ML15070A234

Transcript of February 19, 2015 Vermont Yankee Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report Public Meeting. Pages 1-200

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Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title:

Vermont Yankee Post-shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report Public Meeting Docket Number: 05000271 Location: Brattleboro, Vermont Date: Thursday, February 19, 2015 Work Order No.: NRC-1374 Pages 1-200 ORIGINAL.I NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433

1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2

3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4

5 OFFICE OF NUCLEAR REACTOR REGULATION 6

7 VERMONT YANKEE POST-SHUTDOWN DECOMMISSIONING 8 ACTIVITIES REPORT PUBLIC MEETING 9

10 THURSDAY, 11 FEBRUARY 19, 2015 12 13 BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT 14 15 The meeting convened in the Quality Inn, 16 1380 Putney Road, at 6:00 p.m.

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2 1 PRESENT:

2 CHIP CAMERON, Facilitator 3 JOE LYNCH, Entergy 4 BRUCE WATSON, Chief, NMSS 5 DREW PERSINKO, Deputy Director, NMSS 6 DOUG BROADDUS, Chief, NRR 7 MARC FERDAS, Chief, DNMS 8

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3 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 ITEM PAGE 3 Welcome/Introduction 4 4 PSDAR Introduction 10 5 PSDAR Requirements 23 6 NRC PSDAR Review/Licensing Status 27 7 NRC Inspection Programs 36 8 Entergy/PSDAR Content 43 9 Elected Officials 63 10 Public Comment Session 90 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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4 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 6:00 p.m.

3 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everyone. I 4 want to welcome you to the public meeting tonight, and 5 my name is Chip Cameron, and --

6 MR. SACHS: Is there a reason why we don't 7 get a public hearing here?

8 MR. CAMERON: We're going to answer that 9 question, the difference between a public hearing and 10 a public meeting. We will provide -that answer for 11 you, because I know that people are interested in 12 that.

13 For your information, we're taking a 14 transcript of the meeting, and that will be your 15 record of what transpired here tonight, and the NRC's 16 record.

17 Just give us a couple of minutes to figure 18 this out, because we want to make sure that all of 19 this is on the transcript, although I'm not sure it's 20 important for me to be on there. Okay, it's not 21 working.

22 You know what? I think I'm just going to 23 go ahead, because I'm not sure that it's critical for

24. me to be on the transcript.

25 Okay, and then hopefully it will be fixed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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5 1 by then, but I just want to welcome you all. The 2 subject tonight is NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission 3 process for the decommissioning of Vermont Yankee, and 4 specifically the NRC and our speaker from Entergy, Joe 5 Lynch, are going to talk about something called the 6 post-shutdown decommissioning activities report.

7 We're going to try to keep the -- we're 8 going to try to keep the acronyms to a minimum, but 9 one that you will hear tonight is PSDAR, okay.

10 We're going to start out with some brief 11 NRC presentations to give you an overview of the 12 decommissioning process, and we also have, as I 13 mentioned, Joe Lynch here from Entergy, who is going 14 to talk about Entergy's PSDAR that they prepared, and 15 then we're going to go out to you for questions, 16 concerns and recommendations.

17 My role as the facilitator is to try to 18 help you all have a productive meeting tonight, and I 19 wanted to spend just a couple of minutes on meeting 20 process issues, so that you know what to expect 21 tonight.

22 The objectives of the meeting, first of 23 all, the first objective is to give you clear 24 information on the NRC oversight process and on 25 Entergy's PSDAR.

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6 1 Second objective is to answer your 2 questions and to listen to your concerns and your 3 recommendations.

4 In terms of format, as I mentioned -- and 5 you're probably going to -- Gary and I usually do a 6 duet, okay, throughout the meeting, and so, you're 7 probably -- you're probably going to hear Gary and --

8 MR. SACHS: Clean it up now. Don't give it 9 to our grandchildren.

10 MR. CAMERON: Gary, we're going to ask 11 Gary to try to be courteous throughout the meeting, 12 but you may have of something from that corner.

13 But anyway, format, we're going to have 14 some NRC speakers, Entergy, and then we're going to go 15 on to you, but I'm going to ask you -- ask for your 16 patience. I want to get all the information out to 17 you, before we go to you for questions.

18 So, I would just ask you to please hold 19 your questions and comments, until after all of the 20 speakers are done and --

21 MR. SACHS: That's a dumb way to do it, 22 Chip. That's a dumb way to do it. I'm not going to 23 go back and say the guy 40 minutes ago said --

24 MR. CAMERON: Well, Gary, Gary, I'm asking 25 you to do that, okay?

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7 1 MR. SACHS: I know, my bullshit-o-meter 2 works, does yours?

3 MR. CAMERON: So, the duet. At any rate 4

5 MR. SACHS: Chip is here to present my 6 personal --

7 MR. CAMERON: I'm going to ask you to 8 follow some ground rules tonight. The first one is to 9 wait until all of the presentations are done, before 10 we go out to you for questions.

11 Second one is, I would ask you to be brief 12 in your questions or comments. I'm not going to set 13 a time limit, but a few minutes, and I have a list of 14 all the people who signed up to speak and ask a 15 question. You can come down here to talk to the NRC 16 staff, or if you want, I'll bring you the cordless 17 microphone to you in the audience, and if you could 18 just stand up and introduce yourself to us and ask 19 your question or make your comment.

20 In terms of the ground rule about being 21 brief, I'm also asking the NRC staff and Entergy to 22 also try to be brief and concise, in answering any 23 questions, so that we give more time to all of you out 24 there, and I'm going to go to everybody once, before 25 we go back to anybody for a second round of comments NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 1 and questions.

2 We're scheduled to go until nine o'clock 3 tonight, and if we need to, to get to our remaining 4 people, we'll go over for a little bit.

5 The NRC is also asking you to submit 6 written comments on the PSDAR, and they'll explain 7 that, but if you want to come up and give a short 8 summary of your comments for the record tonight, 9 that's fine to do that, and we have Pete Holland here, 10 who is our Court Reporter, and he's going to be taking 11 the transcript, and I would ask you, because we're 12 talking a transcript, and because we want to pay 13 attention to whomever has the floor at the moment, I 14 would ask that only one person speak at a time.

15 Finally, I would just ask for all of us to 16 extend courtesy to everybody else in the meeting room.

17 You may hear opinions that differ from yourselves, 18 your opinions, but just please respect the person who 19 is giving that, and in a minute, I'm going to 20 introduce Drew Persinko and ask him to introduce the 21 rest of the panel.

22 But first of all, before we go to that, I 23 wanted to introduce representatives of two elected 24 officials, and one is -- one is Haley Perro from 25 Senator Sander's office, and Tom Berry, who is here NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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9 1 from Senator Leahy's office, and I would also ask, is 2 there any other elected officials here, who just want 3 to stand up and introduce themselves, before we go on?

4 Okay, okay, go ahead.

5 MS. O'CONNOR: I'm Kate O'Connor and I'm 6 the Chair of the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning 7 Citizen's Advisory Panel.

8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Kate.

9 Any other elected officials?

10 Okay, let me get to you, sir. So, this 11 way, you'll know who is here.

12 MR. TUSINSK: My name is Peter Tusinsk.

13 I'm on the Planning Board with the town of Leyden, 14 well within the ten mile radius.

15 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

16 MR. WARD: John Ward, Gill Select Board, 17 Gill, Massachusetts.

18 MR. CAMERON: Gill, Massachusetts. Thank 19 you.

20 All right, well, we're going to go to our 21 Panel, and they're going to complete their 22 presentations, and then we're going to go out to you 23 for the rest of the evening, and this is Drew 24 Persinko, Deputy Director of the Division of 25 Decommissioning, and I'm going to let you go with full NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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10 1 title, NRC Office of Nuclear Material, Safety and 2 Safeguards.

3 So, Drew, I'll turn it over to you now.

4 Pete, do we have transcript -- do you have us? Okay, 5 good.

6 MR. PERSINKO: Good evening. Can you all 7 hear me?

8 Okay, I too, want to welcome everybody to 9 our meeting tonight. My name is Drew Persinko. I'm 10 the Deputy Director in the Division of 11 Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs 12 within the NRC.

13 The purpose tonight, as Chip said, is to 14 discuss the Vermont Yankee post-shutdown 15 decommissioning activities report, which we're all 16 going to refer to as PSDAR, which was submitted to the 17 NRC by Entergy in December, and we're going to be 18 listening to your comments tonight.

19 The PSDAR, the purpose of the PSDAR is to 20 provide a general overview for the public and the NRC, 21 of the licensee's proposed decommissioning activities.

22 This meeting is required by NRC regulations.

23 We originally were going to have this 24 meeting in late January, but we were asked by the 25 Citizen's Advisory Panel to postpone it, which we did.

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11 1 As Chip said, we're going to have a few 2 brief presentations about the PSDAR and our 3 decommissioning program, and then Chip will facilitate 4 comments from you all.

5 The meeting is bring transcribed. There 6 are feedback forms in the room here, and we plan to 7 adjourn around nine o'clock.

8 So, okay, our agenda this evening is that 9 I'm going to give a few introductory remarks. Bruce 10 Watson, to my left, will speak about the requirements 11 of the PSDAR. Doug Broaddus on my right, will speak 12 about the NRC's review of the PSDAR and the licensing 13 status of Vermont Yankee.

14 To his right is Marc Ferdas. Marc is in 15 our Region I office, and Marc will talk about 16 inspection programs at NRC and in Region I and at 17 Vermont Yankee.

18 To my left is Joe Lynch from Entergy. Joe 19 will be speaking about the contents of the Vermont 20 Yankee PSDAR, and as we said, then Chip will 21 facilitate a public comment session and then we'll 22 close the meeting at approximately nine o'clock.

23 So, let me begin with a short 24 introduction.

25 It really starts with NRC's mission. It's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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12 1 all about the mission, and the mission is that NRC 2 licenses and regulates the nation's civilian use of 3 radioactive materials, to protect public health and 4 safety, promote the common defense of security and 5 protect the environment.

6 This was our mission during operation of 7 the facility. It remains our mission during 8 decommissioning, and the decommissioning will be 9 carried out according to our regulations.

10 One of the decommissioning regulations is 11 in Part 20. CFR stands for Code of Federal 12 Regulations. The 10 CFR Part 20, and in 10 CFR Part 13 20 is the definition of decommissioning, and the 14 definition is, "To remove facilities safely from 15 service and reduce radioactivity to a level that 16 permits either unrestricted release or restricted 17 release."

18 No nuclear power reactor, or any other 19 nuclear site in the U.S. for that matter, has pursued 20 restricted release and all have pursued what's known 21 as unrestricted release.

22 So, the release --

23 MR. SACHS: Are any of them habitable 24 today?

25 MR. PERSINKO: So, the release criteria is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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13 1 as follows. For unrestricted --

2 MR. SACHS: Are any of those habitable 3 today, sir?

4 MR. PERSINKO: For unrestricted release --

5 MR. CAMERON: Gary, Gary, just hold your 6 questions, please.

7 MR. SACHS: It's an honest question. Are 8 any of those --

9 MR. CAMERON: It isn't --

10 MR. SACHS: -- sites habitable today, sir?

11 MR. CAMERON: We know it's an honest 12 question. We want to get this --

13 MR. SACHS: Answer it.

14 MR. CAMERON: We want to get this --

15 MR. SACHS: Please.

16 MR. CAMERON: We will answer it, okay.

17 MR. SACHS: Why wait 30 minutes to get an 18 answer to the question, of whether or not those 19 decommissioned sites are habitable by the general 20 public today.

21 MR. CAMERON: Gary?

22 MR. SACHS: Are they?

23 MR. CAMERON: Gary, I'm going to have to 24 ask you --

25 MR. SACHS: That's.yes or no, sir.

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14 1 MR. CAMERON: -- to just --

2 MR. SACHS: Sir.

3 MR. CAMERON: -- to just -- until -- let 4 him get -- let all these people get through their 5 presentations. So, go ahead.

6 MR. PERSINKO: For unrestricted release, 7 the requirements are that the dose be less than or 8 equal to 25 millirem to the average member of the 9 critical group, and considers all pathways for 10 receiving the. dose and for a period of performance of 11 1,000 years.

12 I'm not going to through the unrestricted 13 -- through the restricted release criteria, because 14 that's not what's being pursued by Vermont Yankee.

15 For unrestricted release, I mentioned the 16 criteria being 25 millirem.

17 Well, just to put that in a little 18 perspective here, a millirem is a unit of dose on 19 human beings. Although the criteria says that it's 25 20 millirem, past history has shown by other power 21 reactors. that have decommissioned, they have actually 22 decommissioned down to the order of a few millirem, on 23 the order of two, three, four, five millirems.

24 So, although our criteria says less than 25 or equal to 25 millirem, the fact is that all -- for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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15 1 the other power reactors that have completed 2 decommissioning, have completed it to a much less --

3 to much lower levels.

4 For comparison, what's a millirem? I want 5 to -- just for comparison.

6 You take a ride across the country in an 7 airplane, you get about three millirems flying across 8 the country. You get a chest x-ray, you get about 10 9 millirems, and in a normal course of background, just 10 your normal course of business, in a year you get 11 about 300 to 600 millirems. So, that's just for 12 perspective, when we talk about what is a millirem.

13 okay, this slide, it's a very important 14 slide, I believe. It shows the roles and the 15 activities of the licensee on the left, the NRC in the 16 middle and the public on the right, and so, the 17 process -- and it shows the decommissioning process in 18 a flow chart form.

19 So, on the left you see, there is initial 20 notification and fuel removal.

21 So, the initial process starts off with a 22 certification of cessation of operations by the 23 licensee, Entergy, and then a certification of fuel 24 removal from the reactor, which has been done.

25 The next is the submittal of the PSDAR.

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16 1 You see there, it says 'decommissioning report' on the 2 left. That's the PSDAR.

3 So, it's submittal of the PSDAR and a 4 public meeting, and you can see in the middle column, 5 the NRC role, its review of the PSDAR and public 6 meeting.

7 So, where we are right now on this flow 8 chart is in the middle column where it says 'public 9 meeting'. That's where we are in the decommissioning 10 process right now.

11 I want to note that the NRC does not 12 approve the PSDAR, but we do review it to ensure that 13 our regulations are being met, and Bruce and Doug will 14 speak more about that, when they speak.

15 If you go down the left-hand side some 16 more, you'll see the next -- after 90 days, the -- we 17 wait, by regulation, we're to wait 90 days and after 18 90 days, if we don't -- if we do not comment on it or 19 after 90 days is up, the licensee can begin major 20 decommissioning, during which time the NRC will be 21 doing inspections. The NRC will be performing 22 inspections during decommissioning.

23 About two years out before the license 24 termination, another plan is submitted to the NRC.

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17 1 refer to that as the LTP.

2 It's submitted to NRC and it describes the 3 remaining decommissioning activities, the plans for 4 performing radiation surveys of the site, and it 5 provides a site-specific -- an updated site-specific 6 cost estimate.

7 The NRC does review and approve the -- we 8 do review and approve the LTP, if it's acceptable.

9 Approval of the license termination plan is a 10 licensing action, and thus, there is an opportunity 11 for a hearing at that point.

12 At this point, let me just clarify a bit 13 here.

14 You know, I've been to a couple meetings 15 up here and people refer to this as a hearing.

16 At the NRC, we would call -- this is a 17 meeting. This is a public meeting, a meeting open to 18 the public.

19 When we use the term 'hearing' at the NRC, 20 we're referring to a legal adjudicatory hearing with 21 a Hearing Panel.

22 So, that's why, you know, sometimes people 23 have referred to this as a hearing, but in our 24 vernacular, this is a public meeting.

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18 1 opportunity for a hearing. So, that's an opportunity 2 for the public, you can see on the right-hand column, 3 if the public wishes to, they could submit a hearing 4 request, in order to have the adjudicatory hearing.

5 Further decommissioning and further clean 6 up is done, and eventually, the final status surveys 7 are performed by the licensee.

8 The NRC verifies those surveys to make 9 sure that the clean-up levels meeting our regulations 10 have been met, and if they have, we terminate the 11 license.

12 Decommissioning regulations also include 13 provisions for protecting the environment. Our 14 environmental law is the National Environmental Policy 15 Act, otherwise known as NEPA, and there are 16 regulations that implements the law, it's 10 CFR Part 17 51.

18 At the PSDAR stage, PSDAR includes a 19 discussion -- requirements or regulations require that 20 the PSDAR include a discussion, to show that the 21 environmental impacts associated with site-specific 22 decommissioning are bounded by previous environmental 23 impact statements, or if there are significant impacts 24 during decommissioning that have not been previously 25 -- in previous EIS's, the licensee must submit a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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19 1 supplement to its environmental report.

2 MR. SACHS: Can you spell Strontium?

3 MR. PERSINKO: At the license termination 4

5 MR. SACHS: Is that the first --

6 MR. PERSINKO: At the license termination 7 plan, it must include the supplemental environmental 8 report, if any new information or significant 9 environmental changes are discovered, and since that 10 is a --

11 MR. SACHS: Is the Strontium new?

12 MR. PERSINKO: If that isn't -- since that 13 is an official licensing action, an environmental 14 assessment must be performed by the NRC.

15 I'm not going to say too much about this 16 slide. This slide just shows the internal 17 bookkeeping, if you will, within the NRC. The 18 decommissioning has -- different organizations within 19 the NRC have different responsibilities for 20 decommissioning.

21 At certain points in time, the project 22 management function is transferred from one of our 23 offices to another and the inspection programs are 24 transferred from one division to another. That is 25 just internal bookkeeping, if you will, from your NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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20 1 perspective. What you should see is a different name 2 on the letters that are being sent out.

3 It will be a different project manager or 4 a different inspector. But that's how internally, we 5 transfer the project.

6 This slide, I wanted to show -- the 7 purpose of this slide, this bar chart is -- I wanted 8 to show that the NRC has a lot of experience in 9 performing decommissioning.

10 Since 1997, the NRC has terminated the 11 licensees of over -- the licenses over 80 facilities, 12 including power reactors, material sites and research 13 reactors.

14 I chose 1997 for the beginning of this 15 graph because that's when the current power reactor 16 decommissioning process and the release criteria came 17 into effect, by rule making. Both went into effect 18 via a change in the NRC regulations, which we call 19 rule making.

20 It went through the normal rule making 21 process, which included public comment and resolution.

22 Since 1997, the current process has been 23 used to decommission --

24 MR. SACHS: So, I just want to --

25 MR. PERSINKO: -- seven --

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21 1 MR. SACHS: You guys are NRC staff --

2 MR. PERSINKO: -- has been used --

3 MR. SACHS: Right? When you first went to 4 the commission --

5 MR. PERSINKO: Has been used --

6 MR. SACHS: -- nobody came --

7 MR. PERSINKO: -- to decommission --

8 MR. CAMERON: Gary?

9 MR. PERSINKO: -- seven power reactors, 10 and including three in New England. Those three in 11 New England are Main Yankee, which shut down in 1996, 12 Connecticut Yankee, which also shut down in 1996, 13 Yankee Rowe, which shut down in 1991, and I put this 14 last slide on here for completeness.

15 Millstone Unit 1 is in decommissioning 16 status. It's in Waterford, Connecticut. It's 17 currently in SAFSTOR, and it shut down in 1995.

18 MR. SACHS: Are there two --

19 MR. PERSINKO: That concludes my --

20 MR. SACHS: -- reactors that are open?

21 MR. PERSINKO: That concludes my 22 presentation. With that, I'm going to turn it over to 23 Bruce Watson, who will talk about the PSDAR 24 requirements.

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22 1 you all, for joining us tonight and taking time out to 2 be here.

3 Our risk -- our performance based risk 4 informed regulations went into place in 1997. The two 5 key ones are Part 20 and Part 50. Part 50 deals 6 specifically with the decommissioning of power 7 reactors.

8 Another important regulation in effect is 9 the one of independent spent fuel storage, known as 10 ISFSI's.

11 Like I said, these went into effect in 12 1997. We have 18 years of implementing experience, 13 and we have completed the decommissioning on seven 14 power reactors to date, and numerous other facilities.

15 MR. SACHS: Can we play baseball there?

16 MR. WATSON: Entergy provided a draft of 17 the PSDAR in October for public review. It submitted 18 the PSDAR to us formally on December 19th, and in 19 December 23rd, the PSDAR was available in ADAMS for 20 everyone to see.

21 December 29th, Vermont Yankee permanently 22 ceased operations and on January 12th, Entergy 23 certified that VOI permanently ceased operations and 24 the reactor was completely defueled.

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23 1 back in the reactor, nor can the plant be operated 2 again. If they wanted to operate again, they'd have 3 to apply for an operating license.

4 We issued the public notice for the PSDAR 5 for this public meeting and made it available for 6 everyone to be aware of. Next slide.

7 There are three decommissioning options in 8 our guidance, DECON, which is the immediate 9 dismantling of equipment and structures. In other 10 words, the plant is promptly removed or decontaminated 11 to allow radiological release. We currently have five 12 plants in DECON.

13 . The other option is SAFSTOR. The plant is 14 placed in a safe condition -- stable condition and 15 maintained and in that state until it's decommissioned 16 to permit radiological release. We currently have 14 17 plants, including Yankee -- excuse me, Vermont Yankee 18 in that status today.

19 ENTOMB was also an option, but that is not 20 available. We have no plans to plan or we have no 21 regulations to allow ENTOMB.

22 One of the key futures of the regulations 23 is that radiological decommissioning must be completed 24 in 60 years.

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24 1 they do have the settlement agreement, which takes 2 into account, information from the -- input from the 3 state and the stakeholders, and also, the NRC 4 encourages that we have -- that the licensee or the 5 state form a Citizen's Advisory Panel, which has been 6 done, and that's to continue to solicit input on the 7 decommissioning. Next slide.

8 The content of the PSDAR is outlined in 9 5082, and in reg -- and the details can be found in 10 Regulatory Guide 1.185.

11 It must include a description and schedule 12 for the planned decommissioning activities. It must 13 include a site-specific cost estimate, including the 14 cost of managing the radiated fuel.

15 It also must include a discussion that 16 provides the means for concluding that the 17 environmental impact associated with the 18 decommissioning activities will be an appropriately 19 bounded by the issued -- appropriately issued 20 environment impact statement or assessment.

21 MR. SACHS: Can you go into how that 22 interacts with Entergy's statement this week? They're 23 out of here in 60 years, sir.

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25 1 regulations that require a public meeting be held.

2 So, we're here tonight to hear your comments.

3 We will make the PSDAR available for 4 public comment, and there is the ADAMS number in our 5 publically available document system.

6 One thing I do want to note is that we do 7 not approve the PSDAR. It is a report, like I said, 8 on the description of the activities --

9 MR. SACHS: Why can't the other licensees 10 11 MR. WATSON: -- the cost estimates and 12 also on the environmental impacts of the 13 decommissioning.

14 I want to point out that the 15 decommissioning, with the restrictions of the time 16 tables that are outlined in the 90 day requirement and 17 other things, that decommissioning can be started 18 under the current license.

19 So, this is not a Federal action in the 20 respect that it's not a license actions in the license 21 amendment or an exemption. It's merely a report to 22 us, which we will gauge its content on and make sure 23 it meets our requirements.

24 MR. SACHS: Do you guys know how to 25 decommission Fukushima?

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26 1 MR. WATSON: So, given that, I will turn 2 it over to Doug Broaddus.

3 MR. BROADDUS: All right, thank you, 4 Bruce. So, I'm the Branch Chief in the Office of 5 Nuclear Reactor Regulation, as Drew indicated before.

6 I have responsibility for the project 7 management oversight of the Vermont Yankee for now, 8 while it was operating, as well as now, that it's in 9 the transition from decommissioning to -- or from 10 operating to decommissioning.

11 Part of that oversight is for the review 12 of the post-shutdown decommissioning activities 13 report, and I'll be talking about that.

14 As Bruce indicated, there is specific 15 requirements associated with the post-shutdown 16 decommissioning activities report, and those 17 requirements are called out in our regulations, as 18 indicated in the slide.

19 We also have a regulatory guide that -- it 20 describes that the information that we expect to be in 21 the post-shutdown decommissioning activities report, 22 as well.

23 So, when we receive the report, we farm it 24 out to other technical reviewers that have expertise 25 in the specific areas that are required to be in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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27 1 report.

2 So, I wanted to talk a little bit about 3 the types of evaluation criteria that we have for 4 that.

5 As Bruce indicated, we don't approve the 6 report, but we do review it to ensure that it contains 7 all the required information by our regulations. So, 8 that's the key -- the first key activity.

9 We'll also look at the technical approach 10 -- the approach that the licensee has described, which 11 option they're planning to use to go forward, and to 12 determine whether or not the approach that they've 13 described is feasible, given the technology that --

14 the technologies and the approach that they are 15 planning to use.

16 The next key area is can it be completed 17 within the time frame specified, and in this case, 18 Entergy's plan indicates that they're going to 19 SAFSTOR, and therefore, that they will be conducting 20 the decommissioning activities over the 60 period.

21 So, is their plan feasible in -- and have 22 they adequately described that to determine -- for us 23 to be able to determine whether it can actually be 24 conducted during that time frame.

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28 1 it -- is the cost, and I'll talk about a little bit 2 more in the next slide. So, I won't get to that yet.

3 But the final thing is, you know, is it in 4 compliance with our regulations, and primarily, does 5 it -- does that PSDAR -- are there any activities that 6 would potentially endanger the public health and 7 safety? Obviously, if that were the case, we would 8 not allow them to go continue to move forward with the 9 plan from that standpoint.

10 So, it needs to be -- needs to demonstrate 11 that it's protecting the health and safety.

12 MR. SACHS: Protected action guidelines 13 are the current ones or the ones that got adjusted up 14 20 times after Fukushima?

15 MR. BROADDUS: So, as was mentioned before 16 about the -- the cost estimate.

17 So, along with the post-shutdown 18 decommissioning activities report, the licensee is 19 also required to submit a site-specific 20 decommissioning process. This is an estimate of the 21 entire cost from start to finish, for the entire 60 22 year period.

23 So, what we look at from that standpoint 24 is, are those costs -- are they -- have they -- has 25 the plan that they've laid out in the cost estimates NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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29 1 that they have, does that provide reasonable assurance 2 to us that they're going to be able to complete the 3 decommissioning activities with the money that they 4 have available to them in the decommissioning trust.

5 I know that's an area of significant 6 interest to folks today -- tonight. So, really what 7 we want to look at there is to look at the techniques 8 that they're using, have they -- are the estimates --

9 are they based on realistic types of activities that 10 they would be conducting?

11 Have they identified all the areas that 12 they need to address, as part of their 13 decommissioning, and properly accounted for those 14 costs?

15 We also look at -- we understand that 16 there could be changes that occur over that period of 17 the decommissioning period. So, do they have the 18 mechanism to adjust their -- both their cost estimates 19 as they're going forward with it, and to account for 20 if they have any funding shortages or -- how would 21 they adjust the funding, to ensure that they're going 22 to be able to complete the activities, if those 23 changes occur?

24 There is also continuous oversight of 25 those -- of the costs, as well. The licensee is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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30 1 required to submit to us annually, a report of the 2 costs that they -- what they have spent, how much 3 money they have left in -- and how that comports with 4 the plans that they've submitted to us previously.

5 So, we'll look at that and make sure that 6 they're staying on track, and obviously, is there is 7 anything that -- any deviations from that, we would 8 have some questions or we would suspect that they 9 would address those changes within that.

10 In addition, if they make any significant 11 changes even throughout the year, they wouldn't --

12 they would be required to report those changes to us, 13 as well.

14 As Drew mentioned before, part of our 15 review is also from an environmental perspective, and 16 he indicated before that part of what they need to 17 look at is how does their -- how do the environmental 18 impacts comport with other prior environmental impact 19 statements that have been performed.

20 There are two key environmental impact 21 statements that would -- that would be applicable 22 here.

23 The first is the site-specific 24 environmental impact statement that was performed for 25 the plant when it was originally licensed.

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31 1 So, the activities would have to still be 2 within that original environmental analysis that was 3 performed at that time.

4 MR. SACHS: So, if there was Tritium on 5 site --

6 MR. BROADDUS: And that is --

7 MR. SACHS: -- is that in the --

8 MR. BROADDUS: The NRC developed a -- a 9 number of years back, a generic environmental impact 10 statement on decommissioning, specifically for 11 decommissioning of nuclear facilities.

12 MR. SACHS: And that's what you're going 13 to use here?

14 MR. BROADDUS: This is --

15 MR. SACHS: Even though there's a 16 preschool across the street?

17 MR. BROADDUS: This specific report was --

18 specifically, they addressed three different options 19 for decommissioning, that Bruce mentioned earlier, the 20 types that they could go into, and the -- and the 21 typical types of impacts that would be expected of 22 those types of activities.

23 So, the licensee would have --

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32 1 MR. BROADDUS: -- to ensure that they 2 would --

3 MR. SACHS: -- with the decommissioning --

4 MR. BROADDUS: The licensee would have to 5 ensure that they have addressed those environment 6 impacts and determine whether or not they're within 7 the -- those initial or previous environmental 8 reports.

9 MR. SACHS: We'd like the NRC not to --

10 MR. BROADDUS: We will also continue to 11 assess the environment impacts throughout our 12 inspection program and see if there is any new changes 13 or any new environmental impacts that occur throughout 14 the process.

15 All right, finally, as we -- as Drew 16 mentioned earlier, we're here tonight to solicit 17 comments on the PSDAR.

18 Our review will consider those comments.

19 We'll look at those comments and we'll determine if 20 there is any -- any adjustments or any additional 21 information that is needed.

22 We would expect as well, that the licensee 23 would also be able -- you know, we would make those 24 available to the licensee, to make sure that they have 25 those and they -- they would have the opportunity to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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33 1 see those public comments, as well.

2 As we go through our review, we may ask 3 for additional information and we will -- we'll 4 complete our review, once we have all the information 5 and we're able to make the determination that the --

6 what they've submitted is in compliance with our 7 regulations and provides all the information that is 8 required.

9 So, we don't -- as we mentioned before, we 10 don't approve it, but if it's -- if we need additional 11 information to be able to complete our understanding 12 of what they're going to be doing and understanding 13 that they're -- of how they're going to proceed, we'll 14 ask for that information and expect to get that as 15 part of the responses.

16 Once we're done, we will notify the 17 licensee that we don't have any -- don't require any 18 additional information, and we'll also address, you 19 know, the -- do a summary of the public comments as 20 well, and we'll make sure that those are available to 21 the public.

22 As Bruce mentioned before, the licensee 23 can't begin major decommissioning until after 90 days, 24 after they've received -- we've received the PSDAR and 25 so, what we're -- in that 90 day period now, and we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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34 1 conducting our review at this point.

2 All right, so, with that, I'm going to 3 turn it over to Marc.

4 MR. FERDAS: Thanks, Doug. All right, my 5 name is Marc Ferdas. I'm from our Regional Office, as 6 Bruce said. My group has responsibility for the 7 oversight program, for sites that are in 8 decommissioning --

9 MR. SACHS: And how many have you done so 10 far?

11 MR. FERDAS: -- as well as sites that are 12 -- that have dry cask storage.

13 Before I kind of go into the details of 14 that, I'd like to just briefly mention how Vermont 15 Yankee finished its operating history from last year.

16 They finished the assessment period with 17 all green performance indicators and any findings that 18 were issued to them, as all green, meaning that they 19 were -- they continue to be in the licensee response 20 column, the NRC's action matrix.

21 If you have any questions concerning prior 22 performance, Sarah Rich is here. She's the Acting 23 Senior Resident Inspector, who will be more than happy 24 to talk to you after the meeting about that.

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35 1 station did finish out the final period of operations.

2 With that, moving forward the way the 3 oversight program works, we continue to perform 4 oversight.

5 MR. SACHS: How often?

6 MR. FERDAS: We continue to monitor --

7 MR. SACHS: How frequently?

8 MR. FERDAS: -- monitor --

9 MR. SACHS: You do?

10 MR. FERDAS: -- activities at this site.

11 MR. SACHS: You're getting rid of one 12 inspector. How many will be there, sir?

13 MR. CAMERON: Gary, Gary. I'm going to 14 have to ask you to be courteous, so that people can 15 hear what is being said up here.

16 MR. SACHS: I'm just trying to --

17 MR. CAMERON: You decide --

18 MR. SACHS: -- see what goes --

19 MR. CAMERON: You signed up, like 20 everybody else, and you're going to get your turn, 21 okay?

22 But so far, I think people are getting the 23 message. We're trying to ignore your outbursts --

24 MR. SACHS: Three times --

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36 1 you escorted out --

2 MR. SACHS: That doesn't work this state, 3 sir.

4 MR. CAMERON: -- because -- okay --

5 MR. SACHS: That's not legal.

6 MR. CAMERON: -- because I know that 7 you're passionately concerned about this and you have 8 good questions, but you're going to have to just --

9 MR. SACHS: You're disturbing --

10 MR. CAMERON: -- be courteous.

11 MR. SACHS: -- the speaker. Let him just 12 13 MR. CAMERON: Courtesy, okay.

14 MR. FERDAS: Okay, all right, thank you.

15 I just want to reiterate that the oversight and 16 monitoring occurs for the entire period of the 17 decommissioning process, and that includes as the 18 plant is shutdown, as it transitions to SAFSTOR, as 19 Vermont Yankee has planned, and also continues, as 20 long as there is spent fuel at the site.

21 Our focus continues to be safety and 22 security, as it was for the operating plants.

23 It's mentioned here on the slide, if you 24 are interested, you can go ahead and read about what 25 the oversight process or program entails. There is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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37 1 really two documents I would point you to.

2 One, the first one referenced there deals 3 with our decommissioning process oversight and then 4 the second one deals with our dry cask storage 5 inspection process.

6 Our oversight program really focuses on 7 three main objectives. One is spent fuel being safely 8 stored, being in the spent fuel pool or in dry cask 9 storage.

10 Decommission activities are being 11 conducted in a manner that ensures safety and security 12 to the public workers and the environment, and then 13 finally, that site operations and license termination 14 activities are performed in accordance with Federal 15 regulations and license commitments.

16 On this slide it kind of just gives you a 17 quick summary of the type of things that we look at 18 over the entire decommissioning process. We are --

19 our inspections are conducted by qualified inspectors 20 that go through rigorous training programs. It's a 21 combination of the Resident Inspector that is 22 currently at the site, our Regional Inspectors from 23 our Regional Office.

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38 1 have contractors available to perform independent 2 surveys or other analysis that may be needed for us.

3 At the completion of every inspection that 4 we do, there is a publically available inspection 5 report. That can be found in our electronic docket 6 system, you've heard to it referred to today as ADAMS.

7 That's through our web-page. You can find all 8 inspection reports that are issued.

9 Just -- I just wanted to quickly go over 10 where -- what the oversight status is for Vermont 11 Yankee, so, everyone has a current idea of what's 12 going on there.

13 Currently, we consider Vermont Yankee in 14 the post-operations transition phase, meaning that 15 they're transitioning the plant to a long-term safe 16 storage, as their PSDAR lists.

17 Currently, there is no major 18 decommissioning activities being performed, as was 19 briefly mentioned, because they are within the 90 day 20 period, but there are no immediate plans for any major 21 decommissioning work, and that is outlined in the 22 Vermont Yankee PSDAR.

23 They are developing plans and seeking the 24 necessary approvals to construct a second dry cask 25 storage pad. This will allow them to remove all spent NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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39 1 fuel that's currently in their spent fuel pool, and 2 this would be in addition to the --

3 MR. SACHS: Will this be collected --

4 MR. FERDAS: -- the casks that they 5 already have --

6 MR. SACHS: Casks we have or do not --

7 MR. FERDAS: -- onsite that have -- the 8 dry cask storage --

9 MR. SACHS: -- they were not regulated --

10 tested -- will these be done correctly, sir?

11 MR. FERDAS: And then finally, what I just 12 want to reiterate again is that, you know, the 13 oversight activities are being performed. They will 14 be performed in the immediate future, but also, the 15 long-term future, as well, and as I said, our program 16 is well-defined and it is available for the public to 17 review -- to review and to get more of the details.

18 So, Drew, I'll turn it back to you now.

19 Okay, we have one more slide. Thank you.

20 One area, this kind of is some of the main 21 reference documents, not only from what I've talked 22 about, but what the other speakers have talked about, 23 that are good documents to review. All of these are 24 available in our public webpage.

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40 1 people to take a look at is the You-Tube video that 2 has been put together, that talks kind of, a lot of 3 what was talked about today, but discussed in the 4 decommissioning process.

5 MR. PERSINKO: Thanks, Marc. That 6 concludes the NRC's presentations.

7 At this point, I'll ask Mr. Joe Lynch from 8 Entergy to present the contents of the PSDAR that was 9 submitted to the NRC.

10 MR. LYNCH: Thank you, Drew. My name is 11 Joseph Lynch. I'm the Government Affairs Manger --

12 MR. SACHS: The dude with the cavalry.

13 MR. LYNCH: I'd like to --

14 MR. SACHS: Shit, that's great.

15 MR. LYNCH: -- thank --

16 MR. SACHS: What other plans have you got?

17 MR. LYNCH: -- the NRC for the opportunity 18 to --

19 MR. SACHS: Entergy's great that way.

20 MR. LYNCH: -- provide an overview of the 21 22 MR. SACHS: You lied to us. How about --

23 MR. LYNCH: -- PSDAR process.

24 MR. SACHS: -- you, sir? The last time, 25 they were lying to us. Here he is, telling us how NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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41 1 great he is.

2 MR. LYNCH: I'd like to start with --

3 MR. SACHS: I'd like to see --

4 MR. LYNCH: -- a brief overview of some of 5 the recent milestones that we accomplished as we 6 headed up to the point where we've issued our PSDAR.

7 As many of you know, we ceased power 8 operations on December 29th, 2014.

9 MR. SACHS: At least you guys are honest 10 about something.

11 MR. LYNCH: After 633 day run of 12 continuous safe power operations --

13 MR. SACHS: God dammit, are you guys safe.

14 MR. LYNCH: On January 12th of 2015, we 15 completed the defueling of the reactor, moving all the 16 fuel from the reactor, to the spent fuel pool.

17 MR. SACHS: How many rems did the workers 18 get?

19 MR. LYNCH: And on that same day, we 20 provided certification to the NRC, as Drew mentioned, 21 both indicating that we were ceasing operation of the 22 facility, as well that we certified that fuel had been 23 removed from the reactor.

24 As Marc recently mentioned, we entered 25 into the new oversight process that's that for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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42 1 decommissioning inspection program, exiting from the 2 reactor oversight process, and really, the most 3 important message to all of you regarding our future 4 is our commitment to our employees, to the public and 5 to safety, and when I mean safety, I mean nuclear 6 safety, environmental safety, the security of the 7 people around the site, of the robust security force 8 that we have and our commitment to doing this project 9 correctly and transparently.

10 Leading up to the shutdown, Entergy 11 Vermont Yankee announced in August of 2013, the 12 intention to shutdown the facility at the end of 2104, 13 and what's significant about that is, we formed 14 immediately, a decommissioning planning organization 15 to start the process of leading up to where we are 16 right now.

17 So, in essence, we've been working on the 18 draft of the PSDAR for about 16 months and we were in 19 a very good position to issue the PSDAR at the end of 20 2014.

21 This was consistent with the settlement 22 agreement that we had reached with the State of 23 Vermont, which would provide that information in 24 advance of its submittal.

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43 1 a number of initiatives to help the economic benefit 2 of both the Windham County area, with an economic 3 development fund, a total of $10 million was going to 4 be provided for economic benefit over a five-year 5 period.

6 We also provided $5.2 million to the Clean 7 Energy Development Fund and we started payment to a 8 $25 million site restoration fund, in which the first 9 $10 million has been provided to that particular fund.

10 With all of that, we were issued a 11 certificate of public good by the Vermont Public 12 Service Department on March 28th, allowing us to 13 operate through the end of 2014.

14 The last significant milestone that we 15 accomplished prior to issuing the PSDAR for NRC review 16 was the issuance of a site assessment study.

17 We believe this is a first of a kind 18 document that was developed in part, to give 19 information to key stakeholders, state agencies and 20 the public, in advance of us submitting our PSDAR.

21 It included a draft PSDAR, about 60 days 22 before we submitted the final one, to allow people to 23 take a look at what it contained. It also gave a 24 summary of our decommissioning cost estimate, and it 25 provided two historic site assessments, one for all of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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44 1 the radiological events that occurred at the site that 2 were note-worthy and would be part of decommissioning, 3 as well as the non-radiological events that occurred 4 at the site, and these are two living documents that 5 will be updated, as we go forward with 6 decommissioning.

7 The finally, we did issue our PSDAR on 8 December 19th, and we provided that on our website 9 Vydecommissioning.com, for everyone's review and to 10 ready people for this opportunity to provide comments 11 to the NRC.

12 Our transition from operating to 13 decommissioning and the SAFSTOR plan that we have also 14 involves reductions in our staffing. So, right up to 15 the end of 2014, we're about 550 staff. We've reduced 16 that staffing down to about 316 going forward. That 17 occurred on January 19th.

18 Our dedication at that point was to our 19 employees, and we're happy to report that all, but a 20 very small amount, less than six of our employees 21 found employment either within Entergy or within the 22 industry or in their area of expertise, and that was 23 a very important focus for us as a company.

24 We'll be going through another staff 25 reduction --

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45 1 MR. SACHS: What happened to Mr. Romero?

2 MR. LYNCH: -- at the mid-point of 2016, 3 where we expect to go from our current staffing level 4 of about 315 to 320, to about 127, as we transition to 5 the point where we'll be putting fuel from wet to dry, 6 and then finally, as we transition into the full 7 SAFSTOR organization, we expect that organization to 8 be about 57 to 75 people, the majority being security, 9 overseeing the safe and continuous view of this site.

10 As far as our PSDAR is concerned, we wrote 11 that using the guidance provided by the NRC. That 12 being 10 CFR 50.82, as well as Reg Guide that the NRC 13 has issued, the same Reg Guide they'll be using to 14 review the PSDAR Reg Guide 1185 Revision 1.

15 We also reviewed a number of PSDAR's that 16 were submitted by other sites that were either in 17 previous decommissioning or in the process of 18 decommissioning, to make sure that we are getting 19 operating experience and experience from other plants 20 that were in this particular position, and we put 21 together this experienced team that included our own 22 folks from our decommissioning planning organization, 23 as well as the TLG Services, which is an industry-24 known decommissioning estimating organization, who 25 also had expertise in writing PSDAR's.

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46 1

2 The content follows very closely, the Reg 3 Guide and it has a description of the planned 4 decommissioning activities. It goes through a very 5 detailed schedule of decommissioning. It provided the 6 detailed decommissioning cost estimate and talks about 7 the environmental impacts and how we comply with them.

8 As mentioned by the NRC, this is a living 9 document. So, any major changes to our plans for 10 decommissioning would inspire us to revise the PSDAR, 11 as part of those regulations.

12 The decommissioning schedule that we have 13 developed based on the SAFSTOR plan that we're going 14 to implement at Vermont Yankee has us going from where 15 we are right now, into a preparation period, from 16 essentially when we shutdown at the end of the year, 17 to the midpoint of 2016. We'll be making plans for 18 transition into SAFSTOR.

19 From the middle of 2016 until the year 20 2020, we'll be going through the process of moving the 21 fuel from wet storage to dry fuel storage, that will 22 include the installation of a second dry cask fuel 23 storage pad and the loading of 45 additional 24 canisters, and I'll talk a little bit more about that.

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47 1 period. Right now, we're assuming that to be about 32 2 years, which will have the plant laid up in a dormancy 3 state with the fuel all stored onto a dry cask fuel 4 storage.

5 It is our estimate right now, based on 6 information from Department of Energy, that they will 7 be taking fuel and completing that by around 2052, at 8 which point, we will then transition to the final part 9 of the dormancy period.

10 The one thing I will note, and I put --

11 MR. SACHS: When will this happen?

12 MR. LYNCH: -- the slide is that this is 13 based on the growth of the decommissioning trust fund, 14 at the rate the NRC allows by regulation, which is 15 about two percent per year.

16 If that decommissioning trust fund was to 17 grow at a faster rate, which it has since Entergy 18 purchased Vermont Yankee, then we would be moving all 19 these dates up and we would be starting 20 decommissioning and completing decommissioning sooner 21 than these projected dates that's in our plan right 22 now.

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48 1 and a half. Then we will go into active 2 decommissioning, which would include large component 3 removals for about a year and a half, followed by 4 large system removals, building decontamination and 5 demolition from 2070 to 2073, about two and a half 6 years' worth of work, and then finally, as described, 7 we'll enter into our license termination period. We 8 will meet the NRC requirements for unrestricted site 9 use and the 25 millirem per year criteria established 10 for unrestricted use.

11 Then finally, we'll enter into a site 12 restoration period, which will take us to about 2075 13 and about 59 years from the shutdown of the facility, 14 and again, all these dates are predicated on the 15 assumption that the growth of the fund will be in 16 accordance with what we're allowed to by regulation, 17 but based on traditional and past performance, we 18 expect that we'll be able to move that up.

19 Moving onto spent fuel management, which 20 is an important element of the PSDAR.

21 The current status of our dry fuel storage 22 is that we have 13 canisters loaded and safely stored 23 on the first of what we believe to two independent 24 spent -- I'm sorry, independent spent fuel storage 25 installation pads.

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49 1 We do have an application in for a second 2 pad, that was submitted to the Vermont Public Service 3 Board on June 30th, seeking approval. We expect to 4 have that approval next year, at which time, we'll 5 start construction on the second pad.

6 In total, we'll have an additional 45 7 casks for 58, storing all of the fuel, and again, as 8 I mentioned earlier, our plan is to have that complete 9 by the year 2020.

10 The next slide shows a photograph, and 11 aerial photograph of our independent spent fuel 12 storage installation and the arrows pointing to the 13 existing pad, and then the next slide shows the 14 current location of our first pad and then the 15 warehouse that's just to the right of that is the 16 location for the second pad. So, they'll be adjacent 17 to each other, to allow the loading, based on the 18 existing load pad that we have in place.

19 SPEAKER: Can you clarify, the round 20 drawing to the lower left, what might be there, a 21 parking lot, where there's a pad? Is that where spent 22 fuel is now currently stored?

23 MR. LYNCH: This is the existing pad right 24 now. This photo is from 2008, and it shows five 25 canisters loaded on the pad.

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50 1 So, this is one of two pads. The second 2 pad would be located where this warehouse is right 3 now, and will look very similar to the one that we 4 have installed currently.

5 SPEAKER: How many casks are there now?

6 MR. LYNCH: There is 13.

7 SPEAKER: Now?

8 MR. LYNCH: Thirteen now on that first 9 pad.

10 MR. CAMERON: We're going to have to move 11 on, and then we'll get to the questions. Go ahead, 12 Joe.

13 MR. LYNCH: Next slide, please. Submitted 14 at the same time as our PSDAR was our irradiated fuel 15 management plan. Again, this was submitted in 16 accordance with NRC regulations, and NRC will be 17 conducting their review in accordance with their 18 process.

19 This essentially discusses the changes to 20 our program for the management of irradiated or spent 21 fuel. We intend to manage the fuel in accordance with 22 the plan, to move all the fuel from wet to dry. We 23 also provide the information about how we're going to 24 fund the movement of the fuel and pay for the spent 25 fuel management going forward, and as I had mentioned NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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51 1 earlier.

2 Then again, to summarize where we stand 3 with our existing fuel, the spent fuel pool right now 4 contains 2,996 spent fuel assemblies. The 13 5 canisters I described carry -- contains 884 spent fuel 6 assemblies.

7 So, right now on site, there is a total of 8 3,880 spent fuel assemblies, and again, based on the 9 latest information from the DOE, we expect their 10 loading campaign would start in about 2026 for Vermont 11 Yankee, complete by 2052, and this program also 12 further talks about our strategies for managing the 13 fuel and the funding going forward.

14 The last thing I'll talk about is our 15 detailed Decommissioning Cost Estimate. This was 16 prepared in accordance with NRC guidance, again, by 17 TLG Services, using their cost estimating model, which 18 is used by the majority of the industry, and it also 19 was informed by plan-specific data, walk-downs that we 20 did at the sites and using our design basis to 21 determine the size of the buildings and structures 22 that are on the site.

23 The decommissioning cost estimate contains 24 specific costs for the three elements of 25 decommissioning, that being the license termination, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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52 1 spent fuel management, site restoration, and it also 2 breaks down the costs by each period, as we work our 3 way through decommissioning.

4 Some of the key estimates -- I'm sorry, 5 some of the key assumptions used in the 6 decommissioning cost estimate is that we'll have the 7 second dry cask fuel storage pad installed in about 8 2017. We'll expect to have all of the off-loading of 9 fuel from wet to dry complete by 2020. Again, the 10 assumption is that DOE would be starting to remove 11 fuel from the site in 2026, completing in 2052.

12 MR. SACHS: Did you put your own --

13 MR. LYNCH: Our SAFSTOR period is 52 14 years, as I mentioned earlier. We'll be starting 15 active D&D or decontamination and dismantlement in 16 2068 --

17 MR. SACHS: How about 2021?

18 MR. LYNCH: -- and that will be about six 19 years, and then finally, the time assumed is 1.5 years 20 for site restoration?

21 MR. SACHS: What if you find Strontium?

22 MR. LYNCH: And again, some of the -- the 23 background information is that this is all predicated 24 on following NRC regulations in clean up standards, 25 that being the 25 millirem per year --

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53 1 MR. SACHS: And what if the money is not 2 there in 60 years?

3 MR. LYNCH: The current --

4 MR. SACHS: That's what will happen, 5 right?

6 MR. LYNCH: -- cost estimate for the 7 decommissioning of the site is $1.24 billion. We put 8 that out --

9 MR. SACHS: Can you subtract out the --

10 MR. LYNCH: -- in our assessment study --

11 MR. SACHS: -- the two lines of what it 12 leaves --

13 MR. LYNCH: That's all we --

14 MR. SACHS: -- so we know how much we're 15 looking for?

16 MR. LYNCH: -- have in the --

17 MR. SACHS: So, you basically subtract out 18 the two lines of credit --

19 MR. CAMERON: Gary?

20 MR. SACHS: -- and I want to know --

21 MR. CAMERON: Gary?

22 MR. SACHS: I want to know.

23 MR. CAMERON: Come on.

24 MR. SACHS: I'm serious.

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54 1 want to know, but let's let him finish so --

2 MR. SACHS: I'm wondering --

3 MR. CAMERON: -- we can go on to all of 4 the --

5 MR. SACHS: -- the $1.24 billion minus the 6 two lines of credit --

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

8 MR. SACHS: -- of moving the spent fuel 9 leaves us -- how much are we looking for?

10 MR. CAMERON: Please finish up, Joe.

11 MR. SACHS: Now, that $1.24 billion --

12 MR. CAMERON: Please finish up.

13 SPEAKER: We need to know that.

14 MR. SACHS: Thank you.

15 SPEAKER: We need to know that.

16 MR. SACHS: We do.

17 MR. LYNCH: The $1.24 billion --

18 MR. CAMERON: You will.

19 MR. LYNCH: -- is made up of those three 20 elements that I mentioned earlier --

21 MR. SACHS: What about the lines of 22 credit?

23 MR. LYNCH: Our current estimates are 24 license termination of $817 million. There is the 25 cost of site restoration at $57 million and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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55 1 management of the spent fuel will be $368 million.

2 The current balance of the nuclear 3 decommission trust as of the end of 2014 was $664.5 4 million.

5 The next slide just shows a graphic of how 6 the decommissioning costs are broken down, totaling up 7 to the $1.2 million.

8 I will talk a little bit about the spent 9 fuel management costs. I had mentioned the total cost 10 was $368 million. That breaks down into two elements, 11 that being the operational costs. This is the year-12 to-year costs of overseeing the spent fuel up to the 13 year 2052, when we assume it's going to be completely 14 removed from the site.

15 MR. SACHS: You expect that?

16 MR. LYNCH: That is $225 million and then 17 the cost to actually complete the transfer of the fuel 18 from wet to dry, completing in the year 2020, would be 19 at a cost of $143 million.

20 In order to fund this, Entergy has 21 established two lines of credit. They total $145 22 million and the strategy here is to use this private 23 funding, so that we don't have to take money out of 24 the nuclear decommissioning trust, thus allowing the 25 trust --

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56 1 MR. SACHS: God, you guys look good.

2 MR. LYNCH: -- to remain, and then we 3 would -- we would --

4 MR. SACHS: How nice of you --

5 MR. LYNCH: -- use the opportunity to --

6 MR. SACHS: Why are you so nice to us?

7 MR. LYNCH: -- use this with the 8 Department of Energy, to recoup those costs.

9 In conclusion, our focus as we transition 10 to dormancy and dry cask fuel storage would be 11 continued compliance with our settlement agreement 12 with the State of Vermont. We do have a number of 13 decommissioning preparation activities, including 14 system lay-ups and draining and systems, de-powering 15 certain buildings to cold and dark --

16 MR. SACHS: How about cleaning up the 17 Strontium?

18 MR. LYNCH: -- and we've upgraded our 19 security modifications.

20 We'll also have some select out-buildings 21 that will be removed to shrink the footprint on the 22 site, and get those activities done before we enter 23 into dormancy.

24 MR. SACHS: Aren't you going to put --

25 MR. LYNCH: We will have a commitment --

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57 1 MR. SACHS: -- more buildings --

2 MR. LYNCH: -- to our ongoing 3 environmental monitoring programs --

4 MR. SACHS: Aren't you guys going to buy 5 anymore --

6 MR. LYNCH: -- those will not change, even 7 though we've entered into decommissioning, and one of 8 the very key milestones that we expect to be working 9 through this year is to work closely with the State of 10 Vermont to negotiate some final site restoration 11 standards, which is one of the elements in the 12 settlement agreement that is yet to be completed, but 13 it's our intention to complete that this year.

14 Then finally, completion of this. To 15 continue to get information out to the public, we 16 expect to have open and transparent communications 17 that through our -- both our contribution to and 18 participation in the nuclear decommissioning citizen's 19 advisory panel, which has met five times since the 20 announcement, and we expect to continue to have a role 21 in that, providing updates on a regular basis. The 22 next meeting is next Thursday, February 26th.

23 We also will continue with our stakeholder 24 outreach, both through speaking engagements and 25 community involvement. I'm proud to say that last NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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58 1 weekend, we were a sponsor for the Harris Hill ski 2 jump event for the 30th year in a row, in Brattleboro, 3 which shows that we've been very serious about our 4 commitment to the community.

5 Finally, we'll be continuing tours of key 6 stakeholders and all the information, including this 7 presentation and any future information having to do 8 with decommissioning will be on our website for public 9 review.

10 MR. SACHS: Thank you. Great job, man.

11 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you to the 12 Panel. We're going to go to -- we're going to go to 13 three officials from the State of Vermont. We're 14 going to start with Chris Recchia, then we're going to 15 go to Bill Irwin and then to Chuck Schwer. Got it?

16 Okay.

17 SPEAKER: How can we sit here for over an 18 hour2.083333e-4 days <br />0.005 hours <br />2.97619e-5 weeks <br />6.849e-6 months <br /> and -- please.

19 MR. CAMERON: Okay, we're going to try to 20 get some heat, yes. I apologize. I apologize, Deb, 21 and to all of you. It is cold, okay.

22 So, Chris, do you want to talk from here?

23 MR. RECCHIA: Yes. Hey, thanks, very 24 much, Chip.

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59 1 Service Department. Thank you all, very much for 2 coming.

3 If it's any consolation, it was colder 4 last month for the meeting. I think -- yes, we'll 5 check on the heat before we come back here.

6 Thanks for coming to Vermont. Welcome to 7 the state that has 45 percent of its electricity now 8 produced by renewable resources.

9 MR. SACHS: Nuclear is not renewable, 10 dear.

11 MR. RECCHIA: We haven't bought any power 12 from the plant for -- since 2012, when we thought it 13 should have shut down, and we're pleased to be moving 14 on.

15 That said, you know, we did reach a 16 settlement agreement with Entergy, and it's been 17 successfully implemented to date, including, you know, 18 all of the -- all of the milestones that have been 19 requested of both of us in that, and I want to thank 20 Entergy for that work, including the site assessment, 21 which was a unique document that went back to look at 22 all the potential things that are on the site, and 23 that need to be factored into decommissioning, or 24 decontamination and dismantlement.

25 But I do note that, you know, there's a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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60 1 lot that's going to be discovered. I equate this to 2 -- for those of you who bought a house, when you 3 bought your first house, it was, you know, like really 4 exciting to see it the first time, and it all went 5 downhill from there.

6 You went and you went back for another 7 visit and you discovered, "Oh, the plumbing is not 8 quite right, the electricity is not quite right. We 9 got, you know, some septic issues," and you know, but 10 you still buy the house and you're happy about it.

11 Well, you know, we're going to 12 decontaminate a plant here that will discover other 13 things, and I think that's the focus of my main 14 comments, is the concern that the costs are going to 15 be -- are going to become clearer, as we go forward 16 and the picture is not going to get better.

17 You know, I have to mention the Strontium-18 90, one example, even you know, in the last few 19 months, we have determined that that's present, and 20 where it came from and what the ramifications of that 21 are, we don't know yet.

22 But let me go to a couple of positive 23 things first, before I got to -- and I just want to 24 say that, you know, Chuck and Bill will follow.

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61 1 I'm not -- I'm not trying to in any way, you know, 2 categorize our comments tonight. I want to give you 3 a favor for them, and we'll go into, you know, written 4 comments, as time goes on.

5 But I do want to note that, you know, we 6 gave Entergy -- Entergy -- as part of the settlement 7 agreement, Entergy gave us the PSDAR and the 8 settlement -- and the site assessment, 60 days before 9 they filed the PSDAR with you, and we submitted 10 comments to them totaling, I think it was close to 200 11 comments or questions, and we're waiting for a 12 response from them, and we'll -- we will develop a 13 written response to you guys.

14 But you know, I want to acknowledge that 15 we are in a different mode now, right? The plant has 16 shut down. It is -- the reactor is defueled and the 17 fuel is in the spent fuel pool.

18 That said, you know, we are anxious and 19 part of the settlement agreement or Entergy's 20 commitment, I should say, it was not part of the 21 settlement agreement, is to try and move the fuel by 22 2020.

23 We appreciate that. We think that's the 24 next milestone here that we need to shoot for. I will 25 say that, you know, our concerns relate to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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62 1 emergency protection zone in the interim. It relates 2 to -- our concerns relate to the -- to the nuclear 3 decommissioning trust fund and how it's expended, and 4 that is within your purview as well, or needs to be, 5 and we're going to be focusing on that.

6 Then you know, really the long-term 7 management of the site. Our goal, or the Governor's 8 goal is to get this site restored for any purpose, as 9 soon as possible, and what that means is, we need a 10 commitment from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and 11 from Entergy, to spend costs wisely, to grow that 12 fund, as the trustee has been doing, and to make sure 13 that we can do this work as quickly as possible.

14 So, with that, I guess I will switch over 15 to my colleagues from the other agencies. I just do 16 want to say, it was one more point that I wanted to 17 make, which was particularly, on the expenditures of 18 the funds, and we'll express this more in the comments 19 to you.

20 I know your focus is on safety and concern 21 with that, but you were the -- you are the stewards of 22 the funding and the determination of when it is okay 23 and able to be fully decontaminated and dismantled, 24 and I do think you need to pay better attention to the 25 fact that we have switched environments here from our NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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63 1 regulated utility structure to one where we have 2 merchant facilities that need attention.

3 As a regulator myself, please step up to 4 the regulator role and pay attention to this because 5 it's really important for Vermont. So, thank you all 6 very much.

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay, this is Bill Irwin.

8 I'll let him introduce himself, and then we're going 9 to go to Chuck and then we're going to go to Deb Katz, 10 Arnie Gundersen and Leslie Sullivan Sachs.

11 MR. IRWIN: Thank you, Chip, and thank you 12 to the NRC for making this meeting available for the 13 work that you're doing and that you're going to do, to 14 ensure the safe decommissioning of the plant.

15 I am the Radiological and Toxicological 16 Sciences Chief for the Vermont Department of Health, 17 and I'm also a member of Nuclear Decommissioning 18 Citizen's Advisory Panel.

19 I'm going to provide a brief summary of 20 our Health Department's written comments, which we 21 will be submitting to you shortly.

22 First of all, we believe that PSDAR is 23 written with inadequate detail for the Department of 24 Health to be confident that the public health and the 25 environment are protected during any of the phases of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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64 1 decommissioning.

2 The PSDAR does not adequately estimate the 3 number and types of personnel onsite to accomplish 4 work, especially wet spent fuel operations, fire 5 protection, monitoring of structure system and 6 component integrity and radiological and environmental 7 monitoring for the Health Department to be certain 8 that public health and safety will be served to the 9 degree needed.

10 The PSDAR also does not describe the depth 11 and breadth of the radiological environmental 12 monitoring program. Doing so is important because of 13 the volume of radioactive materials generated by plant 14 operations and to be maintained within the structures, 15 systems and components during each phase of 16 decommissioning.

17 Nuclear reactors that are in SAFSTOR at 18 multi-unit sites like Millstone 1 and Indian Point 1 19 are subject to a robust radiological environmental 20 monitoring program for the other operating reactors at 21 the site.

22 The PSDAR provides no indication that 23 robust radiological environmental monitoring is 24 planned or can be executed at Vermont Yankee.

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65 1 decommissioning is also inadequately described in the 2 PSDAR.

3 The basis of emergency planning seems to 4 ignore hostile action based scenarios that could 5 destroy key structures storing radioactive materials 6 or result in Zirconium fuel fire.

7 Relative to demolition to three feet below 8 grade, it's clear from records of -- that there are 9 deeper depositions of soil contamination and that 10 demolition more than three feet below grade will be 11 required in numerous places at Vermont Yankee.

12 Significant leakage of reactor condensate 13 radioactive material spills have occurred in the 14 advanced off-gas piping total from piping between the 15 AOG building and the radioactive waste building, 16 around the radioactive waste building, in the 17 condensate storage tank yard and between the reactor 18 radioactive waste in AOG buildings and Connecticut 19 River.

20 The PSDAR provides no assurance that the 21 challenges of remediating these radioactive materials 22 are factored into the planning and the funding for the 23 decommissioning of Vermont Yankee.

24 With regard to fire protection systems, 25 there is no evidence provided in the PSDAR that local NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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66 1 fire department personnel are fully prepared for 2 onsite firefighting with limited support offered by 3 the staff at Vermont Yankee.

4 There is also no evidence in the PSDAR how 5 offsite responders can manage offsite contamination 6 that might result from fires that consume radioactive 7 materials stored onsite.

8 We also believe that radioactive materials 9 onsite are not adequately characterized to make 10 adequate decisions about the effectiveness of the 11 post-shutdown decommissioning activity report.

12 In particular, a number of events at 13 Vermont Yankee have left significant amounts of land, 14 as well as many structures, systems and components in 15 a radiological condition that has not been fully 16 characterized.

17 Relative to public votes, the PSDAR 18 describes the 2002 generic environmental impact 19 statement determination that the assessed range of 20 possible radiological accidents during decommissioning 21 concludes that the risk at spent fuel pools is low and 22 well within the NRC's quantitative health objectives.

23 That document, written in 2002, published 24 just months after September 11, 2001, certainly could 25 not have anticipated what we learned September 11, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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67 1 2001, and these hostile actions, according to the 2 National Academies of Science, could lead to a 3 Zirconium fire in the spent fuel pool or severely 4 damage the torus will more than 1.4 million gallons of 5 radioactive water will be stored until decontamination 6 and dismantling.

7 So, generally, we'll see additional 8 comments, more specificity in our written remarks. We 9 find it very helpful that Entergy provided a site 10 assessment study. Hopefully, you'll find that 11 valuable too, because it does give much more detail on 12 some of the historical characterization.

13 We appreciate the fact that that was 14 negotiated and we also appreciate the fact that 15 Entergy has run this plant very safely for the 41 16 years of operation, so far. We hope that it maintains 17 that throughout the decommissioning process, as short 18 as that can be. Thank you.

19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Bill 20 and this is Chuck.

21 MR. SCHWER: Hi. Thank you, everybody, 22 and thank you, NRC. We appreciate the opportunity to 23 comment tonight.

24 My name again is Chuck Schwer. I represent 25 the Agency of Natural Resources. We have a much NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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68 1 smaller role in this than the first two speakers, but 2 also, a very important role.

3 We're focused mainly on the non-4 radiological component of risk at Vermont Yankee.

5 So, our agency has independently reviewed 6 the PSDAR. I'm going to just share some of our 7 comments, that will also be provided in writing.

8 So, comment one. The SAFSTOR time line 9 delays, and excuse me, the SAFSTOR time line delays 10 important planning and decision making processes, 11 important site characterization and remediation for 12 non-radiological contaminates should not be delayed 13 while VY is in SAFSTOR.

14 Two, the PSDAR process inadequately 15 assesses the site-specific environmental impacts of 16 Entergy's decommissioning activities necessary to 17 facilitate proper planning.

18 The range of environmental impacts 19 addressed by the PSDAR does not include environmental 20 impacts with non-radiological contaminants and 21 generation and storage of non-radiological waste.

22 Three. The PSDAR process lacks adequate 23 review of decontamination activities. There is no 24 requirement for altering decontamination activities in 25 light of associated environmental impacts or for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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69 1 otherwise modifying the PSDAR, in light of issues 2 raised during the public comment process.

3 Lastly -- thank you, and lastly, the 4 settlement agreement between Entergy and the State of 5 Vermont requires Entergy to review and consider 6 comments provided by the state for inclusion in the 7 PSDAR.

8 There is no evidence that Entergy 9 considered or incorporated feedback from the state in 10 its comments on the October 2014 site assessment 11 study.

12 Additionally, the state specifically 13 requested additional information, to be able to assess 14 the environmental impacts of decommissioning 15 activities, as outlined in the site assessment study 16 and the PSDAR. The state has not received a response 17 to these requests to date.

18 Thank you for this opportunity. Thank 19 you.

20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Chuck. We're 21 going to go to Deb Katz. Deb, do you want to come 22 down here, and then Arnie Gundersen, Leslie Sullivan 23 Sachs.

24 SPEAKER: Don't clap yet, because you 25 don't know what's going to happen.

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70 1 SPEAKER: Could you please tell us before 2 Deb starts, again, the names of these two gentlemen 3 and the agencies they represent?

4 MR. CAMERON: Okay, well, this is Bill 5 Irwin and Bill is Department of Health, and this is 6 Chuck Schwer, Department of Natural Resources.

7 SPEAKER: But I can't see them.

8 MR. CAMERON: Okay, and you know Chris 9 Recchia. You know his -- okay, all right.

10 Okay, this is Deb Katz. Deb?

11 MS. KATZ: I'm Deb Katz. I'm the 12 Citizen's Awareness Network. We have about 3,000 13 members in the tri-state community. We were involved 14 in hearings on the decommissioning of Yankee Rowe and 15 Connecticut Yankee. We actually sued the NRC and won 16 a lawsuit against you guys, for the illegal 17 decommissioning of Yankee Rowe.

18 So, that's the context for having some 19 knowledge of issues, and I want to thank the state for 20 the clarity that they provided in their comments. I 21 really appreciated it, and I think it's really 22 important, and it actually allows me to not go into 23 the weeds, but to try to look at some financial 24 issues, in terms of Entergy being a merchant plan, and 25 how that impacts the issues of clean up.

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71 1 I want to look at it in the first five 2 years, not in terms of that endless long line that 3 seems to go on forever for clean up, but in terms of 4 the movement of the fuel, which is the most dangerous 5 activity that's going to go on. In fact, one of your 6 NRC representatives I think said, "This is a very 7 risky operation."

8 In terms of that, the issue of Entergy's 9 financial vulnerability and their wanting to use money 10 from the decommissioning fund to keep the EPZ in fact, 11 in place, in fact, their request to end the EPZ at 12 this point is really troubling to people in this 13 community, because in fact, the movement of that fuel 14 is a very big deal.

15 There are two elementary schools, 16 basically a stone's throw from the reactor, and the 17 reactor is located in a village, in the middle of it.

18 This is a site-specific issue, not a 19 generic one, about why the EPZ should stay in place, 20 just as it is a site-specific issue, that during the 21 transferring of the fuel, that that school in Vernon 22 and the one across the river in Hughsdale, should not 23 have elementary students in it, when they're moving 24 the fuel, which is about 400 tons, at this point.

25 Some say got 13 casks on site.

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72 1 It is unconscionable. It is madness, to 2 think that elementary kids will be in school when they 3 move their fuel, and it is up to you as regulators, to 4 call a halt to that idea.

5 But all of this revolves around the issues 6 of Entergy's not having the financial where-with-all 7 to clean the site up, because it hasn't paid into the 8 decommissioning fund, and so, there isn't enough 9 money.

10 Now, there hasn't been enough money at any 11 nuclear site that you've had oversight over. Rowe 12 didn't. Connecticut Yankee didn't, but they had a 13 rate base to go back to, and Entergy has none, and 14 your regulations don't adequate deal with this 15 situation, in terms of keeping this corporation 16 accountable.

17 Two-million dollars a year to keep the EPZ 18 in place is not a big deal for five years. Hey, guys, 19 that's $10 million. How come Entergy doesn't have 20 that money, and if they don't have that money, how 21 come the parent corporation that signed a letter 22 saying they would be responsible if Entergy, the 23 limited liability corporation running the reactor, 24 didn't have money, that in fact, the parent 25 corporation would?

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73 1 So, why isn't the parent corporation being 2 asked to come up with the money for that?

3 There is a problem in all of this. Just 4 as if those students need to be moved from the school, 5 that there is a plan that in fact, the corporation 6 pays to help relocate those students during that time, 7 and all of this revolves around the issues that the 8 NRC did not require a fully funded adequate 9 decommissioning fund, to have in place, before the 10 reactor closed, and you guys have done this at every 11 site. This isn't new to you.

12 You talk about the seven reactors that 13 you've overseen, and you've failed at every one of 14 them, to have enough money in the fund. Failed. It's 15 all on the rate payers to come up with the money again 16 and again, but we can't. Entergy has no rate base.

17 So, they're not in a good situation, but 18 I don't understand why their parent corporation isn't 19 being asked to come up with the money, rather than 20 raiding the decommissioning fund for money to keep the 21 EPZ in place, or to move the high level waste or to 22 babysit the high level waste for 50 years they're 23 talking about.

24 Why should the decommissioning fund go to 25 babysit the waste, when the nuclear industry and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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74 1 Federal Government have advocated their responsibility 2 to have a place for the high level waste?

3 It is unacceptable, that the 4 decommissioning money be used this way, and there is 5 no reason why the $7 billion corporation that Entergy 6 is, can't come up with a measly $6 million a year to 7 babysit the high level waste, and the $2 million a 8 year for five years? Come on, guys, you can do a 9 better job.

10 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 11 Deb.

12 Okay, we're going to go to Arnie 13 Gundersen.

14 MR. GUNDERSEN: Thank you. Yes, hi. I'm 15 Arnie Gundersen from Fairewinds.

16 I'm here tonight. We have a Lintilhac 17 grant to analyze the decommissioning plan. So, I put 18 in about 200 hours0.00231 days <br />0.0556 hours <br />3.306878e-4 weeks <br />7.61e-5 months <br /> on the decommissioning plan, in 19 addition to a 40 year career, which included working 20 on subcontracts with decommissioning of Shippenport, 21 and as a radiation -- member of the Radiation Safety 22 Committee at a plant that decommissioned licensee 23 facilities around the country.

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75 1 here.

2 First up, my third year -- third grade 3 teacher is rolling over in her grave. It's SAFSTOR 4 and it rhymes with sap, not safe-store. There is no 5 'e' there.

6 Second, there is no bases in physics for 7 60 years. It's a subsidy to the nuclear industry.

8 Here in Vermont, we have to -- a windmill 9 has to have a fully funded decommissioning study --

10 fund, before it starts, and we give Entergy 60 years 11 to clean up.

12 It's really about the money. It's not 13 about trying to minimize worker exposure. The example 14 is a 60 year SAFSTOR will use about 300 rem in 15 radiation, but when Entergy needed to start Palisades 16 up in three weeks, they dished out 115 rem in three 17 weeks.

18 So, when the goal is to get a plant up and 19 running, those be damned. Please don't hide behind 20 SAFSTOR, there's no bases in physics.

21 Second, second is the emergency plan. We 22 should have an emergency plan in place as good as what 23 it was, until the fuel is removed, and you've also 24 allowed the tech specs to be changed, so the fuel pool 25 ventilation is no longer covered under the technical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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76 1 specifications. That is an indication that you just 2 don't believe that an accident can happen.

3 Frankly, we had an accident here. I may 4 be the only one in the room that remembers., but in 5 2008, the crane brakes broke, as they were lifting the 6 canister with spent fuel in it.

7 So, accidents can happen, and in fact, 8 have happened, and I think that needs to be reflected 9 in the emergency plan.

10 I agree with Deb that we've got -- if 11 you've got to be moving those canisters, we know the 12 brakes have failed in the past, and that's an 13 indication that they might fail in the future.

14 Do it in the summer when the school is 15 out. This is not rocket science and it's not a lot of 16 money. Move the fuel when the kids aren't there.

17 All of this, by the way, will be in a much 18 longer report that Sarah Rich will be doing and also, 19 we will be putting an hour-long presentation that I 20 gave, on the web next week, with more details, and we 21 urge you to write to these guys in the next month.

22 The next thing is the AOG building. I said 23 five years ago in 2010, when I was on the Government's 24 oversight committee, that you were going to find 25 cesium and you were going to strontium under the AOG NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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77 1 building. Guess what? You did.

2 Now, you've got strontium at the well.

3 I'm telling you, I know where it's coming from. It's 4 under the AOG building.

5 We can remove the AOG building now, and 6 save money in the decommissioning fund. We're paying 7 -- we're paying by the cubic foot. Most of the horses 8 are still in the barn. Most of the horses are still 9 under the AOG building. We can move the AOG building 10 and reduce the ultimate cost of the decommissioning.

11 Now, Entergy has already told us in 60 12 years, they're going to say they're told to sue us, 13 "We're out of here," so that if that strontium is run, 14 it's going to be out liability. We have a chance to 15 nip it in the bud.

16 We can close the barn doors, decommission 17 the AOG building right now. That's it for safety.

18 The others are economic.

19 The LLC issue, this is a -- you guys think 20 -- we're establishing a precedent here. The plants 21 that you have up there are all utilities. This is an 22 LLC, and there is a big difference, as Deb already 23 said.

24 Mr. Watson from the NRC said three weeks 25 ago that Entergy is ultimately responsible, but the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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78 1 fiscal committee, just last week, Entergy said, "We're 2 out of here in 60 years. Sue us."

3 So, to me, there is a big difference here, 4 between what the NRC thinks the regulations speak to, 5 and what Entergy thinks the regulations speak to.

6 Next is 10 CFR 50.75. It's a failure.

7 The model that you use for calculating the money that 8 should be available is simplistic and has no basis in 9 science.

10 Now, Fairewinds has developed under the 11 Lintilhac grant, as spreadsheet that does this. We 12 spent about 10 days, two people working 10 days, to 13 develop a spreadsheet. We're going to make it 14 available to the State of Vermont and to the country, 15 so that you can do a spreadsheet to track how the 16 money develops in the fund and when it's withdrawn.

17 When I do those numbers, I show we can 18 start decommissioning in 2026 and be done in 2032, if 19 the ISFSI fund, that the Independent Spent Fuel 20 Storage, is not included.

21 You're allowing Entergy to raid the cookie 22 jar by taking money out of the ISFSI fund and not 23 returning it when they get it back from the Department 24 of Energy. Something is wrong with your model. I'm 25 going to recommend to the state, that they oppose the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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79 1 exemption that Entergy will ask for, when they want to 2 raid the ISFSI fund, and Vermont, they're 3 stakeholders. We have a piece of this pie at the end 4 of the -- at the end of this project, if there is any 5 left over, it's half ours and half Entergy's. That's 6 part of the agreement. So, we have a seat at the 7 table. I'm a stakeholder.

8 Finally, the expenditures that are being 9 incurred are being incurred by a company that has --

10 that has no oversight. You guys aren't giving them 11 financial oversight, and in the State of Vermont, 12 they're not a public utility. Who is overseeing the 13 cookie jar?

14 Your analysis is health and safety, and in 15 fact, TLG is a wholly owned subsidiary of Entergy.

16 So, when Entergy couldn't make money when 17 the plant is running, then you can be damn sure 18 they're going to make money on the decommissioning.

19 MR. SACHS: Beat that dead horse.

20 MR. GUNDERSEN: So, as Bill Sorrell said, 21 who is watching the cookie jar, and I think because 22 this is an LLC, you've allowed the horse to be out of 23 the barn there, and the door needs to be closed.

24 Thanks.

25 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Arnie.

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80 1 Leslie?

2 MS. SULLIVAN SACHS: Hello. My name is 3 Leslie Sullivan Sachs.

4 SPEAKER: The microphone closer.

5 MS. SULLIVAN SACHS: Thank you. My name 6 is Leslie Sullivan Sachs. I'm a stakeholder in 7 Vermont Yankee decommissioning. I live five miles from 8 Vermont Yankee in Brattleboro, Vermont. I'm a member 9 of the Safe and Green Campaign.

10 This has pretty much been my life for the 11 last four years, a lot shorter than many of you. But 12 I will be sending you detailed comments at a later 13 date.

14 But while you are here in front of me, and 15 I can look you in the eye, I would like to speak to 16 you from my heart, simply as a human being and a 17 resident of a Connecticut River Valley.

18 What we are doing here together is talking 19 about what could be a future humanitarian crisis and 20 what's certainly, as I was brought up, is considered 21 unethical act.

22 We are talking about leaving tons and tons 23 and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of high-24 level radioactive waste in a very tiny village, 25 perched on the Connecticut River in one of the most NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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81 1 beautiful places on earth.

2 When I was two years old, the engineers 3 and the scientists and the policy makers started 4 trying to figure out what to do with this waste. I'm 5 going to be 60 years old in two months. We still 6 don't know.

7 You want to take 60 years to figure out 8 what to do with this waste? I'm sorry. This is 9 unethical. This is unconscionable.

10 We're talking about my Connecticut River 11 Valley, where I gave birth to three children, where my 12 best friend has two grandchildren, one born two weeks 13 ago. Those grandchildren are the ones that are going 14 to be living to go to this license termination 15 hearing, when we finally get a real hearing.

16 I'm not going to be here. Who here is 17 going to be here? You're asking us to trust our 18 Federal Government, the NRC and Entergy to take care 19 of the land and the people and the air and water, that 20 we love.

21 This is a humanitarian crisis, this 22 nuclear waste. This SAFSTOR is a joke. We know 23 what's under that ground now. We know -- we've known 24 what's been under that ground since 2008 and decades 25 ago when there were leaks, when Entergy didn't even NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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82 1 own it. Who knows if Entergy is going to be owing it 2 10 years from now?

3 This is not just rules and regulations to 4 hide behind. This is real. This is really happening 5 to these human beings, and to these families and to 6 this water, air and land.

7 So, I'm sorry I'm shaking while I'm saying 8 this. But that's how real it is.

9 So, you've got my nice comments and 10 they'll be all about the generic environmental impact 11 statements and they'll be all about why Entergy can't 12 be trusted and how we need an independent auditors and 13 blah-blah-blah.

14 But I stand here before you, and thank you 15 for looking me in the eye, because you're talking 16 about real human beings, real land. It's not just 17 piles of paper. It's not just something I'm supposed 18 to go and search on ADAMS for, if I know the ADAMS 19 number, to read about. Thank you.

20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Leslie. We're 21 going to go next to Jim Matteau, Peter Tusinsk and I 22 apologize for mis-pronouncing names, and Chris 23 Campany, and then we'll go to Nancy Braus, Clay 24 Turnbull and Kimberly Medeiros.

25 Do you want to come up here? And this is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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83 1 Jim Matteau, okay.

2 MR. MATTEAU: Thank you. My name is Jim 3 Matteau. I'm a member of the Vermont Nuclear 4 Decommissioning Citizen's Advisory Panel.

5 I have a question and a comment too, if I 6 might.

7 The first question is on the PSDAR. I 8 understand that -- I'll try not to sneeze, excuse me.

9 I understand that it's submitted. Ninety 10 days after the submittal, Entergy can begin the 11 activities. NRC reviews it, neither approves nor 12 disapproves it, but may ask for more information if 13 something is missing and needed.

14 I'm not questioning Entergy's intent to 15 submit what's needed, and I'm not questioning the 16 NRC's intent here. But it seems possible that at the 17 end of the day, you could be a situation, whether here 18 or somewhere else, when you're simply not getting the 19 information, and if you don't disapprove it and 20 they're allowed to begin 90 days after submitting it, 21 your review notwithstanding, it seems reasonable to 22 ask are there any teeth in this at all?

23 What happens if you simply get nothing in 24 return to your questions, but the 90 days have 25 expired, so off they go? What do you do?

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84 1 MR. CAMERON: Doug?

2 MR. BROADDUS: The situation -- I mean, 3 this is -- depends upon specifically, what the issue 4 was, but there are a number of different actions that 5 we could take.

6 If we either felt that the information 7 wasn't adequate or that it was -- wasn't in compliance 8 with our regulations or wasn't safe to conduct that, 9 and those actions could be anywhere from, like we said 10 originally, asking for information. That would be the 11 first step that we would take.

12 If there -- if we needed to escalate that 13 for some reason, we could do inspections to look at 14 what -- get some additional information that way.

15 We could go onsite and get the 16 information, if we absolutely needed to. We could 17 then escalate it even further, if needed and again, it 18 depends upon the situation to -- going to -- like 19 something -- an enforcement type of action. We could 20 have a demand for information or even issue them an 21 order, even at that point.

22 So, that -- those are the types of steps 23 that we could take, depending upon the severity of the 24 situation and what -- whether there was, like I said, 25 a health and safety issue that needed to be addressed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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85 1 immediately. You know, that would be the higher level 2 of action that we could take.

3 MR. MATTEAU: So, if I understand it, to 4 paraphrase that, that you don't review and approve --

5 you would review it, but you don't approve the PSDAR, 6 but you might disapprove some of the proposed 7 activities within that, individual activities within 8 the PSDAR, if they don't pass?

9 MR. BROADDUS: Yes, we could do that, yes.

10 MR. MATTEAU: So, the teeth would be at 11 that level, not at the -- not at the initial review 12 level, in other words?

13 MR. SACHS: Have you ever done that?

14 MR. CAMERON: And a comment?

15 MR. MATTEAU: Yes, my comment on, and I 16 wish, and many times, in -- I've been involved in 17 meetings with -- at the state level, with the Public 18 Service Board and others for some 20 years.

19 I wish that everyone in the audience would 20 be polite and courteous, and I'm sorry that we aren't.

21 At the same time, while we're sitting here 22 tonight, Entergy's VY decommissioning Twitter account 23 is re-tweeting some very snarky comments from this 24 room, taking slams at the state officials while 25 they're up here speaking --

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86 1 SPEAKER: That's nice.

2 MR. MATTEAU: -- and I --

3 MR. SACHS: Who is doing that?

4 MR. MATTEAU: Just as I am -- please --

5 MR. SACHS: Anybody from Entergy?

6 MR. MATTEAU: Just as I'm asking people in 7 the audience to behave --

8 MR. SACHS: Me?

9 MR. MATTEAU: -- I really would like 10 Entergy to be a little better behaved on the internet.

11 Thank you.

12 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Jim. Peter?

13 MR. TUSINSK: Yes, my name is Peter 14 Tusinsk, Planning Board Town Leyden. We're not in the 15 State of Vermont. We're just over the border in 16 Massachusetts.

17 The Planning Board has been asking for 18 months now, since the plant has closed, what was the 19 main concerns of its citizens, and the EPZ is one of 20 the main concerns.

21 We're a rural community. Many of us make 22 our living farming. We have livestock, cow, cattle, 23 chickens, pigs and everything else, and we rely on the 24 expertise of those who are running Entergy's Yankee 25 plant here, to inform us of any -- what would you call NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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87 1 them? Hazards? Mistakes? Occurrences that might 2 take place, that might involve an evacuation, that 3 might involve people from our elementary school 4 leaving, and we are well within the 10 mile radius.

5 The entire town is.

6 So, the main concern was that we maintain, 7 as others have said, it's only $10 million I guess, 8 for the five year period, that you would be off loading 9 the fuel from the spent fuel pool, to dry cask 10 storage.

11 But also one of the concerns was that on 12 the time frame. It seems like we're going to have a 13 60 year waste dump, and we're going to live within 10 14 miles of it.

15 It was stated by the young woman that 16 spoke before me, that we all love this Connecticut 17 River Valley. We don't want to see it degraded with 18 a long-range nuclear waste dump.

19 We've also listened to Mr. Gundersen, who 20 said that the total decommissioning process could take 21 a lot less than 60 years.

22 I would like to impart these ideas to the 23 NRC. It's a rare occasion to see you folks, and have 24 you take it seriously, that we live here and we don't 25 want that. We want the Government to take the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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88 1 responsibility of long-term waste storage and get the 2 damn thing out of this area, period. Thank you.

3 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Peter, and 4 Chris, and just pronounce your last name.

5 MR. CAMPANY: Sure. It's Chris Campany, 6 Executive Director Regional Commission. We're the 7 host Region for the plant.

8 I have a question and then a -- well, a 9 couple of questions.

10 First, the PSDAR makes reference to the 11 generic EIS, and or actually, I think it -- NRC and 12 Entergy have both referred to being within the bounds 13 of applicable environmental impact statement world.

14 Can you tell us exactly what EIS's, and if 15 not now, some kind of exactly --

16 SPEAKER: No, now.

17 MR. CAMPANY: -- what EIS's are applied --

18 the reason not necessarily now is, I want this to be 19 very specific.

20 Is it just a generic NUREG to EIS, or are 21 there other EIS's that we should be looking at, to see 22 what has been done?

23 MR. CAMERON: And Jeff, just introduce 24 yourself to us. This is the NRC environmental expert.

25 MR. RIKHOFF: Good evening, folks. My NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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89 1 name is Jeff Rikhoff. I'm an environmental reviewer 2 for the NRC, and I heard you question -- earlier, I 3 saw a video of the NCAP meeting.

4 The site-snecific document that you should 5 be looking at is the license rule site that was 6 conducted a few years back.

7 MR. CAMPANY: Two-thousand-seven?

8 MR. RIKHOFF: Yes.

9 MR. CAMPANY: That's a supplement to the 10 generic one?

11 MR. RIKHOFF: The supplement to the 12 generic license renewal guidance.

13 MR. CAMPANY: Okay, finally discovered 14 that today.

15 MR. RIKHOFF: Okay.

16 MR. CAMPANY: Is that the only one we need 17 to look at?

18 MR. RIKHOFF: That's the only one that's 19 recently available.

20 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

21 MR. CAMPANY: And the other thing I guess 22 I would add -- I would ask the NRC to do is convene 23 the host regions and the host states to look at 24 whether or not the regulations guiding decommissioning 25 in the current modern time text are sufficient, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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90 1 whether or not they actually accomplish goals, in 2 terms of -- as far as public interest, public health, 3 safety and welfare.

4 Our concern, I think it 's worth revisiting 5 those rules and regulations, especially since you're 6 going to have a number of plants likely coming offline 7 and as Chris Recchia and others have mentioned, we're 8 now in this environment of merchant plants.

9 One of the questions I have frankly is, 10 where is the funding going to come from for the state 11 agencies to provide oversight and review of the actual 12 decommissioning process, because that used to come 13 from rate payers, at least as far as I understand, the 14 way public utilities would deal with this in the past.

15 How does that work with the merchant 16 plant, and I would hope that those costs aren't going 17 to be externalized and they're not going to have to be 18 born by the decommissioning trust fund, to further 19 delay that.

20 So, there are number of issues I think 21 nationally, we need to get a handle on.

22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Chris. Could we 23 have a quick answer to that last point, about where 24 the funds for the state oversight and review come 25 from, when you're talking about a merchant plant?

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91 1 MR. BROADDUS: I don't think I can speak 2 to that. I'd have to --

3 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

4 MR. BROADDUS: -- get back to you.

5 MR. CAMERON: Okay, do you have say on it, 6 Doug?

7 MR. BROADDUS: I can comment on the --

8 MR. CAMERON: Speak into the --

9 MR. BROADDUS: So, you did mention about 10 revisiting rules and such.

11 I just wanted to make you aware, the NRC 12 has just initiated -- just recently started the 13 initial phases of rule making activity of the 14 decommissioning rules.

15 Our rules right now are primarily set up 16 for operating plants. There are some regulations 17 specific to decommissioning, but the process to go 18 from an operating plant to a decommissioning facility 19 is not well described within the regulations.

20 So, we've had to do it on basically, 21 essentially through a case-by-case basis of license 22 amendments, exemptions and other types of actions.

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92 1 period.

2 SPEAKER: Can I just say, could those 3 rules also -- would those rules also potentially apply 4 to Yankee and Kewaunee and Crystal River and San 5 Onofre, the ones that are --

6 MR. BROADDUS: It's a lot -- some of the 7 -- some of what has happened already, you know, is --

8 has -- would be -- you know, some of those activities 9 have already occurred for those plants, and in fact, 10 some of those activities are -- had occurred and are 11 in the process of occurring for Vermont Yankee, as 12 well, because we don't have the rules yet.

13 The rule -- a rule making process will 14 take a set number of years to complete. So, we don't 15 see that the rule would be finished by the time that 16 these plants are in the transition process. But there 17 may be parts of the rule making -- and again, we're in 18 the initial phases. So, we're still looking -- we'll 19 have to do a scoping and define the overall scope of 20 the role and everything.

21 So, that's going to happen, as we got 22 throughout this process, but there could be other 23 activities later on in the time, that could be --

24 could impact those plants.

25 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Doug, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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93 1 I would just say, and thank you, Chris.

2 I would -- did you want to add something?

3 MR. WATSON: Yes, I just want to add one 4 small part of this, and part of this rule making 5 activity directed by the Commission, is that we also 6 look at the present rules in evaluating, which 7 includes the SAFSTOR's and other things.

8 So, it's going to be a while, but it takes 9 a lot of analysis sometimes, to evaluate those, but 10 it's also in the package to look at.

11 MR. CAMERON: Okay, and just -- we have 12 some final information for you, perhaps. This is 13 Shawn Harwell, NRC staff.

14 MR. HARWELL: How you doing? Shawn 15 Harwell, an analyst with the financial analysis and 16 international finance branch.

17 I want to be clear when I said I'd have to 18 get back to you on that. The trust funds are 19 specifically for -- sorry about that. Better?

20 All right, sorry, about that.

21 MR. SACHS: Are you the guy that 22 transferred money to the Cayman Islands every night?

23 MR. HARWELL: So, to answer your question.

24 I'm trying to.

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94 1 decommissioning, radiological decommissioning.

2 They're not for paying taxes. They're not for non-3 radiological decommissioning activities.

4 That being said, to completely answer your 5 question, I'd have to go back and look at past 6 instances and to see how other plants or other 7 licensees funded those, to answer your question. I 8 can't say that. I don't know. I'd have to look that 9 up.

10 But as far as the decommissioning trust 11 fund goes, and to answer your question, 12 decommissioning trust funds are for radiological 13 decommissioning.

14 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you very much, 15 Shawn, and I just want to note that the NRC staff is 16 here listening and there is -- we have other NRC staff 17 in the audience.

18 But you hear some of the concerns. When 19 the formal part of the meeting is over, if the person 20 who asked the particular question, if you have any 21 information or you want to find out more about what 22 their concern is, please go and talk to them, after 23 the meeting is over.

24 But at least in terms of before we get 25 kicked out of this place, Nancy. Nancy Braus and then NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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95 1 Clay Turnbull and then Kimberly Medeiros. Nancy?

2 MS. BRAUS: Hi. This also, what I'm 3 saying also pertains to the new world of merchant 4 plants being decommissioned.

5 So, it seems like we may or may not have 6 answers here, but I've been thinking a lot about how 7 the vast majority of corporations that existed 60 8 years ago are ancient history at this point, and I 9 feel like -- there are a lot of us that feel like the 10 changes that Entergy will be present 60 years from now 11 are far from 100 percent, and some people feel much, 12 much farther from 100 percent, whether it's in the LLC 13 form that runs the nuke or whether it's the larger 14 corporation of Entergy.

15 So, the assumption is that the 16 decommissioning fund is going to grow over this period 17 of time, over the 60 years, to the point of being able 18 to fully clean this site.

19 There are so many questions with that. So 20 many assumptions with that, that are potentially 21 faulty. One is the fact that they've just discovered 22 this pool, the Strontium-90 and Cesium and who knows 23 what else, under this off-gas building.

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96 1 be. Who knows if it's going to extend, you know, way 2 up the cost of the clean up, and should Entergy no 3 longer exist, I've talked with representatives and my 4 Senators, our Congressmen, I've talked with people at 5 the State. Nobody really has any idea.

6 What happens if Entergy does what they 7 just said they would do at the state, and if they 8 exist, walk away. If they don't exist, what happens 9 if there is not enough money in the decommissioning 10 fund?

11 Is that just -- does that mean that the 12 State of Vermont picks it up? Does that mean -- who 13 is -- you know, who is picking that up for Entergy?

14 I mean, I feel like the SAFSTOR is 15 definitely way for Entergy to get out of its financial 16 liability, should this -- the stock market not go up 17 high, should -- you know, should anyone -- any one of 18 one-million things could happen.

19 Should this underground -- the underground 20 contaminants prove to be a lot more extensive than 21 what we know now.

22 So, I just feel like it's something that 23 just should not be left to chance. Sixty years from 24 now, we do not know what the corporate environment is 25 going to be for Entergy and I feel like for a small NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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97 1 state like Vermont, which is not growing particularly 2 fast financially, it's not growing particularly fast, 3 one-billion charge onto the State of Vermont is a huge 4 amount of money we're talking about, and I don't know 5 at this point, under your regulations, who else is 6 going to get stuck with the money to decommission an 7 orphan nuke in 60 years?

8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Nancy. Clay? Is 9 Clay here?

10 SPEAKER: I was told at the last meeting 11 that the financial portion would be --

12 MR. CAMERON: Wait. Come on, now.

13 SPEAKER: Okay, I'm sorry.

14 MR. CAMERON: Nancy?

15 SPEAKER: I didn't hear it.

16 MR. CAMERON: And just --

17 SPEAKER: I'm sorry.

18 MR. CAMERON: Just state that question 19 explicitly.

20 SPEAKER: Okay, the question is, when I 21 brought this up at the NCAP meeting, somebody said 22 that the person, which I think is you, who has 23 financial experience with the NRC, would be able to 24 address this question of what happens, should Entergy 25 no longer exist? Should Entergy in 60 years say, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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98 1 "We're walking here," and the decommissioning fund is 2 not adequate? What is the answer to this? What's the 3 answer?

4 MR. CAMERON: Shawn Harwell, again.

5 MR. HARWELL: Hi. Shawn Harwell again.

6 The best way to answer your question, I 7 would say is that we're concerned with the 8 radiological decommissioning, just as you are.

9 MR. SACHS: Is Entergy goes belly-up, what 10 are you going to do?

11 MR. HARWELL: The growth of the fund --

12 MR. SACHS: That's the question.

13 MR. HARWELL: -- as it is --

14 MR. CAMERON: Let him try to answer the 15 question, please.

16 MR. HARWELL: We have reasonable assurance 17 to think that there will be enough money.

18 Should something like that happen in 60 19 years, we would not let someone walk away --

20 MR. SACHS: They're at the top of their 21 game now.

22 MR. HARWELL: -- from their 23 responsibilities.

24 MR. SACHS: They're going no place but 25 down.

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99 1 SPEAKER: All right, stop.

2 MR. HARWELL: There are alternative legal 3 methods that could be taken, but we would not let 4 anyone walk away from that type of responsibility.

5 That, I can assure you.

6 SPEAKER: Yes, I do have a follow up, 7 which is to quote Chris Recchia, at the NCAP meeting, 8 which is, if you know, you can say I am the most 9 responsible parent in the world, but when I'm dead, 10 I'm dead. My responsibilities are -- you know, no one 11 can come after me.

12 If Entergy is gone, if it's wiped out, if 13 it's Enron, then --

14 MR. SACHS: You'll be dead.

15 SPEAKER: -- you know, what happens?

16 MR. SACHS: I'll be dead. You'll be dead, 17 Chip. You'll be dead. Everybody in this room is 18 dead.

19 SPEAKER: Stop it.

20 MR. HARWELL: Again, while it's a serious 21 question, I understand your concerns.

22 There are many hypothetical's and many 23 speculative -- a lot of speculation in that, and it 24 would be hard for to us to address that --

25 MR. SACHS: You need to.

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100 1 MR. HARWELL: -- at this time, when we --

2 MR. SACHS: You're the man --

3 MR. HARWELL: -- when all I give you is --

4 MR. SACHS: -- to address this.

5 MR. HARWELL: -- that we would not let them 6 out -- we would not let -- I think --

7 MR. CAMERON: I think we need to --

8 MR. SACHS: Do it now.

9 MR. CAMERON: -- go on. Why don't --

10 MR. SACHS: No, we need an answer, Chip.

11 SPEAKER: Just one more question.

12 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

13 SPEAKER: Okay, I'm done.

14 MR. CAMERON: Nancy, okay.

15 SPEAKER: We need to know now.

16 MR. CAMERON: Okay, all right.

17 SPEAKER: No good answer.

18 MR. SACHS: You don't have an answer, 19 clean it up now.

20 SPEAKER: Yes.

21 MR. SACHS: What's with this crap? Come 22 on.

23 MR. CAMERON: Clay Turnbull. Here comes 24 Clay, and then Kimberly Medeiros. This is Clay. You 25 can use this.

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101 1 SPEAKER: I'm going to stand right here.

2 MR. CAMERON: Do you want to stand right 3 here or you want to stand over there? You can stand 4 wherever you want.

5 SPEAKER: I'd rather stand there.

6 MR. CAMERON: Good, there you are.

7 MR. TURNBULL: Great, thank you. Good 8 evening. Thanks for coming.

9 I'll start with just a little humor. This 10 is Vermont's idea of bottled water. It comes from a 11 well at my house.

12 All right, yes, I will speak up. Thank 13 you for requesting that.

14 So, I'm a member of New England Coalition 15 on Nuclear Pollution Board of Trustees. Proud to say 16 that I'm walking in footsteps for fore-fathers and 17 mothers that I'm really proud of.

18 As of 2011, NRC certified that Entergy 19 Vermont Yankee has enough money in the decommissioning 20 fund, when coupled with a parent guarantee to commence 21 decommissioning at around 650 million.

22 Entergy represented to the State of 23 Vermont that Entergy would make a good faith effort to 24 shorten the time, to beginning decommissioning as much 25 as possible. The key being when Entergy determined it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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102 1 had accrued sufficient funds, Entergy then chose the 2 most extreme case scenario from among its TLG 3 decommissioning estimates and announced that 4 decommissioning would require $1.24 billion.

5 This is a striking contrast to the 6 decommissioning of two, two Exelon Zion reactors in 7 Illinois, that are now under decommissioning with the 8 target cost of about $800 million for both reactors.

9 Admittedly, the specially created 10 decommissioning company is having trouble keeping on 11 its financial track, but the contrast is still 12 remarkable.

13 The decommissioning contractor, Zion 14 Solutions said recently, in an NRC filing, that they 15 were doing the decommissioning at cost and would not 16 look to take a profit, unless there was a surplus.

17 Could this be the case -- the cause of the 18 huge disparity in decommissioning estimates? Is 19 Entergy planning on taking a profit? If so, how much 20 would that be, when comparing NRC's figures and Zion 21 figures and Entergy's?

22 Wouldn't Entergy reach the top-off point 23 in the decommissioning fund that much faster, if it 24 renounced skimming it for profit? It, being the fund.

25 The people -- and this is key, the PSDAR NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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103 1 does not show how much Entergy will be paid over cost, 2 and by the way, during the state certificate of public 3 good MOU hearings, our technical expert Ray Shaddis 4 cross-examined Michael Toomey of Entergy, every which 5 way he knew how, but could not get him to say whether 6 Entergy would or intended to make money on this 7 decommissioning. Thank you.

8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Clay. Thank you.

9 Kimberly, do you want to --

10 MR. SACHS: What's the answer?

11 MR. CAMERON: No. Kimberly, do you want 12 to come up?

13 SPEAKER: I have no comment.

14 MR. SACHS: That's all we're here for.

15 SPEAKER: It's not just comments, it's 16 questions.

17 MR. CAMERON: Yes, questions and comments.

18 SPEAKER: Maybe the NRC representatives 19 can address Clay's comment.

20 MR. CAMERON: Clay? Where are you? Okay, 21 Clay, do you want to -- you may comment. NRC is 22 listening.

23 Can you characterize the question you 24 would like them to answer?

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104 1 making off decommissioning?

2 MR. CAMERON: Interesting. I want to make 3 sure -- I want to make sure that they hear the exact 4 question he wants answered, okay.

5 MR. TURNBULL: This process tonight is not 6 anywhere near a venue adequate to get an answer to the 7 question of how much would Entergy be making if 8 they're going to make money on this decommissioning, 9 because I could be told anything tonight, and we're 10 all going to go home and there is nothing on the 11 record. There's nothing under oath. There is nothing 12 with --

13 SPEAKER: Ask it anyway.

14 MR. TURNBULL: -- meaningful -- there is no 15 way to test.

16 Okay, they're asking please, they want the 17 question out there, how much is Entergy planning to 18 pay themselves from the decommissioning fund?

19 MR. CAMERON: Okay, so, we got a question 20 and I appreciate what you said about this type of 21 forum is really difficult to have a complete 22 discussion of your question, so I took it as a 23 comment, for them to think about.

24 But now, we have a question, and does 25 anybody -- do you guys understand the question? Is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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105 1 there anything that we can say? How about it?

2 SPEAKER: No, it's Chinese.

3 MR. SACHS: Is Entergy entitled to make a 4 profit off decommissioning, is the question. Do you 5 get it, guys? It's okay, I'll step back.

6 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead, Bruce.

7 MR. SACHS: Come on, Joe. What do you 8 think?

9 MR. CAMERON: Okay, we'll --

10 MR. SACHS: Take a guess. What do you 11 think? Give me a good guess. Yes, is the answer.

12 MR. CAMERON: Is there someone hear named 13 Gary Sachs?

14 MR. SACHS: Oh, good, my turn to speak?

15 MR. CAMERON: Not yet. Bruce?

16 MR. WATSON: Let me just say that we're an 17 independent safety regulator. We regulate the safe 18 decommissioning of the site.

19 Now, there is other costs associated with 20 decommissioning, such as site restoration that are, I 21 think part of the settlement agreement, along with 22 what to do with the money that's left over from that, 23 that we are not a party to.

24 So, we really can't make any comment on --

25 MR. SACHS: Come on, Bruce.

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106 1 MR. WATSON: -- profitability of the -- of 2 Entergy on the decommissioning process, since the 3 funds that they're going to spend that -- that we have 4 -- you know, are looking at when we review the 5 decommissioning cost estimates, are for the safe 6 decommissioning of the site.

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

8 MR. WATSON: Don't really have an answer.

9 MR. CAMERON: All right.

10 SPEAKER: You know what that means.

11 MR. CAMERON: Kimberly?

12 SPEAKER: They're represented here. Have 13 them answer.

14 MR. CAMERON: Kimberly? This is Kimberly 15 Medeiros, and next, we're going to go to after 16 Kimberly, we're going to go to Guy Page, Carol Levin, 17 Meredith Angwi, okay, and you can correct me up here 18 for the record too. Yes, I couldn't read it, and 19 Kevin Kamps, if Kevin is here. I don't see Kevin, but 20 okay, Kimberly, go ahead.

21 MS. MEDEIROS: Thank you. So, I have been 22 working with the Citizen's Awareness Network for 20 23 years. So, I really never stay down, and I went 24 through the Yankee Rowe decommissioning with the NRC, 25 and I was there for when we sued you and we won, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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107 1 when we won, didn't really change anything. All you 2 did was change your own rule.

3 So, we pretty much stopped dealing with 4 you, but here we are again, and we have no choice in 5 the matter.

6 What I'm asking you to do is to stop 7 acting like you're Ambassadors to the nuclear 8 industry. You're kind of in bed with the -- you 9 pretty much let them do whatever they want to do, and i0 it's been that way as long as I can remember.

11 This is a precedent-setting 12 decommissioning, with Vermont Yankee being a merchant 13 reactor, and I would like you to ensure that this 14 plant is properly cleaned safely, and you need to look 15 for all the contamination. You can't trust a company 16 who is a -- who are proven liars, and I'm sorry to say 17 that that is a true statement.

18 I would like to reiterate that I agree 19 very strongly that the EPZ needs to stand until the 20 fuel is all removed, and I would like to see this 21 reactor decommissioned, because in 1974 -- I mean, I'm 22 sorry, 2074, I would be 100. So, that's kind of 23 crazy.

24 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 25 Kimberly. How about Guy Page and then Carol and then NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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108 1 Meredith and then --

2 MR. SACHS: Chip?

3 MR. CAMERON: -- we will go to Gary Sachs.

4 MR. SACHS: Chip?

5 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Kevin, he is here.

6 Okay, Kevin. So, we'll go to Kevin and then Gary 7 Sachs, after hear from Guy, Carol and Meredith, and 8 this is Guy Page, correct?

9 MR. PAGE: Thank you, yes.

10 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

11 MR. PAGE: Thank you.

12 MR. SACHS: Thank you, Guy.

13 MR. PAGE: Let's see. Well, I think the 14 decommissioning put forward by Entergy for Vermont 15 Yankee is thorough, is detailed, will ensure the 16 safety of the public, provide consistent and economic 17 activity at the plant, as well as important 18 environmental benefits, and all of this is good for 19 Vermont.

20 MR. SACHS: And you want to --

21 MR. PAGE: Two components of the plan --

22 MR. SACHS: -- have them speak to you?

23 MR. PAGE: -- stand out in particular to 24 me. First, Vermont Yankee wants to go the extra mile 25 by building an additional dry cask storage pad, so NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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109 1 that by 2020, all spent fuel may be situated in dry 2 cask.

3 MR. SACHS: And it's not the extra mile.

4 It is required.

5 MR. PAGE: The virtual invulnerability of 6 these dry casks to severe weather, earthquakes, 7 terrorist attacks and other threats have been well 8 documented by independent scientific experts.

9 SPEAKER: And not the ones --

10 MR. SACHS: Yes.

11 MR. PAGE: Of note, I want to say in 12 hearing last week, a place made --

13 MR. CAMERON: Look, you just can't get up 14 and be negative, perhaps rightly so. No one is 15 interrupting you. Let him speak without being 16 interrupted.

17 MR. SACHS: He's speaking, and he's paid to 18 speak.

19 MR. CAMERON: Okay, doesn't matter. Go 20 ahead, Guy, please continue.

21 MR. PAGE: Thank you.

22 MR. SACHS: We haven't heard enough of 23 that.

24 MR. PAGE: At a legislative hearing last 25 week --

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110 1 MR. SACHS: You're doing great, Guy. Keep 2 it up.

3 MR. PAGE: -- Vermont Yankee was applauded 4 by state officials for its decision to move forward 5 with building and maintaining a pad, at an estimated 6 cost of $150 million.

7 The assumption of this cost for Entergy is 8 to advance the decommissioning process instead of 9 waiting for the U.S. DOE to resolve the issue of spent 10 waste storage. Thus, minimizing the impact on the 11 decommissioning trust fund.

12 I was at a meeting on just -- just in 13 part, the letter that I'll be sending to you, but I 14 was at a meeting last week, very interesting 15 informational meeting that Mr. Gundersen was speaking 16 at, and he and the other gentleman who was running the 17 meeting noted that that decision may very well move up 18 the decommissioning time, and they thought that was a 19 very good idea.

20 Second, Vermont Yankee's decision to 21 pursue SAFSTOR decommissioning, agreed to the by the 22 2002 memorandum of understanding governing the sale of 23 the plant to Entergy, is a sound safe decision for 24 this reason, because radioactivity decays over time.

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111 1 the stated work of decommissioning, the less risk 2 there is, in that sense, of inadvertent contamination.

3 I used to be a roofer, back in the day, 4 and I learned that it's actually not very dangerous up 5 on the roof. It's not dangerous on the ground. The 6 danger is the transition. It's getting from the 7 ground to the roof, and that's like -- that's the 8 actual spade-work of the decommissioning, okay.

9 So, in that sense, waiting, there is 10 nothing wrong with waiting until that -- the decay 11 decreases, the level of radioactivity. I know there's 12 a lot of other considerations that go in there, but 13 from that --

14 MR. SACHS: Electrical.

15 MR. PAGE: -- from the area -- from the 16 perspective of radioactivity decay alone, it does make 17 sense to wait.

18 MR. SACHS: That's not true.

19 MR. PAGE: And my final comment is that I 20 really want to say, and this isn't in the letter 21 either, but I just wrote down a few notes.

22 MR. SACHS: Way to go, Guy.

23 MR. PAGE: As visitors to our beautiful 24 state, my native state, I am sure on behalf of many of 25 us here, I sincerely apologize to you for these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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112 1 disruptions.

2 MR. SACHS: Me too.

3 MR. PAGE: Okay, I can assure you, it's 4 not how Vermonter's normally do things.

5 MR. SACHS: No, it's not.

6 MR. PAGE: Been to a lot of town meetings 7 and covered them as a reporter, and doesn't matter 8 what's being brought up, you know, a farmer could be 9 listening to a town budget, that he thinks he's knows 10 is going to lose his farm, and still, you do not get 11 up and you do not disrupt and so, I apologize for 12 that.

13 MR. SACHS: Nuclear reactor shut down.

14 Thank you, Guy.

15 MR. PAGE: So, I would --

16 MR. SACHS: Thanks, Guy.

17 MR. PAGE: So, I will give you a copy of 18 this letter and I've also given copies to the media in 19 the hopes that perhaps there might be --

20 MR. SACHS: Maybe somebody cares.

21 MR. PAGE: -- my cross will be shared with 22 any luck. Thank you.

23 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 24 Guy. Carol Levin, and Carol, you can -- you can hold 25 this or you can stand. Do you want to do this? Why NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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113 1 don't you come on up here then?

2 MS. LEVIN: Sure.

3 MR. CAMERON: This is Carol.

4 MS. LEVIN: Okay, I'm Carol Levin and I 5 wish you all a good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

6 My name is Carol Levin and I am from 7 Guilford, which is in the 10 mile zone from Vermont 8 Yankee. My husband, Richard Gottlieb, died February 9 15, 2012 from a bone cancer disease, multiple myeloma 10 with a secondary, more devastating soft tissue disease 11 caused by the multiple myeloma called amyloidosis that 12 affected Richard's swallowing mechanism and his heart.

13 The damage to his heart is what proved 14 fatal, when his heart stopped that day after 15 Valentine's day.

16 We have been big supporters over the years 17 for the local movement, buying and eating and drinking 18 many products grown here in Windham County, and this 19 tri-state area.

20 When it was announced that Strontium-90 21 was found in the wells of the VY plant, I did some 22 research and found that it main affect is that is a 23 toxic that gets in the ground and the ground water, 24 and then through the grass and other plants that 25 animals and humans eat, and it gets into the bone NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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114 1 tissue of humans.

2 Although I'm not absolutely certain, but 3 I'm highly suspicious that the effects of Strontium-90 4 probably caused my husband's cancer.

5 We drank -- we drank milk, ate vegetables 6 and fruit, cheese, chicken and some meat, yogurt, ice 7 cream, all grown and produced locally, and the major 8 workforce impacted by this particular kind of cancer 9 are workers in the oil refinery business, but Richard 10 lived in Southern Vermont for nearly 40 years and was 11 in the solar energy business.

12 I urge all who are involved in the nuclear 13 plant decommissioning, to the Commission, as soon as 14 possible, and to remove and remediate all the toxic 15 materials in the ground, in the ground water and in 16 the aquifers under the property and the buildings, 17 both inside and outside the buildings, including 18 removing the buildings and getting to the underneath 19 land.

20 The two recommendations I have are one, 21 the dry cask containers now being considered a 22 temporary location, but most likely, they will become 23 permanent. They need to be treated and secured now, 24 as if it were permanent right away, so no harm could 25 come to the community, if they're disrupted.

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115 1 Two, in 60 years, almost none of us are 2 going to be here, probably a dozen of the younger 3 people may still be alive, and the people that are 4 here are going to have to deal with -- not the people 5 here, but the people remaining, who come after us, are 6 going to have to deal with this closed and toxic 7 nuclear plant and its surroundings.

8 We have absolutely no project on what the 9 economy might be 60 years from now. So, please use 10 the funds that are available now, to decommission the 11 plant now. Thank you very much.

12 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Carol. Meredith, 13 do you want to use this standing, or do you want to 14 use this?

15 MS. ANGWIN: I'll just use this.

16 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

17 MS. ANGWIN: Hi. My name is Meredith 18 Angwin. I have worked in many aspects of energy. I 19 have some patents and control of NOx from gas turbines 20 and I have worked in nuclear.

21 I wanted to say that I hope that you will 22 go with the process that you have to assess what risks 23 are and to be very vigilant about those risks, but not 24 to assume that because somebody is frightened of 25 something, that it is a risk.

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116 1 For example, smoke. Smoke is not good for 2 anybody. There is no safe level of inhaling smoke.

.3 There just isn't, and but if you go with that, you're 4 going to end up with the idea that children can't have 5 candles on their birthday cakes.

6 So, what we have to do and what we have 7 done is, we assess safe levels of this and of that.

8 There is a little bit of urea in all the water you 9 drink, but there is a level for that, and you go right 10 ahead and drink the water, because that's all the 11 water in the universe. Well, I don't know if in the 12 universe, but certainly on the surface of the earth, 13 and that is how we do things.

14 So, what I'm trying to say is, when you're 15 assessing a Strontium -- some Strontium that's been 16 detected or that there is this or there is that, do 17 not look at it as, "Oh my gosh, it's absolutely 18 unacceptable," because anything, you have to realize 19 that there have been rules that have been assessments 20 of what is a safe level, just like there is for 21 everything in the water you drink, and you must 22 vigilantly keep to those rules, but you do not have to 23 say, "Well, just think, if we spent another $400 24 million, we could get it down to this and to that."

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117 1 assessed, that is the right level. Thank you very 2 much.

3 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Meredith.

4 MR. SACHS: Getting older, Meredith.

5 MR. CAMERON: We're going to go to Kevin 6 Kamps and Gary Sachs, and Claire Chang and Bob Picard.

7 Kevin? Standing?

8 MR. KAMPS: Yes.

9 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

10 MR. KAMPS: Well, actually --

11 MR. CAMERON: Do you want to use this?

12 MR. KAMPS: -- can I use that?

13 MR. CAMERON: Yes, sure.

14 MR. KAMPS: Okay, thanks so much, Chip.

15 Hello. My name is Kevin Kamps and I serve 16 as radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear, 17 based in Takoma Park, Maryland, and I apologize for 18 just getting here. It's taken a while today. There 19 was an NRC meeting all day long on reactor pressure 20 vessels, and I kept having to pull over. I drove up 21 to testify, I couldn't drive and testify.

22 I congratulate, you know, all the folks 23 who had a hand in shutting down Vermont Yankee, 24 because on December 29th at 12:12 p.m., the reactor 25 risks went away. Well, technically when the fuel came NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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118 1 out some weeks later.

2 But the reactor risks are over at Vermont 3 Yankee, and that's really good news.

4 So, that was a part of why I was late, and 5 a public service announcement, I don't know, I just 6 got here. I got to mention about the highway shutdown 7 at Exit 3. You can't get on. So, you have to north, 8 to go north, and there is a five mile line of cars, 9 and that's what took the last hour to get here.

10 So, I have some cheat-sheets to remind 11 myself what to say. These are handouts that are 12 available out in the hallway right there, on the 13 table. I just put them out there. We've got stickers 14 by Yuko Tonohira in Brooklyn, Radiation Not In My 15 Water, that's a sheet, Radiation Not In My Fish, 16 that's a cap, Radiation Not In My Playground, that's 17 a child, and my comments follow along two major 18 themes.

19 One is decommissioning risks and the other 20 is the high-level radioactive waste.

21 So, decommissioning risks, I'm reminded 22 of, of a meeting that happened in Charlevoix, 23 Michigan, a small town in Northern Michigan, when 24 Consumers Energy, who owned the Big Rock Point plant 25 before Entergy took it over, made a sudden about-face NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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119 1 on the decommissioning plans.

2 They went from SAFSTOR, perhaps 60 years 3 of SAFSTOR moth-balling so to speak, to immediate 4 dismantlement, and then they called a sudden meeting 5 and a lot of us got to drive a long ways to get there 6 in time for the meeting.

7 The things I wanted to warn about, lessons 8 from Big Rock Point, and this report that I wrote way 9 back in 2006 is out on the table. It's entitled "Say 10 Yes to Michigan, Say No to the Plutonium State Park, 11 Background on Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant".

12 A lot of shenanigans got played at Big 13 Rock Point. The workers weren't told much, if 14 anything, about what they were getting into, while the 15 decommissioning contractor, British Nuclear Fuels, 16 Limited, now a part of the Entergy Solutions empire, 17 was bragging on its own website that Big Rock Point 18 was the dirtiest atomic joint that they had ever 19 decommissioned, which was really saying something, 20 because British Nuclear Fuels ran the Sellafield 21 Facility in England, which is a very dirty 22 radiological mess.

23 So, workers were being told everything is 24 fine, don't worry about it, and at the same time, 25 British Nuclear Fuels had to take some pretty serious NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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120 1 precautions, like not using explosives to dismantle 2 anything because the facilities were so contaminated.

3 So, they ended up spending at that -- it's 4 a small place. It's 70 megawatts electric. They 5 spent $366 million on the decommissioning. If you do 6 the math, that's many billions of dollars on the 7 decommissioning, and what got left behind?

8 NRC rubber-stamps an unrestricted read, 9 Greenfield Site, they called it, and it's in the 10 report. Plutonium in the soil, plutonium in the 11 groundwater. The thing they don't know is what's in 12 the sediments of Lake Michigan.

13 Big Rock Point, from 1962 to 1997, 35 14 years was discharging down a canal into Lake Michigan.

15 The NRC, the State of Michigan, the EPA, the companies 16 involved, nobody has checked the sediments in the 17 canal, in the lake, and the title for this paper came 18 from a proposal that was put out there, that this be 19 a state park, and the taxpayers could pay the company 20 $20 million for a radioactively contaminated parcel of 21 land and bus school kids in. They were going to build 22 a museum, glorifying the atomic age.

23 A lot of us said, "No way, you're not 24 doing it," and they didn't do it. We stopped them.

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121 1 Point. You know, how deep does the clean up go? How 2 shallow is the clean up? How much contamination gets 3 left behind?

4 At Big Rock Point, it's a significant 5 amount of contamination left behind, and when they say 6 'unrestricted reuse', they mean unrestricted reuse.

7 Maternity ward, daycare center for small children, 8 growing food, it's a problem.

9 So, there is a lot of details, I won't get 10 into, but there is a lot of things to watch out for.

11 A previous speaker said the risk is on the ladder.

12 The risk is on the ground, it's on the ladder, it's on 13 the roof, and there is pitfalls at every step, and the 14 workers again, are going to be on the front line of 15 these risks.

16 So, another handout we have out there on 17 the table, 'Your Nuclear Workplace, Know Your Risks, 18 Know Your Rights', radiological protective gear, 19 you're entitled to, and contacts for more information.

20 The final handout that I have out there is 21 'Ionizing Radiation', a chart as to where the radio-22 nuclides go and a previous speaker just now mentioned 23 Strontium-90, going to the bone. Some of these 24 shorter-lived radio-isotopes, because the reactor 25 shutdown, they will dissipate and be gone, but some of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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122 1 these risks are, of course, forever, really.

2 I mean, Iodine-129 is forever. It's 157 3 million years, 1,314 million years, it depends on if 4 you multiply that by 10 or 20, and there is a chart in 5 the report that gives those half-lives and then times 6 10, then times 20, and that's the contamination that's 7 out there.

8 You know, they check the sediments. They 9 should check the soil, the groundwater, the sediments 10 of the Connecticut River.

11 I was lucky enough, or unlucky enough to 12 go to the technical meeting, where Consumers Energy, 13 the previous owner of Big Rock Point, met with the NRC 14 at NRC Headquarters. This is around 2005, and 15 Consumers Energy said to the NRC, "Lake Michigan is 16 not our property, so, we're not responsible for the 17 contamination out there, right," and the NRC said, 18 "Yes," and that's how that decision went down.

19 So, whose property is the Connecticut 20 River? Who owns the contamination that's in the 21 sediment to the -- of the Connecticut Rivers? Who 22 owns the contamination that's in the flora and the 23 fauna and food chain? This very discussion is 24 underway in Japan.

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123 1 of Fukushima Daiichi. A golf course sued Tokyo 2 Electric Power Company for contaminating the golf 3 course, saying, "Guess what, guys? We didn't create 4 this stuff. You did. So, the lawsuits are many over 5 there.

6 The last thing I wanted to talk about is 7 the high-level radioactive waste.

8 The pool is a very risky place. You lose 9 cooling water through a southern drain-down, as by the 10 drop of a heavy load, which almost happened at Vermont 11 Yankee several years ago, almost happened at Palisades 12 in Michigan, back in 2005, and the NRC was complicit 13 in the cover-up for many months.

14 So, the drop of heavy loads is a real 15 danger. You lose the water in a great big hurry, and 16 that waste can be on fire in a matter of hours, if not 17 sooner, and there is no contingency because when the 18 water is gone, the radiation shielding is gone. The 19 dose rates near the pool would be something like 20 10,000 rem an hour. You're dead in seconds, if you 21 approach it.

22 That was the whole problem at Fukushima 23 Daiichi. I happen to be in Montpelier on Saint 24 Patrick's Day 2011, because we had a Chernobyl photo 25 exhibit, long planned. It was the 25th anniversary of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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124 1 Chernobyl.

2 So, that was the night that the Japanese 3 self-defense force helicopters were trying to drop 4 seawater by helicopter, onto the pool of Unit No. 4 at 5 Fukushima Daiichi, very reminiscent of what happened 6 at Chernobyl, the dropping of, you know, fire-7 retardant materials from helicopters, and it was 8 because there was tremendous concern that Unit 4's 9 pool was empty of water, that it had drained, and now 10 the official version of things is that, no, the water 11 was always there.

12 Well, there must have been a concern, if 13 they went to such great lengths and such great risks, 14 putting those pilots at such great risks, to try to 15 drop that water in there.

16 So, if you have a sudden drain-on, if you 17 have a slower motion boil-down and you lose the water 18 that way, and again, at Fukushima Daiichi, they were 19 without electricity to turn the lights on in the 20 control room for like 10 days, let alone to run the 21 cooling water pumps on the high-level radioactive 22 waste storage pool.

23 So, a fire in the pool and the waste is 24 supposedly going to be out of there by 2020, but 25 that's five more years of pool risks at Vermont NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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125 1 Yankee, and then once the irradiated fuel moves into 2 dry cask storage, that's where the risk moves to.

3 Granted, it's a reduction of risk, but the 4 risk is not zero, far from it, because NRC regulations 5 on dry cask storage don't require safeguards against 6 terrorist attack, the some -- if attackers were to 7 show up with anti-tank missiles, they could blow the 8 dry casks away.

9 It wouldn't be that difficult to create 10 urban walls around the dry cask storage to prevent 11 line of sight attacks.

12 MR. SACHS: Right.

13 MR. KAMPS: And there was enough public 14 pressure in places like Prairie Island, Minnesota, 15 with an Indian reservation 100 yards away from the 16 nuclear power plant, that the urban walls were put in 17 place, preventing line of sight attack.

18 They have those as well, out at Palo 19 Verde in Arizona. This can be done. It's not very 20 expensive. I have an uncle in Michigan with a Bobcat 21 who would do it for $50,000 and be very happy about 22 it. I mean, jobs, right?

23 MR. SACHS: Only in elementary school.

24 MR. KAMPS: So, the last thing in want to 25 say about the dry casks, and then I'll sit down, is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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126 1 the hold tanks.

2 We have known since the year 2000, when in 3 had the honor of meeting Oscar Sarante, January of 4 2003, when I met him. Oscar Sarante worked for 5 Exelon, Commonwealth Edison in Chicago. He was their 6 lead quality assurance inspector, and he got tasked to 7 do the quality assurance inspection on the hold tack 8 dry cask fabrication facility, in the Pittsburgh area.

9 He led an audit with a dozen other 10 auditors, one each from the utilities in the country 11 using hold tacks, and in a short three-day audit, they 12 found nine major categories of quality assurance 13 violations.

14 NRC had just done a QA audit not long 15 before, found nothing wrong. Everything is fine.

16 Just one example was the welds on the hold tacks.

17 The fabrication facility called U.S. Tool 18 & Dye was cooling the welds in baths of water, putting 19 fans on them, introducing brittleness into the welds.

20 The people doing that work were not 21 qualified to be doing that work. The materials they 22 were using were not quality assured, but they don't 23 know where those materials came from, what impurities 24 were in those materials.

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127 1 Dr. Ross Landsman of the NRC Chicago Office, dry cask 2 inspector, they have major questions about the 3 structural integrity of the hold tacks sitting still, 4 going zero miles per hour onsite storage, let alone 5 going 60 miles per hour or faster on the rails, which 6 NRC has certified them for to carry this stuff to 7 Indian reservations out west, for example.

8 So, my bottom line, all you vigilant folks 9 here who shutdown Vermont Yankee through your courage, 10 your vision, your creativity, your determination, if 11 anybody could keep on their eyes on this 12 decommissioning process, if anybody could keep their 13 eyes on the risks of high-level radioactive waste, 14 it's you guys, and believe you me, it's going to have 15 to be you guys. It ain't going to be the NRC. It 16 ain't going to be Entergy. They have other 17 motivation.

18 So, thank you very much.

19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Kevin. Gary?

20 MR. SACHS: Do you want to ask the 21 question I asked about earlier, or do you want me to?

22 MR. CAMERON: Why don't you do it, about 23 the habitability, right?

24 MR. SACHS: No, I'm actually thinking 25 about what I heard Mr. Bruce Watson say.

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128 1 MR. CAMERON: Oh, okay.

2 MR. SACHS: Mr. Watson said on a webinar 3 last week, that the people who determine whether or 4 not Vermont Yankee is to be decommissioned immediately 5 or put in SAFSTOR, that is down between the owners and 6 the stakeholders. Did you say that, sir?

7 MR. WATSON: Yes, and let me clarify a 8 couple things.

9 The determination on which strategy that 's 10 going to be used for decommissioning is up to the 11 owners. It's also up for them to get the input from 12 stakeholders, such as the state, the local community 13 and the other people who are interested in the 14 decommissioning.

15 With that said, we would hope that they 16 would take some of that consideration into their 17 planning and strategies for doing the decommissioning.

18 So, yes, it's a true statement. Part of 19 that, I also mentioned before is that we encourage the 20 licensee to -- or the state to --

21 MR. SACHS: Actually, I'm okay with the--

22 MR. WATSON: -- seek the Advisory 23 Committee --

24 MR. SACHS: Is it okay for you to stop 25 there?

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129 1 MR. WATSON: No, I want to finish the 2 question.

3 MR. SACHS: But you've already spoken 4 quite a bit, and I haven't had much chance yet.

5 MR. WATSON: Well --

6 MR. SACHS: I think it's fair that --

7 MR. CAMERON: You've had more time than 8 anybody.

9 MR. WATSON: So, you know, we encourage 10 the formation of a Citizen's Advisory Panel, which the 11 state has done, to inform the public and also the 12 stakeholders, other stakeholders, on the information 13 and work with the utility and the licensee to work on 14 decommissioning issues.

15 MR. CAMERON: Okay, go ahead, second 16 question?

17 MR. SACHS: Well, I wasn't even thinking 18 of asking one, but it's another question, habitability 19 question. How many of those totally decommissioned 20 reactors that have been totally decommissioned, do 21 have daycare centers on them now and are habitable?

22 Main Yankee is not, Connecticut Yankee is not. How 23 many of them are, that you decommissioned?

24 MR. WATSON: I'll answer that. The 10 25 power reactors that have been decommissioned for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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130 1 unrestricted release, meaning the footprint of the 2 reactor itself has been -- the license has been 3 terminated, are available for the owner to decide what 4 they want to do with the property, not the NRC, and 5 they may invest some of that with the state.

6 Main Yankee donated some of the land to a 7 non-profit organization, which maintains part of the 8 site as a park. Some utilities have elected to build 9 additional generating stations on the property, 10 because they're valuable to them.

11 There is water, cooling water. There is 12 the grid infrastructure. There has also been 13 environmental impact statements done on the property 14 15 MR. SACHS: How about a number? A number, 16 sir?

17 MR. WATSON: Well, I'm --

18 MR. SACHS: I'm looking for a number.

19 MR. WATSON: How many have been --

20 childcare centers built on them?

21 MR. SACHS: Yes.

22 MR. WATSON: I don't know. But I do know 23 24 MR. SACHS: That's a good answer.

25 MR. WATSON: Okay.

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131 1 MR. SACHS: I appreciate that.

2 MR. WATSON: Because I don't know. I 3 really don't keep up with what they --

4 MR. SACHS: How many are free for people 5

6 MR. WATSON: -- do every day.

7 MR. SACHS: -- to walk on?

8 MR. WATSON: They're all free to be walked 9 on, but they're owned by --

10 MR. SACHS: Except for the --

11 MR. WATSON: -- private property, okay, 12 except for the one I know in Maine, which became a 13 park that is sponsored by --

14 MR. SACHS: Yes, but the reactor --

15 MR. WATSON: -- a non-profit.

16 MR. SACHS: The waste in Maine, the 17 cooling -- the casks are still in a -- you know, 18 bigger than this hotel, not occupy-able space.

19 I wanted to comment on something that Mr.

20 Kamps had said.

21 We had some casks. Actually, we have five 22 of our casks, of the 13 we currently have, which were 23 not property leak-rate tested, and that was told --

24 that came out from Holtec. How the hell did it get 25 through NRC testing, but they didn't do the leak-rate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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132 1 testing?

2 Do you take your information from the 3 licensees, regarding dry casks also?

4 SPEAKER: Where else do they get their 5 information?

6 MR. SACHS: Just checking.

7 MR. CAMERON: Anybody?

8 MR. SACHS: Anybody want to answer it?

9 Really, like do you do any work to check the casks?

10 MR. CAMERON: Let's see if we can get an 11 answer to your question.

12 MR. FERDAS: Yes, I'll take that. We do 13 do inspections. There is, as we talked about --

14 MR. SACHS: Once every 25 years?

15 MR. FERDAS: No, no.

16 MR. SACHS: How often?

17 MR. FERDAS: As I mentioned before, we 18 have an inspection program.

19 MR. SACHS: How often?

20 MR. FERDAS: Our inspection program 21 requires us to be onsite for anyone that has dry cask 22 storage on a two year frequency.

23 MR. SACHS: So, you come in, you look at 24 a cask and you leave?

25 MR. FERDAS: No.

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133 1 MR. SACHS: You come in, you open it a 2 cask --

3 MR. FERDAS: No.

4 MR. SACHS: -- you make sure it's sealed 5 correctly?

6 MR. FERDAS: Let me finish, please. I 7 want to give you an answei 8 MR. CAMERON: This is not a cross-9 examination.

10 MR. SACHS: Sure it is.

11 MR. FERDAS: Okay.

12 MR. CAMERON: No, it isn't.

13 MR. FERDAS: What we try to do --

14 MR. SACHS: I want to make sure --

15 MR. FERDAS: -- we are performance based 16 agency, what we try to do is, we align our inspection 17 18 MR. SACHS: Relax your shoulders, Marc.

19 MR. FERDAS: -- and actual --

20 MR. SACHS: Relax your shoulders. It's 21 okay. It's okay, Marc. I'm not here to --

22 MR. FERDAS: No, it's also okay to let me 23 finish to answer the question.

24 MR. SACHS: Well, I don't have to. I'm a 25 stakeholder.

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134 1 MR. FERDAS: Let me just --

2 MR. SACHS: You're on my turf.

3 MR. FERDAS: -- answer your question.

4 MR. SACHS: I don't trust you.

5 MR. FERDAS: Let me just --

6 MR. CAMERON: Do you have another --

7 MR. FERDAS: I'm just curious --

8 MR. SACHS: I got a bunch of other 9 questions.

10 MR. FERDAS: What we do is, we do the 11 inspections when actual loading campaigns are ongoing.

12 For those plants that do not have loading campaigns, 13 after an extended period of time, we do come onsite to 14 review how they're maintaining their dry cask storage 15 system.

16 MR. SACHS: Okay, so, we have five that 17 have -- we not leak-rate tested. What is the effect 18 of that? What is the -- can you tell us -- can 19 someone come back to us, who live here, and tell us 20 the effect of not having had the leak-rate testing on 21 those casks that are here?

22 MR. CAMERON: Gary?

23 MR. SACHS: Are we more likely to have 24 'x'?

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135 1 of that. I was not in charge of the group when that 2 occurred, however, there is an environmental 3 monitoring program around the ISFSI where the 4 radiation levels are measured.

5 MR. SACHS: Thank you, sir, that's good.

6 MR. CAMERON: Gary, how about two more 7 questions, and then --

8 MR. SACHS: How about I read what I 9 presented, sir? You told me to write them down. I 10 wrote them down.

11 MR. CAMERON: Yes, but --

12 MR. SACHS: For now.

13 MR. CAMERON: Gary, we have like --

14 MR. SACHS: I know you do, but this is the 15 way -- you said you'd be here past nine. This is the 16 way it's supposed to be.

17 MR. CAMERON: Gary?

18 MR. SACHS: Okay, I cite NRC information 19 notice 96-34, in reference to hydrogen explosion in 20 the process of sealing a dry cask 1996-34.

21 I cite 19840113, regarding the fuel rod 22 drop that occurred at Vermont Yankee. That was in 23 1998. I cite NRC 94-12, where the NRC proposes a fine 24 for multiple alleged violations of NRC requirements at 25 Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Vernon, Vermont.

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136 1 That's regarding multiple 1993 instances of fuel 2 mishandling at this now closed, thank you very much, 3 reactor.

4 Because of multiple -- "Because of 5 multiple examples of the alleged violations."

6 Also for the silt, etcetera that had 7 clogged the alternate cooling tower here at VY, "It 8 involved a build-up of silt and debris in the 9 alternate cooling tower basin and suction pit, which 10 left the system inoperable, possibly since 1989." You 11 guys are overseeing it. Possibly you didn't oversee 12 that in those five years.

13 MR. CAMERON: Gary?

14 MR. SACHS: I'm here. This is where I am.

15 MR. CAMERON: Wait a minute. I got a guy 16 who can answer some of your questions.

17 MR. SACHS: Great.

18 MR. CAMERON: Okay, this is -- Darrell, 19 introduce yourself.

20 0 MR. DUNN: My name is Darrell Dunn. I'm 21 with the Office of NMSS in the --

22 MR. SACHS: Can you clarify what that is?

23 MR. DUNN: Nuclear Material Safety and 24 Safeguards in the Division of spent fuel management in 25 the Renewals and Materials Branch.

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137 1 So, my Branch looks at dry cask --

2 MR. SACHS: Do you think the best place in 3 the country to work -- best place in the Government to 4 work?

5 MR. CAMERON: Gary, will you just let --

6 SPEAKER: Gary?

7 SPEAKER: Leave him alone.

8 MR. SACHS: He can sweat too.

9 MR. DUNN: My Branch looks at, reviews, 10 approves or does not approve renewals of dry cask 11 storage systems.

12 So, you asked about the helium leak-rate 13 testing.

14 MR. SACHS: Yes, I did.

15 MR. DUNN: Okay, so, that should have 16 really never occurred --

17 MR. SACHS: Yes.

18 MR. DUNN: -- and all of the casks that 19 are going to be loaded with Holtec systems will be 20 leak-rate tested.

21 MR. SACHS: How do we know, if those 22 weren't? What can you tell us, to make us believe 23 you're telling me the truth?

24 MR. DUNN: The ones that you've said --

25 MR. SACHS: What can you tell me?

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138 1 MR. DUNN: The ones that you've said were 2 not leak-rate tested were not leak-rate tested.

3 MR. SACHS: Why not? You're overseeing 4 them.

5 MR. DUNN: They just --

6 MR. SACHS: That's your job.

7 MR. DUNN: They should have been leak-rate 8 tested.

9 MR. SACHS: Are you going to swap them out 10 with good ones?

11 MR. DUNN: No.

12 MR. SACHS: Why not?

13 MR. DUNN: So, the leak-rate testing, the 14 casks were backfilled with helium. Helium is an inert 15 gas. It also provides heat transfer.

16 Those casks are low-heat load casks. So, 17 what's the effect of the low-heat -- the lack of 18 helium leak-rate testing on the low-heat low cask?

19 Very little, because there is nothing that's going to 20 happen to the fuel because it's just too cold.

21 Now, if the fuel was hot, that would be a 22 different story, okay but --

23 MR. SACHS: So, how do we know that the 24 casks -- that the most recent fuel that just got 25 transferred in, that's going to be pulled out in five NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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139 1 years, how do we know that those aren't going to be 2 put in casks that aren't -- that are helium leak-rate 3 tested?

4 MR. DUNN: They will be helium leak-rate 5 tested --

6 MR. SACHS: How do we know?

7 15 -- because it is a requirement, because 8 that got fixed.

9 MR. SACHS: They did not do it for those 10 five.

11 MR. DUNN: But that got fixed.

12 MR. CAMERON: Gary? Okay, Gary, thank 13 you. Last 14 MR. SACHS: Can I just say this?

15 MR. FERDAS: Chip? Chip, just one other 16 thing with that.

17 MR. CAMERON: Okay, go ahead, Marc.

18 MR. FERDAS: And important aspect is that 19 there is NDE testing that was done on those casks --

20 SPEAKER: What is NDE?

21 MR. FERDAS: Sorry, non-destructive 22 examination testing that's done on all the welds, that 23 are made on that cask.

24 So, one, you have those were tested for a 25 structural integrity. The helium leak-rate test is a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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140 1 backup test to that first examination of the welds.

2 So, we do have confidence that those casks 3

4 MR. SACHS: Confidence? Wait, sorry.

5 MR. FERDAS: We have confidence that those 6 casks are structurally adequate.

7 MR. SACHS: We are looking for more --

8 MR. FERDAS: Okay.

9 MR. SACHS: -- than confidence. Can I 10 just --

11 MR. CAMERON: Gary?

12 MR. SACHS: -- say that --

13 MR. CAMERON: Gary, yes.

14 MR. SACHS: I'm not finished. May I 15 finish?

16 MR. CAMERON: I've got to --

17 MR. SACHS: I've got that, to there.

18 That's what I got left. I got there to there.

19 MR. CAMERON: Gary, that's -- is that --

20 those are many questions, right?

21 MR. SACHS: No, those aren't questions.

22 It's bringing things forward that have not been 23 mentioned.

24 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Gary, I'm going to 25 give you a couple minutes.

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141 1 MR. SACHS: Please, fine.

2 MR. CAMERON: To do it, okay?

3 MR. SACHS: Chip, I sat and waited. I 4 done all this crap you told me to do, without --

5 MR. CAMERON: Stop saying that.

6 MR. SACHS: You told me to not make noise.

7 I didn't make fuckin' noise.

8 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Gary, I'm going to 9 give you the microphone back.

10 MR. SACHS: Yes, thank you.

11 MR. CAMERON: Okay, but we have a bunch of 12 people --

13 MR. SACHS: I am so tired of this crap.

14 MR. CAMERON: -- bunch of people --

15 MR. SACHS: At every meeting --

16 MR. CAMERON: -- waiting --

17 MR. SACHS: -- I can't speak.

18 MR. CAMERON: Waiting to speak --

19 MR. SACHS: People just do what you tell 20 them to do.

21 MR CAMERON: And I just want to -- if --

22 MR SACHS: I've got questions, man.

23 MR CAMERON: If people who have -- if you 24 have questions you can submit them in writing to the 25 NRC.

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142 1 MR. SACHS: No, Chip, but this is when we 2 get to speak to them. This is what I want them to 3 sweat.

4 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

5 MR. SACHS: Not when they're in their 6 office and you can't see them.

7 MR. CAMERON: Gary? Gary?

8 MR. SACHS: I got it.

9 MR. CAMERON: You've got two minutes.

10 MR. SACHS: I got it.

11 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

12 MR. SACHS: I got it.

13 MR. CAMERON: You got two minutes.

14 MR. SACHS: Great. I got it. Okay, the 15 end -- nuclear -- where am I? Oh my God.

16 SPEAKER: Gary, thank you for caring so 17 much.

18 MR. SACHS: Thank you. Okay, let's 19 continue to the spectacular cooling tower collapse of 20 2007. I don't need this.

21 The NRC oversaw the spectacular cooling 22 tower collapse and oversaw the repairs. They had to 23 come back in 2008. They had to come back in 2008 24 because they were not able to see. They were doing 25 supervision without the ability to see. You cannot do NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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143 1 supervision without vision. Supervision means over-2 vision. Latin, vision means to see.

3 If the NRC can't see when doing repairs on 4 the plastic cooling towers, then how can they be 5 called -- say that they're doing supervision?

6 Okay, that's another cooling tower.

7 SPEAKER: Gary?

8 MR. SACHS: Yes.

9 SPEAKER: I want to ask a question.

10 MR. SACHS: The simple thing I want to 11 bring up is that Entergy right now has just been said 12 to be over-bought in the market.

13 What that means is that's the reason why 14 Entergy executives are going and selling hundreds of 15 thousands of Entergy shares. What over-bought means, 16 I didn't know before yesterday, but what over-bought 17 means is they're at the top of their game. From here, 18 Entergy stock goes nowhere but down.

19 We have a nuclear reactor leaking 20 Strontium and we have a company that says they don't 21 want to clean it up.

22 You know, when Vermont Yankee took cable 23 to Vermont in 1967 and said, "We want to run a reactor 24 for 40 years," they didn't say, "We want to run a 25 reactor for 40 years, but not clean it up for 100."

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144 1 No, they didn't say that.

2 You guys are messing with the State of 3 Vermont. It's gross. It's really wrong, what you're 4 doing.

5 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Gary.

6 MR. SACHS: Let me finish what I --

7 MR. CAMERON: Gary?

8 MR. SACHS: Let me finish.

9 MR. CAMERON: Gary, you've been here for 10 a while.

11 MR. SACHS: I've got the microphone. You 12 don't, Chip.

13 MR. CAMERON: I'll turn the microphone 14 off.

15 MR. SACHS: I'm not surprised.

16 MR. CAMERON: I mean, I think the 17 settlement -- you said a good comment, okay. No, no, 18 no.

19 MR. SACHS: I don't care.

20 MR. CAMERON: You said a good comment.

21 MR. SACHS: Who did?

22 MR. CAMERON: He did. He said, "Thank you 23 for caring," okay.

24 MR. SACHS: Thank you too, Chip. Always 25 great to have you back here.

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145 1 MR. CAMERON: You're welcome. You're 2 welcome. Claire and then Bert Picard.

3 MS. CHANG: So, I have a question. This 4 two credit lines that Entergy is establishing to pay 5 for the transfer of dry cask storage, it's $145 6 million? Where is that credit line coming from?

7 MR. LYNCH: Entergy is borrowing money 8 from two lending institutes, and it's being backed up 9 by the company assets.

10 So, it's no different than you or I 11 borrowing money to pay for, you know, something that 12 we're going to build on our own home.

13 MS. CHANG: So, you don't own those 14 lending institutions?

15 MR. LYNCH: No, they're banks.

16 MS. CHANG: So, how much interest are you 17 paying on those loans?

18 MR. LYNCH: I have no idea.

19 MS. CHANG: Is that interest being then 20 also applied or to be reimbursed through the 21 decommissioning fund?

22 MR. LYNCH: The monies that are being 23 borrowed would be paid for by the litigation against 24 the Department of Energy, because those are costs that 25 we could recuperate for them not meeting their NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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146 1 contractual obligations to take the fuel.

2 MS. CHANG: So, let me get this straight.

3 So, there -- okay, so, that's just the --

4 that's just moving the spent fuel from the pool into 5 the dry casks.

6 MR. LYNCH: That's correct.

7 MS. CHANG: Is that what that $145 million 8 is for?

9 MR. LYNCH: That's correct.

10 MS. CHANG: So, that's going to be for 11 this next five years?

12 MR. LYNCH: Correct.

13 MS. CHANG: But that's not -- that is this 14 part up here in the pie chart, that's the spent fuel 15 management part? Is that included in that?

16 MR. LYNCH: Yes, out of the $368 million, 17 about $143 million is the transfer of the fuel from 18 wet to dry.

19 MS. CHANG: So, but you have that as part 20 of the decommissioning cost of the $1.2 million.

21 MR. LYNCH: Billion.

22 MS. CHANG: Billion, sorry. 'B' So, but 23 you're getting that money back from the DOE, or you 24 will sue them to get the money back?

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147 1 that's correct.

2 MS. CHANG: I don't know that any -- no 3 nuclear reactor owner who has sued the DOE has been 4 unsuccessful, up until this point. They've all gotten 5 their money back, right?

6 MR. LYNCH: I'm not aware of what other 7 licensees have done.

8 MS. CHANG: Oh, I cannot believe that, for 9 one minute, or even three seconds.

10 MR. SACHS: We get you're lying, Mr.

11 Lynch.

12 MS. CHANG: I'm sorry.

13 MR. SACHS: We think you're lying, sir.

14 MS. CHANG: Okay, so, that money --

15 MR. SACHS: Here's the new Entergy.

16 MS. CHANG: -- it's going to get back from 17 the DOE --

18 SPEAKER: From taxpayers.

19 MS. CHANG: -- right?

20 SPEAKER: Yes.

21 MS. CHANG: That's $145 million --

22 MR. SACHS: Yes.

23 MS. CHANG: -- that you're borrowing.

24 MR. LYNCH: I'm sorry, there is two people 25 talking at the same time. So, if you can ask the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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148 1 question, I'd be more --

2 MS. CHANG: I'm sure you --

3 MR. LYNCH: -- than happy to answer it.

4 MS. CHANG: -- have been in many 5 conversations where two people have been talking at 6 the same time.

7 MR. CAMERON: Claire, can you just ask 8 your question?

9 MS. CHANG: I did ask my question. So, 10 the DOE --

11 MR. CAMERON: Just ask your question.

12 MS. CHANG: The DOE is going to give you 13 back this money, that you're including in the cost of 14 the $1.2 billion to decommission this fund --

15 decommission this reactor, but that money that DOE is 16 giving you back, is that going into the 17 decommissioning fund then, the trust fund?

18 MR. LYNCH: The money would be paying back 19 the creditors that loaned us the money in the first 20 place, to allow us to transfer the fuel from wet to 21 dry.

22 MS. CHANG: But you're including that cost 23 into -- there is something fishy going on here, and 24 I'm not a financial person, so I can't quite put my 25 finger on it.

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149 1 But if you're including those costs in the 2 decommissioning trust fund amount, but somehow, you're 3 not paying for it, but the DOE is paying for it, then 4 why are you including it in this cost that the trust 5 fund has to pay for?

6 SPEAKER: Yes?

7 MR. LYNCH: The overall break down of all 8 the costs are explained in decommissioning cost 9 estimate.

10 We go through why each cost is costing 11 that it is.

12 MR. SACHS: We think you're full of shit.

13 MR. LYNCH: So, that's part of the PSDAR 14 and it's part of a very detailed decommissioning cost 15 estimate. It explains all the costs, where the 16 monies are coming from and how it's being --

17 MR. SACHS: Subtract $1.4 million from 18 $1.24 billion.

19 SPEAKER: Can we get him a microphone?

20 MR. TOOMEY: Give me a microphone.

21 MR. CAMERON: Mike, you want to get on 22 that?

23 MR. TOOMEY: Sure. Mike Toomey from --

24 MR. SACHS: You're a scumbag, Mike Toomey.

25 The behavior you pull up --

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150 1 MR. TOOMEY: In answer to your question --

2 MR. SACHS: -- is crap.

3 SPEAKER: I agree with you, Gary.

4 MR. TOOMEY: The answer to your question 5 is that the $1.24 is the total cost of the project, 6 which we have identified. When this $143 million of 7 the project is done, then you'll have less, you'll 8 have $143 less that has to go.

9 So, the cost of the project after this 10 work has been done will be whatever $124 billion minus 11 $143 million --

12 MR. SACHS: Good. What is that total?

13 MR. TOOMEY: It's just like the work of 14 anything else.

15 MR. SACHS: What is that total?

16 SPEAKER: It's point-one. It's really the 17 amount that the trust fund is supposed to grow to.

18 MR. LYNCH: Well, it has to grow -- if we 19 are successful in -- we've established a line of 20 credit. We get this funding in place, which we have, 21 we do the work and we get the money back from the DOE, 22 then that's right, that $143 million will be reduced, 23 will reduce the total cost of the project.

24 MR. SACHS: So, how much of --

25 MR. LYNCH: So, whatever that is.

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151 1 MR. SACHS: What are we looking for?

2 MR. LYNCH: Whatever $1.24 billion minus 3 $143 million is, which is approximately $1. --

4 whatever -- whatever that number is, right, 1.1.

5 MR. CAMERON: Okay, can you -- thank you, 6 Mike and thank you, Claire. Can you guys talk after 7 the meeting or some time?

8 SPEAKER: We'd like to hear this in 9 public.

10 MR. SACHS: Yes.

11 MR. CAMERON: Yes, well, I think we're --

12 I think we've heard about enough as we can, right now, 13 and I got to go to Bob Picard.

14 MR. SACHS: You said you were going to be 15 here past nine, and now, you're clocking back on your 16 17 MR. CAMERON: No, we're going to be here 18 past nine, but we still have 10 people to go here, or 19 more, okay?

20 SPEAKER: I have a --

21 MR. CAMERON: Bob Picard?

22 MR. SACHS: Let her ask her other 23 question.

24 MR. CAMERON: Wait a minute, Claire, do 25 you have -- you have one more question? Well, go NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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152 1 ahead, as your second question.

2 MS. CHANG: Thank you very much.

3 MR. CAMERON: You're welcome.

4 MS. CHANG: I appreciate it. So, but I 5 miss your red vest.

6 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you.

7 MS. CHANG: Now, the second question is, 8 Entergy goes belly-up next year. What are you going 9 to do?

10 MR. SACHS: Come on, NRC.

11 MR. BROADDUS: If I can -- I'll answer one 12 part of that, which is the decommissioning trust fund 13 does not go away if Entergy, the entity goes away.

14 MR. SACHS: Who takes responsibility for 15 it?

16 MR. BROADDUS: Whoever --

17 MR. SACHS: The funding.

18 MR. BROADDUS: -- becomes the licensee 19 after that.

20 MR. SACHS: What if there isn't one? What 21 if it's you?

22 MR. BROADDUS: We will keep -- we will 23 continue to hold Entergy responsible --

24 MR. SACHS: What if Entergy goes belly-up?

25 MR. BROADDUS: -- for that.

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153 1 MR. SACHS: What if there is no Entergy?

2 MR. CAMERON: Let's let -- let's 3 concentrate on Claire.

4 MS. CHANG: Gary's line of questioning is 5 appropriate. I asked exactly --

6 MR. SACHS: This is Nancy's line of 7 questioning.

8 MS. CHANG: Entergy does an Enron and it 9 implodes. It's not that far-fetched.

10 MR. SACHS: We expect it.

11 MS. CHANG: No one would have expected --

12 MR. SACHS: They're scum.

13 MS. CHANG: -- Enron to have died, no one.

14 So, next year, I'll pick a date for you too. April 15 1st, 2016. Entergy dies. What are you to do?

16 MR. PERSINKO: Well, the first thing I was 17 going to mention is -- let me answer one thing.

18 The trust fund still exists. I mean, the 19 trust fund will still exist when Entergy -- if Entergy 20 --

21 MR. SACHS: It will still be under-funded.

22 MR. PERSINKO: -- was to be gone, but the 23 trust fund will exist and the -- it will be up to the 24 trustee of the trust fund to hire another clean up 25 contractor to clean up the -- to decommission the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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154 1 reactor.

2 MR. SACHS: Up to who?

3 MR. PERSINKO: But it would be another 4 clean up contractor if Entergy --

5 MR. SACHS: Who hires them?

6 MR. PERSINKO: -- did not exist.

7 MR. SACHS: Who hires them? Who hires 8 them?

9 MR. CAMERON: Gary, come on, stop it.

10 MR. PERSINKO: I'm trying to answer the 11 question.

12 MS. CHANG: He's trying to answer it.

13 MR. PERSINKO: It would be the trustee of 14 the trust fund, I believe.

15 MS. CHANG: So, who is 16 MR. PERSINKO: And the trust fund --

17 excuse me, the trust fund, I believe is Mellon Bank.

18 You know, these licensees have it with separate 19 independent banks. So, the trustee -- that is with a 20 third party. It's not with the NRC. It's not with 21 the licensee. That money is with the third party, 22 okay, and that's who they go to, to get money to do 23 the decommissioning planning and to execute the 24 decommissioning, okay.

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155 1 you at all?

2 MR. PERSINKO: They advise us when -- or 3 notify us when they're going to -- they want to use 4 funds. They also report to us every year on the 5 health of that fund, and if there is any short-falls, 6 then we will address with the Entergy --

7 MS. CHANG: So, the --

8 MR. PERSINKO: -- to come up with the 9 short-fall in those funds.

10 MR. CAMERON: I'm going to have to ask you 11 to finish up, okay?

12 MS. CHANG: So, it goes back to this is a 13 merchant plant and that you don't have the rules and 14 regulations in place, and it's our fault that you 15 don't have them in place. It's your fault and you 16 knew years ago, decades ago that this was the 17 scenario.

18 MR. CAMERON: I think you made your point.

19 MS. CHANG: Right?

20 MR. CAMERON: I think you made your point, 21 Claire. Thank you.

22 MR. SACHS: Thank you, Claire.

23 MR. CAMERON: Now, this is Bert? Oh, Bob 24 Dickerman? Did we hear from Bert Picard? Okay, why 25 don't you come -- Bob, come on. Do you -- you're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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156 1 here, and Harvey Sckaktman, Chuck Schwer, Betsy 2 Williams and Michael Granger. This is Bob Dickerman.

3 MR. DICKERMAN: I'm Bob Dickerman. I'm 4 from Northfield, Massachusetts, just over the line.

5 Something I've been seeing in the 6 newspapers down in Greenfield, is these two numbers, 7 $650 million or so and $1.2 billion for 8 decommissioning in the trust fund.

9 My question has been, you're saying you 10 need $1.2 billion now. You're talking about 11 decommissioning 40 years or 50 years or 60 years into 12 the future.

13 So, my point is that at historical rates 14 of inflation of three percent, we're not going to be 15 spending $1.2 billion in, you know, 40 or 50 or 60 16 years from now. It will be more like four times that 17 or $5 billion in 2060 dollars or whatever they are, 18 they're won't be any 2050 dollars around to use at 19 that point, so that will be, you know, 2060 or 2070 20 dollars and it will require $5 billion to do the same 21 amount of work that $1.2 does today, and I wish that 22 was showing up more in the newspaper because people 23 are getting the impression that it's going to be $1.2 24 billion, when it isn't.

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157 1 historical rate, maybe more like in the 70's when it 2 seven, eight, nine, ten percent, then it could be $20 3 billion at that time.

4 So, I just want to get that out there. I 5 have another question, for you, Darrel. I guess 6 you're the expert on dry cask storage.

7 As I was sitting here, I just began to 8 wonder how does concrete deteriorate over long periods 9 of time, under that high radiation dose from those 10 spent fuel rods?

11 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Darrel, do you want to 12 provide an answer to that? Thank you.

13 MR. DICKERMAN: Do we have any empirical 14 data, test data, and I guess I have to say, I assume 15 we don't, because no plants have been decommissioned 16 for that length of time.

17 MR. DUNN: Oh, no, we do have -- we do 18 have data, and as part of storing fuel beyond the 19 initial 20 year license period for dry cask, all 20 independent spent fuel storage installations and all 21 certificate of compliance holders that provide casks 22 that can be used, like the Holtec systems that are 23 used at Vermont Yankee, they all have to come up with 24 what we call aging management programs, and they have 25 to address specifically, these issues.

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158 1 So, we have -- we are going to issue some 2 revised regulatory guidance. It's NUREG 1927. It's 3 going to be Revision 1 of that, and in that revision 4 to that regulatory guidance, we're also going to 5 include some example aging management programs, and 6 one of them is going to deal specifically with 7 concrete.

8 MR. DICKERMAN: How do you get a reading 9 on that? I mean, because you can't test for 60 years 10 yet. I mean, how do you tell whether your methodology 11 works?

12 MR. DUNN: There is empirical data for 13 radiation exposure of concrete, as there is for 14 radiation exposure of metals. So, we have empirical 15 data for that.

16 MR. DICKERMAN: Good. Okay, thank you.

17 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

18 MR. DICKERMAN: One other quick question.

19 I want to repeat again to you, Joe Lynch, you're the 20 representative here on the panel from Entergy, right?

21 Yes?

22 MR. LYNCH: That's correct.

23 MR. DICKERMAN: I want to ask you again, 24 does Entergy intend to make a profit on the 25 decommissioning process?

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159 1 SPEAKER: Yes.

2 MR. LYNCH: The cost associated with the 3 decommissioning is an estimate to do the work, and our 4 goal is to do the work with the cost that we have.

5 There is no profit built into that estimate.

6 MR. DICKERMAN: Thanks.

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Bert? You 8 want to use that?

9 MR. PICARD: Sure.

10 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead.

11 MR. PICARD: Bert Picard, Brattleboro, 12 stakeholder.

13 The NRC, it's interesting. When the State 14 of Vermont had 27 Senators to four vote that they 15 didn't want this nuclear plant here past the 40 years, 16 didn't mean a thing to you. When the Governor didn't 17 want it, didn't mean a thing to you.

18 So, what are you? A Government of 19 occupation, right? Government of occupation. That's 20 what you are. I have no respect for any of you. We 21 all know the revolving door between the industry and 22 the regulators, right?

23 Okay, good. But anyway, I know where I 24 stand. You know, the occupied. But still, I'll say 25 something.

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160 1 First of all, you don't have a plan to get 2 rid of the nuclear fuel, right? You don't have a 3 plan. Entergy is saying, "Oh, we'll start moving it 4 in 2026 and we'll be done in 2052." You know, that's 5 a horse and pony show, right? I mean, this is all a 6 crock of you know what, right?

7 You don't have a plan. You don't know 8 what to do with this poison. You've been working on 9 it for years. You don't know what to do. This stuff 10 should have been left alone, right?

11 Okay, so, that means we basically have to 12 begin to prepare to store this stuff forever, right 13 here on the Connecticut River, in our community.

14 So, what's with these cheap casks? Why 15 not do like in Europe? Why not have the good ones, 16 you know, that you can monitor remotely, that are 17 going to last a while, because this is going to be a 18 while. This is going to be our great, great, great 19 grandchildren's problem, all right.

20 So, what's with the cheap casks? Even an 21 berm seems to be a problem. I don't know, you know, 22 I mean, does that have to be requested on bended knee?

23 "Please, shield the school." Come on. What are we 24 dealing with here? This is a joke.

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161 1 stuff forever probably, you know. The other thing is, 2 your Government is in a mess. Everybody talks about 3 how dysfunctional Congress is, right, and the economy 4 is in a mess. Wall Street is-doing real good right 5 now, right? Maybe next year, not so good? Oh well, 6 get a golden parachute, right?

7 Well, Enron -- I mean, Entergy ain't going 8 to be around in 40 or 50 or 60 years. Everybody knows 9 that. Okay, so, what does that mean though?

10 Practically, decommission now with the money that 's in 11 the fund now.

12 Maybe you got to write new rules for 13 merchant plants. So, write the new rules. I mean, 14 just do it. Please, this is -- we're talking about 15 just mitigating a little bit, the problem that we have 16 with this poison, right? So, that's just minimum.

17 So, the time to decommission is now. With 18 the climate change crisis that are coming and all of 19 that, things are only going to get crazier. We don't 20 do it now, it ain't happening. I don't want to know 21 what's going to be going on in 50 years. You know, 22 this thing ain't going to be cleaned up in 50 years.

23 If it's not starting to clean up now, as soon as 24 possible, like 2021 or 2026, like Mr. Gundersen said, 25 it ain't happening. That's realistic.

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162 1 So, I say decommission now. Write new 2 rules if you have to. But that's a minimum that we 3 can demand, and from what I've heard tonight, which is 4 just a show to keep the civilians thinking that they 5 got a democracy, which we obviously don't, not as far 6 as you guys are concerned, I would want to see a 7 hearing convened by the State of Vermont that will 8 force Entergy and you guys and everybody else to come 9 and get sworn testimony, to at least get into some of 10 these questions a little bit more in depth. Thank 11 you.

12 MR. SACHS: Yes.

13 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Bert.

14 Harvey Schaktman. Okay, Chuck Schwer?

15 SPEAKER: Betsy had to go home.

16 MR. CAMERON: Betsy has gone home?

17 SPEAKER: She's here.

18 MR. CAMERON: Betsy, okay, come on up, 19 Betsy and then Michael Granger will be next, and Chris 20 Myers, Schuyler Gould. This is Betsy.

21 MS. WILLIAMS: I'm Betsy Williams. I live 22 just up the road here, and I don't have any notes. So, 23 I'm just going to speak about a few things, few 24 reactions, no pun intended. All right, pun was 25 intended.

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163 1 Couple of things, just reactions of things 2 that have been said. I have to say, I find it -- when 3 we're talking about one of the most dangerous 4 substances known to human kind and I would really 5 invite anyone to disagree with me on that, that's what 6 we're talking about. The most dangerous substances 7 that are known to human kind.

8 I find it more than a little insulting, 9 when it's compared to birthday cake candles.

10 We do have reason to have concern here, 11 very good reason to have concern, and when, sir, I 12 would -- I have to respectfully say to you, when you 13 tell me the casks will be adequate, that does not give 14 me great assurance.

15 I am looking for a hell of a lot more than 16 adequate. I want to know that that thing is not going 17 to crack and I want to know that when the Connecticut 18 River floods, that nothing will happen to that 19 radioactive waste that's sitting under water in a 20 flood plain.

21 I want to know when some idiot flies a 22 plane into it, that it's not going to irradiate this 23 entire region. Can you give me that assurance? I 24 don't think so.

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164 1 right to say anything about our safety, because you 2 guys control our safety, we're not allowed to jay-walk 3 but by God, we better not talk about safety of nuclear 4 plants. I've had enough.

5 The level of my distrust and venom and how 6 disrespected we have been is just -- it's a very deep 7 well. We have made it so clear in this state, that we 8 want some control over what happens at this site, and 9 we have been -- had the doors shut on us over, and 10 over, and over again by you guys. "Nope, you don't 11 have control," and when we do get one tiny little 12 leverage point of control, we get sued.

13 SPEAKER: Bastards.

14 MS. WILLIAMS: By the people who told us 15 they wouldn't, "Of course, we're not going to follow 16 eminent -- we're not going to go that route. We're 17 trustworthy. We're going to be partners with 18 Vermont." Well, hey, it didn't quite go your way, did 19 it? So, we sued -- they sued us.

20 I would like to have some evidence, some 21 time that you guys give one bit of a damn about 22 anything any of us have to say, because I haven't seen 23 it yet.

24 MR. CAMERON: All right, Betsy Williams.

25 Michael Granger? Chris Myers?

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165 1 SPEAKER: He's gone.

2 MR. CAMERON: Schuyler? This is Schuyler 3 Gould. Do you want to use this, Schuyler?

4 MR. GOULD: Thank you. Schuyler Gould of 5 the Vermont Yankee decommissioning audit.

6 In Section 3 of the PSDAR, Entergy 7 commenced to begin decommissioning when the nuclear 8 decommissioning trust funds, "Are adequate to complete 9 decommissioning and remaining spent nuclear fuel 10 management activities that the Federal Government has 11 not yet agreed or been ordered to reimburse."

12 This statement and others clearly makes 13 the assumption that Entergy has the right to use 14 decommissioning funds for spent nuclear fuel 15 management activities.

16 On May 20, 2009, Mr. Jay Faer, Entergy 17 Executive, was asked before the Vermont Public Service 18 Board, sworn testimony, "Would you also agree with me 19 that the definition of completion of decommissioning 20 excludes spent fuel management and site restoration?"

21 "Yes."

22 So, my question to Mr. Toomey, if I might 23 ask, when did Entergy's notion that -- and on what 24 basis did Entergy change its notion that fuel 25 management activities would be allowed to be charged NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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166 1 to the decommissioning fund?

2 My question to the NRC is, where does it 3 in NRC regulations, say that it is appropriate and 4 legal for Entergy to use decommissioning funds for 5 spent nuclear fuel management activities?

6 MR. CAMERON: Mike, we're going to go to 7 Mike for. the first question and then Doug, for the 8 second. Mike Toomey.

9 MR. TOOMEY: Thank you. The definition of 10 decommissioning under the Vermont Public Service Board 11 orders and the memorandum of understanding, and as far 12 as -- as long as Entergy has owned the plant, includes 13 spent fuel management, from the beginning, since 2002.

14 So, I don't know --

15 MR. SACHS: Why is there that loan?

16 MR. TOOMEY: I don't know what --

17 MR. SACHS: Why did you take out a loan if 18 19 MR. TOOMEY: Why don't you take a seat?

20 MR. SACHS: Why don't you take a seat?

21 MR. TOOMEY: Why don't you take a seat?

22 MR. SACHS: Why don't you take a seat, 23 Mike?

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167 1 what questions became before and after, and I need to 2 make sure --

3 SPEAKER: Just answer my question, please.

4 MR. SACHS: The answer is obvious.

5 MR. TOOMEY: I'd have to look at the 6 transcript, to see the context of the question, but 7 the overall decommissioning project absolutely 8 includes spent fuel management. That has to be done, 9 as part of the decontamination and dismantlement of 10 the plant, you have to deal with the spent fuel that's 11 onsite.

12 So, spent fuel management is part of the 13 decommissioning project, and it would be funded out of 14 the decommissioning trust fund, unless we're 15 successful getting the money from the DOE.

16 If we are successful in getting the money 17 from the DOE --

18 MR. SACHS: Which you are --

19 MR. TOOMEY: -- then there is no impact on 20 the decommissioning trust fund, other than a temporary 21 one.

22 What we have tried to do and we are 23 planning to do --

24 MR. SACHS: You're trying to pay the debt 25 with our money.

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168 1 MR. TOOMEY: -- is on the decommissioning 2 trust fund for the next five years, for this 3 substantial front-loaded cost of the dry fuel storage 4 campaigns, we are trying to have no effect on the 5 decommissioning trust fund. By taking the lines of 6 credit out, we'll borrow the money, use it --

7 MR. SACHS: Thank you.

8 MR. TOOMEY: We're not invading the 9 principle of the trust fund for the first five years.

10 When the money comes back from the DOE, assuming we 11 get 90 cents on the dollar, which is the assumption we 12 made, that will be used to pay the lines of credit 13 off, and then it won't have an affect on the 14 decommissioning trust fund, other than the interest 15 costs, but that's function of the U.S. Government.

16 When you recover damages in a case like that against 17 the Federal Government, under the Constitution, you 18 can't recover interest. So, there will be an interest 19 cost.

20 But the principle cost will not affect the 21 decommissioning trust fund, and it was our effort to 22 allow that trust fund to grow and to get us closer to 23 the day when we can begin major dismantlement and 24 decontamination activities.

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169 1 go for your second question, Schuyler, to Shawn 2 Harwell from the NRC.

3 MR. HARWELL: Thank you. The second part 4 of your question was where is it in the regulations?

5 The nuclear decommissioning trust funds 6 were established for radiological decommissioning at 7 the site.

8 The licensees have an option to do co-9 mingling. They can put other funds in the 10 decommissioning trust fund. However, those must be 11 clearly delineated and so, that the NRC can track the 12 money.

13 Now, to access that money, first and 14 foremost, we're concerned with the radiological 15 decontamination, decommissioning.

16 To access that money, the licensee has to 17 file an exemption request, at which point we will look 18 at the circumstances at hand, and decided whether 19 we'll allow that exemption for the licensee to take 20 out money for other activities.

21 We currently have a request under review, 22 and that's about as much as I can say.

23 MR. CAMERON: Sure, go ahead.

24 SPEAKER: I just wanted to ask about that.

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170 1 there might be exemptions.

2 T mean, in some cases, they do anticipate 3 it, for instance, longer than 60 years of 4 decommissioning --

5 MR. CAMERON: Schuyler, apologies, but we 6 have to get you on the transcript.

7 MR. GOULD: Okay, sorry, thank you. Why 8 would the NRC grant an exemption? There is no 9 contingencies mentioned in the regulations which might 10 allow for an exemption? Why would you grant an 11 exemption and why should you grant an exemption?

12 MR. CAMERON: Okay, very clear. Shawn, 13 I'm bringing this back up to you, and I think Schuyler 14 was pretty clear about his two questions.

15 MR. HARWELL: Okay, to answer your 16 question.

17 When you have the decommissioning trust 18 fund, there are certain fees that go in establishing 19 funds.

20 So, if a licensee wanted to put in money 21 to keep it -- to grow, without having to pay extra 22 fees to different funds, to do the three elements, I 23 want to talk about three elements, radiological 24 decommissioning, spent fuel management, site 25 restoration.

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171 1 So, originally, the intent of the 2 decommissioning trust fund was for the radiological 3 decommissioning. That was our requirement, NRC 4 requirement. The licensee has the option to also put 5 in funds into the decommissioning trust fund, to pay 6 for those other elements.

7 Now, they can do it in different methods.

8 They can sub-account. They can create sub-accounts.

9 They can make sure that they track the money. It has 10 to be a line item, so that an analyst, like I, myself 11 can see where that money is going.

12 So, we take in -- the NRC takes into 13 consideration, when we see that money, we only want to 14 see the radiological decommissioning portion. That is 15 the requirement for us.

16 The others are more of a business strategy 17 to have to pay less fees to earn interest on a fund.

18 Does that answer your question?

19 MR. GOULD: No. So, the problem is that 20 21 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Schuyler, last one.

22 MR. GOULD: Okay, I'm still trying to get 23 an answer.

24 MR. CAMERON: I know.

25 MR. GOULD: So, you're telling me that the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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172 1 funds that are there were committed to radiological 2 decommissioning. I don't hear you saying that any of 3 those funds were put in a separate account or separate 4 accounting for spent fuel management.

5 So, why would any of those funds go into 6 spent fuel management?

7 MR. HARWELL: Sure. I think -- if I can 8 your name right, sir. Mr. Toomey?

9 MR. GOULD: No, Schuyler.

10 MR. HARWELL: Schuyler. No, I'm talking 11 to Mr. Toomey, over here.

12 From what I understand, the State of 13 Vermont and Entergy have an agreement where they see 14 decommissioning as more than radiological. It 15 includes spent fuel management as a process of 16 radiological decommissioning.

17 SPEAKER: Can we get a reference for that?

18 I never heard of it.

19 MR. CAMERON: You know, we really need to 20 go on. Could we talk? Could we talk later?

21 MR. BROADDUS: I can provide some 22 additional information, as well.

23 MR. CAMERON: Okay, why don't you go 24 ahead.

25 MR. BROADDUS: That might help clarify.

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173 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay, go ahead.

2 MR. BROADDUS: There is another section of 3 the regulations that also requires licensees within 4 five years of their -- the end of their license term 5 or within five years of their plan to shutdown, to 6 submit to the NRC, an irradiated fuel management plan, 7 and it's their plan for how they expect in five -- in 8 that five year time period, you know, after they shut 9 down, how do they expect to pay for the cost of the 10 irradiated fuel management -- spent fuel management.

11 So, Entergy did submit an irradiated fuel 12 management plan to us, prior to -- five years prior to 13 their original period of the license term, which I 14 don't remember the exact date of that. But it's --

15 but their license -- they were in license renewal.

16 So, it would have been five years before they went 17 into that extended period.

18 So, and my recollection is, and we can get 19 you the specifics, but my recollection is that that 20 plan, they submitted at that time indicated that they 21 would come in and want to use -- they were planning to 22 use a portion of their decommissioning trust fund for 23 irradiated fuel management at that time, if there were 24 sufficient funds within the decommissioning fund to do 25 that.

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174 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

2 MR. BROADDUS: And that's where -- there 3 is a tie within the regulations, but it doesn't 4 specifically say that -- you know, how that -- that 5 irradiated fuel management plan will be funded. It 6 just requires the licensee to tell us --

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you --

8 MR. BROADDUS: -- what they're going to --

9 MR. CAMERON: -- and again, if you could 10 get Mr. Gould that information, that would be helpful.

11 Ann Darling, Bill McKim, Francis Rod, 12 Michael Mulligan. Ann? How about Bill McKim?

13 Francis? Francis Rod? Michael Mulligan? Is this 14 Mike, in the yellow, okay. Okay, this is Michael 15 Mulligan and thank you for your patience. I know you 16 were here early.

17 MR. MULLIGAN: I'm Michael Mulligan from 18 New Hampshire. How many here are from New Hampshire?

19 That's not bad.

20 I would like to thank the police for being 21 here, and for the job they do, and I want to really 22 thank you a lot.

23 I was a reactor operator at the Vermont 24 Yankee. Got fired for raising safety issues. But the 25 job I did was basically moving water from one place to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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175 1 another. I mean, that's basically the job I did, and 2 so, maybe we need to talk about what are the places 3 where they have water.

4 One of the most dangerous -- one of the 5 most costly place that have water is in the condensate 6 storage tank. The condensate storage tank sits 7 outside the building. It's a huge tank. A lot of 8 radioactive water in there and stuff, and so, you 9 know, my major concern, the most risks would be that 10 tank.

11 The bottom of the tank, you know, had 12 leaks in the past. There is issues with having leaks 13 -- well, not now, but you know, they had leaks in the 14 past.

15 So, my question is, well, what happens in 16 five years when nobody has any heat and all that sort 17 of stuff, and you know, the tank has a chance, you 18 know, of icing over and stuff like that?

19 So, there's certain tanks in Vermont 20 Yankee. One of them would be of course, the torus.

21 The torus is a humongous tank and stuff. There is --

22 there is main condenser, which is another not so 23 contaminated water and stuff like that.

24 So, the question, you know, is what -- you 25 know, the separator up in the refueling floor, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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176 1 primary coolant pump. So, these guys got an idea that 2 they're going to not have heating. They're just going 3 to let that building be as-is, and I'm saying, what 4 are they going to do in the future, you know?

5 Minus 10 degrees or all that sort of 6 stuff, and you know, pipes can freeze with the frost, 7 frozen pipes and they get leaks and then there is all 8 sorts of corrosion type of stuff and so, you know, I 9 think the accident in the future is going to be one, 10 the torus is going to -- they're going to find a leak 11 in the torus one day, and they're going to go down in 12 the basement and the basement is going to be full of 13 water, and you think you had radiation problems -- or 14 contamination problems in the past. You ain't seen 15 nothing yet.

16 Same thing, like I said, the CST tank is 17 the most risk-full, I think tank there, and I think 18 they should get rid of the water, pipe off that tank, 19 maybe, you know, even kind of think about well, maybe 20 we ought to build a new tank. Big tank outside, maybe 21 a couple of different tanks, you know, different 22 radioactivity levels, and stuff, and you know, make it 23 so there is, you know, nice cement floor underneath 24 it, and new materials and all that sort of stuff and 25 probably, that would be the safest way.

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177 1 I got a couple more comments. One is 2 Pilgrim Plant. Pilgrim Plant right now, Entergy owns 3 Pilgrim Plant. They're in deep trouble. They're in 4 a situation of basically, Vermont Yankee was three or 5 four years ago.

6 A lot equipment problems and you know, all 7 they're waiting for is one mistake, somebody kind of 8 tells a fib, and you're going to have Vermont Yankee 9 over again. So, there is -- there's a problem right 10 there.

11 One more thing is, the inspectors, the 12 inspector staff, the residents, their bosses and stuff 13 like that, you know, I'm an Irishman and you know, I 14 mourn things at times and stuff, and you know, I 15 always thought I was competitive with the NRC, we 16 didn't agree on a lot of things.

17 But what I realize now is we're not going 18 to have this staff around. We're not going to have 19 their bosses with, you know, deep education and deep 20 experience, and you know, I'm kind of sorry, I'm going 21 to miss them. Times, I didn't like them, but you 22 know, looking at it right now, they had a lot of 23 education and a lot of enlightenment to our community, 24 I think, and stuff like that, and we're going to miss 25 that education and thank you.

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178 1 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Mike. John Ward, 2 Chris Williams and Andrew Larkin. John?

3 SPEAKER: I'm going to pass.

4 MR. CAMERON: Are you John?

5 SPEAKER: No.

6 SPEAKER: No.

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you.

8 MR. WILLIAMS: Chris Williams, I work with 9 the Vermont Citizen's Action Network, the Vermont 10 Yankee Decommissioning Alliance, and I'm a Board Chair 11 of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service.

12 But for a large chunk of my life, I was 13 consumer advocate working to protect consumers from 14 cost overruns and price gouging by regulating 15 utilities, and in that capacity, I had a lot of time 16 spent locked in rooms with utility companies and 17 Government officials, while deregulation was being 18 worked out, back in the late 90's and so forth, and 19 one of the recurring questions that myself and my 20 colleagues brought up was, this notion of the merchant 21 nuclear facilities and ultimately, the under-funding 22 or non-funding of the decommissioning funds.

23 Here we sit, some 20 years later, and what 24 I've been describing where we're at and where you're 25 at is basically the early stages of a train wreck, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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179 1 when I say that, I'm really saying it with all 2 sincerity.

3 I have been watching this for a long time, 4 lots of people have been watching it, and I'm sure 5 that you've been watching it, and whatever it's going 6 to take to prevent this train wreck of what, 44 7 potential units that are now merchant plants, Kewaunee 8 is the first car in the train, Vermont Yankee is the 9 second.

10 I would urge the Commission and the 11 utilities, as well as all the state jurisdictions 12 involved, to get on this soon and not -- not wait 13 until these things start careening off the track.

14 You know, in the end, when many of us who 15 are somewhat cynical, look at this, it looks like, you 16 know, ultimately there is going to have to be a 17 massive Federal bailout to get these plants cleaned 18 up.

19 But in the end, you know, we really can't 20 let these things just sit around and continue to 21 contaminate the sites and the surrounding areas, where 22 they're existing.

23 We've seen this coming for a long time.

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180 1 this, and you know, I would urge you to act sooner, 2 rather than later, to prevent the train wreck. Thank 3 you.

4 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, and John 5 Ward is our next speaker. Andrew Larkin, Lissa 6 Weinmann, Ned Childs and Gary Pontelandolfo. John?

7 MR. WARD: The first thing I'd like to ask 8 is if the people from Senator Leahyy's office and 9 Senator Sander's office are still here? I don't see 10 them. I don't think so.

11 MR. CAMERON: I don't see them either.

12 MR. WARD: All right.

13 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

14 MR. WARD: Because being from 15 Massachusetts, there is a lot that I cannot do. What 16 I can do is, I can go on record and say that our town 17 has asked for the continuation of the EPZ and also, 18 the continuation of the 15 minute notification, as 19 opposed to the 60 minute notification that has been 20 asked for.

21 The other thing that I wanted to ask for 22 here, and this is just myself, not as a representative 23 from a town or city or state, but this would be a very 24 good idea for all of you to keep in mind.

25 Arnie Gundersen was absolutely right, when NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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181 1 he said the AOG building should be removed and the 2 ground should be cleaned up under that, as soon as 3 possible.

4 We've known for a long time that there was 5 a Tritium plume moving from that area. The Strontium 6 has just been found in that well, because that is a 7 heavier element. It moves much slower. We could take 8 care of a lot of that contamination sooner, before 9 that plume moves, and save a lot of money.

10 I'd like to see that decommissioning fund 11 be spent as efficiently as possible, so that we can 12 get started sooner and get more done. Thank you.

13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, John. Is Andrew 14 here? How about Lissa?

15 MS. WEINMANN: Hi. I'm getting a little 16 faded here after work, and then sitting. So, I'm not 17 sure what is going to come out because I don't have 18 prepared remarks.

19 But I will say that I think we're all in 20 this together. There is no national nuclear waste 21 policy. There is Yucca Mountain. There is not going 22 to be a Yucca Mountain. If there is a Yucca Mountain, 23 it's full already. So, there is no place to put this 24 stuff.

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182 1 situations with old rules that do not serve us 2 anymore, and there has been Bills in Congress. They 3 go nowhere. But we know we need a new law, because 4 the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 really didn't 5 foresee all these problems. It didn't -- for instance, 6 we didn't foresee that spent fuel rods would be in 7 pools for 30, 35 years.

8 I mean, the pools were designed to hold 9 those rods for five years. We're in virgin territory 10 here.

11 You can say all day long that the spent 12 fuel pools are just as safe as the casks, but you know 13 the kind of discussion that goes on within the NRC 14 about that. You know what your outgoing Chairperson 15 said about spent fuel pools 12 years ago, that they 16 were in eminent danger because they were being 17 overcrowded, and beyond that, are not designed for 18 that purpose of long-term storage.

19 So, we know all this and we are all in it 20 together, and it's not Entergy's fault. Entergy is a 21 company. They want to make money. We all know, they 22 agreed to close the plant, but then they didn't close 23 the plant because the Federal law says they don't have 24 to, just like the Federal law says they don't have to 25 move the spent fuel right away. They could leave the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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183 1 spent fuel there, if they so decide.

2 So, the MOU is worth nothing. I love the 3 feel-good feelings between us and Entergy and I hold 4 nothing against Entergy honestly, because we know 5 we're they're at.

6 What we need are new laws, okay, and I 7 don't understand why nobody talks about the nuclear 8 waste fund. Okay, you guys all know what it is. You 9 all know that there is about $38 billion sitting in 10 DOE's Department of Energy nuclear waste fund. Where 11 is Department of Energy tonight? They're the ones 12 that are having responsibility for this long-term.

13 What about that $38 billion that rate 14 payers have been paying into for the central 15 repository that will not happen?

16 Okay, everybody is talking now about 17 interim storage and that's still imperfect, I agree 18 with the speakers who said we need to treat this waste 19 storage facility, this high-level nuclear waste 20 storage facility, that we never banked on, that we're 21 completely unprepared for, we need to treat it like 22 it's going to be here forever, okay, because it very 23 well might be.

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184 1 cleaned up pronto, because fires are a concern and you 2 all know it. That's why you agreed to do it quickly 3 and so did Dominion, okay, or else you wouldn't be 4 doing it.

5 Let's all work together to change law, 6 nobody is paying attention. We need to bring all the 7 host communities together, to sit down. You say --

8 you admitted tonight, as per McFarlane's comments in 9 the New York Times a month ago, you're in completely 10 new territory.

11 There is no provisions for merchant 12 reactors. This is all new stuff. You need to rewrite 13 the rules. It's going to take three or four years.

14 You're going to talk about it.

15 You know, we have to deal with this right 16 now, in this community. We're sitting with this 17 stuff. My kids are sitting with this stuff. We need 18 to treat it very seriously. It's a sacred 19 responsibility that our community is barring with no 20 perks, okay.

21 Blue Ribbon Commission. Oh, let's find an 22 interim storage facility and let's give them all kinds 23 of economic perks. Let's give them all kinds of 24 economic development perks. Let's give them more fire 25 fighters. Let's give them more police because we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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185 1 carrying this very, very important responsibility for 2 the whole rest of the nation here.

3 Okay, we are the interim storage facility 4 and we deserve a hell of a lot more than we're getting 5 right now. We're getting nothing right now.

6 You're suing DOE for the storage. What do 7 we get as a community? We deserve a whole lot more 8 and if we're smart, we're going to fight with other 9 communities nationwide, to change the law, to use the 10 nuclear waste fund for the most pressing issues first, 11 and we're going to get it done by working together, 12 not yelling at each other. Thank you very much.

13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Lissa. Is Ned 14 Childs here? There is Ned, and Gary Pontelandolfo?

15 Gary?

16 MR. PONTELANDOLFO: Thank you.

17 SPEAKER: No, here is Ned.

18 MR. CAMERON: And last speaker would be 19 Sally Shaw and then I'm going to turn it over to Drew 20 to close up.

21 MR. CHILDS: Good evening. I'll try to 22 keep this brief.

23 It's -- there's been a lot of good 24 comments tonight, and call it a train wreck or call it 25 a -- the early end stages of a chain letter scheme, a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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186 1 ponzi scheme, it's kind of a fine mess, you know, and 2 you guys are sitting there presiding over it, and 3 maybe you didn't sell the first tickets, but it's not 4 looking very good.

5 My name is Edward Childs, the New England 6 Coalition, and we intervened, New England Coalition 7 intervened in the original operating license hearings 8 in the 1970's raising questions around the safety and 9 security of the temporary onsite storage of high-10 level nuclear waste.

11 The at the time regulator, Atomic Energy 12 Commission, did not permit us to raise these concerns 13 in the hearing process, with the assurance that these 14 concerns were encompassed in generic studies and 15 agency determinations to be made.

16 In the NRC era, after or just before Three 17 Mile Island, the determinations matured into the waste 18 confidence rule, as you know, just for everybody else, 19 the NRC said it is confident, high-level waste can be 20 safely stored until removal to a national repository, 21 originally, that was going to be ready in 1998, then 22 it 2005, and now, as we are all discussing literally, 23 maybe never. Maybe in Finland.

24 Repack the deadly fuel where it sits, 25 every 100 years or so. That's the Commission casual NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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187 1 response. That's the best you can do, and now, you're 2 currently development an extended storage and 3 transportation regulatory program, including safety 4 and environmental analysis to support long-term 5 storage up to 300 years handling the spent fuel, and 6 the associated updates to the waste confidence rule 7 making.

8 So, Vermont, for all practical purposes, 9 is becoming a final national repository. I'm just 10 repeating things that were already said earlier, to 11 try to be less repetitive.

12 Anyway, the Entergy PSDAR said that an 13 additional site -- and additional pad, additional 14 ISFSI pad would be added in close proximity to the 15 existing pad, to expand the storage and allow for the 16 spent fuel assemblies to be stored.

17 Now, NRC authorizes storage of spent fuel 18 in two different ways, as you are aware, and if not, 19 then maybe you need to pay attention.

20 The first way is site-specific, that's 10 21 CFR Part 72 or a general license, a site-specific 22 application review safety and security, and requires 23 publication that notice for a hearing. Obviously, 24 there is some interest in a hearing in this location, 25 maybe not in Nebraska, and in this hearing, evidence NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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188 1 is taken and testimony is given under oath, and 2 relevant disclosures must be made.

3 The alternative process, the general 4 license authorizes storage of spent fuel in casks 5 where a reactor has been previously licensed, and in 6 that situation, no formal hearing opportunity is 7 provided.

8 So, the New England Coalition is proposing 9 Vermont Yankee, as it's a merchant generator and for 10 various other reasons, is a special case and we would 11 like you to require of Entergy, a site-specific Part 12 72 ISFSI license application.

13 Several things make the Vermont Yankee 14 site unique. We don't know, in this case, the 15 financial aspects, whether Entergy is going to have 16 money when the time comes, to do this decommissioning, 17 some undefined term of storage and assurance 18 projections that have been given are at best, 19 fictional or non-existent, take that with a grain of 20 salt.

21 So, all right, we have, as it's been noted 22 earlier, houses and schools around, it's in a small 23 village. The five year cooling period, now we're in 24 the safe storage, might take you 50 years. You got 25 the merchant plant and they haven't look at any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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189 1 alternatives to the environmentally sense of the site.

2 Therefore, we will appeal, in the next 3 several days, to the NRC Commissioners, I guess your 4 bosses, to require the more probing in-depth and 5 inclusive site-specific ISFSI license application 6 process.

7 We favor dry cask over wet pool storage.

8 It's not in our interest to delay and an environmental 9 impact statement was reasonably filed for license 10 renewal, and so, you should be able to do that with 11 little alterations.

12 So, justice demands a full and fair 13 hearing. Thank you.

14 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Ned. We're going 15 to Gary, and Gary, please introduce yourself to us.

16 MR. PONTELANDOLFO: Hi. I'm Gary 17 Pontelandolfo. I drove over two hours from Northwest 18 Connecticut to come up here, and I really appreciate 19 everyone who stayed so long.

20 We care. That's why we're here, and I'm 21 looking this way intentionally because I'm not sure 22 that all you fellows at the table up here do care.

23 That's interesting, because I was just 24 going to say there are so many acronyms in our world 25 today, that I get confused sometimes, and I just -- I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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190 1 was thinking it was Not Really Cocky. In fact, I had 2 a disturbing incident, the more I think about it, the 3 more disturbing it is.

4 When I arrived here, I signed in two 5 cards, one to be here and one to speak, and there was 6 a gentleman who told me he was from the NRC that was 7 watching, and he actually spoke to me. I asked him a 8 couple of questions, and before I really came in and 9 settled down in here, I walked outside the side door, 10 had a cigarette, walked around the building and came 11 back in.

12 Five minutes later, I walked passed the 13 table and the gentleman was still there. I think it 14 was you, right? Am I recognizing you? Because you 15 didn't recognize me, and you wanted me to sign in, as 16 if I had just got here, five minutes after having a 17 conversation with me.

18 I really hate to think, though I kind of 19 do, that that's the kind of attention the NRC pays to 20 things.

21 Like I said, I'm from Connecticut. I've 22 lived in Connecticut all my life. I'm a member of the 23 People's Action for Clean Energy, otherwise known as 24 PACE, which has been around since the 70's.

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191 1 in that organization in Connecticut, and we're paying 2 attention to what you're doing up here, because we're 3 hoping to close this up soon, and what's going on here 4 is going to set a precedent. So, we're paying 5 attention.

6 MR. CAMERON: Gary, can I get you to wrap 7 up, so we can go on?

8 MR. PONTELANDOLFO: Okay, one more thing 9 I'd like to say, and really, this is the most 10 important thing.

11 I'm sure there is people working within 12 the NRC, maybe some of you are here, who are truly 13 good people and want to do the right thing, and have 14 consciences that still operate will, and I'd just ask 15 if you would help those of us who mostly volunteer our 16 time, because we care so much about this, do what you 17 can from within the NRC, to try to hold their feet to 18 the fire. We need help, and last thing.

19 On the way up here I listened to the 20 radio. I heard the Who, "We Won't Get Fooled Again",

21 and I'm going to say, when I get home, I am going to 22 get down on my knees and pray that we don't let them 23 fool us again.

24 MR. CAMERON: All right, all right, thank 25 you, Gary. Sally?

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192 1 MS. SHAW: My name is stakeholder, that 2 would be S-T-A-K-E-H-O-L-D-E-R aka Sally Shaw.

3 I'd like to start my comments with a quote 4 from the settlement agreement between Entergy and the 5 Vermont Public Service Department.

6 "Entergy Vermont Yankee shall make 7 appropriate filings with the NRC to obtain authority 8 to begin radiological decommissioning within 120 days 9 after it has made a reasonable determination that the 10 funds in the NDT are adequate to complete 11 decommissioning," etcetera, etcetera.

12 From the Public Service Board's final 13 order conditioning the license to continue until the 14 end of 2014, they say, "If the decommissioning trust 15 fund continues growing at its historic rate, the fund 16 could reach the $1.16 billion in under 15 years," and 17 they also say, in that settlement agreement, they 18 repeat the thing that was said up above in the 19 settlement agreement.

20 But it says its site assessment study, 21 that their cost analysis suggests they might commence 22 decommissioning by the 2040's, which is not 15 years.

23 It's closer to 30.

24 Conversely, they say in the site 25 assessment study that they assume the Department of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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193 1 Energy will start transferring spent fuel from the 2 site beginning in 2026, and complete removal of all 3 fuel by 2052.

4 At the time, decontamination and 5 dismantlement are scheduled to start, Entergy assumes 6 all spent fuel will have been removed from the site 7 and therefore, will not affect the decommissioning 8 activities.

9 Well, that means that the anticipated 10 start date for decommissioning would be 2052.

11 Elsewhere in the SAS, they say they base 12 their cost analysis on the maximum SAFSTOR period, 13 which allows them up to 60 years because that scenario 14 shows funding adequacy with the largest margin.

15 Under this last scenario, dismantling and 16 decommissioning of the plant would not begin until 17 approximately 2069, nor be completed until 2075.

18 So, much for openness and transparency.

19 I mean, in these various legal documents, they've 20 given at least half-dozen different estimates of when 21 they're actually going to start dismantling and 22 decontaminating the plant and the site.

23 I would love it if the NRC could give us 24 a date certain for start and completion date of the 25 decommissioning, but I know that is not in your job NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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194 1 description.

2 I'm wondering if in fact, you do need to 3 change the rules and whether you need a 2.802 petition 4 for rule making from one of us citizen volunteers, in 5 order to do that, because the situation is really not 6 fair to be affecting the community and the 7 stakeholders. That's my first question.

8 The second one -- may I? I'll be quick.

9 MR. CAMERON: We've got to be moving.

10 MS. SHAW: I'll be real quick. Some people 11 have gone on, and you know, I'm being as quick as I 12 can.

13 I have some standard comments to make, and 14 I would really like the opportunity, if you don't 15 mind. Thank you.

16 In 1991, a leak was discovered in the 17 drain line from the canister rack to the chemical 18 drain in the rad waste building. This leak 19 contaminated the soil under the concrete floor of the 20 lab, the volume of contaminated material was estimated 21 to be approximately 58,000 cubic feet.

22 Radio-nuclides associated with that spill 23 included cesium-134, strontium-90, iron-55. They 24 claim, this is from the SAS, that that location is the 25 only location on the Vermont Yankee site where those NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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195 1 radio-nuclides are known to have been released to the 2 environment. I don't believe that is true, because I 3 remember back during the tritium leak, when they did 4 some excavation of the trench, they found Strontium-5 90, Cobalt-60 and iron in that trench. So, maybe they 6 took this quote in the SAS from an older study and had 7 neglected to include the fact that yes, we do know 8 that those ingredients, those radio-nuclides were 9 released during the tritium leak.

10 Anyway, it implies that what the NRC did 11 when the -- when this came to their attention was that 12 they approved the area as an onsite waste disposal 13 area under the requirements of NRC regulation 10 CFR 14 20.2002.

15 I found that really astounding, so that 16 when a nuclear plant violates their defense-in-depth, 17 when they violate their trust, and allow radio-18 nuclides to leak in our environment, your response is 19 to say, "Oh, that's okay, we'll just change the 20 designation and call it a nuclear waste dump site."

21 That's kind of scary to me. I don't know if that's a 22 question or a statement, but it's kind of scary.

23 So, I want to know, this is a question, 24 what is going to happen to the Cobalt-60 in the 25 Connecticut River sediments, that Entergy admitted to, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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196 1 before, as they were testifying before the Legislative 2 Committee on administrative rules in the Vermont State 3 Legislature? When will that be cleaned up? What will 4 happen to all the radioactive water Entergy plans to 5 transfer into the torus, to use as backup clean water 6 for the spent fuel pool, after that is dismantled?

7 Where is all this water going to go? Does 8 that get shipped to Texas, to be put into their 9 facility, or does it just get drained into the 10 Connecticut River? I want a specific answer.

11 MR. CAMERON: We're going to answer those 12 questions and then, thank you very much. Can we do 13 it? Answer the question?

14 MR. FERDAS: I can talk to the torus 15 question.

16 The torus will be used as part of the 17 SAFSTOR operations. When that is not needed anymore, 18 that water will be drained from the torus and taken 19 offsite to a processing facility.

20 There is no intention for that to be 21 released into the Connecticut River.

22 MR. CAMERON: And how about the 23 Connecticut River Cobalt questions, Bruce?

24 MR. WATSON: As part of their planning for 25 the decommissioning, I would expect that if the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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197 1 historical records indicate that they had a release of 2 material to anywhere onsite, they could characterize 3 that area, to see what the levels are, to see if they 4 have to do any additional clean up work.

5 That's part of the normal process for 6 planning for decommissioning.

7 MS. SHAW: Is the river considered on the 8 site?

9 MR. WATSON: I don't know if it's in the 10 licensed part of the facility or not. I am just --

11 don't think it is, but it may be in by reference. I 12 don't know.

13 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Sally, for 14 the questions, and I'm going to ask Drew, Senior NRC 15 official here, to close the meeting out for us. Drew?

16 MR. PERSINKO: I think folks are here to 17 -- I think we have this room until the absolute 18 latest, 10:00 probably.

19 But first of all, let me thank everybody 20 for your participation. I really mean that. There 21 was really good participation tonight. You gave us 22 numerous comments and you've given us a lot to 23 consider.

24 You know, as everybody was talking, I was 25 trying to take notes and trying to kind of group the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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198 1 comments, and you know, there were quite a few 2 comments in the emergency preparedness area, number --

3 lot of comments, I saw also in the financial areas, 4 the decommissioning trust fund area.

5 So, some questions in the environmental 6 relating to the GEIS, generic environmental impact 7 statement, questions came up, and the other area was 8 in the spent fuel area.

9 There was a number of questions, and there 10 were really two aspects of the spent fuel, as I see 11 it.

12 There was the -- there were spent fuel 13 comments made concerning movement of the fuel to the 14 ISFSI and the building of the ISFSI and things of that 15 nature, and then there were comments relating to the 16 permanent disposal of spent fuel.

17 You know, the permanent disposal of spent 18 fuel in this -- in the U.S. is really a national 19 policy issue and it's a bigger issue than just the 20 NRC.

21 So, it's not an issue that the NRC is 22 going to solve alone. It's a national policy issue.

23 So, we need to -- we will, we will look at 24 the transcripts. We'll look at your comments. We'll 25 digest them. It's going to take us a little time to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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199 1 digest them. We will group the comments and we will 2 respond as best we can to the comments we received, 3 and questions we received, and I believe the best 4 place for us to respond would be on our website.

5 But we will bin the comments in different 6 groupings and attempt to then respond to the comments 7 we received, and we will be considering these 8 comments, as we do the review of the PSDAR, as Doug 9 said initially, beginning of the meeting tonight.

10 One last -- couple last things I want to 11 say in my closing remarks are, just because the plant 12 is now shut down and is not operational, it does not 13 mean that the NRC is no longer involved.

14 The NRC will still be providing safety 15 oversight through licensing and through inspections, 16 and it really gets back to our mission at the NRC, 17 which is how I started the meeting, about protecting 18 health and safety, public health and safety.

19 I do want to assure you, there were a 20 number of comments made tonight about NRC and the way 21 we are doing safety.

22 I do want to assure you that we, at the 23 NRC, do take our safety responsibility seriously. We 24 really do. We do care, as somebody was saying. Thank 25 you very much.

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200 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay, and thank you, all.

2 I1ll thank the panel, and we're adjourned. Thank you.

3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 4 off the record at 10:20 p.m.)

5 6

7 8

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CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Proceeding: Vermont Yankee Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Report - Public Meeting Docket Number: 05000271 Location: Brattleboro, Vermont were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken and thereafter reduced to typewriting under my direction and that said transcript is a true and accurate record of the proceedings.

Official Reporter Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.

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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com