ML15217A082
"Draft Meeting" is not in the list (Request, Draft Request, Supplement, Acceptance Review, Meeting, Withholding Request, Withholding Request Acceptance, RAI, Draft RAI, Draft Response to RAI, ...) of allowed values for the "Project stage" property.
| ML15217A082 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Oconee  |
| Issue date: | 07/08/1999 |
| From: | NRC/OGC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML15217A081 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9909140194 | |
| Download: ML15217A082 (33) | |
Text
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION PUBLIC MEETING DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR OCONEE NUCLEAR STATION LICENSE RENEWAL (AFTERNOON SESSION)
Ramada Inn 1310 Tiger Boulevard Clemsom, SC 29634 Hwy 76 and 123 Thursday, July 8, 1999 The above-entitled meeting commenced, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m.
9909140194 990827 PDR ADOCK 05000269 T
PDR ATTACHMENT 4
PROCEDINGS
[1:30 p.m.]
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Good afternoon everybody and welcome to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Public Meeting on the draft environmental impact statement connected to the application for license renewal for the Oconee plant.
My name is Chip Cameron, I'm the Special Counsel for Public Liaison at the NRC. I'm going to serve as your facilitator this afternoon for the meeting.
Today you're going to have an opportunity to hear from the NRC on the contents of the draft environmental impact statement on the license renewal application and also to hear what the status of the license renewal application is, generally. Also, you'll have the opportunity to provide comments to the NRC and also to question the NRC staff.
My role, as the facilitator, today will generally me to try to help you have a more effective meeting and to me, some of the goals for having a more effective meeting are to ensure that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission provides you with clear information on the draft environmental impact statement and to clarify anything that you don't understand. Also, to make sure that all and any of you who want to say something during the presentation have an opportunity to speak and also to keep the discussion relevant and focused.
.If you picked up a copy of the agenda on the way in, you'll see that we have a number of topics that we're going to be addressing this afternoon and after each of those presentations, we're going to go on to you for any questions or comments that you might have on that topic so that we're going to try to keep the questions and comments confined to that particular topic at that time.
If there are other concerns, other issues more general issues then we'll pick those up at the end of the meeting. The NRC is also asking for written comments on the draft environmental impact statement and the NRC staff will be talking more about how you do that later on in the presentation.
We're here to talk to you in person today, to get your comments. Any comments that you provide this afternoon will be treated in the same manner as the written comments. In other words, the NRC will evaluate those comments as they go about preparing the final environmental impact statement.
Keep in mind that this is a draft environmental impact statement and the whole purpose of being out here, of issuing a draft for comment, is to see if we missed anything, if we have to refine something, if we have to change something that's in the draft environmental impact statement.
As far as ground rules for the meeting today, they're fairly simple. When we do go to audience discussion, if you want to say anything just raise your hand and I'll call on you.
We are taking a transcript, our Court Reporter is in the back of the room and we want to make sure that we don't miss anything that's said so when you come up to the microphone, either this microphone or I'll give you this talking stick, state your name so that we can put that on the record and your affiliation, if that's appropriate.
We don't have a real big - I don't think we're going to have a time problem but if you could just try to be to the point in your comments and we'll have that on the record, we'll get questions or answers to questions that you have and we'll just keep going. The NRC staff is going to be here after the meeting and we'll be glad to talk further with any of you about any issues that you might have.
In about thirty seconds we're going to have Cindy Carpenter, who's the Branch Chief where the environmental work is done. She's going to give you an overview of the meeting and purpose and then we're going to go right to a presentation by Chris Grimes on the license renewal process, generally, and the status of license renewal here at Oconee, then we'll go on to you for questions and comments.
The next segment is going to be led by Jim Wilson from the NRC staff and he's going to talk about what's called the NEPA process. NEPA stands for National Environmental Policy Act and that's what really provides the basis for the NRC doing an environmental impact statement.
We'll go through that, we'll go to you for questions and then we're going to get to the meat of the discussion. What has the NRC found, at least in draft form, in terms of environmental impacts for Oconee and Eva Hickey, who is right here, is going to be talking about what she
.and her staff found. We'll go to you for questions and then we're going to come back up to Jim Wilson to talk about preliminary conclusions and then we'll go back out to you for questions.
Some of you may have a prepared statement that you want to put into the record and we'll do that during the final session today and that's fine. If you have parts of that you want to put in, if they're relevant to particular topic, you can do that at that time or you can wait till the end. In any case, just feel free to ask questions or comment at any time during today's presentation because that's why we're here, to give you information and to hear from you. Now I'm going to ask Cindy Carpenter to give this meeting overview and purpose.
MS. CARPENTER: I want to welcome you and I want to thank you for coming tonight. My name is Cindy Carpenter and I am the Branch chief for the Generic Issues, Environmental, Financial and Rulemaking Branch within the office of Nuclear Reactor regulation of the NRC.
We're here today to discuss the results of the NRC's environmental review of the Oconee Nuclear Station, in support of Duke Energy's license renewal application for the plant.
We'll talk a little bit about the statutory requirements for this action, the results of the NRC's review, the preliminary conclusions of the NRC resulting from this review, the schedule that we're working to and we'll provide you an opportunity to comment or ask questions on what it is in the NRC's environmental impact statement or on anything that you've heard today. To provide you with some background.
The operating licenses for the Oconee Nuclear Station, Units 1,2 and 3 will currently expire in 2013, 2013 and 2014 respectively. As we'll discuss later, the Atomic Energy Act allows the utility such as Duke Energy to renew its license for up to twenty years. Part of the license renewal process requires the NRC to systematically consider environmental impact during its decision making process on this matter.
The Oconee Nuclear Station submitted their license renewal application in July of 1998. We held a scoping meeting here in October of 1998 to identify issues that may have needed to be addressed during the staff's review. In May of this year the NRC issued a draft environmental impact statement describing the results of our review.
We're currently in the middle of the comment period for that document during which we receive comments from members of the public on its contents. These comments may help the staff evaluate the acceptability of the environmental aspects of the Oconee nuclear Station license renewal.
Slide 5, please. The purpose of today's meeting is to present the results of the NRC's environmental review, discuss what the NRC Staff considered in this review, to clarify any issues to members of the Public, to assist you in preparing comments, to identify whether or not environmental license renewal issue was inappropriately excluded during this review, accept any comments from members of the public and discuss the schedule for submitting comments and how you can submit comments to us.
Before we get into the details of the NRC's environmental review, Mr. Christopher Grimes, the Branch chief of the License Renewal and Standardization Branch will provide an overview of the entire license renewal process.
MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Cindy. As Cindy mentioned, my names is Chris Grimes. I'm the Chief of the License Renewal and Standardization Branch in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation in the NRC's Headquarters Office in Rockville, Maryland.
The NRC's mission is to regulate the nation's civilian use of nuclear materials, to ensure adequate protection of the Public health and safety, to promote common defense and security and to protect the environment. This mission, and the NRC's authority are derived from the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974 as well as amendments to those Acts and other legislation involving security, waste and energy policies. The NRC's regulations are issued under Title 10 of the United States Code of Federal Regulations which we will refer to, throughout our presentations as 1O-CFR. For commercial power reactors, the regulatory functions include licensing.
A nuclear power plant license is based on a set of established regulatory requirements to ensure that the design and proposed operation are safe, based on radiological safety standards. NRC conducts routine inspections to ensure that the plant design and operation conform to the license requirements and enforcement actions are taken in the event that the license requirements are not being satisfied.
The Atomic Energy Act and the NRC regulations limit commercial power reactor licenses to forty years, but they also permit the renewal of such licenses for a period of up to twenty years.
The forty year term was originally selected on the basis of economic and anti-trust considerations, not technical limitations. But, once selected, the design of several system and
.structural components were engineered on the basis of an expected forty year service life. The requirements for the initial license are contained in 10-CFR, Part 50.
When the first reactors were constructed, major components were expected to last at least forty years. Operating experience has demonstrated that expectation was unrealistic for some major plant components, such as the steam generator in a pressurized water reactor. However, research conducted over the past decade and operating experience have demonstrated that there are no technical limitations on plant life, since major components and structures can be replaced or refurbished.
Thus, plant life is determined primarily on economic factors. As a result, the NRC established regulatory requirements in 10 CFR, Part 54, to provide for license renewal. That rule, which was originally issued in 1991 and amended in 1995, provides that the basis on which a plant was originally licensed remains valid after forty years and can be carried over into a twenty year period of extended operation.
That rule requires that an applicant demonstrate that applicable aging effects will be adequately managed for a defined scope of passive, long lived system structures and components. The Commission determined that aging for active components is adequately managed by existing maintenance and surveillance programs and other aspects of the existing license requirements can continue through the period of extended operation. The rule also requires that certain time dependent design analysis be identified and evaluated.
A new license can be granted upon a finding by the Commission that actions have been, or will be taken so that there is reasonable assurance and the applicable aging effects will be adequately managed for the period of extended operation and whether or not adverse environmental impacts of license renewal are so great that preserving the option of license renewal for energy planning decision makers would be unreasonable. The United States currently receives about twenty percent of its electricity from the one hundred and three operating nuclear power plants.
The electricity sector is moving rapidly to a deregulated environment in which energy supply choices will be dictated by cost to the consumer. At the same time, there are growing pressures to limit fossil fuel and emissions because of continuing concerns for cleaner air and potential global climatic changes.
Deregulation and competition have raised the interest in license renewal to strategic importance because large generating plants become vital economic assets to the plant owners. Operating nuclear power plants are expected to remain competitive after retail electricity restructuring provided that the costs associated with operating the plants safely, in the future, can be reasonably predicted.
Some currently operating U.S. plants will not apply for license renewal for economic reasons.
The NRC established the license renewal requirements so that any plant that is financially and materially capable of operating safely, beyond on the current term, could have that opportunity and clearly understand the requirements for such extended operation as described in the environmental impact statement for license renewal. Excuse me, the generic environmental impact statement for license renewal.
The Oconee Plant - excuse me, the Calvert Cliffs Plant in Maryland was the first to apply for license renewal in April of 1998. The renewal application for the Oconee Plant was received in July of 1998. Although these licenses do not expire until 2013 or later, many utilities are interested in license renewal today so that they can clearly understand what requirements will be necessary for an extended license for future financial planning.
The licensing process consists of parallel, technical and environmental reviews which will be documented and a safety evaluation report for the management aspects or the technical aspects (environmental people don't like me to say that because they're technical, too), but the safety evaluation report addresses the aging management aspects while the supplement to the generic environmental impact statement will document the environmental review. The aging management findings in the NRC staff safety evaluation will be verified by NRC inspections.
The renewal application and the safety evaluation report will also be reviewed by the NRC's advisory committee on reactor safeguards, in accordance with the usual practices for the issuance of a license.
On June 16, 1999, the NRC issued the safety evaluation report for Oconee which addresses the scope of passive systems, structures and components, the applicable aging effects, the aging management programs that Duke will rely on to ensure that plant safety is maintained during the period of extended operation. That report identifies open items and confirmatory matters related to the safety review under Part 54 that must be resolved before the Commission can complete a decision on the license renewal application. That report is available to the public.
Since the issuance of the safety evaluation report, Duke has submitted responses to some of the open items. The responses to all of the open items are scheduled to be completed before October 1999. Meetings will be held between the NRC and Duke in the future to discuss the resolution of the open and confirmatory items. The resolution of those issues will be reflected in a revised report that is currently scheduled to be completed by February 2000. The NRC's licensing process includes a formal process for public involvement through Hearings, conducted by a panel of Administrative Law Judges who are called the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
That process consists of a petition to hold Hearings to be litigated by the Board.
Following the receipt of the license renewal application for Oconee, in July 1998, the NRC received a request for a Hearing on a license renewal application from the Chattooga River Watershed Coalition. They petitioned for Hearings on issues related to the completeness of the renewal application, the adequacy of the safety basis for aging management, the fulfillment of NEPA and high level waste storage. In December 1998, the Board concluded that the petition did not identify -- material issues of law or facts that would warrant resolution through litigation.
The Chattooga River Watershed Coalition appealed the Board's decision to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On April 15, 1999, the Commission affirmed the Board's decision and denied the appeal. Thus, there will be no formal hearings on the organizing campaign license renewal application. However, it is clear that the Chattooga River Watershed Coalition and other interested members of the Public are concerned about nuclear safety, including issues that are both within and beyond the scope of the matters that the NRC will be reviewing in conjunction with the license renewal application.
The NRC will continue to hold public meetings with Duke to discuss the open and confirmatory items in the safety evaluation, as well as public meetings on other topics related to the existing license requirements. Time is usually provided at the conclusion of each meeting, for Public comments and questions, usually being dictated by whether or not there are any members of the Public that attend. Interested members of the Public can express concerns like those that were raised by the Chattooga River Watershed Coalition for the staff to address, in those meetings, on an informal basis.
Meetings on particular technical issues are usually held in Rockville, Maryland close to the bulk of the NRC technical staff. However, some technical meetings and meetings to summarize the results of the NRC's inspection findings will be held at the Oconee plant, in a place that is accessible to the Public.
The safety evaluation report, meeting summaries and other related correspondence are all available to the Public through the local Public document - in addition, we are adding more of these materials to NRC website.
I'd hoped to be able to tell you today that we'd just revamped our website for license renewal but because of other demands on our computer systems, including trying to electrify the NRC staff and teach us how to manage documents on the computer, those website changes have not been updated yet. But, in the next few weeks you can expect to see more of these materials available on the NRC website.
The advisory committee on reactor safeguards, or the ACRS, performs an independent review
.of the renewal application and the safety evaluation and they report their findings and their recommendations directly to the Commission. The advisory committee is made up largely of academicians and recognized experts in particular engineering or scientific fields. They are appointed by the Commission to those positions for a prescribed term.
The ACRS also holds public meetings which are transcribed. Oral and written statements can be provided to the ACRS during their meetings, in accordance with the instructions described in the notice of their meetings in the Federal Register. A meeting of the advisory committee - the ACRS sub-committee on plant license renewal was held in Rockville, Maryland on June 30th and July 1st to discuss the safety evaluation for the Oconee license renewal application. The ACRS full committee will discuss this topic in its meeting in September.
At the end of the process, the final safety evaluation report, the final supplement to the environmental impact statement and the results of the inspections, and the ACRS recommendation are all submitted to the Commission with a staff recommendation. Those documents and the formal Commission meeting to discuss the staff's recommendations are also accessible to the Public.
After a public Commission meeting, presently scheduled in August of 2000 for Oconee, each commissioner will vote on the proposed action and their decision is formally sent to the NRC staff for whatever action the Commission concludes is appropriate for the renewal application.
Throughout the NRC's review of the license renewal application, the NRC continues to conduct regular inspections and license amendments under the current license. The NRC's inspections and plant performance reviews are evolving with the NRC's initiatives to improve the regulatory oversight process.
OIf you are interested in learning more about the new inspection and oversight process, there's information available on the NRC's website, as well as a report, NUREG 1649, Revision 1. The normal regulatory process and amendments to the existing license will continue and parallel with the NRC staff's review of the renewal application and they will address matters of interest such as operational events, spent fuel storage, security and emergency plans which will continue to carry over with the current licensing basis if a renewal application is granted.
If there are any questions about the overall licensing process or the safety review I'd like to address those questions now, before Jim Wilson presents the results of the staff's environmental impact review.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Chris, before we go to the audience, just a couple of clarifications.
You mentioned the NRC website, several times, and that's - for people's information, what is the address for that?
MR. GRIMES: www.nrc.gov.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, thank you. You also mentioned that the licensee was going to be responding to open items. Are those responses placed in the public document room on the website? How do people get access to those?
MR. GRIMES: Those documents are placed in a local public document room. I hope to get some of the salient ones out on the NRC's website. It depends on how fast our web can expand. The NRC typically handles about a million pieces of paper a day, in terms of
.correspondence coming and going and so, at the present time, we're being selective and just putting things on the web that we feel are of greatest interest to a broad audience.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. And the meeting that you mentioned where you will sit down with the Duke people to discuss the responses, that is going to be a public meeting?
MR. GRIMES: Yes, actually it will probably be a series of meetings and they'll be held - some in Rockville and some at the Oconee plant and all of the meetings between the NRC staff and applicants are posted, at least, a week before the meetings occur and the meetings are listed on the NRC's website for anyone who is interested. I believe there's also a phone line with a recorded message of all the meetings, at least the Commission meetings, if not all the NRC staff meetings.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: And could people who registered, who are here today, if they wanted to be notified of those meetings, could we send them notification?
MR. GRIMES: Normally we limit our distribution because of the large volume of correspondence that we have, just to particular groups that are involved in the licensing activities. But, if anybody is interested, you can see me and we can try and make some arrangements. It's easier for us to simply put all the meeting notices on the website and then let people pick and choose from those which meetings they're most interested in.
.FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Good. Thank you. Questions from the audience. Any questions or comments on Chris's presentation. Yes, sir. If you could just state your name and affiliation.
MR. TIMS: My name is Chuck Tims and I'm a member of the Oconee County Council. I've got a couple questions. I know that some nuclear power plants may not seek renewal, and of course some are denied. Now, in the processes that we've had in the past, what is the process used to - once the application is refused or denied, or voluntarily denied, do you dis-establish these power plants and briefly, what is the process? Are you required to dis-establish them?
MR. GRIMES: In the event that the license renewal application is denied, then the current forty year license will continue and regulations require that prior to the expiration of the forty year license the utility has to submit a de-commissioning plan and go through a formal process of de-commissioning in order to essentially dismantle the facility or to put it in what's called safe store, a condition which will ensure that even a non-operating facility is maintained in a safe state. In any event, any existing nuclear power plant has to go through a decommissioning process in order to make sure, regardless of whether it operates, it's maintained in a safe condition.
MR. TIMS: The other question regards to the composition of the Commission. How many members of the Commission are there and can you identify those members today?
MR. GRIMES: Yes, I can. There are five commissioners that are appointed by the President.
We just lost Chairman Shirley Jackson whose term ended on June 30th and she has now gone on to become the President of Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute. We have four remaining commissioners and a vacancy that the administration will propose a nomination for. The four commissioners that remain are Greta Dicus, who is the newly appointed chairman, Edward McGaffigan, Mills Diaz and Jeffrey Merrifield.
MR. TIMS: And they are appointed by the President?
MR. GRIMES: Each of those are appointed by the President and each has a background of either law or they come from congressional staff. In Chairman Dicus's case, she was head of the Arkansas State Emergency Planning and -
MR. TIMS: Do they have to be approved by the House or the Senate?
MR. GRIMES: Yes, they do. The President nominates them and then Congress affirms or denies the nomination.
MR. TIMS: What are the terms of the appointees?
MR. GRIMES: I believe the terms are for five years.
MR. TIMS: Thank you.
.FACILITATOR CAMERON: All right, thank you Mr. Tims. Are there other questions? We have one right over here.
MS. THOMPSON: My name is Margaret Thompson. I used to be a Federal government lawyer and now, in South Carolina, I teach law classes at both Clemsom and sometimes U of South Carolina Law School. This is a quick academic question. You mentioned the availability of a public document repository but you didn't tell us where it is?
FACILITATOR CAMERON: A good point.
MR. GRIMES: It's in Walhalla. A public library at Walhalla.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, do you need any other information?
MS. THOMPSON: Not at this time. I go to your website but not everybody could.
MR. GRIMES: I believe the website also has a listing of all the public document rooms.
There's one in the vicinity of each major or each nuclear power plant or major nuclear facility.
MS. THOMPSON: The website looks great, so far. I'm excited that you're updating it but I don't think everybody in the room has access to the web.
MR. GRIMES: That's why I mentioned the public document room. We also have a public document room in Washington that has all of the NRC's documents. We send the documents related to the major facilities to the local public document room.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, thank you. We have a comment or a question over here.
MR. WILLIAMS: The Watershed Coalition, I'm the executive director, my name is Buzz Williams and, as you mentioned earlier, we, had some questions and concerns earlier and we're becoming increasing and even more concerned as these proceedings move forward towards a decision. There's so many open-ended questions. Concerning the environmental impact statement draft report supplement to Oconee Nuclear Station - for example, regarding off-site radiological impact, spent fuel and high level waste disposal on Page 6 and 4, I think it is reference to radioactive doses to individuals it says, and I quote: "However, while the Commission has reasonable confidence that these assumptions will prove correct, there's considerable uncertainty (and I want to underscore that word uncertainty), since the limits are yet to be developed, no repository application has been completed or reviewed and uncertainty (again that word crops up), is inherent in the models used to evaluate possible pathways to the human environment." "Concerning estimating cumulative doses to populations over thousands of years is more problematic." This is a quote, too. "Since estimates would involve very great uncertainties, (there it goes again), especially with respect to cumulative doses to populations."
That's the end of that quote. Just a footnote,high level waste remains toxic for two hundred thousandyears and there's currently about forty thousand tons stockpiled around the country at various nuclear plants on site. I assume everyone here has read the thousands of documents involved in this so you're probably familiar with this. We had to really dig this out. Regarding transportation of radiological waste, Page 6 and 7. Quote; "-- did not provide a site specific review of the environmental impacts and transportation of high level waste." Another point that I'd like to add to that is the Federal government, you the taxpayers, will bear the huge expense of storage of high level waste on-site in any future national repository which I would point out is very much in question at this time, whether or not Yucca Mountain will even be environmental safe to use as a repository. Concerning the safety evaluation report, which you mentioned earlier, it discusses critical issues concerning nuclear reactor operating systems. Again, it contains many open items and unresolved items. Some examples are:
Questions remain about detecting thermal and neutron radiation embrittlement of the reactor vessel internal components and subsequent aging management programs. Also questions remain about ways to detect loss of fractured toughness, structure toughness.I think earlier that you had mentioned that the NRC had determined that all these things could be replaced and so the life expectancy of these plants might be indefinite. I would maintain that I don't think you're going to be replacing the actual reactor vessel so I would maintain to you that you've missed a very important part in making that decision when you don't analyze these potential embrittlement problems. Regarding the reactor building cooling units, questions remain about determining the heat removal capacity given degradation of the system due to aging.
Meanwhile Oconee Nuclear Station has been cited by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for problems, inadequacies in operating of the reactor coolant system. According to the research that I've done, under certain circumstances with cooling systems that inadequately function, some of these reactor vessels that might be embrittled could literally shatter like glass. I'm not saying that's the case with Oconee, it's a very well run plant. What I'm saying is that proceeding towards a decision, in the absence of handling or having the answers to these open ended questions, very clearly might prejudice any decision that might be made and therefore I think it's unfair to the public, it's unfair because of their right to know and it might possibly frankly, almost certainly, it surely is illegal. Another, and final point, is that in the future as Duke and NRC address these open questions and decisions are made, the Public is invited but I would maintain that they do not have standing. Because of the morass of procedures that you have to go to have legal standing to do anything about it, surely you will listen, I have all confidence, but for the Public to have any legal recourse or way to intervene in our judicial system, I maintain that at that point they will be out of the loop. So, they're going to listen to you but you won't be able to do anything about it and I think you ought to be able to know that, you should know that. Those are my comments and I appreciate your time.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, thank you very much, Buzz. We sort of deviated from our script there because he has another meeting so he read the statement. Chris, did you have anything - there was a lot there, do you have anything to say before Buzz leaves?
MR. GRIMES: All I can say, at this point, is I understand the reason for his concerns, we do use that term unlikely because there are some areas where we've tried to abound things, with certain assumptions. Clearly, there's a national interest in what will happen with a high level waste repository and we're proceeding on the basis, and an expectation, that there will be a national resolution of that issue and if there isn't, in time, then we will have to act on that and do something different. Regarding the concerns related to the reactor vessel embrittlement, we did pay particular attention to that in the safety evaluation. There are open items that need to be resolved. We didn't say that the resolution of open items was going to be easy but I do want to point out that there are studies that have demonstrated how one can go about replacing a reactor vessel. At this point in time it's considered economically infeasible but it's not technically infeasible. In addition, our safety evaluation identifies those programs that we would rely upon to measure fracture toughness of the vessel and all other important parts of the reactor coolant system and the reactor coolant pressure boundary and we're going to continue to pursue those issues. If there are still residual concerns, those concerns can be presented to the Commission. Buzz is right, they may or may not listen to you, they're certainly going to hear you but they might not necessarily act on it but that, routinely, results in us being hauled into Court, and we get hauled into Court regularly, to defend our positions. That recourse is still available to you but I admit, it is a cumbersome and bureaucratic process.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, thank you very much. I guess we'll try to keep the coalition informed of what's going on with open issues.
MR. GRIMES: We did put the Chattooga River Watershed Coalition on our distribution for all renewal related documents and we'll continue to keep Buzz informed about meetings. If others of you are interested, we can make arrangements to keep you informed as well.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, thank you very much, Chris.
MR. WILLIAMS: I'm glad you concur about the future public meetings where people can come where they may or may not listen. The fact that we may see you in Federal Court has something to do with our standing but again, I want to underscore, the Public will not be able to have standing because it's my concern that we're the only ones that have been acknowledged to have standing. I think it's important that they know we're basically carrying the ball. They can contact us and if they have concerns, if it gets that far, hopefully we'll be able to express the concerns and interest of the public through that procedure.
MR. GRIMES: I appreciate that and we do acknowledge that Chattooga was the only organization that petitioned to intervene and to represent Public interest for the Oconee License Renewal application. From my perspective, I would hope that we would be able to resolve any concerns that you have on an informal basis and we'll continue to try to do that, even though the Licensing Board and the Commission concluded that litigation of those issues was not warranted. We understand your concerns and we're going to continue to try to address them on an informal basis.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, thank you very much. Thanks Chris. Do we have other questions or comments for Chris, before we move on?
(No audible response.)
I just want to remind everybody who is up here at this particular microphone, you really need to get close and speak up. Next we're going to have Jim Wilson who's going to talk about the NEPA process, Jim?
MR. WILSON: Slide 10 please. My name is Jim Wilson, I'm an environmental project manager at the NRC for the Oconee license renewal project. I work in the Generic Issues, Environmental, Financial, and Rulemaking Branch within NRC, Cynthia Carpenter is my boss.
Today I would like to briefly talk about the process required by the National Environmental Policy Act, the so called NEPA process and then describe how that process translates into the regulations of the NRC and how those regulations are being applied to the Oconee license renewal application. NEPA was enacted in 1969 and requires that all Federal agencies use a systematic approach to consider environmental impacts during certain decision making
.proceedings.
NEPA is a disclosure tool that involves the Public. It invokes a process whereby information is gathered to enable Federal agencies to make better decisions and then documents that information and invites Public participation to evaluate it. The NEPA process results in a number of different kinds of documents. Chief among them are environmental impact statements, also called ElSs, which are rigorous, detailed reviews in which the staff evaluates the environmental impacts of a proposed action that may significantly affect the quality of the human environment. There are a couple of variations in the types of environmental impact statements that can be prepared, depending on the nature of the process and the proposed action. These include generic environmental impact statements, also called GEISs, and these address generic impacts common to a number of similar proposed actions.
Another type of environmental impact statement is a supplemental environmental impact statement where an environmental impact statement has been previously issued and then additional information or issues arise that need to be considered and disclosed in a supplement.
So I'll discuss, shortly, the NRC use of such documents in its environmental reviews for license renewal applications. The NRC has already determined that license renewal is a major Federal action, therefore we're going through the NEPA process for Oconee now and have prepared an Oconee-specific supplement to the generic environmental statement for license renewal. That supplement discusses plant specific results of the Oconee review. As far as the NEPA process goes, there are certain steps that we, at the NRC, are required to follow. These steps are consistent for all EISs prepared by all Federal agencies or any proposed major Federal action. The first step is the Notice of Intent. This lets the Public know that we're going to prepare an environmental impact statement and for Oconee, the Notice of Intent was published in the Federal Register in September of 1998. To prepare for the review, the staff assembled a team of NRC staff with backgrounds in the specific technical and scientific
.disciplines required to perform these environmental reviews and, in addition, to supplement the technical expertise of the staff, we engaged the assistance of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to ensure that we had a well-rounded knowledge base to perform the review. We put together a team of about fifteen scientists and researchers to conduct this review. Several of the key staff and contractor personnel are here today to address any questions that you might have and to discuss the draft environmental impact statement supplement for Oconee that we issued at the end of May. The next step is the scoping process whereby we identify issues to be address in the environmental impact statement. The scoping period for Oconee began September of 1998 and ended in November of 1998. In about the middle of that period the staff solicit input from federal, state and local agencies and the Public. Some of you may recall that we had two scoping meetings in this hotel in October of 1998. During this time the staff also visited the site to obtain a better understanding of the site layout, regional setting and the environmental measures put into place by Duke at Oconee Nuclear Station. After obtaining input from the Public, and other sources mentioned earlier, the NRC conducts its environmental review. The staff looks at the environmental impacts of the proposed license renewal, it looks at alternatives to the proposed action and the impacts that could results from those alternatives and it looks at mitigation measures which are things that can be done that would decrease the environmental impact of the license renewal., It's important to note that during the scoping period for Oconee, a number of issues were raised to the NRC by the Public or identified by the staff during the cours of its review that did not have a bearing on the decision to renew the license. However, a number of these issues were determined to be appropriate for consideration now because they're relevant to the currently operating plant. These have been referred to the appropriate NRC programs. For instance, the allegations program, the operating plant project manager or other agencies that may be interested in these issues to be S
dispositioned and resolved. After an agency has conducted its environmental review, it issues what's called a draft environmental impact statement or draft EIS for public comment. They are drafts - not because they are incomplete but rather because they are in an intermediate stage in the decision making process. In the case of Oconee we called this the Draft Supplement 2 to the generic environmental impact statement for license renewal and I'll cover this in a little bit more detail in a moment. The minimum public comment period required for draft environmental impact statement is forty-five days. We're in the middle of the process now for collecting comments or in the case of Oconee, we've decided to extend the comment period by an additional thirty days and the comment period will end seventy-five days after we began the comment period and that will be August 16th of 1999. After agencies gather comments and evaluates them it may decide to change portions of that document based on the comments, and then issues a final environmental statement. For Oconee we're looking to issue the final environmental statement in February of 2000.
Slide 13: This slide shows a flow diagram showing the NEPA process and how it's being applied to nuclear plants requesting renewal for their operating licenses. This is the process we're going through for the environmental portion of the Oconee license renewal application and we are, at this stage here (points) in the NEPA process.
Slide 14: I'd like to spend a few moments describing how the staff incorporated the NEPA process into the regulatory framework of the NRC and how the staff performs environmental assessment. The NRC's implementing regulations for carrying out the NEPA process are located in Part 51 of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations - what we call 10 CFR, Part
- 51. This regulation contains the requirements that determine how the NEPA process is implemented at NRC. It outlines the contents of the environmental impact statements and the process that the NRC staff will use to meet the requirements of NEPA. Early on, in establishing the license renewal process, it was recognized that the original environmental impact statements that were written for the plants when they received their operating licenses would need to be updated in order to address any refurbishment activities and the additional twenty years of operations afforded by license renewal. So, the NRC undertook a rulemaking effort to modify Part 51 and to amend it to address license renewal and environmental impacts. This was done separately from the rule making efforts in Part 54 to address the safety issues involved with license renewal. As part of the rulemaking effort on Part 51, the staff developed a generic environmental impact statement called the GEIS, NUREG 1437, which took a systematic look at the thousands of hours of operating experience at all the nuclear power plants in this country, to help us develop potential environmental impacts. In addition, the staff is currently in the process of finalizing an environmental standard review plan for license renewal to provide guidance on how to perform such a review. The staff used the information and guidance from these documents, and the public's input during the scoping process during our plant-specific review of Oconee. The copies of the code of Federal Regulations, the GEIS, the environmental SRP and other documents outside in the lobby for your examination. These documents are also available in the NRC public document rooms including the local public document room at the County Library in Walhalla and from the Government Printing Office.
Slide 15: The GEIS was published as NUREG 1437 as a final document in 1996. It forms the basis for the rule revisions in Part 51. The NRC worked with the states, the council on environmental equality and the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and a number of other groups and held a series of public meetings to develop the final GEIS. Based on extensive interactions that took place, the NRC decided that it was appropriate to limit the scope of what we were going to consider in the license renewal arena. The staff decided to use a process
.whereby identified and categorized the impacts that were specific to license renewal, both during refurbishment period and the additional twenty years of operation. The staff identified a total of ninety-two potential environmental impacts that could result from license renewal and these were evaluated - the impacts were evaluated in the GEIS. For each of the ninety-two issues, the staff described the activity, identified the population or resources that were affected, assessed the nature and magnitude of the impact and characterized the significance of the effect and reached a conclusion about whether additional mitigation would be warranted.
Slide 16: To characterize the significance of the impact, the staff adopted the definitions issued by the President's Council on Environmental Quality which are defined in terms of small, moderate or large. As you can see, a small impact would be an effect is not detectable or is too small to de-stabilize or noticeably alter any important attribute of the resource. Moderate environmental impact would result when the effect is sufficient to noticeably alter, but not to de-stabilize important attributes of the resource. Large impacts clearly are noticeable and would de-stabilized important attributes of the resource.
Slide 17: When the staff examined the 92 issues identified in the GEIS, it found that some of those were generic. That is, they were common to all plants regardless of their design or where they were sited. The NRC wanted to categorize them differently from those that needed to be evaluated on a plant-specific basis so we chose to designate the generic impacts as being in Category 1. Impacts that were plant-specific were designated as being Category 2. To assist in making the determination of whether items were Category 1 issues or Category 2 issues, three criteria were developed. If an impact met all three of the criteria it was considered a Category 1 impact. It was addressed on a generic basis in the GEIS. The first criterion for
.impact being a Category 1 was that the impact had to apply to all plants or, for some issues, to plants having a specific type of cooling system or other site-specific characteristic. The second criterion was a single significance level. The issue couldn't be a small impact at one site and a large impact at another site. It had to be a small or large or medium impact at all of the sites.
The third criterion was that plant-specific mitigation measures for adverse impacts had been considered in the analyses. As part of the GEIS, the NRC looked at mitigation measures and if there were no other mitigation measures that could be taken on a plant-specific basis that were sufficiently beneficial to warrant implementation it would be considered as a Category 1 issue. An example of a Category 1 issue is transportation line right-of-way impacts for other than endangered species. NRC considered that those impacts applied to all plants, all plants have transmission line corridors and the significance level of the impact was the same at all plants. Additionally, there were no further mitigation measures that could be taken on a plant specific basis. 'When we went through this exercise we found that there were sixty-eight Category 1 issues. We identified them, and assessed them in the final GEIS. These sixty-eight issues are identified in 10 CFR, Part 51 as not requiring additional plant-specific analysis. However, applicants must inform the NRC in their license renewal applications whether they are aware of any new or significant information regarding these Category 1 issues. In addition, during the scoping phase of the review the staff looked at comments from members of the public and Federal, state and local authorities to determine whether or not new and significant information is revealed. If we identify such information, it is included in the staff's review to determine environmental impact. If there is no new or significant information found, then the staff adopts the generic conclusions from the generic environmental impact statement.
Slide 18: Twenty-two of the remaining ninety-two issues are considered Category 2 and must be addressed on a plant-specific basis. Since the GEIS was issued in 1996, the Commission has determined that one of the Category 2 issues, transportation of high level waste, should be addressed on a generic basis. This basically shifts the burden of evaluating that impact from the licensee to the staff. Rulemaking efforts are currently underway and we expect that rulemaking to be finalized this fall.
Slide 19: There are two other issues that were not categorized during the GEIS process.
Because the presidential executive order on environmental justice had just been issued at the time the GEIS was issued, the staff concluded that it did not have enough information to categorize it one way or the other. However, the final rule determined, in Part 51, that environmental justice must be addressed on a plant-specific basis. The other un-categorized issue concerns the possible chronic effects of electromagnetic fields. Because conflicting research resulted and there were no clear conclusions regarding the impact, the Commission decided to wait until there was a clear scientific consensus on the issue before deciding it was a Category 1 or Category 2 issue.
Again, the final rule determined that the effects of electromagnetic fields would be addressed on a plant-specific basis. So all ninety-two of the issues are codified in 10-CFR, Part 51 and there's a table, Table B-1, that contains them all along with their designation. As mentioned before, the review process was designed to determine whether or not any significant new information is available. Applicants must inform the NRC whether or not they are aware of any significant or new information. In addition, the staff does its own independent review to determine whether or not significant new information exists. Such information for Category 1 issues in included in the staff's review to determine the impact. Otherwise, the staff adopts the generic conclusions from the GEIS for a Category 1 issue. As significant new information is identified on an issue that was not considered in the GEIS, it's still given the same plant-specific treatment as if it were a Category 2 issue.
Slide 20: This slide contains a box score. It shows how the GEIS, the ninety-two issues in the GEIS are split out to the sixty-eight issues, the twenty-two issues and the two uncategorized issues and then shows how Oconee fits into this scheme. Of the sixty-eight issues in Category 1 in the GEIS, fifty were determined to be applicable to Oconee. Eighteen issues were determined not to be applicable to the site because of specific design considerations or refurbishment considerations or site considerations. Of the twenty-two Category 2 issues, thirteen were considered applicable to Oconee and nine were not. The environmental impact of each of the applicable issues was assessed and, in addition, the two issues that were not categorized in the GEIS, environmental justice and the chronic effects of electromagnetic fields resulting from transmission line right-of-ways, both of those issues were assessed.
During the course of the scoping process, no new or significant issues were identified within the scope of license renewal. So, that's a brief discussion of the NEPA process and the role of the GEIS in the staff's review.
Slide 21: The issues addressed in the draft Oconee plant specific supplement to the GEIS include all ninety-two issues in the GEIS. For the Category 1 issues, the staff confirmed that no new and significant information exists and adopted the conclusions from the GEIS.
For the Category 2 issues, the staff assessed the environmental impact and addressed the human health effect of electromagnetic fields and environmental justice.
Slide 22: There are a few items that the draft Oconee plant specific supplement to the GEIS does not address. They were originally included in the FES-OL for the original license issuance. These include the need for power and cost of power, safety issues, and spent fuel disposal, except for high level waste transportation. As mentioned earlier, to supplement the technical expertise of the staff, personnel from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories were engaged in a variety of specialized technical and scientific disciplines to perform the environmental review. Eva Hickey, a Staff Scientist at PNNL will present results of the plant specific environmental review of Oconee. Before we go into that presentation I'd like to know if there are any questions on the material that I presented about the NEPA process.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Any questions for Jim on the overall process and while people are thinking about that - Jim, I take it that we would be looking for comments not only on the issues that Eva is going to be discussing but on - if there's any significant new information on the generic issues that might change things or how does that work?
MR. WILSON: I guess we went out with a request for if anyone had new and significant information, within the environmental review scope, to let us know back during the scoping period. If we get additional concerns now, of course we'll address them. We'd like to have heard them earlier, but we can address them now.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, thanks Jim. I think - Mr. Tims.
MR. TIMS: Mr. Wilson, I just have a general question. Could you give your educational background and a brief synopsis of your - a history of your employment?
MR. WILSON: Okay. I was hired back in 1976 at the NRC as an environmental scientist. I have a Master's Degree in Zoology and I've. done doctorate work, all but the dissertation, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. I've worked at the staff for twenty-three years now and I'm familiar with all stages of licensing, from initial licensing to license amendments and now I'm working on license renewal.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: We've been trying to save overall until we get to - later on in the presentation but - we'll hold that then. Anybody else on this overall process and we will get your general comments also at the end.
(No audible response.)
Okay, let's go to Eva Hickey. I should have noted, earlier on, that we also are going to have a presentation after the question and answer session for Eva, after her presentation by NRC staff member Rob Palla, who is right up here and he's going to be talking about some of the probable risk issues involved with license renewal. Eva?
MS. HICKEY: Thank you. My name is Eva Hickey, I'm from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington and I'm in the Environmental Technology Division. Next what I'd like to talk about is the process that was used for the environmental evaluation. This evaluation was conducted using the guidance in a document called The Environmental Standard Review Plan. There is a copy of it outside that you're welcome to look at if you'd like to. This ESRP was written specifically for review of license renewal applications. To start our review we became familiar with Duke's license renewal application and this application was submitted to the NRC. Part of the application is an environmental report which addresses the environmental issues. Next we reviewed the comments that were received from the public during the scoping process and these comments were received during the public meeting held in October when we were here. Comments were also sent directly to NRC before and after the public meeting. We considered all of these comments during our review and the comments that were not related to license renewal were referred to the appropriate NRC programs.
Finally, we had a site visit here at Oconee with the team of NRC and contractor scientists and researchers.
While at the site we discussed, with Duke, the process that they used for identifying new and significant information relating to the environmental impacts on license renewal -- As part of our review we visited many agencies, we talked to the county, regional and state government, environmental and resource regulators such as the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, we talked to Federal regulating agencies, such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to discuss the potential impacts of license renewal. We talked to information service agencies, such as the Appalachian Council of Governments and economic development agencies and various appraisers and social service agencies. We reviewed environmental permits and requirements that would be imposed on the utility for continuing operations. All in all we talked to twenty-six government regional state organizations and these are listed in Appendix E of the supplemental environmental impact statement. We discussed Category 1 issues a little earlier. During our review we were trying to identify if there was any additional information on the sixty-eight Category 1 issues in order to determine whether we would accept the conclusions that were given in the generic environmental impact statement. If we had, indeed, identified any new and significant information then that would have indicated the need for further evaluation. Our review showed that we did not have any new and significant Oenvironmental information for the Category 1 issues and therefore the staff will rely on the conclusions as amplified by the supporting information and the generic environmental impact statement. With regards to the Category 2 issues, there are twenty-two issues that fall under Category 2 designation. These issues were evaluated, specifically and in depth, for each site.
Of the twenty-two issues there are five issues at Oconee that are not applicable because of plant design features or site characterizations that are not found at this site. There are four additional issues related to refurbishment and since Duke states that there are no plans for major refurbishment, these issues are not relevant either. This leaves thirteen issues that were specifically addressed in the supplemental environmental impact statement and the two additional issues that were discussed before, that are not categorized, and those issues are environmental justice and chronic exposure to EMF fields. Next what I'd like to do is discuss the draft report that was written, based on our environmental review. The organization of the Oconee supplemental environmental impact statement follows the organization of the generic environmental impact statement.
Next slide: First is Chapter 1, which is an introduction that briefly outlines the NEPA process.
Next Slide: Chapter 2 describes the site, the Oconee site and the surrounding environment and I'll be going back, in a few minutes, and talking about some of the specific issues that are related to Oconee. But I wanted you to do now is look at this list up on the screen and you can see that it was a fairly comprehensive list of areas that we looked at.
Next slide: Chapter 3 addressed refurbishment. However, since Duke stated that any replacement of components related to extended operation of the facility and any additional inspection activities were within the bounds of the normal operations of the plant and therefore they are the same as in the original environmental impact statement so we had no further review for refurbishment. Chapter 4 addresses environmental impacts during operation during the renewal term. It specifically discusses the Category 1 and Category 2 issues that are relevant to the plant. These issues include impacts regarding the cooling system, impacts from the transmission lines, radiological impacts, socioeconomic impacts, ground water use and quality and threatened and endangered species. I'll talk to these issues in a minute. Chapter 5 discusses plant accidents and includes a review of severe accident mitigation which will be discussed after my presentation by Mr. Robert Palla. Chapter 6 takes a complete review of the uranium fuel cycle and the solid waste management process and describes the impacts to the environment from uranium cycle. Chapter 7 looks at the impacts of decommissioning a plant that has operated an additional twenty years. Chapter 8 evaluates the alternatives to license renewal. It describes the methods that could be used to obtain the same amount of power without having to renew the license at Oconee. Finally, Chapter 9 is a summary and conclusions from our review.
Next slide: Now that I've given you an overview of what's in the supplement to the environmental impact statement, I'd like to spend the rest of my time going over some of the highlights of the review that we conducted here at Oconee. This includes the cooling system impacts, radiological impacts, socioeconomic impacts, water use and water quality and threatened and endangered species.
Next slide: The first impact that I'd like to talk about is that of the cooling system used at Oconee Nuclear Station. In order to look at the effects from the next twenty years of operation we looked back at the effects of operation over the past twenty-six years. The plant was originally designed to minimize the environmental effects that resulted from operation.
Can you put up the slide on the maps? As many of you are probably aware, the nuclear plant was part of the Keowee Toxaway Project and included the impoundment of Lake Jocassee and Lake Keowee. One of the major features of this plant is the placement of the facility between two different arms of Lake Keowee. In addition, the building of the skimmer wall that is used to ensure that the cooler water from the bottom of the lake enters the canal, the skimmer wall is over here on our map. Cool water from the Little River basin enters the plant and the warmer water is discharged to the upper levels of Lake Keowee arm of the lake, right above the Keowee Dam. So the water is taken in here and discharged over here. The skimmer wall extends from the surface of the lake down about sixty-five feet and it ensures that the water is pulled from the bottom of the lake.
The next slide. The skimmer wall is useful in reducing the number of fish that are impinged or entrained. Impingement is when a small fish or shell fish gets stuck or smashed against the screens that are located at the intake. These screens are meant to keep debris out of the cooling water but sometimes the smaller fish are unable to prevent being smashed into the screen. At Oconee, studies of impingement show that the major species impinged is the threadfin shad and we've got a picture of our shad here. Threadfin shad are a non-sport fish and can get to be about ten inches long, although the ones that are impinged are usually only about two inches or less. Eighty-eight percent of all the threadfin shad impinged appear to occur between January and March, at a time when the water temperature has dropped to levels that overly stress the fish and sometimes even kill them. So it appears that much of the mortality from impingement is due not from plant operation, directly, but rather as a result of the winter water temperature. Entrainment is when fish that are actually smaller than the debris screen mesh are sucked into the plant. Mostly this effects larval and very young fish. Studies of the density of fish larvae entrained into Oconee show that there are less than one percent of the density of fish larvae in the lake samples. The reason that more fish are not entrained is attributed to the lower temperature of the water at the bottom of the skimmer wall. Fish larvae tend to like the warmer water and so they stay higher up in the lake.
Next I'd like to talk about some of the other potential effects from the cooling system. There are two others that we looked at, heat shock and microbial organisms. Heat shock may potentially affect organisms that live near the discharge point for the cooling system. Because the water that is discharged from thermal plants can potentially be considerably warmer than the water that normally occurs in the lake. However, the temperature of the discharge at Oconee is regulated by the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit, the NPDES permit.
This is issued by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. So there's limits on how warm the water can be that's released from the plant. Another effect from heat shock is minimized because of the design of the plant. The water that enters the cooling systems comes from the deeper layers of the lake as it moves from under the skimmer wall and it's discharged at the surface of the lake, where the water is warmer. Another potential effect from the cooling system from any kind of thermal plant is that the potential for enhancement of the presence of thermophilic organisms, thermophilic meaning heat loving. Some organisms, such as Naglaeria and Legionnaire's Disease are detrimental to human health if ingested or breathed. There is no recorded cases of this occurring to the Public as a result of the cooling system from nuclear power plants but we still looked at this issue. Discussions with state toxicologists and the South Carolina Department of Health, as well as physical location of the station and physical characteristics of the lake indicated that there was no potential for any adverse effects and so we considered this not to be an issue.
Next slide: With regards to radiological impacts, this is another issue that was looked at with regards to the renewal term. It was determined that there would be no anticipated increase in either Public or occupational radiation dose during the license renewal term and that the impacts that were discussed and the generic environmental impact statement are applicable to the Oconee site. I'd like to point out that since this is an area of concern to many members of the Public, the impacts described in the generic environmental impact statement were made following a significant analysis and compilation of monitoring data from one hundred and eighteen nuclear plants located in the United States.
Next I'd like to talk about some of the socioeconomic impacts that we looked at. There were several of them. The first that I'd like to describe is the housing impacts that might result from additional staff moving into the area. Oconee is located in a medium density area and because the utility does not anticipate increasing the staffing levels as a result of license renewal there is no impact on housing that is anticipated. Likewise, public utilities would not be impacted since there will be no additional staff and because the cooling water will continue to come from Lake Keowee. The off-site land use will not be affected since there are no plant related population driven changes to the land use. I'd like to point out that continued operation of the plant will provide significant continuing tax revenues to the county with tax payments from the site representing about one third of the Oconee County budget.
Next slide: Transportation was one of the socioeconomic impacts that was looked at.
Transportation in the area around the site is not expected to be impacted since employment will not change and therefore there is not an anticipated population growth in the region. We looked e
at the historic and archeological resources and they appear to be unaffected by the renewal of the license. This is because Oconee, Duke, has no plans for future land disturbances or structural modifications beyond routine maintenance. I'd like to point out that Duke does play a significant role in the conservation and security of the old Pickens Church and Cemetery.
Next slide. Finally, under socioeconomic impacts we looked at environmental justice.
Environmental justice refers to a Federal Policy in which Federal actions should not result in disproportionately high and adverse impacts on low income or minority populations. Although the impacts that are identified for the Oconee Nuclear Station license renewal were small, the staff examined the geographic distribution of minority and low populations as recorded during the 1990 census and supplemented this with inquiries to local planning departments in Oconee, Pickens and Anderson Counties and to social service agencies in these three counties. What we found was that in general, minority populations in the area are small and dispersed and they're declining in proportions. Minority populations were located primarily in Greenville and Anderson Counties but there was a significant concentration of minorities in Seneca and Clemson. The largest concentration of low income populations are located in North Carolina.
Although there are some small groups scattered throughout the three county area.
Concentrations of low income populations appear in Seneca, Easley and Clemson and the latter most likely being due to the large University student population. No specific methods or pathways were found that would result in disproportionate, adverse impacts on these populations.
Next I'd like to talk about water use and quality. Oconee Nuclear Station uses surface water from Lake Keowee and the primary use of this water is for cooling water and other domestic
.uses.
The water quality is monitored by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control and regulations relating to water quality of the plant affluence is regulated by the same organization through the NPDES permit. Oconee uses only a small amount of ground water for irrigation and for facilities at the Station's baseball field. Ground water quality is also regulated by the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.
Now I'd like to talk about the threatened and endangered species. Duke initiated a consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding threatened and endangered species that may potentially occur at Oconee. The Fish and Wildlife Service identified nine species known to occur either at Oconee or Pickens Counties and one species that could possibly occur in these counties. However, none of the species are known to inhabit the immediate vicinity of Oconee.
Subsequently, Duke conducted a field survey within a one-mile radius of Oconee Nuclear Station. This was conducted by Dr. L. L. Gaddy and we reviewed this study. No Federally listed species were identified but three state listed plant species were identified, the drooping sedge, Indian olive and a three-parted violet. Also one species, not previously known in South Carolina was identified, the loose-flowered sedge. In addition to surveying the plant site, an examination of the national heritage data bases from South Carolina and North Carolina was conducted to determine whether there were any endangered or threatened species that might occur within or near the transmission line rights-of-way, the three hundred thirty mile transmission lines that were listed in the original environmental impact statement, which was written at the time the plant was licensed. There were three animal species with threatened status they are the bald eagle, bog turtle and peregrine falcon and there were two species that have endangered status.
They are the red cockaded woodpecker and the Indiana bat. There were nine plants that were identified as endangered and four as threatened. The NRC has submitted a biological assessment of the potential impacts on these species from the continued operation of the transmission lines and corresponding maintenance of the rights of way. The assessment concludes that there will be no adverse impact to these species. We are currently awaiting concurrence from North Carolina and South Carolina Fish and Wildlife Services.
In addition to the previous items that I've discussed, we looked at the alternatives to license renewal. This is another part of the NEPA process. Because there are many possible energy sources and mixes of energy sources, the analysis was limited to those demonstrated capability with sufficient generating capacity to replace nuclear power generation. The alternatives included a no action alternative which would simply mean that NRC would not renew the operating license and Duke would decommission the site at the time the plant operations cease, which is assumed to be at the end of the operating license in the year 2013 and 2014. There are two alternatives that were believed to have the most promise for large scale replacement of the power and these were coal fired power generation and gas fired power generation. We looked at the impacts of these alternatives in several different ways.
First with plants located at the Oconee site, using once through cooling as Oconee currently uses and secondly with plants located at the Oconee site but using cooling towers rather than once through cooling.
We also looked at the potential for closing the Oconee site and building an alternative energy plant somewhere else on what is called a greenfield site. This would be a site that's in its natural condition, for instance, possibly being forested. Again we looked at the same two options of building the coal fired plant or gas fired plant using either cooling towers or once through cooling. The alternatives that were considered, in addition to coal, gas and nuclear are shown up here. These were not considered or evaluated in depth because they do not either have demonstrated capability or the needed generating capacity. The alternative actions, including no action alternative, have environmental effects that at least impact categories reached moderate or large significance. A moderate impact, as we heard earlier, is an impact that is sufficient to alter noticeably, but not de-stabilize important attributes of a resource whereas a large impact has the effect that is clearly noticeable and is sufficient to de-stabilize important attributes of resources. Rather than run through the entire analysis that we used, I'd like to just give you a few examples. If you're interested in more detail, I refer you to Chapter 8 of the supplemental environmental impact statement. For the most part the impacts on land use and ecology range from moderate to large for coal fired generations and gas fired generations because additional land would be needed for these facilities, land that is currently vegetated. Depending on where the site was located, the impacts on water quality might also be large, especially if it's located in an area which would require the use of ground water for cooling.
Finally, I'd like to discuss the staff's preliminary conclusions that are found in the supplemental environmental impact statement. In contrast to the conclusions that were reached for the alternative actions, the preliminary conclusions for the proposed action for renewing the licenses for the Oconee Nuclear is that the environmental effect of license renewal at Oconee are small for all impact categories. Small means the effects are not detectable or are too small to de-stabilize or noticeably alter any important attribute or resource. We included the word preliminary since we are still involved in consultation with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding the potential for endangered and threatened species under the transmission line corridors and because we are planning to use any additional information that we receive during this comment period before a final conclusion is reached. Thank you. Any questions or comments?
.FACILITATOR CAMERON: Let me borrow this back for a little bit. You just heard a lot about the local environment around here and are there any comments on that or any questions about the specific issues that Eva was talking about?
MS. THOMPSON: Again, this is Margaret Thompson. I studied the generic statement that was mailed out to some of us on the mailing list and I have a question about the current status of the NPDES permit. I notice that at the time you published this in April the permit was under review and the review hadn't been completed yet so the status was interim or up in the air. What's the progress on that?
MS. HICKEY: As of last week, when we checked, the permit was still in review so they are currently working under the previous permit.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, I believe there's a question back here. Yes, sir.
MR. CUDWORTH: My name is John Cudworth, I'm with Tetratech, we're an environmental consulting firm. Eva, earlier you talked about meeting with County and State and Federal regulatory agencies, could you give us an idea of the kinds of questions you asked them or the kinds of information that you conveyed to them?
MS. HICKEY: Are you interested in a specific area. We did it differently for - well let me have our socioeconomic person talk to what type of questions they asked.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: All right.
MR. SCOTT: I'm Mike Scott with Pacific Northwest National Laboratories. I'm the soocio-economist on the project. We met with several of the - well, all three counties economic development departments and, in general, the kinds of questions - kinds of information we were seeking from them were issues like what's your transportation system like, what are the specific problems or conditions you're having with your public infrastructure, what are the locations and the make-up of any minority or low-income populations in the area, where are they located what other kinds of questions did we ask. Oh, in particular for Oconee County, there's the question of the tax base provided by the plant and we talked, at some length, with them about the importance of that to the County finances and subsequently, of course, to their ability to attract new economic activity to the area, if that was their desire. That was the nature of the thing that we asked in that. I'll let some of the other staff, I guess, talk about some of the other agencies.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Anybody else want to chime in on this one?
(No audible response.) I think - are we done answering this question?
MS. HICKEY: Are you happy with that answer?
MS. THOMPSON: Yes.
MS. HICKEY: Okay.
.FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, and as I said, the staff over here and the PNL people will be here if you want to explore that in more detail. Yes, sir?
MR. WEHMIRE: I'm David Wehmire. I am a local resident. I live about two miles away from the plant. A quick question. Your conclusion that you have on the Board at the present time, is that located anyplace except on Page 9.6 in the EIS?
MS. HICKEY: I don't know the answer to that question. I believe it is but FACILITATOR CAMERON: The intent of the question, I guess, is there more of an elaboration on that so where can he find more information on this issue in the draft?
MS. HICKEY: The overall conclusion, you mean. I guess what is considered is that if you look at Chapter 4, that's where it talks about all of the issues in total and I don't know that we came to a conclusion in that chapter that's why it's all rolled up in Section 9. The summary is in Chapter
- 4.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. As we move along tonight, if there's more information that any of the other NRC staff or PNL people find on that issue that would be informative, let's get that out on the floor. Anybody else before we go into severe accident mitigation and Bob Palla from the NRC staff is going to do that?
(No audible response.)
All right, thank you very much Eva. Now Bob Palla is going to talk about and explain severe accident mitigation to all of us.
MR. PALLA: Okay. My name is Bob Palla. I'm a Senior Reactor Engineer in the Probabilistic Safety Assessment Branch in the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. I'm the lead engineer for the staff's evaluation of severe accident mitigation alternatives as part of license renewal. Let me just give a little bit of background about the treatment of postulated plant accidents within the generic environmental impact statement. Basically the generic environmental statement addressed the risk associated with a spectrum of postulated accidents including design basis accidents and severe accidents. Severe accidents are a class of accidents in which the reactor core is damaged, typically due to multiple equipment failures in conjunction with human errors.
In assessing the impact of postulated accidents, the generic environmental impact statement considered all - and I'm talking now about the basic document, not the Supplement 2 document but the basic document that addressed all sites in the country. That document addressed each individual reactor site. It looked at the site specific population and meteorology, considered severe accident releases in off-site consequences based on the latest computer codes, and evaluated the impact of various release paths, including airborne and ground water releases of radionuclides. The generic environmental statement concluded that the probability weighted consequences of severe accidents are small for all plants. However, because all plants had not yet performed - not yet completed-the site specific analysis of measures that could mitigate severe accidents, the area of severe accident mitigation alternatives, which I'll refer to as SAMAS, was identified as a Category 2 issue. As such, for all Category 2 issues, these issues are addressed at a plant specific level. What we did, as part of our severe accident mitigation alternatives review was to look further at this issue, at a plant specific level. In Part 51 of the regulations requires the staff to consider alternatives for mitigating severe accidents at the plant if the staff had riot previously considered SAMAS in an environmental impact statement. And that is the situation with Oconee. We had not yet done this. One thing that's interesting to note, this is a staff finding but we reach that finding based on information that we obtain and request from the licensee. The purpose of the evaluation is to ensure that plant changes with the potential for improving severe accident safety performance are identified and evaluated. The scope of this evaluation includes changes to the plant design and procedures as well as changes that reduce radiological risk from severe accidents by either preventing a severe accident or by limiting the releases that would occur in the event that core damage were to, in fact, take place. It's important to note that at the outset here, that Duke has been very pro-active in the area of Probabilistic Safety Assessment. Dating back to as early as - the early 1980s, they had developed the plant specific probabilistic safety assessment that pioneered many of the methods that are used today. Duke continued to update the probabilistic safety assessment to reflect changes to the plant that have been made over the years. As a result, the risk has been reduced and it kind of sets the stage for what we're doing here as part of the severe accident mitigation assessment. We're trying to determine, essentially, if there are any additional changes that could be justified and we do this starting with the risk profile that already has been reduced, over the years, as a result of doing probabilistic studies and making enhancements over the past decade or two. Why don't I just briefly outline the evaluation approach that we followed. It's a fairly systematic process that's used here to try to identify where the risk is coming from and different ways that could be identified to further reduce the risk. We begin by characterizing the overall plant risk and the leading contributors to risk. The way this is done, most effectively, and the way that we did it here was to use the plant specific risk study to identify the leading contributors and the potential areas for improvement. The risk study that we
.used is actually multi-part. Part of the study that we refer to is the study of internally initiated events, such as pipe break accidents and station black out type things. We also looked at the portion of the study that deals with externally initiated events such as earthquakes and tornadoes and in combination, characterized the risk for the plant. We looked at the various combinations of failures that could lead to core damage and determined the importance of the key contributors. By doing this it kind of points out where is the risk coming from and from a knowledge of where the risk is coming from one could determine what's the most practical way that one could further reduce that risk. Which brings me to the next step. Identify design improvements that can further reduce risk. What was done here was to look basically at the plant specific risk study but then also to consider some of the insights that were gleaned from previous reviews of severe accident mitigation design alternatives for plants such as the Watts Bar plant, some of the advance reactor reviews that we had done in the last several years and also some generic severe accident analysis studies. We looked, not only at the specific risk study for Oconee, but we also looked at some of these other generic and other plant specific studies to see if there were any other potential design improvements to make sure that we had a robust set of improvements going into the process. This process led to the identification of sixteen potential SAMAS. Nine of these related to the prevention of core damage accidents, and seven of these related to improving container performance in those events in which core damage would have occurred. The next step of the process is to quantify the risk reduction potential and the costs for each improvement. Again, we relied on the plant specific risk study to provide an estimate of the amount the risk could be reduced and the approximate cost of the various design changes or procedures were approximated to provide an estimate of what each one would cost and finally, and the last item on the slide, determine whether or not implementation of a plant change is justified. We considered the extent to which the total risk would be reduced by each design change. Generally, a change in the frequency of core damage, on the order of one times ten to the minus five, or basically one in one hundred thousand per year, would be considered a significant reduction. We did not see, with any of these design alternatives, these candidate SAMAS, we did not see anything that approached that. We also considered whether the SAMA could be justified on a cost benefit basis.
Specifically, would the change - would there be a net positive value when one considers the costs against the benefits that would accrue from this change. In this analysis we used the regulatory analysis guidelines that have been in use at the Commission for several years now.
Basically a methodology - a handbook - lays out the governing assumptions that one makes in these analysis so we subjected each of these design alternatives to that cost benefit analysis to see if anything came close to being cost beneficial.
As shown on the slide there, none of the sixteen candidate SAMAS appear to be cost beneficial, in fact they are about a factor of five below the level that would be considered to cost beneficial.
This result would be insensitive to changes in assumptions regarding economic assumptions, discounting rates specifically, as well as population growth. The margin is so large that differences in assumptions didn't seem to make any difference in the conclusion. Coming back to the concept of pro-active use of PRA, this finding is consistent with the concept that the plant has, in fact, benefited from the use of probabilistic safety assessment over the years that risk has been lowered. The residual level of risk at Oconee is reasonably small and the costs of the enhancements that would be needed to make a substantial reduction in risk are quite large. They would require substantial physical changes to the plant which are extremely expensive when one considers all the costs that that involves. Our bottom line conclusion is that additional plant improvements to further mitigate severe accidents are not required at Oconee as a part of license renewal.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thanks Bob. Although I think you started to get into this when you were going through the step by step analysis, is there a simple way to explain to some of the people here who may not be familiar with PRA, exactly what that is?
MR. PALLA: The PRA is a systematic method by which the various ways to keep the reactor core cooled are assessed. One looks at what's necessary - what's necessary to succeed and what's necessary to fail. Certain equipment functions have to fail, multiple systems would need to fail or, by human error perhaps, be turned off in order to have an accident proceed to core damage. What the probabilistic safety assessment does is define the combinations of failures that are needed, it quantifies the likelihood of those combinations occurring. So you get both, you get identification of the ways that the core can be damaged as well as the likelihood.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Do we have questions on this particular presentation, Mr.
Wehmire?
MR. WEHMIRE: A quick question. Did you make any relative comparisons that would be understandable, more generally, to the general public such as comparing the risk from the Oconee plant to driving a mile on one of our local highways?
MR. PALLA: No I didn't. It's probably a good idea. One could do that. I'm not quite sure how it would compare. What I can say is from - at a higher level the Commission has established safety goals for nuclear powerplants that essentially, if one is in compliance with the safety goals, the risk from the plant operation is a small fraction of the risk from all other risks that the
.population would get through other sources. That fraction is like a tenth of a percent. What one can say is -associated with those goals is a core damage frequency of one times ten to the minus four or one in ten thousand. The Oconee plant is below that goal. If one is below that goal you could be assured that your level of risk from the plant is a tenth of a percent of would come from other sources.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Does that answer your question?
MR. WEHMIRE: Yes.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Anybody else in the audience have a question about the severe accident part of the draft environmental impact statement?
MS. STANCILL: Nancy Stancill. Regarding the core damage, I wonder if you could follow-up on what Mr. Williams said about core embrittlement and what kind of a potential problem that might be with continuing to use the reactor?
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thanks Nancy.
MR. PALLA: From the point of view of modeling of an accident, if one would postulate an accident being the spontaneous rupture of the reactor vessel, there is a - it's called an initiating event frequency in PRA jargon but the probability assigned to the rupture of the vessel occurring spontaneously, this begins the accident. Those kind of sequences would generally progress to core damage. The number that is typically assigned, and I'm not certain what number was used
.in the Oconee PRA but it would be on the order of one times ten to the minus six or - it might be less. I've seen numbers that are several orders of magnitude lower than that. I'm not. sure what was used here. I don't believe there was any adjustment made to the number to reflect an increased likelihood of a spontaneous rupture of the vessel but I don't believe that an adjustment would need to be necessary if the vessel is maintained, you know, controlled through other mechanisms. The aging management process should assure that the likelihood of that event would remain low.
MR. GRIMES: This is Chris Grimes. We treat the embrittlement of the reactor vessel and the loss of fracture toughness in the reactor vessel in the safety evaluation report. As Bob mentioned, that's an explicit part of the review that we did for the aging management programs.
At present there's a design analysis for the Oconee vessels that demonstrate their capability to go out to forty-eight effective full power years, that's sixty real years. In addition, we have some open items related to cracking a vessel internals and we're looking at inspection programs to monitor for any evidence of cracking of the vessel internals that could cause a loss of core configuration. That's a very important part of the aging management programs that we're going to rely on in order to maintain the plant design basis that Bob relies on in his analysis.
MR. PALLA: Let me mention one other thing and that is should core damage occur in such an event, it does not mean that there would be a release to the population because containment integrity is very likely to be maintained through that event. The situation would be some degree of core damage but contained within the containment, which is a robust large dry containment structure for Oconee.
.FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay. Maybe Bob you could just translate what one times ten to the minus six means in terms of most of us out here in the real world.
MR. PALLA: One in a million years. Well, one in a million. Generally we express things on a per year basis so it's like winning the lottery.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, I guess that has good and bad aspects then. Is embrittlement - maybe this is for Chris, is that - that's not usually - is that an operational type of consideration or - (No audible response.)
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Any other questions on severe accident.? Let's go to Jim Wilson now for our last presentation on preliminary conclusions and then we're going to go to those of you who have questions on what he says or any other comments that you want to give us today.
MR. WILSON: Thanks, Chip. To summarize, Supplement 2 to the GEIS contains a summary of the staff's review of the potential environmental impacts of the Oconee license renewal application. Also contains the staff's recommendations and conclusions. If you've not already, requested a copy of the supplement to the environmental impact statement for Oconee, there are extra copies of Supplement 2 out in the lobby. The document can also be viewed at the public library in Walhalla, at the local public document room, and it's available in the Public document room in Washington, D. C. Additional copies can be obtained from the Government Printing Office. The document itself can also be downloaded from the internet at the web address and we've got an information sheet that's got some contact information. You can pick
.that up in the lobby also. The last bullet on this slide is to remind you that the overall decision of the Agency to renew the Oconee license is going to be based, not only on results of this environmental review but on the results of the safety review as well.
In summary, the staff based its preliminary conclusions regarding the environmental review on the analyses and findings of the GEIS, Duke submittals and the environmental report, consultations with local, state and Federal agencies and the staff's own independent review, including results of last year's scoping process and site visit. The staff has reached a preliminary conclusion that the adverse environmental impacts of license renewal for Oconee Nuclear Station, Units 1, 2 and 3 are not so great that preserving the option of license renewal for energy planning decision makers would be unreasonable. This is our preliminary conclusion but we're looking for input from the members of the Public on our review and we're soliciting your comments. The NEPA process is providing two opportunities for the Public to participate in the environmental review for the license renewal at Oconee. There was the initial comment period during the scoping process last fall and now there's a comment period that we're currently in.
The NRC has extended the required forty-five day comment period, mandated by NEPA, by an additional thirty days. The seventy-five day comment period will expire August 16, 1999. After the comment period ends, the staff will assess the comments to determine whether or not they're applicable to the environmental aspects of license renewal as we did with the issues raised in the scoping phase of our review. Issues that do not have a bearing on the decision to renew the license will be referred to the appropriate NRC programs - Allegation Program, Operating Reactor Project Manager or other agencies that may be concerned with the issues.
This slide summarizes our review schedule for the environmental review. The comment period ends on August 16th for the public comments on the draft environmental impact statement supplemented for Oconee. After that the staff will sort the comments and evaluate them, if appropriate. Comments may cause us to change portions of the supplement. After the NRC finalizes its review it will issue a final supplement EIS for Oconee, currently scheduled to be issued in February of the year 2000. The final version of Supplement 2 to the GEIS for Oconee is where the staff will identify the Public comments that were received on the draft. These will be contained in in an Appendix A, we'll identify the comments, discuss how they are relevant and, if appropriate, we'll be making text changes in the document itself to address the comments. The last slide provides you with my phone number in case you have questions after you leave here today. Under the designated point of contact with NRC for the environmental portion of the license renewal review for Oconee. All the documents that we spoke about today are located in the Public Document Room in Washington and in Walhalla. Comments may be submitted by mail, in person, or by e-mail. Again, there's an information fact sheet in the back of the room, out in the lobby that you can pick up that will give you mailing, telephone, and e-mail addresses.
In summary, I'd like to thank you for attending today's meeting. This meeting is an important part of the overall license renewal process. It's important that you participate because it makes a better process. Thank you for your attention. This ends our formal presentation. Do you have any questions?
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Jim, before we go on to the audience, I did want you to clarify one thing on your slide. Could you put up the slide that had the preliminary conclusion on it.
Is there a simpler way to express what the bottom line of that conclusion is?
MR. WILSON: We could paraphrase it and basically say that we've looked at the environmental impacts expected to result from operating the plant for an additional twenty years, including refurbishment, and include that the environmental impacts associated with such an action would not be so horrible that they'd be unreasonable to allow energy planners and the utility to consider this as an alternative, rather than just letting the plant shut down after the end of its forty year operating period.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: So it supports the license renewal, basically. We can talk a little bit more about this but I would just emphasize what Chris Grimes said in his presentation that there is another part of this analysis that's going on that has to do with aging. Both that analysis and this environmental analysis all come together before a decision is made. Questions about the overall conclusion before we go to some more general statements. Any questions?
MS. PLOTNIK: My name is Frances Plotnik. I have a question about the remaining fifteen years on the initial license period. The extension will be granted, of course, before this fifteen years is completed. If some unanticipated problem develops during this fifteen years, what happens?
MR. GRIMES: The process that we employ in monitoring and overseeing the license for forty years is the same as it is for sixty years. If an issue comes up tomorrow or next month or next year, fifteen years from now or beyond that that causes us to be concerned about public health and safety, we'll issue an order for the plant to shut down until that problem is rectified and that is our usual practice. The significance of this licensing action is for the NRC to make clear to the Utility what the plant operating conditions, what plant operating conditions have to be maintained for a sixty year license. Otherwise, we would do the same thing in the remaining fifteen years Othat we would do beyond that point in terms of taking whatever action is necessary, that might come up during a licensed term.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, any other questions before we go to comments and before we go to Mr. Wehmire, I would like Bill McCollum from Duke has some comments to make on this and you can use this or MR. McCOLLum: Thanks. My name is Bill McCollum. I work for Duke Energy Corporation.
I'm Vice President in charge of the Oconee site. I just wanted to take a minute to say that I appreciate and thank the NRC members and their contractors for the thorough review thus far in the environmental portion of the licensing renewal application process. I think this has been a good solid, thorough review thus far and I appreciate the effort that's gone into that. I also would like to publicly thank the efforts of the Duke Power and Duke Energy employees, both those that have worked hard in this license renewal application process and in providing the information and response to a number of questions on the part of the staff, those folks for their efforts in this license renewal process as well as thanking the employees at the Oconee Nuclear site whose hard work and efforts, over the last twenty-six years, have built what I think is an admirable record of operation that stands well in terms of projecting our operation for the next thirty-something years at Oconee. The folks that work at Oconee and who live in this area are friends and neighbors of those of the rest of us who get to live in a great part of the country here and I think it's worth noting that nobody, not anybody is more concerned about the safety and reliability of operation and the maintenance of a high quality environment in this area than the folks that work at the Oconee station. I think that's shown by the efforts that those employees have undertaken over the years to maintain a high standard of good operation as well as the time and effort and energy that employees at Oconee have put in over those years to projects, maybe conducted on their own time, which have been recognized, in a number of ways, as having a beneficial impact on the environment. I won't go through trying to list numerous awards and recognition that Oconee employees have received for their efforts and projects that they've undertaken to protect and enhance the environment for the wildlife around the Oconee site area and around the general area but they are numerous. I want to thank those employees for their efforts. The last thing I wanted to say to our friends and neighbors in the Oconee area, I just want to thank - and all of us as employees at Oconee want to thank those folks in the area for the continued support that we've received over the last twenty-six years and the support that we're receiving in pursuing an extension of our license to continue to be your friends and neighbors here for many years to come. That support is extremely important to us and we appreciate the good and positive support that we've received throughout the years and that we continue to receive today from our friends and neighbors in Oconee and the surrounding area.
Thank you.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you Bill. Mr. Wehmire?
MR. WEHMIRE: My name is David Wehmire. I'm a local resident. I live about two miles from the plant, I mentioned this before but I wanted to make a general comment on the conclusions of the study. I hope, when they get through with this and come out with a final report, that they will put the conclusions near the front of the report and make them fairly clear. The important thing that I think the general public needs to understand is that the need for electricity in our country, both in this century and in the next century, is an absolute. We need the electricity in order to maintain our way of life. The report here is showing, rather clearly, that the generation of the electricity, through the use of nuclear power, is.the safest and environmentally best way of handling the generation of electricity. The Oconee Station has made the environment their concern, we all live in an area that is one of the most beautiful areas of the entire eastern part of the United States and we want to maintain that and the continued operation of the nuclear power plant will not only assure that we do have the electricity but that the environment is maintained in the way that we have learned works very well. I just wanted everybody to understand that.
Thank you.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you Mr. Wehmire. Doug Walters from the Nuclear Energy Institute. Doug, do you want to speak from there or do you want to come up front? It's entirely up to you.
MR. WALTERS: Thank you Chip. My name is Doug Walters, I'm with the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D. C. Just for your information, NEI as we're known, has about two hundred and seventy-five members, U.S. and International, all involved in the energy business.
We have every utility in the country that has a nuclear power plant as a member as well. We're here today to talk about the environmental impact statement for Oconee. As you heard, there was an extensive review done on the significant impacts for the plant and the conclusion was, I shouldn't have said significant, perhaps, but they reviewed the impacts for the plant and found that there were none of any significance. You also heard that the impacts that they looked at included things like its interactions with the water and the land around the plant, the socioeconomic factors, aquatic species, threatened and endangered species and many other issues. They also evaluated, as you heard, alternative sources of energy and I'll talk briefly to that in just one second. I want to emphasize the renewal of nuclear power plants is very
.important to the nations energy mix. You may be aware that as a nation we're having difficulty now meeting the clean air standards. If we don't pursue renewal we're in more trouble, I think, in that regard. The Agency started preparing for renewal some time ago and in particular the environmental aspects of renewal. It's been a very open and public process. I think this rule making goes back probably to 1991. There were a number of regional workshops and the end result was the rule that was published in 1996. Certainly the NRC plays a vital role in license renewal but they're not the sole determinor of whether the plant will continue to operate. Their obligation is to evaluate the safety aspects and determine whether the plant may continue to operate. It's important to have, for the licensee, to have that option available. If the plant shuts down and the region decides, for example in this area, that they need emissions free generation it's too late. Again, that's why we need to be able to preserve the option of extending the license or operating for another twenty years. There's also a couple of other benefits for plant license renewal. One, it allows the U.S. to maintain an economic electric generating capacity, it doesn't produce greenhouse effects, gases or other pollutants. License renewal preserves jobs.
There's a lot of people employed, not only at the Oconee Station but at the McGuire Station, Catawba Station and if you consider all the employees at the nuclear utilities around the country that's a lot of jobs. So, it preserves jobs. Third, at least in our assessment, renewal is a lot cheaper than building new capacity and that's extremely important as well. Let me just briefly mention that when we look at other sources of energy, and I'll emphasize emissions free generation, nuclear power represents about 64.5% of our nation's emission free generation.
Hydro is second. It's about 35%, photovoltaic cells and windpower represent less than.1% and geothermal contributes a bit more, it's about.6%.
In closing BG&E and Oconee, as you know, are the first two utilities in the country to go through the renewal process. There are others that are lined up. Entergy will be filing an application at the end of this year for their Arkansas Nuclear One Plant. Southern Nuclear will file an application in the first quarter of 2000 for Plant Hatch. Florida Power and Light plans to file an application around the end of 2000. So with that, let me just say that nuclear energy provides an important benefit to the U.S. and the communities where these plants are located. Provides vast amounts of energy on demand to support continued economic growth and our high standard of living and it does all that without polluting air. Thank you very much.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Thank you, Doug. Tom Harper, do you want to speak from there?
MR. HARPER: My name is Tom Harper, I'm a resident of Oconee County and I'm in the water treatment field as an operator, a shift operator, but I'm here just as a private individual. Right now you'll are licensing, relicensing the nuclear plant which is outstanding. Also, in Oconee County, two municipalities are considering, in the near future, and I don't know the time table for building new facilities. Seneca, I believe is committed to building a new one on Lake Keowee and I think that's great. I have a high level of confidence in Duke Power, extremely high in fact.
However, Duke Power also has Lake Jocassee which is geographically above the nuclear plant and quite a distance from the nuclear plant as well. I guess what I would like to ask that is part of the licensing process that maybe Duke would make a strong commitment to making available a site on Lake Jocassee for a source of drinking water. I'm not technically sophisticated enough to know what possible contamination could happen to Keowee or whatever but I think that due to the fact that the relicensing is taking place now and these utilities are considering new plants that this would be a good time for Duke to make that commitment and I think they would need a little pressure and this might be a good way to go. One other thing. I'm not really - I guess the minutes are being taken of this meeting or whatever and I would hope to see that issue addressed in the minutes and the response. Thank you very much.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: It definitely will show up on the transcript so you will see it there.
I'm not sure that it's within the bailiwick of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in terms of the environmental impact statement, in terms of response, but people are here from Duke Energy to consider that. Chris, anybody up there have anything to add on this? I'm not asking you to I just want to make sure that if you do want to say something that you have the opportunity.
MR. GRIMES: NRC's obligations, under the National Environmental Policy Act, we typically don't have any kind of leverage with respect to what things are good things for the environment but I'm sure Mr. McCollum heard the opportunity that Duke has to reach out to the public. And, to the extent that we offer a forum for you to bring those kinds of things to Duke's attention will do what we can.
FACILITATOR CAMERON: Just one footnote that is that sometimes when you do the environmental impact statement there surfaces the need for some sort of mitigating action that might have to be taken by the licensee as a result of the NRC review. Any other comments out there before we adjourn? (No audible response.) Anybody else have anything to add? (No audible response.)
S FACILITATOR CAMERON: Okay, well the staff is going to be here right after the meeting so if you have f!rther questions for anybody, including the people from PNNL that did the study, please'fedl free to come up and thank you for being here today.
[Whereupon, the meeting was concluded.]