ML13319B132
| ML13319B132 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | San Onofre  |
| Issue date: | 02/25/1999 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML13319B133 | List: |
| References | |
| ASB-300-680, NUDOCS 9903310202 | |
| Download: ML13319B132 (87) | |
Text
ORIGINAL OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
SAN ONOFRE, UNIT 1 DECOMMISSIONING PUBLIC MEETING Case No.:
Work Order No.:
ASB-300-680 LOCATION:
San Clemente, CA DATE:
Thursday, February 25, 1999 PAGES: 1 - 84 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 SAN ONOFRE, UNIT 1 5
6 DECOMMISSIONING PUBLIC MEETING 7
8 San Clement$ Community Center 9
Ole Hanson Room 10 100 N. Calle Seville 11 San QLemente, CA 12 13 Thursday, February 25, 1999 14 15 The above-entitled matter, came on as a public 16 meeting, pursuant to notice.
17 18 APPEARANCES:
19 DR.-SEitiuR vWEISS, Director 20 DR. MICHAEL T. MASNIK, Section Chief 21 ETOY G. HYLTON, Licensing Assistant 22 DWIGHT CHAMBERLAIN, Division Director 23 BLA SPITZBERG, Branch Chief 24 BRECK HENDERSON, Public Affairs Officer 25 LINDA SMITH, NRC Staff ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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PROCE.EDING S
2 MAYOR BERG:
Welcome.
I am Lois Berg, Mayor of 3
San Clemente.
It is my task tonight --
I've been invited 4
and am happy to do the task of welcoming you to the Nuclear 5
Regulatory Committee Meeting. It is a meeting, not really a 6
hearing. All people who wish-to respond in any way should 7
have signed up in the back of the room so that we have a 8
record of your name and who you are and your address. The 9
court reporter has requested and it is mandatory that when 10 you wish to speak you come to the lectern at the --
at my 11 left --
your right --
and speak clearly into the microphone, 12 stating your name, your address, and what else did you want 13 to know Linda?
14 THE RECORDER:
And just spelling their names.
15 MAYOR BERG:
And spelling your name --
last name, 16 so that she will have it into the tape.
17 Just a couple of housekeeping things before we 18 begin. The restrooms are out to the left as you go down 19 this little hall.
We are in the Ole Hanson Room of our 20 wonderful old Community Center Building here in San 21 Clemente. For those of you who have never been here before, 22 this is a very old building as you can tell, but a very much 23 used building, every room of it.
We're really rather proud 24 of it, even though it is old. I was in the new building 25 over in San Juan today, which is simply magnificent, but ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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3 1
ours is older and we hope has a wonderful history with it.
2 Anyway, to go on, Ed Scherer from the Southern 3
California Division will be the first presenter and he is 4
ready. We will progress from this point on.
5 MR. SCHERER:
Good evening. Can everybody hear me
.6 okay?
I'll see if I can do some adjusting here.
Can 7
everybody hear me now?
Can you hear me in the back of the 8
room? Hello?
9 MAYOR BERG:
He's going to use two mikes.
10 MR. SCHERER:
There are two mikes here.
I'll see 11 if I can get them to work.
12 Good evening. My name is Ed Scherer. I am the 13 Manager of Nuclear Regulatory Affairs at Southern California 14 Edison and I am -- my responsibilities include.the licensing 15 activities associated with the decommissioning of San Onofre 16 Unit I.
17 It's a pleasure to be here tonight to briefly 18 outline for you the plans that we have to decommission San 19 Onofre Unit I in the future. Tonight we have 20 representatives from both Southern California Edison, 21 including Brian Katz, who is our Manager of Business and 22 Financial Affairs and other representatives from.San Diego 23 Gas & Electric, our partner in the operation of the San 24 Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.
25 The purpose of my presentation is to give you a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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brief overview of the San Onofre Unit I decommissioning 2
project. A summary description of the decommissioning 3
project is contained in a report we filed with the U.S.
4 Regulatory Commission known as the Post Shutdown 5
Decommission Activity Report, or PSDAR and I understand 6
copies are available on the table in the back of the room.
7 We submitted this document to the Nuclear 8
Regulatory Commission on December 15, 1998 to provide 9
information to them about the decommissioning of San Onofre 10 Unit :. Following the NRC's presentation, after mine, we 11 will be glad to be here and answer any questions that you 12 may have, whether that's at the session or if you prefer, 13 after the session I'll -be happy to.stay around as well.
14 Brian and Ray Golden, who is our Manager of Communications 15 and both Ray and I are available to discuss any issues 16 that you want either at the meeting or.afterwards. For the 17 record I will go so far as to give you Ray's telephone 18 number for those of you that want to contact us in the 19 future, feel free to contact Ray at (949) 368-9880.
(949) 20 368-9880.
21 By way of background, since 1964 when we started 22 construction of Unit 7, Southern California Edison and San 23 Diego Gas & Electric have tried to make every effort to be a 24 responsible member, not only of the local communities, but 25 of Camp Pendleton and the surrounding environment.. We ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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recognize this has been and will continue to be a long-term 2
relationship which will extend not only through the 3
decommissioning of Unit I, but through the decommissioning 4
of Units II and III, as well.
5 In our efforts to efficiently and safely operate 6
the unit at San Onofre well within regulatory requirements, 7
we have been recognized as excellent performers by our-peers 8
in the nuclear industry. We also believe that over the 9
years we have earned our positive reputation with the 10 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
11 My presentation tonight will follow the outline of 12 the Table of Contents of the Post Shutdown Decommissioning 13 Activity Report.
That.report will --
if you have a copy of 14 that report -- you will note that its sections address in 15 order an introduction, background, the decommissioning 16 activities, the decommissioning schedule, the 17 decommissioning cost, the environmental impacts and I intend 18 to follow that --
right down that list tonight.
19 By way of introduction, this meeting is occurring 20 partly because on December 15, 1999 (sic) as I said earlier, 21 Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric 22 submitted an updated Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activity 23 Report to the NRC. That report informed the NRC that we had 24 decided to proceed with decommissioning of San Onofre Unit 25 If.
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1 San Onofre Unit F has been part of this community 2
since the 1960s, when construction of the plant began. The 3
unit began commercial operation in 1968 and operated 4
continuously through the years, until 1992 when we announced 5
the permanent retirement of Unit That decision to retire 6
the plant was the result of an agreement between the Staff 7
of the California Public Utilities Commission and Southern 8
California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric, and as a 9
result on November 30, 1992, the unit was permanently 10 retired.
11 Once that unit was retired, in March 1993 all of 12 the used fuel was removed from the reactor and placed in a 13 spent fuel pool.
That's a part of the plant that's 14 specifically designed to contain used fuel.
Many of the 15 other plant systems were de-energized, drained and removed 16 from service, with the exception of the equipment required 17 to cool the used nuclear fuel in its spent fuel pool has, 18 and continues to remain operational.
19 When we first retired the unit, we planned to 20 place the unit in something called SAFSTOR. SAFSTOR is a 21 temporary storage condition and we then planned and 22 announced that we had intended to decommission Unit / along 23 with -Units 1-- and F7-1F following the retirement of those 24 units from useful service.
25 SAFSTOR is a formal decommissioning alternative ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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allowed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in which the 2
nuclear plant is placed in a dormant safe condition and 3
decontaminated and dismantled at a later date.
4 It was after the unit was placed in SAFSTOR that 5
we removed certain equipment which was no longer necessary.
6 By regulation, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas 7
& Electric submitted a document called the Decommissioning 8
Plan to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission back in 1994.
9 That plan again described the --
placing the unit in a 10 SAFSTOR condition and decommissioning when Units J-Iand 1-1 11 were retired. Since that time, since Unit P was retired, we 12 had continuously, and continued to, safely maintain the 13 plant and maintain the stored fuel in the spent fuel pool.
14 Well, why did we change our plans and why did we 15 change our plans now? We based our decision to proceed now 16 with decommissioning on.several --
of Unit
' on several 17 factors.
First, there is sufficient money in the 18 decommissioning fund to proceed with decommissioning of Unit 19
- 17.
By starting now, we believe we will not only reduce 20 costs, but clearly reduce the uncertainty of our financial 21 future and the future of our rate payers.
22 Second, we became confident that we can accomplish 23 the decommissioning activity safely by using proven 24 techniques. This is because a nuclear power plant in 25 Colorado has already been recently decommissioned and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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decommissioning is currently going on in nuclear plants in 2
Oregon, Michigan, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut and even 3
elsewhere here in California.
4 Finally, another key reason for proceeding with 5
decommissioning now is that personnel with a strong Unit I 6
knowledge base are still employed at San Onofre.
7 Dismantling Unit I with individuals who are familiar with 8
the plant's equipment, systems and structures and its 9
operating history is an important asset that we would 10 clearly lose over time.
11 As a result of these factors, in 1998 we began 12 planning for the decommissioning of Unit I. One requirement 13 was to revise our 1994 decommissioning plan that we had
- 14.
submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. As a 15 result, we produced a new Post Shutdown Decommissioning 16 Activities Report and submitted that to the Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission.on December 15, 1998.
The report 18 indicates that we are now looking at decommissioning of Unit 19 I, which may begin around the year 2000.
20 There are some unique activities that will have to 21 occur during a decommissioning project, but other than those 22 unique.activities, the decommissioning project will 23 essentially be a large industrial construction, perhaps I 24 better say a large industrial de-construction project.
25 Regardless of the scope, our goal is to carry out ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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the decommissioning in a carefully planned, thoughtful and 2
safe manner.
It is our intention to safely remove all of 3
the radioactive equipment and structures from the site. The 4
removal of large components, such as the reactor vessel, the 5
steam generators and the pressurizer will be a significant 6
part of that activity. The large components will' be 7
packaged either whole or in pieces and shipped ultimately to 8
a licensed disposal facility. Other equipment, such as 9
reaetical system piping will be cut into pieces and, again, 10 shipped to a licensed disposal facility.
11 To remove the large components from the 12 containment building, it will be necessary to modify the 13 large concrete containment shield building and the inner 14 steel containment sphere. The removal of the large concrete 15 containment.shield will probably be the most noticeable 16 activity to our neighbors. We currently plan to remove the 17 concrete and then remove the steel containment sphere that 18 is now inside it, but only after most, if not all, of the 19 radioactive equipment inside the containment has been 20 removed.
21 It is also our intention to use only proven 22 technologies that have been used elsewhere for our 23 decommissioning activities. These methods, both safe and 24 proven, will be performed in a manner so that radiation 25 exposure to our plant workers will be kept to a minimum.
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The relocation of used fuel from the pool, spent 2
fuel pool, where it currently resides, to a concrete storage 3
container system will be another significant milestone. The 4
used fuel will be stored in the future in a steel canister 5
that is, itself, inside another concrete container. Both of 6
these are in preparation for the eventual shipment of the 7
spent fuel off-site.
8 This type of system has been proven to be a safe 9
technology for the storage of used fuel.
There are various 10 designs for this type of system; however, they all involve 11 the same basic passive components. That is, the steel 12 canister inside a concrete storage container. This 13 configuration --
in this configuration, water will no longer 14 be necessary to cool the fuel.
That is because, over time, 15 the heat of the fuel has now been reduced to the point where 16 it is safe to place this fuel in the dry passive storage 17 system.
18 The concrete outer container of our containment 19 building --
excuse me --
the concrete outer container of our 20 dry cast storage will also provide shielding to ensure that 21 radiation of the fuel is below regulatory requirements.
22 These systems are also designed to allow for shipping of the 23 used fuel in the same steel canisters when they eventually 24 leave the San Onofre site.
25 After the fuel has been removed from the pool, the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 pool building can, itself, be dismantled. In the long term, 2
the Department of Energy has an obligation to provide 3
permanent storage for this used fuel.
At some point in the 4
future the fuel will be removed from San Onofre site by 5
shipment to a Government facility. The current Department 6
of Energy's schedule is to begin the removal of used fuel 7
some time in the future, our best guess now would be some 8
time around 2010.
Until DOE removes the fuel, it remains 9
our responsibility to maintain the fuel in a safe condition 10 and we intend to fulfill that obligation by using this 11 proven passive storage approach.
12 Finally, as many of you know, the San Onofre site 13 is located on property owned by the United States Navy and 14 it's part of the United States Marine Corps base, Camp 15 Pendleton. Our agreement with the Navy requires that we 16 remove all structures associated with these units and we 17 intend to do so.
18 As indicated in the PSDAR, the schedule is based 19 on beginning decommissioning activities in the year 2000.
20 Our best estimate of the time to complete this activity is 21 approximately eight years.
22 The estimated cost to complete the decommissioning 23 project, based on a recent review --
this is for Unit I -
24 is approximately $459,000,000 and that's calculated in 1998 25 dollars.
Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas &
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Electric customers have been contributing to the 2
decommissioning trust fund established to cover just this 3
cost of decommissioning and the money has been accumulated 4
in a trust fund and is sufficient to complete the job of 5
decommissioning Unit I.
6 I should also mention here that when Southern 7
California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric submitted the 8
PSDAR to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we also 9
submitted, in parallel, to the California Public Utility 10 Commission a request to.commence the decommissioning of San 11 Onofre Unit I. This request is currently under review by 12 the California Public Utility Commission and we presently 13 anticipate receiving approval from the Commission as early 14 as some time later this year.
15 We also looked at the environmental impacts of 16 decommissioning Unit I. Although the environmental impacts 17 have been addressed in our report to the Nuclear Regulatory 18 Commission, we intend to continue to assess the 19 environmental impacts throughout the decommissioning 20 process. Areas that will be evaluated are potential 21 radiation exposures to our workers; potential for public
.22 radiation exposure; disposal of radioactively contaminated 23 materials, as well as non-radiological environment issues 24 such as noise and traffic.
25 The radiation exposure to our workers will be kept ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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to a minimum, utilizing the existing programs which we have 2
used in the past and currently use at San Onofre. We will 3
conduct a decommissioning with the same formal, detailed 4
radiation protection program that we used when the units 5
were operating and that we use today. This program 6
maintains radiation exposure of workers below the regulatory 7
standards and then further reduces those doses with a 8
practice known as low as reasonably achievable.
9 We will use these programs during decommissioning 10 to provide as safe a working environment as possible for our 11 workers. Radiation exposures to members of the public is 12 also limited by very strict federal regulations to an 13 extremely low level.
We intend to conduct the 14 decommissioning activities at San Onofre Unit I such that 15 any radiation exposures to the members of the public should 16 be only a small fraction of those regulatory limits. Again, 17 assuring potential radiation exposure to the public is as
- 18.
low as reasonably achievable. We will use our existing 19 programs for monitoring the release of radioactive materials 20 from the site.
21 Our environmental monitoring program, in which we 22 sample soil, crops, air and water, are obtained from areas 23 surrounding the plant and we will continue throughout the 24 entire decommissioning project to ensure that our activities 25 have no detrimental effect on the areas surrounding San ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Onofre.
2 We intend to ship any radioactively contaminated 3 I material to a licensed disposal facility or to send them to 4
a decontamination vendor who can remove radioactivity from 5
metals or other materials. Our preliminary studies show 6
that the amount of material we.expect to be contaminated 7
will be even less than those estimated by the Nuclear 8
Regulatory Commission's generic environmental impact 9
statement.
The number of shipments of radioactive material 10 will not be significant when spread over the several years 11 we intend to conduct this project, and should certainly not 12 have a significant impact on local roads or freeways.
13 Finally, we have evaluated the non-radiological 14 impact, such as noise and traffic and determined that the 15 decommissioning of Unit I will be similar to other large 16 industrial construction projects in the area and can be 17 accomplished without.a significant impact on the local 18 community. There should be no discernible negative impact 19 on the environment around the plant.
20 In conclusion, we are required to decommission San 21 Onofre I by federal regulation and by the terms of our 22 grants of easement. Because funding is now available, 23 decommissioning Unit I now may be completed at less cost and 24 will help eliminate an uncertain financial future.
25 Finally, because the technology and a qualified ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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staff are available, we believe we can decommission Unit I 2
safely and efficiently today.
3 In closing we appreciate your interest in this 4
important project and we remain committed to conducting the 5
Unit I decommissioning safely, cost effectively and with 6
minimal impact on our plant, our neighbors or our 7
environment. Thank you very much.
8 MAYOR BERG:
I would like to introduce Mr. Ron 9
Burrows from the Nuclear Regulatory Agency who is out here 10 from Washington, D.C. and it was my pleasure to meet with 11 him yesterday and what a fine young man. May I present Ron?
12 MR. BURROWS:
Thank you, Mayor Berg. Before I 13 begin my presentation tonight I would like to take a few 14 minutes so we could put out some additional chairs so that 15 people in the back can sit.
We also have six or seven open 16 chairs here if you would like to take those.
If we can get 17 somebody from the NRC to help with the putting out of the 18 chairs, possibly?
19 (Pause.)
20 MR. BURROWS:
We still have additional chairs up 21 front if anyone wants to sit up here.
22 (Pause.)
23 MR. BURROWS:
Good evening. I'm Ron Burrows, and 24 I'm the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Decommissioning 25 Project Manager for San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Unit I.
2 As.project manager, I am the principal point of 3
contact at the NRC for the decommissioning of San Onofre 4
Unit I. I work at NRC headquarters which is in Rockville, 5
Maryland, which is just outside Washington, D.C. As Utility L
6 has pointed out, there are three units at the San Onofre 7
site. Units II and III are still operating, so our 8
discussion this evening pertains strictly to Unit I.
9 I would like to thank everyone for being here this 10 evening. We appreciate that you have an interest in the 11 decommissioning of San Onofre Unit I and have taken your 12 time to be here with us tonight. A major portion of 13 tonight's meeting will be devoted to responding to your 14 questions and receiving your comments.
15 As the project manager, I'm only part of a team of 16 NRC professionals who are involved in the over/sight of Sn Lr 17 Onofre's decommissioning. Joining me this evening are a few 18 of the NRC Staff who have important tasks to perform as part 19 of the team involved.in ensuring that Southern California 20 Edison's decommissioning activities are performed in 21 accordance with our regulations. They are available to 22 answer your questions that you may have this evening.
23 I would like to introduce them at this time. From 24 our headquarters office, Mr. Steweet Richards. Mr. Richards 25 will shortly be assuming the role of senior manager directly ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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responsible for the decommissioning of power reactors. My 2
immediate supervisor, Dr. Michael Masnik. Dr. Masnikis the 3
section chief for decommissioning and supervises 14 project 4
managers, such as myself, who are responsible for plant 5
specific decommissioning licensing activities. Ms. Etoy 6
H ylton --
she's in the back of the room. Etoy is our 7
licensing assistant and is here to assist in many of the 8
administrative aspects of our meeting. Ms. Sherry Wu.
9 Sherry is here from our Division of Waste Management.
She 10 is part of the group responsible for reviewing the license 11 termination plan that Southern California Edison will 12 ultimately be required to submit to the NRC for review and 13 approval before the license for Unit I is terminated.
14 We also have some representatives here this 15 evening from our NRC regional office in Arlington, Texas.
16 These are the people sexed to independently inspect and 17 assess power plants undergoing decommissioning. They 18 provide a reasonable level of assurance that activities are 19 conducted safely and in accordance with regulations.
20 Mr. Dwight Chamberlain. Mr. Chamberlain is the
- 21.
Director for the Division of Nuclear Materials Safety. He 22 is a senior manager involved with the over/sight of power 23 reactors undergoing decommissioning.
24 Dr. Blair Spitzberg. Dr. Spitzberg is a branch 25 chief in the Fuel Cycles and Decommissioning Branch, and is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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responsible for implementing the inspection program at San 2
Onofre Unit I.
3 And, finally, we have Mr. Breck Henderson in the 4
back of the room. Breck represents the Public Affairs 5
Office in Region 4.
6 Before going any further, I would like to point 7
out the availability of certain documents in the back of the 8
room that may be of interest to you relative to tonight's 9
meeting. First of all, a book of NRC staff responses to 10 frequently asked questions concerning the decommissioning of 11 nuclear power reactors has been recently issued and copies 12 are available for you to take home. There are also copies 13 of Southern California Edison's December 15, 1998 update to.
14 the San Onofre Unit I Post Shutdown Decommissioning 15 Activities Report. We will discuss this document later on 16 this evening. We also have copies of the agenda for this 17 evening's meeting, and as Mayor Berg mentioned, various sign 18 up lists.
In addition, we have copies of the slides for 19 tonight's presentation. If there are not enough copies to 20 go around, please see Etoy H lton, sign the list.and we'll 21 mail you one at a later date.
22 The purpose of this evening's meeting is to give 23 you an overview of the decommissioning process from the 24 NRC's perspective. I will first give you a little 25 background on the decommissioning of nuclear power ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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facilities and then discuss the NRC regulations that apply 2
to nuclear power plant decommissioning programs. We will 3
end up with Dr. Spitzberg talking about the NRC inspection 4
oversight program.
5 Decommissioning is the last phase in the life of a 6
reactor facility, and its purpose is to remove the facility 7
safely from service and reduce residual radioactivity at the 8
facility and site to a level that permits the release of the 9
site and termination of the NRC license.
10 The focus of the NRC is limited solely to the 11 removal of the radiological hazards resulting from the 12 operation of the facility. The fact that Utility may choose 13 to spend additional funds to remove buildings from facility 14 is of interest to us only if the material that is being 15 disposed of is radioactive.
16 Once the residual levels of radioactive materials 17 are reduced to below certain criteria, either by 18 decontamination or disposal off-site, then the NRC license 19 for the facility and site can be terminated. Before the 20 license is terminated, the Utility is required to perform an 21 extensive final radiological survey to prove to the NRC that 22 the site is clean enough to terminate the license.
The NRC 23 may do a confirmatory survey to be certain that the site is 24 within regulatory limits.
Once the license is terminated, 25 the NRC no longer has any regulatory oversight over the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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facility or the site. This is the ultimate goal of 2
decommissioning, the termination of the license.
3 There is one other key element in the definition 4
of decommissioning and that is, removing the facility safely 5
from service. Once a facility permanently ceases power 6
operations, there are a number of systems that are still 7
required to protect public health and safety. They 8
primarily relate to the safe storage of the irradiated spent 9
fuel.
The spent fuel pool and its associated systems are 10 the principal components that must be maintained 11 operational.
12 The Utility's activities that result in the 13 disposal of contaminated or activated materials must also be 14 conducted in such a way as to safeguard public health and 15 safety and protect the environment.
16 You may have noticed I have not said.anything 17 about the disposal of the spent fuel that was created during 18 the operation of the facility. Initially, when the spent 19 fuel was removed from the San Onofre Unit I reactive vessel, 20 it was both highly radioactive and it generated a lot of 21 heat. Over time, the radioactive material decayed and the 22 fuel became less radioactive and the amount of heat 23 generated decreased dramatically; however, even after many 24 years of decay, radiation levels of the spent fuel are quite 25 high and radiation dri.
4 must be provided.
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What many utilities are doing, and what Southern 2
California Edison has decided to do, is to construct an 3
on-site facility for the storage of the spent fuel in a 4
shielded dry condition in large casks. These dry storage 5
facilities are thoroughly reviewed by the NRC prior to 6
approval.
Such storage facilities typically take up a 7
relatively small amount of space and require minimal 8
maintenance. The dry casks are constructed so there is no 9
leakage of radioactive material to the environment. Current 10 plans provide for spent fuel to be ultimately disposed of in
.11 a Department of Energy high level waste burial site; 12 however, such a site is not currently available.
Therefore, 13 the fuel will remain on-site until a decision is made on its 14 disposition.
15 When it comes time to decommission a nuclear power 16 plant, a utility has several options. Our regulations allow 17 utilities to begin dismantlement immediately, or if they 18 prefer, to store the facility in a safe stable condition for 19 some period of time before they begin dismantlement 20 activities, or they may choose a combination of these two 21 options.
22 Our regulations state that under normal 23 circumstances, the Utility has.6'years to complete 24 decommissioning. The decision on how to proceed is a 25 Utility decision. A few years ago, we performed a generic ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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environmental impact statement that looked at the 2
decommissioning options and we determined that as long as a 3
utility complied with our regulations, either option or a 4
combination of the options, is acceptable.
5 One of the principal reasons for arriving at this 6
conclusion is because the risk to public health and the 7
environment associated with decommissioning activities is A-C 8
significantly less than -in-an operating plant.
The risk 9
continues to decrease over time, due to radioactive decay 10 which reduces both the radiation levels and the heat 11 generated by the spent fuel.
This reduction of risk after a 12 period of time is so significant that many of the regulatory 13 requirements associated with plant operations are no longer 14 needed. An example includes many of the technical 15 requirements applicable only to an operating facility.
16 Another example of our response to significant 17 reduction risk is the elimination of full-time resident 18 inspectors at San Onofre Unit I and re s instead on 19 inspections conducted by NRC specialists in the field of 20 decommissioning.
21 Having briefly described what decommissioning is, 22 I would like to now talk about the decommissioning process 23 under the NRC's regulations.
24 In August of 1996, the decommissioning regulations 25 were amended and the process by which the NRC oversees ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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decommissioning changed significantly. These changes were 2
based on the experience we had gained in decommissioning of 3
power reactors since the original decommissioning rule went 4
into effect in 1988.
5 A change in the regulations that pertain to San 6
Onofre Unit I is the requirement for plants entering 7
decommissioning to submit to the NRC a document called a 8
post shutdown decommissioning activities report or PSDAR 9
within two years of permanently ceasing operations. This 10 document, the PSDAR, is required by regulations mad include/
11 several things. These include a description of the planned 12 decommissioning activities; a schedule for their 13 accomplishment; an estimate of the expected costs; and, 14 lastly, a discussion that provides the reasons for 15 concluding that the environmental impacts associated with 16 decommissioning will be bounded by relevant previously 17 issued environmental impact statements.
18 Southern California Edison provided this 19 information to the NRC on December 15, 1998 as e
20 The PSDAR serves many purposes. One of these is to inform 21 the public of the Utility's plans for the facility. Another 22 is to notify the NRC Staff in sufficient time to conduct any 23 necessary safety inspections prior to the initiation of any 24 major decommissioning activities.
In addition, the PSDAR 25 helps ensure that the decommissioning plans will not result ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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in any environmental impacts that have not been previously 2
considered.
3 I would like to point out that the regulations do 4
not require NRC's review and approval of the PSDAR. The 5
regulations recognize that some plants, such as San Onofre 6
Unit I, have already been shut down for more than two years 7
and specifically state that if such a plant has submitted a 8
decommissioning plan for approval, as is the case here, the 9
decommissioning plan is considered to be the PSDAR. The NRC 10 received Southern California Edison's decommissioning plan 11 in November of 1994, so by the provisions of the 1996 12 changes to the regulations, Southern California Edison did 13 not have to submit a new PSDAR.
14 Southern California Edison has submitted a recent 15 update to the PSDAR and the NRC Staff decided that because 16 we did not hold a public meeting on the decommissioning 17 plan, an NRC sponsored public meeting is appropriate and 18 that's why we are here this evening.
19 The regulations also impose some additional 20 restrictions on utilities with.decommissioning facilities.
21 The utility is prohibited from performing any 22 decommissioning activity that would foreclose the release of 23 the site for possible unrestricted use; result in 24 significant environmental impacts not previously reviewed or 25 result and there no longer being reasonable assurance that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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adequate funds will be available for decommissioning.
2 The NRC Staff will be looking to ensure that these 3
three additional requirements are part of the Utility's 4
screening criteria whenever they plan to make changes to the 5
plant.
In fact, we had previously personally verified that 6
Southern California Edison incorporates these requirements 7
into their screening.criteria during our last headquarters' 8
inspection at the San Onofre site.
9 As I mentioned earlier, the Utility -can place the 10 facility in long term storage or immediately begin 11 dismantling and decommissioning activities or choose a 12 combination of these two options.
At some time prior to the 13 end of the 60-year limit on decommissioning, the Utility 14 will be nearing the completion of the radiological clean-up 15 of the facility.
16 Two years prior to the planned termination of the 17 San Onofre Unit I license, Southern California Edison is 18 required to submit a license termination plan to the NRC.
19 As you can see on this slide the plan addresses many issues.
20 I will comment on a couple of terms used here that you may 21 not be familiar with.
22 What is meant by site characterization is a 23 process that the Utility will use to identify the specific
- 24.
locations at the site where decontamination efforts need to 25 be focused. Site remediation consists of those activities ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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necessary to reduce the radiological hazards to safe levels.
2 Also notice that the termination plan requires the Utility 3
to report any new environmental information associated with 4
the proposed termination activities.
5 The NRC will notice the receipt of the license 6
termination plan in the federal register, make the plan 7
available for public comment and offer an opportunity for a 8
public hearing on the plan. The NRC Staff will also hold a 9
public meeting in the vicinity of the site to allow the 10 Utility to explain the plan to the public and give the NRC 11 Staff an opportunity to discuss the remaining NRC regulatory 12 activities associated with license activities. This meeting 13 will also allow the public to ask questions.
14 NRC approval of the license termination plan will 15 be by license amendment, which would authorize 16 implementation of a plan. The license amendment process 17 would offer the opportunity for a public hearing. The 18 Utility then continues to clean up the site and perform the 19 final radiation survey. The NRC Staff will continue to 20 provide over/sight during this process.
21 The Commission will terminate the license if it 22 determines that the remaining activities have been performed 23 in accordance with the approved termination plan, and the 24 final radiation survey demonstrates that the facility and 25 site are suitable for release.
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2 With that as a background, I would like to comment 3
for a moment on our experience with the actual 4
decommissioning of other power reactors around the United 5
States. The NRC has had 20 nuclear power reactors.
6 permanently cease operations and begin decommission since 7
the early 1960s. These plants and their status are given on 8
the slide. As you can see, we have a fair amount of 9
experience in eor regulatory oversight of decommissioning 10 activities at power reactors. Although you have heard this 11 evening that risks are reduced at a decommissioning.plant 12 and certain regulatory requirements are no longer needed, we 13 want to assure you that there remains tma constant emphasis 14 on inspecting the Utility's performance during the 15 decommissioning process.
16 To highlight this emphasis, Dr. Spitzberg, who as 17 noted earlier, is responsible for the.NRC's on-site 18 inspection activities at San Onofre Unit I has been invited 19 to briefly describe our inspection program, immediately 20 following my remarks.
21 Before I turn it over to Dr. Spitzberg, I would 22 like to conclude by saying that I hope this has improved 23 your understanding of the decommissioning process. Your 24 questions and comments are always welcome. For your 25 information I have provided my mailing address, phone number ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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and electronic mail address on the slide. Please note that 2
the NRC maintains a local public document room at the 3
University of California Irvine. Ms. Hilton visited our 4
public document room today and it appeared to be in good 5
shape. That concludes my presentation. I will now be 6
followed by Dr. Spitzberg. Thank you for your attention.
7 DR. SPITZBERG:
I'll make some adjustments here.
8 I'm not quite as tall as Ron.
9 (Pause.)
10 DR. SPITZBERG:
Good evening. My name is Blair 11 Spitzberg and I'm here representing the Region 4 office in 12 Arlington, Texas.
I work as the Chief of the Fuel Cycle and 13 Decommissioning Branch in Arlington and we have the 14 responsibility for inspection of decommissioning reactors 15 within our region.
16 Over the next few minutes I will describe the 17 Region's inspection program for permanently shut down 18 reactors and a decommissioning status by San Onofre Unit I, 19 but first I would like to point out a couple of the 20 differences between what we do in the Region and what 21 headquarters does. Mr. Burrows described the role of NRC.
22 headquarters in the regulation of decommissioning to include 23 such activities as developing regulations and technical 24 guidance; perform a technical reviews and licensing 25 facilities; and developing regulatory over-sight programs.
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In contrast, the Regions have only two major 2
responsibilities. The first is inspection of licensed 3
activities and the second is an emergency response role.
4 Because of that, the Regions serve as the eyes and ears of 5
the NRC and the first responders, if something were to go 6
wrong.
7 Region 4 is located in Arlington, Texas.
It's not 8
depicted on this slide, but it's between Dallas and Ft.
9 Worth and it's one of four regional NRC offices. The 10 Regions are depicted in this slide and as you can see, the 11 Region 4 is the one basically west of the Mississippi and 12 it's the largest geographical region in the NRC. The NRC 13 headquarters' office.is located in Rockville, Maryland, just 14 outside of Washington, D.C.
15 The Region 4 office has the responsibility of 16 inspection of San Onofre and this slide also depicts some of 17 the other permanently shut down reactor sites within Region 18
- 4. This slide shows a simplified organizational chart of 19 the Region 4 office. There are approximately 180 employees 20 in the Region 4 office. We have four divisions under the 21 region administrator, including three technical divisions.
22 In fact, my division director, Dwight Chamberlain is here.
23 He's the director of the Division of Nuclear Materials 24 Safety.
25 This slide shows the break-out of the Division of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Nuclear Materials Safety of which I am the chief of the 2
+4eid cycle decommissioning branch over to the left. Not 3
only does my branch have responsibility for inspection of 4
decommissioning reactor sites, but we also inspect all types 5
of decommissioning at non-reactor sites and I also have some 6
other responsibilities, not related to decommissioning.
7 As I mentioned previously, Region 4 has had 8
considerable experience in effecting the decommission of 9
reactors. We currently have five shutdown reactors in our 10 Region, which are in various stages of decommissioning. One 11 reactor site, the site in Colorado has been completely 12 decommissioned and the NRC recently terminated its license.
13 The major objectives of the NRC's inspection 14 program for decommissioning reactors includes the 15 verification that decommissioning and other site activities 16 are conducted safely and in accordance with the regulations 17 and license requirements.
It's also to determine that 18 licensees administrative controls are adequate and also, 19 finally, to identify any significant declining trends in 20 licensee performance.
21 The NRC inspection program can be divided into 22 three categories.
There's the core inspection program 23 defined in manual chapter 2561.
These are the areas of 24 inspection that are performed at all permanently shut down 25 reactors. A second type of inspection is the discretionary ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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inspection procedures that are detailed reviews of 2
particular functional areas. These procedures are 3
implemented based upon a licensee's specific activities.
4 The third type of inspections are temporary 5
instruction inspections which are generally performed once 6
to investigate specific generic problems that may have been 7
identified at another site and we inspect that at the other 8
sites to determine whether they may be present at those 9
sites.
10 This line depicts the major areas of focus for the 11 core inspection program. Within each one of these areas 12 there may be several inspection --
individual inspection 13 procedures that we implement.
The inspection procedures for 14 facility management and control includes the inspection of 15 the licensee's organization, the staffing, the 16 qualifications and training of the staff and the quality 17 assurance programs.
18 The decommissioning inspection procedures look at 19 specific procedures and processes used during the 20 decommissioning of the site, in the functional areas such as 21 emergency preparedness, security and safety reviews.
22 The spent fuel safety inspection procedures are 23 concerned with the licensee's facilities procedures and 24 processes for continued site storage of the spent fuel.
25 The radiological safety inspection procedures are ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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concerned with occupational exposures, contamination 2
control, radioactive waste management and environment and 3
effluent monitoring.
4 I should point out that San Onofre is different 5
than the other decommissioning reactor sites within Region 6
4, in that San Onofre will continue to have two operating 7
reactors during the entire decommissioning process for Unit 8
I. This means that the resident inspectors who are 9
principally assigned to the operating units will be 10 available, if needed, to observe and inspect activities at 11 Unit I. In addition, these resident inspectors will be able 12 to keep my inspectors informed of ongoing activities at Unit 13 I that we can then factor into our inspection planning.
14 I have included a couple of slides that are in 15 your hand-out and I've also identified the individual 16 inspection procedure numbers, and I'm not going to go into 17 these slides in detail, but these are core inspection 18 procedures and I wanted to list them. For those who are 19 interested, they are available on the NRC Web site and I'll 20 give you the address how to access those, if you would like 21 to go in and take a look at these in more detail.
22 These are just some more of the core inspection 23 procedures.
Let me tell you a little something about the 24 inspection process. Our inspections may be announced or 25 unannounced and the inspection frequency for a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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decommissioning reactor is adjusted, according to the level 2
of licensee activities.
For example, because Unit I has 3
been in a SAFSTOR status since its shutdown and because 4
there has been a relative lack of activity at the site, our 5
inspection frequency had been extended; however, once Unit I 6
enters into active decommissioning or decontamination and 7
dismantlement activities are ongoing, our inspection 8
presence will increase accordingly.
In addition, we will 9
perform targeted inspections to coincide with higher risk 10 activities during the decommissioning process. Once our 11 inspections are complete, we issue formal inspection reports 12 which will be available at the public document room located 13 at the University of California Irvine.
14 This slide was a last minute addition, it's not in 15 the hand-out, but I wanted to put it in there in case any of 16 you are interested in looking at our inspection procedures 17 and manual chapter in more detail.
It is available through 18 the NRC Web site.
I would encourage any of you to visit the 19 NRC Web site. You just --
once you get onto the home page.
20 you go into the reference library and not only will you find 21 our inspection manual chapters and inspection procedures in 22 there, but you will also find a lot of other good technical 23 documents and reference sources.
24 In providing an overview of the NRC's 25 decommissioning inspection program, I must say something ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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about the NRC inspectors that we have on our Staff. We're 2
very proud of the high level of qualification and 3
professionalism of the NRC inspecting Staff.
Most of the 4
inspectors come to the agency with considerable technical 5
training and experience. Many have advanced degrees in 6
nuclear related fields of expertise, but before we allow 7
them to conduct inspections, they have to go through an 8
extensive certification process internally, and this process 9
includes formal instructor training processes; on the job 10 training.where the inspectors accompany already certified 11 inspectors and two oral qualification boards.
12 One more map here before I conclude my 13 presentation. I want to show that my branch also has 14 responsibility for inspecting the dry cask storage of spent 15 fuel which is being studied for Unit I. We currently have 16 four independent spent fuel storage installations within our 17 Region which are either in operation or where the operation 18 is near term. I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you 19 tonight and I'll turn the discussion back over to Mayor 20 Berg.
21 MAYOR BERG:
Now, we come to the public question 22 and answer period, and I'll just remind you once again, that 23 when you are going to ask a question and/or talk you come to 24 the mike over here on the left and give your name and spell 25 your last name. We would then ask anybody --
Etoy, do you ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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have the list and do you call them up?
2 Guess who?
Mayor Ruby Netzley, Dana Point.
3 MAYOR NETZLEY:
I had a feeling you were going to 4
do that to me.
5 MAYOR BERG:
You were first on the list.
6 MAYOR NETZLEY:
Oh, I was lucky. As the Mayor of 7
Dana Point, my name is Ruby Netzley. Address --
do you need 8
that? Okay.
9 I'm the Mayor of Dana Point and speaking as the 10 Mayor of Dana Point, I want to say that we are very pleased 11 with the San Onofre people, that we think they've been a 12 very good neighbor and I would like the record to show they 13 have been concerned for our residents and they've been 14 concerned for our safety.
15 Now, I'll take off that hat and tell you that I 16 also a former employee of Southern California Edison Company 17 for many, many years. As a matter of fact, I was there when 18 they built San Onofre I. I escorted people through San 19 Onofre I and I explained the whole operation and the safety 20 methods and so on and so forth. I told them that we not 21 only had redundant back-up systems, but we had redundant 22 back-up systems to redundant back-up systems. I also told 23 them that there was no such thing as a risk-free society; 24 that we didn't claim to be.perfect, but then I told them 25 about all the advantages of nuclear power and what it did, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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wherever it was in our nation and I'm very grateful and I 2
hate to see Unit I go.
I mean it's a history maker. It was 3
there first and it's kind of dear to my heart, but it put 4
out a lot of good power.
Its been a very safe operation and 5
I can testify to you personally of the integrity of the 6
employees of Southern California Edison, including their 7
engineers, their operators, because I knew most of them 8
through the years. I can tell you the integrity of the 9
operation of that company and that the NRC knows their 10 record shows that those are the kind of people there.
11 I also worked with San Diego Gas & Electric who 12 has an interest in this plant and I can also testify of. the 13 integrity of their employees.
I just want to leave that for 14 the record today. Thank you.
15 MAYOR BERG:
Thank you. Roger Leclerc.
16 MR. LECLERC-Good evening, my name is Roger 17 Leclerc, L-E-C-L-E-R-C, and firstly, I would like to speak 18 for myself and thank the gentlemen from Edison on what looks 19 like an inspired plan to decommission this facility and 20 thank the gentlemen from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 21 who are going to be our watchdog and I trust in them 22 completely.
23 My concern is for the nuclear pill and the 24 availability of the potassium iodine tablets for the 25 citizens of San Clemente; however, they have been dispersed, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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they haven't filtered down to the people and I would like, 2
if someone could tell me, whether this is a compound of 3
potassium iodine or whether it's a combination of potassium 4
iodine, because I'm having trouble with the chemists.
5 Secondly, if the state or the municipalities are 6
withholding the pill from the public, is there somewhere the 7
public can go and get them on their own, either from the 8
Regulatory Commission or from a pharmacist or through a 9
doctor's prescription, but a tablet that is not on the shelf 10 and available if one has to go to City Hall to get it it 11 must just be too late.
That's my individual and personal 12 concern.
13 Now, as a member of the San Clemente Human Affairs 14 Committee, it just so happens that during the Zinco de Mayo 15 celebrations which begin on May 1st, May Day, the Human 16 Affairs Committee is going to put on a Maypole dance and we 17 lack a lovely little power pole that I could borrow for the 18 day. What I am concerned is, as we don't have a budget, if 19 there was someone from San Diego Gas & Electric or from 20 Southern California Edison Company that could help me to 21 borrow a pole for the day May 1st, something short, clean -
22 MAYOR BERG:
Roger, I'm sure we'll take care of 23 it.
24 MR. LECLERC:
Okay.
25 MAYOR BERG:
Bernardo Garcia.
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MR. GARCIA:
My name is Bernardo Garcia.
I'm the 2
Region 5 Director for the Utility Workers Union. I have 3
some questions for both the Commission and the Edison 4
spokesperson.
5 First, for the Commission. Will there be any 6
additional hearings or meetings on this issue?
7 MR. BURROWS:
To answer your question, regarding 8
specifically for the decommissioning, there will be no 9
hearings until it comes time for the license termination 10 plan. At that point, there will be an opportunity for a 11 public hearing.
12 MR. GARCIA:
I was trying to listen pretty 13 intently when you were making your presentation, but I 14 didn't get a sense of time frame for that filing of the 15 license termination plan.
16 MR. BURROWS:
I think it's two years.
17 MR. GARCIA:
With the decommissioning and after 18 it's almost completed?
19 MR. BURROWS:
Well, it's two years before they 20 plan to finish the decommissioning.
21 MR. GARCIA:
Before the completion of the 22 decommissioning?
Will there be additional hearings at that 23 time?
24 MR. BURROWS:
That is the point where the public 25 hearing will be available.
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MR. GARCIA:
One year or multiple hearings?
2 MR. BURROWS:
Well, it will be a chance for a 3
hearing.
I'm not exactly sure of the process.
4 DR. MASNIK:
There is no hearing associated with 5
what you heard tonight about the PSDAR and the update in the 6
back of the room; however, during the decommissioning 7
process which Ed mentioned I think would take approximately 8
eight years there will be a number of license amendments 9
that the licensee will submit to the NRC. Whenever there is 10 an amendment to the license, there is an opportunity for a 11 hearing. Also, as Ron mentioned, approximately two years 12 prior to the termination of the license, there will be an 13 opportunity to request a hearing related to what is called 14 the license termination plan and he talked about that 15 tonight.
So there is one definitely scheduled and --
that 16 we have a good idea approximately when it's going to occur 17 and then several opportunities between now and then related 18 to license amendments.
19 Additionally, under our regulations, any member of 20 the public at any time can petition the Commission for a 21 hearing if they raise a substantial safety concern, so there 22 is that opportunity, too.
23 MR. GARCIA:
And the inspection reports associated 24 with the decommissioning activities, will those be available 25 on the Commission's Web site?
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DR. SPITZBERG:
I think they will be.
I can't 2
state for certain whether they currently are.
We are in the 3
process of loading more and more of our inspection reports 4
on the Web site. They will definitely be available through 5
the public document room.
6 MR. GARCIA:
Well, we --
I think that the members 7
of the public and even the employees of the facility would 8
appreciate it if the Commission would make every effort to 9
make those available on the Web site.
10 DR. SPITZBERG:
We'll take that comment back and 11 suggestion back. I believe most of them will be, if not 12 today, they will be soon.
13 MR. GARCIA:
Thank you.
I have a couple of 14 questions for the Edison spokesman.
15 I didn't describe, I guess, in my introduction -
16 I guess.I was little too hasty. I didn't think I would be 17 the first, second or third person up here.
18 I'm a former Edison employee. Technically, I'm on 19 a leave of absence. I work full-time for a labor 20 organization.
I'm the director of the nine western states 21 and I was an employee at Southern California Edison on Unit 22 I for over 10 years. Now, I can personally attest to the 23 qualification, the professionalism of the Edison work force 24 presently at the facility and in the past and I think that 25 you know --
the activities are in good hands; however, I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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am a little concerned, because in your description of the 2
decommissioning activities, you talked about the knowledge 3
base of the Unit I personnel or former Unit I personnel who 4
may be working elsewhere in the company; however, you didn't 5
tell us who actually is going to perform the work. Edison 6
employees, contractors, employees brought in by a contractor 7
from out of state, existing Edison employees, Edison 8
employees potentially who will be displaced as the result of 9
deregulation of the electric utility industry in the state 10 of California, not that it's just going on in California, 11 but -
12 MR. SCHERER:
Certainly we're early in the 13 process, but to the extent that we can utilize Edison 14 employees or any working at San Onofre, it is our intention 15 to fully utilize those people. That is part of the reason 16 that we're undertaking this effort at this time.
17 MR. GARCIA:
And the employees still in the Edison 18 work force who may be former employees of San Onofre, but no 19 longer based at San Onofre and may be potentially displaced 20 as a result of electric deregulation, will those 21 opportunities be provided to those employees as well?
22 MR. SCHERER: Again, to the extent that the skills 23 match up to the needs and the requirements and to the extent 24 that work is available, but it is our intention to utilize 25 the Southern California Edison work force that exists at San ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Onofre to the extent we can meet our obligations on the 2
existing work that we have and utilize those resources for 3
Unit I decommissioning work, that's certainly our intent.
4 MR. GARCIA:
Also --
well, I have a couple more 5
questions for you. You can't get away that easy.
6 I don't --
I know the plans may not be at a.point 7
where it's completely finalized, but do you have --
so I 8
don't expect you to have an accurate figure --
but do you 9
have even a ballpark figure of how many employees or workers 10 do you expect to be engaged at the -- in the decommissioning 11 activities at any given point --
the beginning, mid, end, a 12 hundred, two hundred, three hundred thousand?
13 MR. SCHERER:
That is, in fact, what we're trying 14 to do over the period of time that we're planning the effort 15 before we'll start the actual decommissioning work. We 16 don't have those numbers at this time.
17 MR. GARCIA:
Do you have any estimates?
18 MR. SCHERER:
No. Not detailed enough that I 19 would be prepared to give you even as ballpark estimates.
20 MR. GARCIA:
Do you have any idea from discussions 21 with other utilities or the regulatory agencies on what 22 decommissioning activities of a similar size or comparable 23 size facility, how many workers it took?
24 MR. SCHERER:
To give you an example, the problem 25 we have is we have to pick the techniques before I can give ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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you realistic numbers. We could --
and there are 2
technologies available where one worker using automated 3
equipment can do an awful lot of work in terms of 4
decommissioning, resulting in more capital expense, smaller 5
work force.
You could also do that work by hand, more work 6
for us, less capital investment.
Those issues have not been 7
resolved. Until we know what techniques we are going to use 8
to do the decommissioning, I can't give you a realistic 9
estimate because I can't tell you now whether we're going to 10 do the work by hand or automate it and it's too early to 11 respond. We would be happy to share that with you as soon 12 as we know the techniques we're going to use, that requires 13 us to study the process, what's best for our workers and for 14 the plant.
15 MR. GARCIA:
I notice in the Post Shutdown 16 Decommissioning Activities Reports you do have a monetary 17 amount budgeted for staffing.
18 MR. SCHERER:
Yeah.
19 MR. GARCIA:
How did you come up with that number 20 best estimate?
21 MR. SCHERER:
That's --
yeah. Industry standards.
22 Again, those numbers seemed reasonable based on the scope of 23 work that we needed to do and the time necessary to do it.
24 MR. GARCIA:
Now, in a project of this magnitude 25 which based on my 10 plus years of experience working on ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Unit I, I think it would take a good number of workers to 2
perform those activities with or without advance 3
technologies, with varying levels of skill.
Some 4
technicians,, some skilled tradesmen, some laborers.
5 Does Edison intend to provide any of those jobs to 6
members of the local community here in San Clemente?
7 MR. SCHERER:
I'll try to get you an answer to 8
that question.
I don't know that our plans are that 9
advanced. Again, our intention certainly is to try to offer 10 the work to the extent we can to our own employees, but -
11 and use the talents that.exist at San Onofre to try to.
12 accomplish this in addition to the other tests that we have.
13 To the extent that we need to bring in other resources, or 14 other talents that are locally available, versus bringing 15 people in from outside, it would certainly seem preferable, 16 but at this point we don't have a detailed plan that we can 17 give you in terms of how we plan to staff this job. We 18 can't do that until after we figure out how we're going to 19 accomplish the job.
20 MR. GARCIA:
I understand. Now, I have a comment 21 for you. I would encourage the licensee to utilize the 22 existing work force to its fullest potential because they 23 are the employees with the experience. I would also 24 encourage the licensee to utilize other Edison employees, 25 potentially employees who may be displaced right around the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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year 2000 who may have former experience here at the 2
facility for those activities.
They may have other related 3
power plant experience that may not be specific to the 4
nuclear facility, but may directly translate to the 5
activities being performed in the decommissioning 6
activities.
7 Finally, I would encourage the licensee for those 8
jobs that maybe don't require that specific technical 9
expertise.or skill levels that may not be readily available 10 in the community, you know, entry level jobs or lower 11 skilled jobs, that you make an effort to provide some of 12 those jobs to people right here in the local community in
- 13.
San Clemente.
14 MR. SCHERER:
If I didn't cover that in my 15 prepared remarks, I agree with you.
16 MR. GARCIA:
We'll be --
rely on that.
17 The other question I have --
maybe I missed it.
I 18 was trying to follow as best I could. Your estimate is 19
$459,000,000. Now, it's probably in public records, but I 20 don't have it in front of-me. What's the present funding 21 level of the decommissioning fund, I believe it's called?
22 MR. SCHERER:
We have the money available now.
23 MR. GARCIA:
That wasn't my question. What is the 24 or maybe I need to be more specific. How much money is 25 in the decommissioning fund at this point in time?
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$459,000,000, $460,000,000, $800,000,000?
2 MR. SCHERER:
I don't have the exact number, but 3
it is --
it is $459,000,000 --
is in the fund. They are in 4
segregated funds, some are qualified funds.
I'll be happy 5
to go into a discussion, but I would have to get the people 6
that are monitoring these funds. There's significant 7
federal legal requirements on how these funds have to be 8
segregated. They get into a lot of esoteric terms in terms 9
of their taxability and certain --
because the rate payer 10 has paid these monies into these funds. These funds must be 11 very carefully segregated. They can only be used for one 12 purpose. That purpose is the decommissioning of San Onofre 13 Unit I. Any monies that are excess to the decommissioning 14 of San Onofre Unit I must be returned to the rate payer. So 15 there --
and there were changes in the law in terms of the 16 tax treatment allowed to some of these funds so the funds 17 are in different accounts with different tax impacts on 18 whether the money was pre-tax or post-tax and how those get 19 figured. The best way I can simplify the answer is that the 20 money necessary to fund the decommissioning of San Onofre 21 Unit I is on hand now. Not in the future, it's on hand now.
22 MR. GARCIA:
And the segregation of those funds, 23 would that information be available to the public -
24 MR. SCHERER:
In fact -
25 MR. GARCIA:
if I were to ask that question ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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could I get that information?
2 MR. SCHERER:
In fact, we will be making a report 3
to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in accordance with 4
their new regulations by March 31st and it will be part of 5
the public record. March 31, 1999 is the first time we're 6
going to have to file a new reporting requirement which the 7
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has established and we 8
will be providing the status of our funding on the public 9
record to be publicly available.
10 MR. GARCIA:
The final comment or, actually, 11 request I have, is that one of the Locals in the region that 12 I'm the director of is the Local Union that represents 13 existing employees at San Onofre, the operations and 14 maintenance personnel.
I would like to make a request that 15 those reports --
the decommissioning --
you know --
reports 16 to the Commission that a copy of those be provided to the -
17 to the Local Union leadership without them having to go and 18 hunt them down. We would appreciate that.
19 MR. SCHERER:
Thank you.
20 MR. GARCIA:
Thank you.
21 MS. BERG:
Dena Naylor.
22 MS. NAYLOR:
My name is Dena Naylor, N-A-Y-L-O-R.
23 My address is 307 Avenida Cabria, which is just a couple of 24 blocks away here in San Clemente. Actually, half a block 25 away. I appreciate the opportunity to get up and talk in ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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front of the group, meaning my neighbors and my friends.
I 2
am a resident of San Clemente and I've-been a resident for
.3 the past 18 years. Not only am I a resident of San
.4 Clemente, but I'm also an employee of San Onofre and have 5
also been employed at San Onofre for 18 years.
6 I've worked there in various positions from 7
nuclear training instructor, to engineering, to a 8
supervisory position and would just like to go on the record 9
to say that I have the utmost confidence in San Onofre and 10 the quality of the work that goes on there, and the interest 11 of San Onofre in the public health and in their ability to 12 to meet all of the needs that are out there as far as 13 public safety and public health.
14 I know it may sound kind of easy for me to say 15 that because, hey, I'm kind of biased because I'm an 16 employee of San Onofre but I would like to offer something 17 else. My career at San Onofre is really a second career.
18 On about 1980, I was employed in the health physics --
I'm
.19 sorry, in public health in the University of Missouri 20 Columbia.
I worked-and taught at the University of Missouri 21 and by working on my Ph.D. there, I ran across a couple of 22 classes that I had the opportunity of taking which dealt 23 with health physics, radiation protection, and seeing as my 24 husband had been a career employee in the Navy --
in the 25 nuclear Navy --
and also worked at the research reactor ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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there, I was not totally convinced that this was something 2
that I would like my family to pursue for the rest of -- at 3
least for the rest of my husband's life, and took it upon 4
myself to take some of these classes to make an educated 5
decision on my --
by myself as to hey, is this something 6
good?
Is working near a power plant, are they a good 7
neighbor and secondly, is it also good to work in a power 8
plant. Needless to say that after taking a few classes, not 9
only was I convinced that nuclear power and --
was a safe -
10 they were safe neighbors and also a safe industry to work 11 in.
I changed careers and consequently ended up at San 12 Onofre in 1981.
I pursued a master's degree in health 13 physics and have been working at San Onofre since then.
14 Now, I come from the background of having health, 15 safety and wellness, you know, as my number one priority.
16 As I say, I was not always an enthusiast and a supporter of 17 nuclear power, but because of what I have learned about it, 18 you.know, I again, have the --
feel that I've got the 19 qualifications.to be able to make an educated evaluation of 20 what goes on and I offer that as --
you know --
as one of my 21 reasons for saying that what I see going on within the San 22 Onofre power plant definitely supports safety.
23 I think even more important than that, I would 24 offer this that may be my belief, but I back up my belief 25 with the fact that I am a resident of San Clemente and have ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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been so for 18 years.
I've raised a family here and my son 2
has gone through school here all the way up through high 3
school, graduated. My husband has worked at San Onofre off 4
and on and as a matter of fact, my son's very first real job 5
he ever had when he graduated from high school was at San 6
Onofre.
7 Now, people who know me here --
people that I work 8
with and my friends in the community, they can attest.to the 9
fact that my family is very important to me.
I mean there 10 is nothing in this life that is more important to me than my 11 family and if I did not believe that San Onofre was a good 12 neighbor and also a good place to work, I wouldn't be living 13 here and I would not have allowed my family to work there.
14 The confidence that I've had in San Onofre as an 15 operating plant --
I mean I believe that they --
Units II 16 and III they operate that very well.
They --
you know -
17 definitely meet and probably exceeds all of the requirements 18 that NRC puts out there and they keep public health and 19 safety and the safety of the workers foremost. Again, I 20 would just like to go on record as supporting them and 21 having the utmost confidence in whatever they do as far as 22 decommissioning and the plans that are going into it and the 23 work and the quality of the work that will go into it, that 24 it will be the same as what has happened and what I have 25 seen over the past 18 years. Thank you.
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MAYOR BERG:
Sheila Benecke.
2 MS. BENECKE:
Good evening. I'm Sheila Benecke, 3
B-E-N-E-C-K-E.
I am the vice president of the school board 4
of Capistrano Unified School District and I came down 5
tonight just to give a brief comment. Our school district 6
educates over.42,000 students. Geographically, we are about 7
200 square miles in South County. We are the largest 8
employer in South County, with 41 schools and about eight 9
more schools on the drawing board.
10 I-have talked with our Director of Safety who 11 serves on the Interjurisdictional Planning Committee with 12 San Onofre and he has assured me that all relationships and 13 all communications have been more than thorough.
14 I am here to ask you to continue to work well in 15 communicating with all agencies as you go into 16 decommissioning. I have every faith that you will and I am 17 wanting to comment also, just as an individual, how 18 impressed I have been in the good neighbor that SONGS has 19 been with us.
20 We have many employees at SONGS who come into our 21 schools and participate in the education of our students and 22 we consider them a wealth of resources for us.
We know them 23 to be dedicated and intelligent and capable employees.
In 24 fact, I was pleased to hear tonight that you're 25 accommodating the utilization of employees who understand ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Unit I, have worked on Unit I, will be most familiar with 2
Unit I in your decommissioning.
3 With that, I would like to thank you for this 4
opportunity and wish you well with your project.
5 MAYOR BERG:
Marion Pack.
6 MS. PACK:
My name is Marion Pack, P-A-C-K and it 7
seems like there's really been more questions raised than 8
answers, and I'm wondering why if this so early in the 9
process and it's been a lot of the way that the 10 decommissioning is going to take place, why there couldn't 11 be more public hearings to update the public as the process 12 does take place, things like how many shipments will it take 13 to remove all of what is there as far as the decommissioning 14 process? Does anybody have any ideas how many shipments 15 it's going to take? Also when this material is moved, some 16 of it is very highly radioactive, has a reactive vessel this 17 size ever been decommissioned and moved before and what kind 18 of shielding will be placed around it when it is removed, to 19 protect the public nearby?
20 DR. MASNIK:
Mike Masnik.
It might be best if you 21 ask the questions and then we can --
instead of just keep 22 going back and forth -
23 MS. PACK:
Okay. Okay.
24 DR. MASNIK:
and I'll keep track of them here 25 and we'll answer them.
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MS. PACK:
Also on the line of the shipments.
2 When shipments are moved, I believe the transportation 3
routes pretty much from.here are north along the 5 Freeway, 4
be it by rail which runs very close to the 5 Freeway or by 5
the 5 Freeway itself. Will there be emergency response 6
teams that will be traveling with the waste as it moves up 7
through some of the most densely populated areas in our 8
nation?
Last year there was an accident right at the Orange 9
Crush and a barrel of radioactive waste became dislodged 10 from a.truck and it took them five hours to get a response 11 team there. If this was highly radioactive, or more 12 radioactive than what it was, it could have been a real 13 disaster. So I would like to know about emergency response 14 teams traveling along with the waste. And where is it going 15 to go? The only two places I know of right at this time is 16 Enviro Care.in Utah and all the way to Barnwell, South 17 Carolina.
18 What type of waste is this and which place will it 19 go to because both of them necessitate traveling a long 20 distance and what about the communities that it passes 21 through?
22 Will there be any public hearings held to make the 23 public aware and --
you know --
have their comments as this 24 process takes place, because really it's --
it kind of 25 sounds like we're in almost a --
a new phase here as ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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decommissioning starts, more like a --
you know --
kind of 2
an early experiment in that many times you've said we don't 3
know the processes that are going to be used.
4 Oh, and liquid waste. How will liquid waste be 5
handled? The coolants that is inside the reactor vessel, 6
that also is very highly radioactive and how will liquid 7
waste be handled and where will that go to?
I think all of 8
these questions are concerns that the public really need to 9
have answers to and this process is going to take eight 10 years and I would certainly hope there will be more updates.
11 DR. MASNIK:
Mike Masnik, NRC. Your first comment 12 was on updating the public. The licensee is required by our 13 regulations to periodically update their plans for 14 decommissioning this PSDAR, if there's any substantial 15 changes.
For example, one of the things they gave us was a 16 schedule in the PSDAR and if you take a look in the back of 17 the room there, there are several copies.
If that schedule 18 changes significantly --
you know --
in the order of months 19 or years, they are required to notify us.
That information 20 is available to the public.
21 We don't normally have any --
any additional 22 public meetings associated with decommissioning until we get 23 quite a ways down the road towards the license termination 24 phase. Once we get into the license termination phase, 25 which is approximately two years prior to the end of the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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termination or if they, indeed, complete the job in eight 2
years, it would be at approximately the six year mark. We 3
would also have another public meeting at that time.
4 We normally make available all of the documents 5
that are communicated between the NRC and the licensee.
6 Those are placed in the docket. Additionally, as you saw, 7
we put up our project manager's name, E-mail address and 8
phone number and if you have questions he's a good resource 9
to ask about what's happening there and when it's happening.
10 You asked about shipments in a vessel of this 11 size. We have not shipped a vessel of this size. We 12 shipped one slightly smaller about two months ago.
In fact, 13 it went right by my office in Rockville at about 2:30 in the 14 morning. In approximately six months we will be shipping a 15 vessel much larger than the vessel here up at the Trojan 16 site. They are in the process of readying it and it will be 17 shipped to the Hanford site.
18 You asked about freeway transportation and 19 response teams. You were correct in that most of the 20 shipments will either be by rail or by interstate. The 21 licensee chooses that.
Typically we encourage and the 22 transportation routes normally follow the interstates. We 23 don't -- we're not comfortable with moving this kind of 24 waste through small communities on secondary or tertiary 25 roads.
We do not require --
in fact, it's not the NRC's ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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responsibility, but the Department of Transportation that 2
regulates transportation over the highways. But in any 3
case, there is no requirement for response teams to travel 4
with this waste. There are incident response teams in all 5
states and they do come out periodically when there are 6
problems like this to respond. They are the.first 7
responders.
8 As far as the amount of waste, I would encourage 9
you to get the little blue book in the back that talks about 10 frequently asked questions.
11 MS. PACK:
They're all gone.
12 DR. MASNIK:
We will get you one before you get -
13 leave tonight.
I have several copies of my own that I will 14 give you.
15 MR. SCHERER:
We do have some more left.
16 DR. MASNIK:
We do have some more?
Okay. There 17 is a section in there on transportation of waste and one of 18 the things it talks about is that over the last number of 19 years there has been an --
over a thousand shipments of high 20 level waste which is significantly more dangerous than the 21 low level waste. We haven't had any serious accidents or 22 fatalities associated with it.
Waste is transported over 23 the highways in this country on a daily basis and I think 24 the industry has a pretty good record in that area.
25 You asked about whether or not --
where the waste ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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will go and you were correct, Barnwell, I believe, unless -
2 is the only facility that's open to the licensee as well as 3
the Enviro Care at this time. Communities are not normally 4
notified of the'transport of waste through their community.
5 It's just --
has not been done.
6 You mentioned that it was an early experiment. We 7
have quite a experience base in decommissioning and I -- we 8
had one slide tonight that talked about the facilities.
I 9
personally have inspected waste shipments leaving the Trojan 10 site.
I've also inspected with the state of Washington 11 shipments of large components arriving at the Hanford site.
12 We do have a lot of experience in this area.
13 Finally, you asked about liquid waste. The waste 14 disposal sites in this country do not accept liquid waste 15 from commercial plants. The liquid wastes are processed on 16 site and the liquid portion is --
the liquid part is 17 separated from the solid part and the solid part is what's 18 disposed of.
Any liquids are cleaned up through a series of 19 processes and then that liquid is disposed of, typically, 20 through the Riteways Disposal System and in the case of 21 Southern California Edison it would be discharged through 22 the ocean once they remove or reduce the amount of 23 radioactivity to levels that were below the federal limits.
24 I believe that was all of your questions. Do you have 25 anything to add, Ed, or -
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MR. SCHERER:
Only to add --
an implied part of 2
one of your questions is that there is a --
appears to be 3
some highly radioactive liquid waste at Unit I, and that's 4
not the case. The reactor vessel, for example, has long 5
since been drained and safely done.
It is.in a dry 6
condition. The highly radioactive materials are the ones we 7
outlined in our presentation, are the fuel and the greater 8
than class/ waste that we talked about here in terms of 9
disposing.
10 MS. PACK:
Could I just ask then, in the cooling 11 ponds, where the fuel rods are stored right now, that water 12 does become --
that's a mixture of water and boron --
and it 13 does become highly radioactive when the fuel rods are stored 14 in it and it sounds to me that you will be dry cast storing 15 the rods, so what does happen to --
is there --
that is 16 liquid and that is radioactive water. Where does it go?
17 MR. SCHERER:
It's liquid and it's radioactive, 18 but it's slightly radioactive.
It is not highly radioactive 19 water.
20 DR. MASNIK:
To answer your question --
Mike 21 Masnik --
is that water is treated before it's discharged, 22 and it's also monitored to make sure that,before it's 23 discharged from the facility it's below the federal limits.
24 MR. SCHERER:
Yeah.
25 MS. PARK:
Just recently, in fact last June, there ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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was a shipment of foreign fuel that came in through the Bay 2
Area and the communities were notified in advance and there 3
were emergency response teams that were traveling with them 4
and there was a tracking system, so I would consider that on 5
the higher radioactive parts that that be considered.
6 Thanks.
7 DR. SPITZBERG:
My --
that's true for high level 8
waste shipments. The Governor's office is notified in 9
advance and the local emergency responders are also notified 10 by the Governor's office.
11 T
DURCWS: Mike, I think that was fuel that 12 came in from overseas.
13 DR. MASNIK:
Yes.
Yes, that was the overseas 14 fuel.
15 MAYOR BERG:
Jeff Wright.
16 MR. WRIGHT:
My name is Jeff Wright, P.O. Box 17 2341, San Bernardino 92406.
18 MAYOR BERG:
Please spell your name.
19 MR. WRIGHT:
W-R-I-G-H-T. As you can tell, I 20 don't live in this area; however, I have surfed and I have 21 swam in. the ocean here.
I travel through here.
I visit and 22 I'm very concerned about what may come.out of here and go 23 through my community, because that's the appearance of 24 what's going.to happen.
25 I'm very concerned about what I heard just now ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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about accident response being the responsibility of the 2
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC.
In my investigation 3
of this overall issue, I have found that the first responder 4
is, in fact, the California Highway Patrol, CHP, and then 5
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and our public safety 6
officers in the form of CHP do not really have adequate 7
training to deal with emergency on the level of a high level 8
nuclear accident or a low level nuclear accident. Who 9
responds to the train accidents?
Is that also the CHP, or 10 is that the NRC at that point, or does the railroad 11 self-regulate?
12 The Department of Energy out of Nevada, Las Vegas, 13 Nevada, has just proposed a plan that would go through the 14 San Bernardino County area and in that plan they do, in 15 fact, go through small communities. That's the reason that 16 they're going through San Bernardino County, to avoid a 17 large community, that being Las Vegas. Currently, from the 18 east, they go through Kingman, then on up over the Hoover 19 Dam, which is comforting, I'm sure, to everybody here. Then 20 they go through Las Vegas on up to the Nevada Test Site.
21 Las Vegas doesn't want it. A gambling town does not want 22 the shipments by rail or by truck inter-mobile transfers 23 happening in their community.
24 It's interesting a gambling town doesn't like the 25 odds on this, but yet they'll ship through California 150 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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miles further and increase the odds, in fact, of an accident 2
occurring so that they can bypass Las Vegas, but yet go 3
through smaller communities.
I believe, unless I was 4
incorrectly hearing, that is contradictory to what was 5
stated by you folks a few minutes ago, that that is not the 6
intent, to go through small communities.
I believe that it 7
is, in fact, part of the agenda to go through allegedly 8
smaller communities; however, on this inter-mobile plan 9
that's occurring out there, the connection is that they 10 bring it through Needles, either by truck or train, up to 11 Barstow and transfer it at Barstow from the rail to the 12 truck and go from there to Baker, the back way to the Nevada 13 Test Site.
So two hours of exposure, if you're driving next 14 to a truck and you don't even realize maybe that there's a 15 compromised container in there --
spilled container --
which 16 they, in fact, did have happen. Two hours of potential 17 exposure on that road. That's the same road that would be 18 taken in an easterly direction from here and if there's not 19 already established DOE nuclear transportation corridor that 20 makes it just that much easier, even if it's allegedly low 21 level to bring high level through there, doesn't it?
22 Doesn't it?
23 I'm very concerned about the incremental aspect of.
24 the programmatic waste management plan which is overall a 25 big picture of hazardous, high level, low level so-called, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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radioactive material and toxic materials, mixed waste, 2
liquid waste, et cetera, et al., ad infinitum, ad nauseam 3
and on and on and on that's going to be through our 4
communities.
5 This evening I was watching the news --
in fact, 6
it was this afternoon. There was a truck accident on the 7
1-5 where there was a fatality. The cab went off one side, 8
the trailer went off the other. Let's say that shipment 9
wasn't radioactive, let's say it was eggs. What if, for 10 instance, on the freeway below there was a nuclear shipment 11 going up the I-5 and they got egg in their face, literally 12 and figuratively from a truck from above. Just because the 13 NRC and Edison claim to have a wonderful safety record, when 14 you go out on that freeway you can encounter everything from 15 eggs to road rage to --
you know --
you can't tell what.
16 We've had signs fall down from winds, on trucks. There's no 17 way and it wouldn't necessarily be quote "Your fault", but 18 even with no fault aspects, it would then become everybody's 19 liability because we know that there's not enough insurance 20 anywhere to cover all of these type of potential incidents 21 and they occur every single day. They are in the 22 newspapers, they are on TV all of the time and I'm just not 23 comfortable with the potential of moving the stuff around in 24 this manner.
25 Just a couple of weeks ago, due to human error at ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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this facility, I believe it was Reactor I, was shut down for 2
something like 23 minutes or so due to human error --
a 3
power shutdown. We didn't get much news about that, that's 4
not surprising. I would like to hear a little bit more news 5
since you people probably do know a lot about that, you 6
should be forthcoming with this concerned gathering here 7
tonight as to what actually happened there and explain how 8
that fits into your safety record.
9 Human error.happens. On the way in on the freeway 10 tonight, the big Edison building up here, Edison's own sign, 11 it said Edison Internatal. The I-0-N was burned out.
12 Interesting that Edison can't even keep its own sign lit.
13 Okay? And that puts it in perspective.
I found that 14 frightenly ironic that Edison International sign was half 15 burned out, but you claim to have a wonderful safety record, 16 no problems, no flaws, nothing will ever happen, 17 everything's safe.
High level versus low level radioactive 18 waste. There is no clear definition, in fact, there is no
.19 such definition. There is so much crossover between what is 20 allegedly high level and what is purportedly low level that 21 there are no clear lines, it's all a big blur. What is 22 sometimes high level, depending on the source at the DOE, if 23 it was industry, it would be considered low level just 24 because of the source, not the radioactive content, the 25 source itself, industrial versus Governmental.
I would like ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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to know about the plutonium broad issue --
you know --
the 2
reactor is one thing, the concrete and all is allegedly low 3
level.
The water from the pools is purportedly below 4
concern, but when you have the plutonium rods themselves, 5
where do they go?
Do they go up to the Nevada test site?
6 Are they enroute to Yakima on our freeways?
7 U.S. Enrichment Corporation, how much of a holding 8
has the United States Enrichment Corporation brought forth 9
by Public Law 102-486. As the Bush administration was 10 winding down, approximately October 23, 1994, Public Law 11 102-486 brought forth the U.S. Enrichment Corporation to 12 deal with enriched uranium. Plutonium futures, let's call 13 it.
Their main mission is to make as much money as possible 14 for the United States Treasury. They are a source of 15 uranium and plutonium. About fifth on the list of their 16 purposes is to market and sell enriched uranium to persons 17 domestic and foreign. There you have it, folks, that's what 18 fuels this whole plutonium nightmare world-wide. That's why 19 we have things going on in India, in Pakistan, because we're 20 handing out the game pieces to all of these countries 21 internationally to make power plants when it's really 22 oftentimes used for nuclear weapons and whatever terrorism 23 may occur.
If you're dead, you're dead. Is it not in fact 24 terrorism if there's a nuclear accident because Edison is 25 shipping it by rail or by truck on the freeway and they do ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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65 1
not inform the public where this stuff is going so the 2
public can avoid it.
What happened to the umbrella of 3
national security that's supposed to protect the.public, the 4
citizens of this country, of this state, of this county, of 5
Southern California?
Why is it that this umbrella of 6
national security is folded under the guise of, "We can't.
7 let this information out, because of terrorism potential".
8 Well, isn't it, in fact, terrorism to be next to a leaking 9
container in a truck or a train that's nearby where you may 10 cross the tracks?
Is that not, in fact, terrorism if you're 11 just as dead as if the terrorists blew you off? What's the 12 difference?
Is it okay because a corporation does it?
Is 13 it okay because the U.S. Enrichment Corporation under the 14 cover of the United States Department of Energy allow this 15 to occur and that'that's their charge now, they have taken a 16 portion of the U.S. Government's responsibility and until 17 that company is 100 percent public, we will have to deal 18 with any decision that the U.S. Government decides. They 19 want to go private, allegedly, but if they don't go private, 20 if there's.000001 percent, a penny owned by the Government, 21 the shareholders don't get to make any determinations.
22 The 1-5 goes into the Alameda Corridor. These are 23 pathways, migratory corridors for human beings, if you may, 24 from here to Northern California, from back east to here, 25 for shipments of goods and services. One disruption could ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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ruin your whole afternoon of this traffic nightmare that 2
would occur, plus you would have to figure out how to bypass 3
that, purchase new property, and do you have any insurance 4
to do that, to buy any roads?
Maybe we could use a new toll 5
road through Irvine, so that it could actually become a 6
freeway again. The public paid for it, after all.
7 When I hear that public hearings will be quite a 8
ways down the road, the innuendo in and of itself has 9
frightening implications. This needs to be dealt with 10 before there's a problem. Keep it on-site. You've opened 11 the Pandora's box and let the Genie out. At least keep it 12 on-site and double or triple or quadruple the transport of 13 the stuff.
14 I read in an article about this hearing tonight, 15 Ward Valley, if it opens, is going to be the final 16 destination of Edison's radioactive trash. The nuclear 17 power plant, concrete, the bolts, portions of whatever 18 residual material it may have contacted and wiped onto this 19 structure that's around there.
20 Now, I am very, very concerned about our future
.21 and hearing about a 2:30 a.m. shipment through Rockville, 22 was that a high level shipment, was that a low level 23 shipment? How do you define the plutonium? Where do you 24 send it?
Is the U.S. Department of Enrichment responsible 25 for it?
Whose charge is that? Does Edison hand it off to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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the Government when they're done with it, or does Edison 2
give it to the U.S. Enrichment Corporation when they're done 3
with it?
I'm very, very concerned and not really 4
comfortable with what I've heard tonight.
In honor of all 5
the people who have fought this issue and done this out of 6
concern and lost their lives over this, God bless Karen 7
Silkwood. Thank you very much.
8 MAYOR BERG:
Marjorie Michaels.
9 MR. WRIGHT:
Isn't anyone going to answer my 10 questions?
11 DR. SPITZBERG:
I can try and answer some of your 12 questions.
I'm not sure I got them all.
Let me cite a few 13 things about the transportation of radioactive waste.
14 First of all, California is an agreement state, 15 which means that they've entered into an agreement with the 16 NRC to regulate certain activities involving licensed 17 material, and because of that the state of California does 18 have a role in responding to emergencies that may occur 19 within the state involving transported radioactive 20 materials. The Department of Transportation also has a role 21 and we have a role.
22 In general, the design of packages for 23 transporting radioactive waste, as the hazard of the package 24 increases, the rigor in which the package is constructed, 25 tested and certified increases.
In other words, as the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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hazard of the package increases, the package is designed and 2
tested and certified by the NRC and the Department of 3
Transportation to withstand accident conditions. Many of 4
these packages are tested to exceed the accident conditions 5
which may occur in normal transit --
transport and 6
particularly with regard to the high level waste, these 7
packages are certified by the NRC and we inspect the design, 8
the fabrication, the testing and the actual placement of the 9
radioactive material in the packages and these packages do 10 withstand severe accident conditions.
11 I'm not aware of any highways that have had to be 12 replaced or repaired as a result of transport of radioactive 13 materials. I'm not aware of any accidents that have caused 14 highways to have to be taken up and rebuilt.
15 Linda, did you want to address the question 16 concerning the shutdown?
17 MS. SMITH:
Yeah, I can discuss that.
18 DR. SPITZBERG:
Linda Smith is representing one of 19 our project branches from the Region. She may have some 20 information related to that.
21 MS. SMITH:
Yeah. I am the supervisor over the 22 resident inspectors in Unit II and Unit III at San*Onofre 23 and I've just recently taken this position.
24 But just to clear up what you were talking 25 about -
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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:
Cannot hear you.
2 MS. SMITH:
Can you hear me now?
3 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:
Yes.
4 MS. SMITH:
Okay. Hi.
My name is Linda Smith and 5
I'm the supervisor of the resident inspectors for the Unit 6
II and Unit III at San Onofre and I just wanted to give you 7
a little bit of clarifying information about the event that 8
you talked about that happened with the 23 minutes.
9 What that was, was fairly recently there was an 10 error, a human error made out at the Utility and what 11 happened was the operators thought a breaker'was going to 12 work one way and it actually worked a different way. As a 13 result of that they closed in on a ground and all of the 14 equipment worked as designed, but it had the effect of 15 losing power to the shutdown cooling system. This was for 16 the unit that was in an outage and for 23 minutes they.did 17 not have power in the shutdown cooling system.
18 Now, because there's a lot of barriers to safety 19 I mean we do a lot of.different things to make sure that 20 things are safe and the condition that they were doing this 21 work in, there was a lot of water on top of the fuel that 22 was in the core and the actual temperature rise was like two 23 degrees or three degrees.
I don't remember exactly, but it 24 went from like 71 degrees to 74 degrees.
So there was an 25 error and we --
we put a special inspection team in place ANN-RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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and we're still, really investigating the full implications 2
of that. The licensee has completed their root cause 3
analysis and the inspection is in progress and I think it 4
will be probably another week before we exit on it.
But as 5
far as actual safety consequences to the public, you know, I 6
just think that it's important that everybody understands 7
that the cooling water was always there and it did --
it did 8
increase like two or three degrees in temperature from like 9
71 to 74 degrees. But the operators within that 23 minutes 10 were able to get the power back and the shutdown cooling 11 restored to the unit that was in power.
12 I just wanted to help you put that a little bit in 13 context.
Thank you.
14 DR. SPITZBERG:
Let me also just say one thing.
15 I'm not acutely familiar with what the situation is with the 16 U.S. Enrichment, but U.S. Enrichment, my understanding is 17 they have no connection to any spent fuel radioactive waste 18 or plutonium at any site.
U.S. Enrichment is --
was an 19 effort by the Administration to privatize what used to be 20 the Department of Energy's facility for the gaseous defusion 21 plants which are a key part of the uranium fuel cycle for 22 enriching the uranium isotopes to a form that can be used to 23 generate electricity and commercial nuclear reactors.
24 So I'm not sure what your question specifically 25 was, related to that, but the U.S. Enrichment Corporation is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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merely a privatized former DOE facility that has been 2
operating for many, many years enriching uranium for 3
commercial nuclear power.
4 MR. WRIGHT:
The question was concerning ownership 5
for shareholding by U.S. Enrichment Corporation and also on 6
page 55 -
7 MAYOR BERG:
You have to come up to the 8
microphone.
9 MR. WRIGHT:
the third from the bottom you 10 have 11 DR. SPITZBERG:
I'm sorry.
12 MR. WRIGHT:
for transporting spent fuel and -
13 MAYOR BERG:
This isn't on the record.
14 DR. SPITZBERG:
We need to --
could you come up -
15 MR. WRIGHT:
-- you need to address that.
16 MAYOR BERG:
You need to come up to use the 17 microphone because this is all on tape and we can't get it 18 on tape -
19 MR. WRIGHT:
Can I do that very quickly, then?
20 MAYOR BERG:
Yes.
21 MR. WRIGHT:
Because I just have a real quick 22 question -
23 MAYOR BERG:
We'll give you three minutes, Jeff.
24 MR. WRIGHT:
Three minutes?
25 Very quickly --
can I use this one since she's ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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72 1
over there --
real quickly, because I'm not even going to be 2
three minutes.
3 The question was concerning the U.S. Enrichment 4
Corporation's ownership or shareholding within Edison and 5
also on page 55 of your blue document, I don't have the name 6
in front of me, but it talks about --
third from the 7
bottom -
8 MAYOR BERG:
Speak into the mike.
9 MR. WRIGHT:
third from the bottom it has a 10 number 111, and it talks about severe highway and railway 11 accidents from 1987.
So somebody knows something about this 12 type of situation from a while back. I would like to know 13 what --
if there's any updates on that and if you could 14 address that particular document and any of its implications 15 to assure us that you can transport this stuff safely 16 without having those severe accidents that are mentioned.
17 It's in your own reference material. Thank you.
18 DR. SPITZBERG:
Yes, sir.
If you would give us 19 your address, we will send you a copy of that new reg. What 20 that new reg does is explain the safety features of the 21 transport packages for radioactive materials.
22 MR. WRIGHT:
Thank you. And the ownership issue.
23 DR. SPITZBERG:
I really can't address the 24 ownership issue.
I think U.S. Enrichment Corporation having 25 been privatized, I think is open to investors.
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MAYOR BERG:
Marjorie Mikels.
2 MS. MIKELS:
Yes.
It's Mikels. M-I-K-E-L-S, and 3
I'm --
my office is at 201 North First Avenue in Upland, 4
California. Can you hear me okay?
5 The first question I have is whether the radiation 6
from San Onofre will get into the ocean and kill all of our 7
sea life if you leave the plant right where it is and don't 8
chop it up in pieces and move it-all over the country.
So I 9
hope someone will address the question as to whether it is.
10 leaking now into the Pacific Ocean or whether you expect it 11 to and whether the radiation is getting out, emitting into 12 the air or the soil or the neighborhoods around this plant 13 and if it's not, and if you don't expect it to in the 14 future, then why do we not just encase it right where it is?
15 We could use vitrification, encase it in glass. We could 16 use lead-lined concrete blocks and build a big monument over 17 it.
We could call it the Monument to the Human Folly of our 18 age, because we really didn't know when we started building 19 these reactors thatthey wouldn't last forever, that they 20 would only be good for 15, 16, 20 years and then they would 21 get so hot they would have to be dismantled. We didn't have 22 experience with Shernobyl or Three Mile Island back then 23 when we thought that this was atoms for peace and the secret 24 to this wonderful energy that we could centralize and even 25 though it cost us billions of dollars to create it all over' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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74 1
the country, it was going to be quote "Clean energy".
We 2
did not know the impacts of radiation. We didn't know that 3
it would cause leukemia in our children and cancer, and 4
breast cancer in our women, and prostate cancer in our men.
5 We didn't know. So now we know and now you want it out of 6
your communities, but is it going to help?
Tell me?
To cut 7
it all in pieces and put it on trains and on trucks and to 8
ship it all through our neighborhoods and to send it all the 9
way across the country, or at a minimum, to the Nevada Test 10 Site or to Ward Valley to dump it in shallow burial in the 11 sand and throw dirt over it, right over the largest ground 12 water aquifer in the entire desert, with five connecting 13 links to the Colorado River in which 20,000,000 of us get 14 our water, via the NWD aqueduct that brings the water to 15 Southern California?
16 Okay, so that's the first question. Is this. thing 17 going to leak and if not why not leave it there? Okay?
18 The second question is I know that this is the 19 largest core that you've ever had to cut up. They say it's 20 750 tons. You have some experience, I guess, at Hanford, 21 cutting up one, but it was a lot smaller and I know you 22 can't move that core without cutting it up into a lot of 23 little pieces and loading it on trucks and trains and 24 shipping it out of there.
So I guess I'd like to know if 25 you could share with us a little more vividly, because you ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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didn't show any pictures or anything of what it's like'to 2
cut up a core of a reactor, especially one this size. You 3
know I was hoping to get some graphics here --
you know -
4 please share with us what it's like to cut this up. How big 5
was the one in Hanford; what it took; how many shipments it 6
took to get it out of there; how many people; what you did 7
to protect-citizens, the workers, everyone, while you're 8
cutting this thing up.
9 Now, we have some experience with the --
for 10 instance, the fallout from the Nevada Test Site and so 11 forth. There's a great book, this guy's --
Radkin, I think 12 it is --
just wrote this book called Fallout that traces all 13 of the leukemia and the cancers of all the downwind people 14 from the Nevada Test Site and we know how those were covered 15 up. We know how in the name of defense and protection of 16 the freedom of our country how important it was to cover up 17 how deadly nuclear radioactivity is and we saw what our 18 Government, to protect our freedom, has done in those 19 instances.
Okay?
20 Are you going to tell the people about what 21 they're being exposed to?
I remember reading about some 22 cases involving San Onofre where employees actually did sue 23 for their cancers and I remember reading the court 24 decisions.
Oh, no, nothing --
you know --
no connection, no 25 proximate cause. Now that's a very important issue, because ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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if you leave it there and it starts getting in the ground, 2
in the air, and it starts emitting,.then we're going to get 3
a lot of clusters, aren't we, and the problem of 4
establishing liability, which is proximate cause, will 5
disappear and people of this country will start holding you, 6
the power brokers and the United States of America, liable 7
for unleashing weapons of mass destruction in our 8
communities. But if you can get it out on the road so it's 9
going through everybody's neighborhoods across this country, 10 the rails, the truck routes, then it's spread isn't it, and 11 you don't know if the truck next to you has within it 12 containers which have been compromised. You're going to Las 13 Vegas for a nice weekend and it's in the lane next to you, 14 but you will never know where that cancer came from, because 15 it's on the road and you can't tell, and they aren't marking 16 them with placards and they aren't traveling with little 17 Highway Patrol groups going around.
18 Now, I just have a few more things, Mayor, I'll 19 try to speed this up.
20 I would like to know how -
21 MAYOR BERG:
Our time really for the meeting, we 22 had set 9:00 o'clock as the time, so if you could speed it 23 up, we would appreciate it.
24 MS. MIKELS:
I sure will.
Thank you so much.
25 I would like to know how densely radiated is the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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core and all of the parts and I would like to know what 2
you're going to do about the --
to prevent the lives in 3
danger when you do start chopping it up in little pieces and 4
I want to be --
know why the reason the plants can't be used 5
as storage for other nuclear waste. Why can't --
you know 6
I mean somebody has said, "You make it, you keep it".
7 Okay? You've been licensed to make it there, presumably 8
whoever licensed you thought it was safe for you to have 9
Alpha and Beta and Gamma emissions at this place. Okay?
In 10 the name of centralized power, it was much more economical 11 than solar energy. Much more economical than the wind or 12 the waves.
Okay?
For you to build these billion dollar 13 monuments to our great knowledge, okay, and centralize the 14 power and keep your hands on the money, okay. But why don't 15 you store nuclear waste there? Why don't you cover it up, 16 encase it, okay?
17 Now, there's 22,500 licensed radioactive spots 18 around the country. We're going to move them all around and 19 make more and proliferate it.
Is that what we're going to 20 do?
Is that the policy in this country, and I understand 21 there are 103 operating plants, still needing to be 22 dismantled. I just recommend and ask that you and our 23 Government consider storing the waste from these plants --
I 24 have to say one more thing. High and low level is a fraud 25 on the American people and I can show you the part of the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Congressional record where they acknowledge that a lot of.
2 the high --
of the low level waste, which is the same 3
radionuclides in your plant. You've got uranium 238.
4 You've got plutonium 239.
The most deadly, lethal, long 5
lasting wastes and poisons ever created by man, and they're 6
called low level because they come from Edison's plant and 7
not from the weapons plants.
Okay? That's how our 8
Congress, with the lobbyist from you, have classified it, 9
but that is a misclassification and that is a fraud, and 10 when I get rid of my garbage each week, I have a place for 11 my paper, and I've got the place for my glass, and I've got 12 the place for my cans, but they are not requiring you, you 13 who are to be our wisest scientists and so forth, to make 14 the classifications based on the radionuclide, based on the 15 isotope, the longevity of it and how poison it is to us, how 16 quickly it will cause us cancers and mutations and will -
17 to medically alter our children. Okay.
18 Now those are the issues that I would like 19 addressed and I didn't hear them addressed tonight.
I heard 20 people talk about how they worked for the plant and they 21 thought you've done such a wonderful job. Well, why do they 22 want it out of there?
Okay? Why do they want it on our 23 roads, in our communities, going through Orange County and 24 San Bernardino County and all across this country unless you 25 can get Ward Valley and throw it right over our water ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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resource in sandy trenches and say that that is isolated 2
from the environment.
It's not isolating it from any of us.
3 Encase it where it is and let's stop creating this in our 4
next millennium. Let's get solar. You're Edison. You can 5
do it.
Go out to Barstow, see those solar panels.
It's 6
possible. We have so much wind in our desert we could power 7
the whole state and you've got ways --
they will move a 8
will. Thank you very much.
DR - MASA/INr 9
-MR. 9ERER: First I would like to lead off, Ms.
10 Mikels, in that you were referencing or referring to us.
We 11 do not --
we're not the Utility, we're the regulators, so -
12 MS. MIKELS:
Oh, good. You can even do more. You 13 take this message to Washington, D.C.?
DI.
/AA.SA~c 1-1 14 R.-ZCHERER:
Next, I would like to talk real 15 quick about radiation from San Onofre, why not leave it 16 where it is?
17 First of all, when these plants were designed they 18 were not designed for the permanent storage of radioactive 19 waste.
20 MS. MIKELS:
Were they designed to be cut up in 21 little pieces and put on our freeways -
22 mR. SeiERER:
The Commission -
23 MS. MIKELS:
fifteen or twenty years later?
24 MAYOR BERG:
She has to come to the microphone if 25 you want this on the record.
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-MR. CeIIHMEP.
The Commission has made it a matter 2
of policy that the facilities are required to clean up their 3
sites such that ultimately the property and the facilities 4
can be free released. As a matter of policy, we are 5
required to clean up the sites.
6 MS. MIKELS:
Does that mean remove it, and put a 7
golf course there?
8 DR. SPITZBERG:
Now, the next question that you
- 9.
asked had to do with the size of the cores that could be cut 10 up, and you mentioned 750 tons.
To my recollection, the 11 Shoreham Plant, which was a plant up on Long Island, had its 12 reactor vessel cut up. I think.what you meant when you said 13 largest core, you meant the reactor vessel itself. The core 14 of the reactor has been removed and placed in the spent fuel 15 pool, or at least the fuel that's in the reactor core.
16 The next plant that was disassembled was Maine 17 Yankee, which is up in --
I'm sorry, Yankee Row which is up 18 in Massachusetts and in that case they actually removed the 19 reactor vessel internals and removed the vessel and shipped 20 that which is a vessel I believe that's also smaller than 21 San Onofre. The one that I mentioned the last time I was up 22 here are the Saxton Plant, which was the one that went by my 23 office, was also smaller than the vessel here. The one that 24 I mentioned that is in the process of being readied for 25 shipment is the Trojan plant and that's significantly larger ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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than this reactor vessel.
It's been filled with high 2
density concrete --
low density concrete.
It has not had 3
its reactor vessel internals removed and it will be shipped, 4
as I mentioned, some time this year.
5 You talked about exposure to the public for 6
transportation. There have been several studies done that 7
looked at what the potential exposure associated with 8
decommissioning is.
The most recent and the one that we put 9
the most reliance on is the generic environmental impact 10 statement for decommissioning that was.published in 1988, 11 and it estimated between three and 21 person -awm for --
for 12 the actual decommissioning of approximately a thousand 13 megawatt plant which is significantly larger than this 14 plant.
15 The primary source of that exposure had to do with 16 transportation. We have some more recent numbers and the
("e A'%
17 Trojan plant estimated approximately 4.8 person ra*m, and 18 when I say person.a+&Wti, you have to understand that that 19 exposure is spread over the entire population and as you 20 mentioned it's related to the actual shipment.
21 To my knowledge all shipments of radioactive waste 22 are on placarded trucks and as a result --
I mean you do 23 know if there's a vehicle next to you that is radioactive, 24 or carrying radioactive waste.
25 You asked how densely irradiated the core of San ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Onofre was.
I guess that's a question that the licensee 2
either knows the answer or will probably typically --
during 3
this process they do characterize the core. Are we aware of 4
the reactor vessel -
5 MR. SCHERER:
The internals will be greater than 6
Classy.
7 DR. SPITZBERG:
Okay, that's only in -
8 Classification of waste, do you want to --
the 9
waste, it's not --
the classification of waste is not unique 10 to DOE.
In fact, high level waste are generated by 11 commercial nuclear power plants.
It is the waste associated 12 with the spent nuclear fuel and the transuranic isotopes 13 that are created within that spent nuclear fuel.
14 Now, you're correct that if a fuel rod, for 15 example, leaks and some of -
16 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:
Excuse me. Would you speak 17 in a microphone. I can't hear you.
18 DR. SPITZBERG:
The difference between high level 19 and low level radioactive waste stems back to the origin.
20 Spent nuclear fuel which is contained in fuel rods with 21 cladding is high level waste, as are certain transuranic 22 wastes which are the heavy isotopes caused by the 23 interaction of neutrons with the uranium and plutonium 24 within the nuclear fuel.
rod.
25 If a nuclear fuel -Bed were to develop a leak, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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some of the contamination within the rod could then enter 2
the reactor coolant system and then could be captured in the 3
systems, the clean up resins of the facility and that can be 4
classified as low level waste; however, the vast majority of 5
the high level waste is contained within the fuel rods 6
themselves and the difference between the high level waste 7
and the low level waste is where you can dispose of them.
8 Right now we do not have a disposal site that is accepting 9
high level waste for disposal. We do have a number of 10 disposal sites that are approved for shallow land burial of 11 low level waste.
So that is the distinction between the 12 two, it's not related to whether it comes from the 13 Department of Energy or commercial nuclear power plants.
14 What was the other question?
15 MR. WRIGHT:
That was the last one I had.
16 DR. SPITZBERG:
Okay.
17 MAYOR BERG:
Did you get your question answered?
18 MR. WRIGHT:
I suppose maybe they will do it 19 later.
20 DR. MASNIK:
Mike Masnik. Your question on the 21 potassium iodide, we'll get back to you on that.
We're -
22 since we're in the decommissioning aspect of this, it's not 23 an issue that we confront on a daily basis, but we will 24 provide you with a response. Talk to me after the meeting 25 and we'll get your name and address.
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MAYOR BERG:
We have run out of time.
I'm sure 2
it's been a very great learning experience for all of us.
3 We thank the people who have presented. We thank the people 4
who have asked the questions and most of all, we thank you 5
for being here tonight. I have always said that San 6
Clemente is just the greatest and the people are the 7
greatest, and you are interested, and you have learned with 8
me. So thank you very much for coming tonight and if you 9
have any questions you have been given places to write, 10 people to E-mail to and hopefully your questions will be 11 answered. Thank you very much.
12 (Whereupon, the meeting was concluded.)
- 13.
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