 CONTENTS 2 SPEAKER/TOPIC
.3 NRC Introduction, 3 4 NRC Staff Presentation , ,, , ,, , , ,, ,, , 5 5 Public Comments, , , , , , , , 12 6 NRC Closing Remarks, , , , , , , , , , , , " , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 21 7 . Adj ourn 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D,C. 20005-3701 www,nealrgross.com
3 1 ~EQ~J; E Jd-.lH §~
2 (7:02p.m.)
3 MR. HAGAR: Well, good evening to 4 everybody, and thanks for coming to this meeting. My 5 name is Hagar, and with Susan Salter we're going to facilitate this meeting, and the whole of 7 our ing is to help the meeting run smoothly, and 8 we'te going make sure that everyone that wants to 9 something has an opportunity to say thi 10 Before we get started, I want to nd 11 everybody that this meeting is ing t ibed, 12 We've got a court reporter over here, we want 13 thi that's said in the meeting to on the 14 transcript, so please be sure when you have if you 15 have something to say, to speak into a microphone and 1 6 k very clearly .
. 17 And the first time you speak, .besure and 18 your name and what organization you're with so we 19 can get that in the transcript properly.
20 I remind everybody the restrooms are just 21 outside this hall -- this door, down the hall, 22 1 ies' restroom is first hallway to the left, the 23 men's restroom is down at the end of the hall to the 24 ght. And exits are right here (indicati ) and t 25 out in the hall to the left and to the right, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
4 1 In addi tion, everybody, if you would please 2 turn off your electrical devices: at least turn them 3 ort silent .mode so that the meeting is not disrupted.
4 and if you get a call during the meeting, if you would please step out in the hall so you don't disturb anybody else in the meeting.
Now, the purpose of tonight's meeting is t the findings and collect publ comments on 9 t Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the 10 renewal of the South Texas Project nuclear 11 power plant's operating licenses for an itional 20 12 13 During this meeting you may hear 14 individuals refer to the Environmental Impact Statement 15 as t EIS or the Draft Environmental Impact Statement 16 as the DEIS, Please don't get conf by that,
. 17 Now, the agenda for t meeting will 18 include -- we're going to first have a presentation by 19 the NRC staff, where they'll t the resul ts of the 20 environmental review, and when t t's dbne, we.'ll have 21 an opportuni ty for quest ions answers about the tation, 23 So if you have questions ab6ut the 24 presentation as we're going through, I want you to hold 25 those until we're done, and then we'll have question NEALR. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE" NW, (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.neaJrgross.com
5 1 and answers. And* then after that we'll have an 2 op tunity for anyone who wants to make a comment to 3 comment on the record.
4 But if you want to say something. if y6u want to your comments on the record. please first fill out a llow comment card. Susan has some over 7 t on the table; I have some in my pocket. And if 8 you want to say something and haven't filled out a 9 please raise your hand and we'll bring you one.
10 Okay. I think that's all I want to 11 about the ground rules. so I'll turn the meeting over 12 now to Tam Tran. who's a project manager in t vision 13 of License Renewal in the NRC's office of Nuclear Reactor 14 lation. and he will do the presentation.
15 MR. TRAN: Thank you.
16 Thank you all for taking the time to come 17 to this meeting. My name is Tam Tran; I'm the project 18 for t environmental review for the South Texas 19 Proj~ct license renewal.
20 I hope the information today will provi 21 you wi th tanding of how we've done the ~w.
22 what we and the preliminary result of the ew.
23 hopefully the comment that we collect today will 24 help us to make the Pi nal Environmen tal Impact Sta temen t 25 accurate.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.coni
6 1 I f I can have sl ide number 8, this sl ide 2 show important 3 This slide shows important milestones for 4 the environmental review process. The highlighted 5 dates indicate opportunities for public involvement in 6 the environmental review.
7 The Draft Environmental Impact Statement 8 for South Texas Project was published on December 5, 9 2012, and also known as Supplement 48 of the Generic 10 Envirbnm~ntal Impact Statement, and we are currently II~c~epting public comments on this document until 12 February 22, 2013.
13 Today's meeting is being transcribed, and 14 therefore the comment that we're taking back today will 15 help us in developing the Final Environmental Impact 16 Statement starting from the end of the comment period, 17 a~d we at this point anticipate that we 0ill publish 18 the Final Environmental Impact Statement approximately 19 s~v~n months from the draft document.
20 Slide number 9, please.
21 As described on this slide, the NRC defines 22 impact levels in three categories: small, moderate, 23 or large.
24 For example, the operation of South Texas 25Prdject may cause the loss of adult and juv~nile fish NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.w.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 lNWW.nealrgross.com
7 1 at the intake structure. If the loss of fish is so small 2 tha t i t does not appear to have not i ceabl y al tered 3 population of the species found in the lower Colorado 4 River, the impact will be small.
5 I f losses cause some popu la t ion to increase 6 or decrease, then stabilize at a different level, then 7 the impact would be moderate.
8 If losses at the intake structure cause the 9 fish population to decline to the point where it cannot 10 bestabi 1 ized and con t inuall y decl ines, then the impact 11 would be large.
12 For Sou th Texas Proj ect, the impact to 13 fishery are small.
14 Slide number 10, please.
15 In conducting the review, the environmental 16 review team from NR~ and P~cific Northwest National 17 Laboratory analyzes various impacts to the environment.
18 The team examined erivironmen tal just i ce, ecology, land 19 use, regulatory compliance, climate change, et cetera, 20 for the supplement.
21 Slide number 11, please.
22 This slide lists the site-specific issues 23 that the staff reviewed for the continuing operation 24 of South Texas Project during the proposed 1 i cense 25 renewa 1 per i od . Each issue is assigned a level of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com .
8 1 environmental ct of small, moderate, or large by 2 the environmental review team, 3 In addi tion, there are two uncategorized 4 issues, They are environmental justice and 5 electromagnetic field chronic effects, For 6 electromagnetic field chronic effect. the staf f 7 consi t Generic EIS findings of uncertain impacts 8 is still appropriate. This is cause-- simply 9 because t 's no scienti fic consensus on these issues ..
10 staff's prelimi conclusion is that 11 the site-specific impacts relat to license renewal
'12 for South Texas j ect are sma t for the impact 1 of electromagnetic field acute effe s that are small 14 to moderate, 15 Sli number 13, please, 16 staf f also revi cumulative impacts 17associat with the continued tion of South Texas 18 Project. For cumulative impacts, t NRC staff looked 19 at effects on the environment from t, present, and
. .
20 reasonably foreseeable future of human actions, 21 The impacts include both from the South 22 Texas Proj ect tions and from other activities near 23 the South Texas Proj ect si te; for example, I think that 24 we 1 0.0 ked a t t White Station Energy Center, the Texas 25 Prairie Wetland Project, climate ch , et cetera, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
9' 1 Past actions are those related to the 2 environmental resources at the time of the power plant licensing and construction. Present actions are those 4 related to resdurces at the time of current operations 5 of the power plant. And future actions are considered to be those that are reasonably foreseeable through the 7 ~ndof the plant's operation. including the period of 8 extended operations.
9 In other words. the cumulative impact 1 analysis considers potential impacts through the end 1 *of the current license term as well as the 20-year 1 ren~wal license term.
13 While the level of impacts due to the direct 14 and indirect effect associated with the continued 156peration of South Texas Project are mostly small. the 16 staff's preliminary conclusion is that the cumulative 17 impacts are small to moderate.
18 Slide number 15.
19 A maj or step in determining whether a 20 license renewal is r~asonable or not is comparing the 21 likely impacts of continued operation of nuclear power 22 plants with the likely impacts of alternatives of power 23 **generation.
24 In the draft supplement. the NRC staff 25 initially considered 18 different alternatives to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.riealrgross.com
10 1 1 i cense renewal 0 f t South Texas Project. After this initial consideration, t staff then cho~e the five 3 most likely alternatives and anal these in depth.
4 Finally the NRC staff considered what would happen if no action is taken and South Texas Project shut do~n at the of its current license without a specific replacement alternative. I want to note that his alternative would not provide power generation capacity, nor would it meet t need currently met by 10 South Texas Project.
11 The NRC limin conclusion is that 12 there is no clear environmentally preferred al ternative 13 to license renewal. All alternatives capable of 14 meeting the needs currently served by South Texas 15 Project entail impacts ter than or equal to the 16 proposed action of license renewal.
17 Slide 16, please.
18 is sli identifies me as your primary 19 point of contact with the NRC for the comments, and it 20 also iqentifieswhere documents related to our review 21 maybe found.
22 Draft Supplemental EIS is avail Ie at 23 the Bay City Library. Also it's available on t NRC 24 website list on this slide.
25 Slide 18.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.w.
(202) i34-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
11 1 You can submit written commentsei ther 2 online or via conventional mail. To submit written 3 ~o~ments online. Visit the website regulations.gov and 4 search for docket ID nrc-2010-0375. I f you have wri tten 5 comments today. you may give them to any NRC staff member 6 today.
7 This concludes my presentation. and I'm 8 turning the meeting over to the facilitator.
9 MR. HAGAR: All right. Thank you. Tam.
10 Does anyone have any quest ions for Tam?
11 Is there anything he covered that you'd like to over 12 again? If so. just raise your hand and I'll bring a 13 mic to you.
14 (No response.)
15 MR. HAGAR: All right. I don't see any 16 hands. so we'll move directly into the comment period.
17 Two people signed up to make comments on the record.
18 and so Susan Dancer and Eugene Davis. in that order.
19 Susan. if you'll go ahead and come up. you 20 have an opportunity now to make whatever comments you 21 want.
22 MS. DANCER: Thank you. My name is Susan 23 Dancer; common spelling on both words.
24 I want to thank the NRC sta ff for travel ing 25 all this way and giving us an opportuni ty to participate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 WINW.nealrgross.com
12 1 in this process.
2 I'm a Matagorda County native and a business 3 person here locally and a sta te-l i censed wi ldl i fe 4 rehabilitator. I liv~ on a 65-acre ranch in Blessing.
5 about eight miles from STP. and I run an animal sanctuary 6 there as well.
7 I really appreciate the opportunity to come 8 and be heard during this scoping process. I believe 9 that accountability. transparency. and the right to 10 challenge industry are very important and that to 11 question is every citizen's duty.
12 I have several areas of this EIS that I would 13 like to fund~mentally disagree with and re~pectfully 14 ask you to reconsider.
15 I con t inuall y see and hear tha t STP is 16 laud~d ~s beneficial to local wildlife and habitat. and 17 that angle is accepted and incbrporated into the EIS.
18 This is not what I see as a local citizen and one of 19 only three licensed wildlife rehabilitators here in our 20 county.
21 I see a large corporation doing a great job 22 of showing you and the public the good and 23 b~neficial-to-them part of the picture.
24 In reality. the contract granted by STP to 25 deal with wildlife issues goes to the lowest bidder.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 Www.nealrgro55.com
13 1 currently GCA, GCA, as well as previous environmental 2 con tractors, requires its employees to troy bird.
nests, eggs, and infant birds that nest on t site as 4 part of standard ing, employees receive no training in
~pplicable laws su as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act~
no ttaining on cies identification. and don't even know what kind of an life they're destroying, One year ago this week STP ini tiated a
.1 nuisance-bird ication program. whereby was set 11 out for several days in a row to estab f ing 12 stations on site. then the seed was laced with
"
13 pOlson,
'. 14 This proj ect was aimed pr ily at several 15 protected species of ckles that cong te in large 16 numbers to overwinter on the Texas Gulf Coast, The 17 poisons that are are neurotoxic. and t animals
'18 that in t them die a horrible th, often beating 19 themselves to death on the ground, 20 Predator species such as hawks. eagles. and 21 o~IS are drawn to the activity and. by ingesting the
..
. 22 . >.tainted birds. they ingest the poisons as well, These 23 are biocumulat in the food chain.
24 I t calls about several tors on and 25 around the STP site that week that were acting NEAL R. GROSS COURTREPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www,nealrgross.com
14 1 abnormally. One red'-tail hawk was brought to my 2 facility but could not 3 I email STP authorities before this 4 poisoning took pl~ce and them to consider other 5 options. They did not reply to my email,. which is 6 attached; I'll leave my comments here.
7 There are much more humane ways to keep the 8 site free of unwant bi short of killing them, 9 though maybe none so i ive. These kinds of 10 activities must considered in the scoping process, 11 and . we must acknowl that fact, that profi t*
1 supersedes environmerital concerns.
1 STP also larly deals with mammals on 14 site with lethal solutions, and when problem animals 15 are relocated, empl lack the training to recognize 1 disease whi ch may in fect ious, and they are not tined 17 o~ the laws that pert~in cially to our f ing 18 species.
19 . Our wildlife rehabilitation group 20 of feredtraining to STP personnel at no expense but were.
21 told and I quote "We are not ready to t it to 22 that level."
23 Additionally, STP regularly kills t 24 bee colonies t t swarm on site. HoneybeenDmbers are 25 in serious decline, and most of our food crops depend NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
'(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005~3701 www.nealrgross.com
15 on ir pollination.
2 Another ct of the EIS I think is 3 understated and not given serious weight: the serious 4 water shortage facing our region. To assign a small 5 impact valuation to a t of life-giving necessity is irresponsible. In what will undoubtedly a new 7 drought of record, this is premature and presumptuous.
8 Profit and safety are not at the same end 9 of the business spectrum; they are polar opposi tes.
10 It costs money and cuts into profi t to be safe. As time 11 goes on and more and more equipment ages and fails.
1 safety and concern for community must be sacrificed if 1 sharehol are to kept satisfied.
STPNOC's only objectiv~ is to make money 1 for t ir owners. The ap rance and grand tures 16 toward community and safety are an important t of 1.7 that cess. but the actual implementation of the same 18 is, counterproductive to the process of making money.
19 For example. STP has long been a top 20 producer in the nuclear industry in th profit and 21 output; however. when forced outages in Unit, 2 caused 2 'the profi tabili ty to, fall. the new management sent 23 ly 300 people, 25 percent of STP's workforce, home 24 wi thout pay days before Thanksgiving, and they were 25 tinp~id through the end of the year.
, '
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE, NW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D,C. 20005-3701 WNW.nealrgross.eom
16 1 Where was the professed concern for family 2 and employees and community then? Taking a t 3 to profit, as they always will, and even more so as the 4 ant ages and reasonable maintenance is neglected in t interest of cost savings.
Today's corporate world demands lean, efficient operation. A process of trial and error li how lean a company can and st 1 profit.
9 The workforce is ever more and more i of 10 tract workers with lower wages and no benefits.
11 One migh t argue tha t 's just business, and I 12 completely agree. However. framed by t reason that 13 we are here. to discuss .STP' s environmental impact, 14 including the socioeconomic indicators. on our 15 community, we must consider all the factors fully and 16 listically in the final EIS.
17 Thank you very mu 18 MR. HAGAR: Thank you, Susan.
19 Eugene Davis. if you have anything to ~ay.
20 please step up.
21 MR. DAVIS; I'm Davis. I'm the 22 executive director of .the Matagorda County Women's 23 Crisis Center, known as The Crisis Center. And I'd like
. 24 to speak. quite briefly. on four points.
25 One is that what I have observed and seen NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 Www.nealrgross.com
17 1 and heard is that STP has an excellent safety record.
2 I t seeks to be transparen t; it seeks to let people know 3 when things are going on and seeks tobe proactive, from 4 my point of view.
5 I believe, from my point of view, that STP 6 has the safety of everyone at stake and is one of the 7 best-run plants as far as safety and energy in the us.
8 And wi th that, I think that s the second I
9 point, is the efficiency, that we do have an excellent 10 run plant. As my predecessor made the comment just a 11 moment ago about what happened with the cohtract 12 workers, we are in a unique situation where STP is, 13 because of the price of natural gas, losing money, and 14 as in any household, if you spend more than you make, 15 you go under, so there s tha t need to conserve resources.
I 16 Also, I cannot comment about what my 17 predecessor has said about the environment on plant 18 site. However, I know that with safety being what. it r9 is and the need for safety, they are taking that as the 20 most important course.
21 I look at the overall impact, county- and 22 area-wide. Every year Matagorda County is rated number 23 dne in migratory bird population in different species.
2 4 ' That tells me, with STP having been here for 30 years, 25 that environmentally they have had a minimal, at best, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
18 1 impact upon this at~a, Otherwise we ~ould not see that
~ kind of wildlife still in the region acro~s this area.
And then, too, finally, is the fact t t STP is, in my view, an excellent corporate citizen, alw~ys willing to step in, always willing to make th~
difference, always willing to help, and instilled that in all its employees, that their empl are also involved in the community. And t are a vital part of this community that we really ciate and want to see them stay.
Again, I believe in our current energy situa t ion across the state 0 f electrical 13 generation, Texas as a whole STP.
14 Thank you much.
15 MR. HAGAR: All right. Thank you ,Mr.
16 Davis.
17 And then t was one other speaker that 18 didn't si up but indicat she might want to make a 19 few comments. Karen. do you want to say. something 20 tonight?
21 MS. HADDEN: Briefly.
22 MR. HAGAR: Okay. Please introduce 23 yourself when you t up here.
24 MS. HADDEN: Good' evening." I'm' 25 , and I am the director of the SEED Coalition, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE, NW..
,(202)234-4433 . WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www,nealrgross.com
19 1 Sustainable Energy Economic Development Coalition, 2 and I will add to the comments that I made at the earlier session today, largely in response to some of t ot 4 comments that have been made here tonight.
5 And I wish I could say that I the 6 opinion of transparency for South Texas Project. I find 7 it to be 0 f concern that in forma t ion is not more forthcoming.
And in terms of safety, I'm concerned 1 about t cutting of employees. I think t tis a way 11 to increase safety risks. And even though there's been 12 luck so far, I have great concerns, as do many others 13 who are not here tonight -- and I'll go ahead and say 14 that I'm king for many ot pleas well -- that 15 while we have so far no major acci nt at the si te, there 16 to be research in t amount of radiation, 17 radionuclides migrating off the site.
18 . And also we to prepare, because 19 historically at some of the sites that were touted as 20 being the sa fest, t most productive, the ones that 21 were running beautifully, that is exactly where t 22 major problems have occOrred in US nuclear history.
23 And I think we should be looking carefully.
24 I think we should be more forthcoming with information, 25 digging into recent events such as the fi that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 W1NW. nealrgross.com
20 1 occurred; digging deeper on many issues and looking more 2 closely.
3 Thank you.
4 MR. HAGAR: All right. Is there anyone 5 else that wants to make any comments tcinighton the record?
(No response.)
MR. HAGAR: Then let me kind of wrap this
.9 up by ndingeverybody that the NRC wants to continue 10 to improve t way we present public meetings. and so 1 there are some feedback forms on the corner of the t Ie, 1 and if you have a mind to, grab a feedback form on t 13 way out and suggest to us on how we can .improve t 14 meetings.
15 And for a final few words. I want to turn 16 this meeting over to Dave Wrona. who's Branch Chi~f in 17 the Division of License Renewal in headquarters' Office 18 of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
19 Dave.
.20 MR. WRONA: Thank you, Bob .
21 Just to wrap things up, I wan t to thank 22 everybody. The turnout tonight, we have a lot of 23 dDplicate attendance in t crowd, so we did ate
""j 24 our presentation. hitting t high points.
.25 I just want to let everybody know that the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., NW.
(202) 234-4433 . WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 Www.nealrgross.com
21 1 NRC staff will be hanging around after the meeting for 2 a little bit, especially as we clean up. So if anybody 3 has any cifics on our analysis and our Draft 4 Environmen 1 Impact Statement, they can stop and see
, anyone 0 f us, we can go into a li ttle bit more tail.
And in general, too, if you have any questions on the NRC and what we do and how we function, 8 you know, we'll be here to be le to answer those 9 questions.
,10 I do thank you for taking the time out of 11 your busy schedules to come and provide us wi th comments 1 that we'll use when we devel our Final Environmental 13 Impact Statement, as Tam mentioned, to it's 14 expected to publ ished around the Jul y 2013 time frame.
15 And just as a remi , as Tam has up on 16 the s~reen, thjs isn't t only forum to provi the 17 public comments to us that you have. Regulations.gov.
18 will allow you to go online provide them to us, or 19 you can mail them in to t address that's shown on the 20 screen, and that information is available in the 21 handout. So if you haven't t a set of the handouts, 22 those are sti available over at the table.
23 Thank you very much.
24 MR. HAGAR: With that, this meeting is 25 adjourned. Thank you for ing e.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE. NoW.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D,C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com
22 1 (Whereupon, at 7:28 p.m., t ring was 2 concluded. )
3 4
13 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, DC. 20005-3701 W'MV.nealrgross.com
II II Z-o:::JZ YV V Z "1J"1J "1J ::uOC::u
s ...... ----s ()~Q.() ;a 0 0
,...... 0
,...... '" CD CD CIJ ., 0) . ,
CD 3 CD 0....
,......
n ,......0 Sl 3'"0-,(0 co (J)
,...... CD '"'C -- -3
- 0) C
- T CIJ :::J 0) -
CD n c: CIJ t"'+ t"'+ 0) ;a 0 rr _. CIJ CD ,......
CD 3 n o-- ., CD to
- J :::J -- CIJ
_. 3
< :::T 0) c.c
- -n
s 0 CD s::
0 ::J Q)
ClJ o
- J ,...... Q)
C. 5-3 ,..
3 CD :::T CD Q) Q.3 0
- J ct ::J
,...... ::J C CD c...,
CJ) C. ~
CD CJ)
--n
- J -
Q) Q) coO)
--+\ 0
- J CD :::J C Cl. ,...... <
CJ)
'< C CIJ CD nCD
..,(I) n CDO (J) c: O)--+t _II
......
,......
., c.c
'< :T,...
Package: ML13044A466
- 1. Meeting Summary (w IEncis. 1 & 2): ML13023A334
- 2. Encl. 3: Afternoon Transcript (Corrected): ML13029A755
- 3. Encl. 4: Evening Transcript (Corrected): ML13025A008 4 Encl 5* Slides* ML13029A497 OFFICE LARPB1 :DLR PM:RPB2:DLR BC:RPB2:DLR NAME YEdmonds TTran DWrona DATE 02/12/2013 02/13/2013 02/25/2013