ML16182A177
| ML16182A177 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 06/30/2016 |
| From: | NRC Region 1 |
| To: | |
| References | |
| Download: ML16182A177 (21) | |
Text
ML16182A177 Indian Point Units 2 & 3 Annual Assessment Meeting Handouts & Sumbissions by Individuals June 8, 2016
The Legislature of Rockland County HARRIET D. CORNELL Legislator - District 10 Chair - Environmental Committee Chair - Rockland Water Task Force Economic Development Committee Chair - Special Committee on Transit Budget & Finance Committee Remarks by Rockland County Legislator Harriet Cornell Re Latest Danger to Public Safety at Indian Point June 8, 2016 The first significant piece of legislation I authored when I entered the Legislature in 1984, was to create the Citizens Commission to Close Indian Point. I became its Chair and worked for years informing members of Congress, meeting with NRC Commissioners and raising public awareness by calling attention to dangers from a nuclear power plant located on the Ramapo Fault and to the impossibility of evacuation on Rocklands narrow, country roads.
Were it not for the superhuman efforts of concerned individuals and dedicated scientific and environmental organizations focusing attention on the dangers posed by Indian Point, who knows what might have happened during the last 40+ years.
A damaged bolt sounds innocuous, but these particular bolts have an unprecedented failure ratenot only in United States reactors, but globally. They also appear to violate the safety standards prescribed by Westinghouse, manufacturer of the reactor. No company has a longer, deeper history in the nuclear industry than Westinghouse, having been selected by the U.S. Navy in 1946 to design and build the first reactor intended for electric generation, rather than for strictly military purposes. In the 1970s the company focused on servicing and repairing existing reactors.
Westinghouse appropriately warns that as reactors age, attentive monitoring and careful maintenance are essential to assure proper standards of safety, efficiency and output. In an October 2014 technical manual, Westinghouse explicitly addressed, the role of baffle-former assembly bolts, which it called a critical safety feature: I quote: One component that is critical to maintaining the structural integrity of the internals [of the reactor], and that has been shown operationally to be susceptible to aging mechanisms, is the baffle-former assembly bolts.
The main concern, the manual added, is that radiation from the reactor can lead to corrosion and cracking of the bolts.
- over -
Rockland County Legislature - 11 New Hempstead Road - New City, New York 10956 - (845) 638-5100 Visit us: http://rocklandgov.com/departments/county-legislature/
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While Westinghouse indicated that a failure of a few bolts should not have a significant safety impact, because redundancy in the reactor design would keep enough bolts in place to assure safe operations, the situation at Indian Point Unit 2 falls well short. What has failed at Indian Point Unit 2 is emphatically not just a few bolts. It is one out of every four.
Most of us wouldnt drive a car if we knew that one out of four bolts holding our car together was missing or broken. Why should a weaker standard apply for a nuclear reactor where an accident would be catastrophic?
As Chair of the Environmental Committee of the Rockland County Legislature, I join with Friends of the Earth and major supporting organizations* in calling for a more comprehensive evaluation of the causes of the damaged and missing bolts inside IP-2 --and the closing of its twin IP-3 to undergo similar scrutiny. The public needs to know: how did this happen? why did this happen? The NRC must take immediate action.
- Friends of the Earth, Clearwater, Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, IPSEC, NIRS, PSR et al Rockland County Legislature - 11 New Hempstead Road - New City, New York 10956 - (845) 638-5100 Visit us: http://rocklandgov.com/departments/county-legislature/
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KLUKAN, BRETT M From: marilyn elie < >
Sent: Tuesday, June 14, 2016 5:56 PM To: Klukan, Brett
Subject:
[External_Sender] Re: Re: Slide for NRC annual meeting tomorrow night Hi Brett, You really worked hard at the meeting to be fair and consistent. Thank you. If the NRC had done this in the beginning it is doubtful that htis community would have become so polarized. One disadvantage of this excellent format is the lack of time for people to speak. Have yo conisderred looking at the model the PSC uses? An afternoon and and evening meeting. They do seem to stay until all comments are heard. You might also consider encouraging people to submit written comments with a real pledge to read and acknowledge them and have them be included in the transcript.
It seems to be the engineering mindset. I do not care a whole lot about how you are going to fix the former bolt problem - I want to know why Unit 2 has the largest number of damaged bolts in the history of nuclear power. Your engineers could care less, since they seem to think that they have it under control and will eventually figure it out when they have enough data. That is just not acceptable and thisis not jsut Marily Elie saying so.
My testimony centered around David Lochbaum's analysis of your manual on this and what has been reported about the boltsl..According to the chapter in the manual I read, the bolt situation meets the criteria for root cause analysis. I am sorry I did not get to present my testimony. Not that anything would have changed.
So there you have it. The only workable solution seems to be to see the agency in court -
- Cheers, Marlyn 1
The Legislature of Rockland County ALDEN H. WOLFE Chairman June 8, 2016 Comments to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Region I Re: NRCs Annual Assessment Meeting on Indian Point Units 2 & 3 Good evening NRC staff and members of the public. My name is Alden Wolfe and I'm the Chairman of the Rockland County Legislature - the county that sits just across the Hudson River, in close enough proximity to Indian Point to be included in the so-called Evacuation Zone.
I'm here tonight to express my opinion about Indian Point and its future, and frankly, I believe the facts show that there should be NO future for this plant, a plant that seems to suffer one problem after another - and not just everyday workplace problems, but genuine life-threatening crises that must concern us all.
Indian Point was not built to withstand a catastrophe such as a terrorist attack, an earthquake or a pipeline explosion, and there is a long list of continued safety problems, the latest of which involves missing and damaged bolts in Unit 2. Not just any bolts, but the very lynchpins that mean the difference between a safe operating temperature and a nuclear melt-down, with the release of deadly radiation that would spread to the surrounding area and everyone living and working in it.
Right now, we know that federal safety inspectors found that 227 out of 832 bolts were missing or degraded after a review of Unit 2. Thats more than 1 in 4 bolts! What is most disconcerting to me is that this unprecedented failure rate of more than 25%
occurred under the watchful eye of the NRC. We don't exaggerate when we refer to Indian Point as a ticking time bomb; in fact, even with the NRC's oversight, the condition Rockland County Legislature - 11 New Hempstead Road - New City, New York 10956 - (845) 638-5100 Visit us: http://rocklandgov.com/departments/county-legislature/
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of Unit 2 was allowed to reach the point where this most critical safety element became dangerously deteriorated.
What other components are missing, compromised or close to failure? What about Unit 3? When will we find out? 2017, as Entergy wants, is simply way too long to wait.
Sadly, the bolts crisis is not the only issue that causes us all to be concerned about Indian Point.
In just the past 13 months, there has been a litany of troubling occurrences, including multiple unplanned or emergency shutdowns, spiked concentrations of radioactive tritium-contaminated water leaking into groundwater, the spilling of 3,000 gallons of oil into our beloved Hudson River, leaking fuel pods, and more.
These incidents are proof of what Unit 2, online since 1973, and Unit 3, online since 1976, have become: aged infrastructure that cannot be relied upon when it comes to the health and well-being of the public and the environment. There is a reason the State has declined to renew the expired licenses for these plants: They have reached the end of their 40-year life span.
Peoples lives are at risk every day that this nuclear power plant remains in operation.
Children and families living and working within a 50-mile radius of Indian Point are directly impacted by any missteps at the facility. The reality is that there is no realistic evacuation plan. Its foolish to believe that Rockland and Westchester residents - or the millions who live in nearby New York City - can effectively follow a plan that they are not even familiar with. As soon as a catastrophe is declared, it will cause instant panic.
Families looking to flee will end up stuck in traffic jams on local roads and major highways, unable to get to safety. If the worst was to happen, there is no way to fully estimate the cost to human life and health.
The NRC is poised to give Entergy its Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval in advance of the profitable summer usage period. How is that possible? It seems that the world has gone crazy, when a ticking time bomb and attractive terrorist target sitting on a fault line near a new natural gas pipeline route is not only deemed safe for operation, but appropriate for one of the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the country.
Simple logic demands that the plant be shut down.
However, it's not all doom and gloom. Thanks to the efforts of many, including Gov.
Andrew Cuomo, we are seeing an increase in the inclusion of alternative renewable energy sources in our power portfolio. In fact, by 2030, 50 percent of New York States power mix is to include renewables such as wind, solar, geothermal and hydroelectric Rockland County Legislature - 11 New Hempstead Road - New City, New York 10956 - (845) 638-5100 2 Visit us: http://rocklandgov.com/departments/county-legislature/
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power. I've asked the PSC not to consider nuclear power generation as "clean" energy or inclusion in the state's milestones.
It also must be stated that Indian Point can produce about 2,000 megawatts of power, but new reports indicate that the New York Power Authority doesn't purchase electricity from Indian Point anymore, as it has found cheaper electricity elsewhere. Indian Point's energy generation largely benefits residents of New England, not New York State.
So, we have a path forward - a path that allows us to meet our energy needs without risking our health - and quite possibly our lives - due to a dangerous, aged nuclear power plant that is falling apart.
Thank you for your consideration.
Very truly yours, Alden H. Wolfe Chairman of the Legislature Rockland County Legislature - 11 New Hempstead Road - New City, New York 10956 - (845) 638-5100 3 Visit us: http://rocklandgov.com/departments/county-legislature/
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KLUKAN, BRETT M From: Julie W < >
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2016 11:56 AM To: Klukan, Brett
Subject:
[External_Sender] Re: Comments on the NRC DoubleTree meeting in Tarrytown, June 8, 2016 - Follow-up response Mr. Klukan, thank you for your response. A couple of things.
Re Security: Its not really a matter of your incorporating "more information into the meeting notice regarding the security screening process, but a question of the screening process itself, which is unfriendly, intimidating, and more stringent than what we find in many of the the countrys most important buildings. Staff in street clothing could have easily handled simple bag checks. Using town policemen, presumably carrying guns (since they usually wear them around here), does not improve the public exchange of ideas. It amounts to 5% security and 95% fear-mongering, and only escalates the growing mistrust we have in governmental overreach, including intimidation, censorship and the like. The probability of someone having or intending to use a weapon or explosive at the DoubleTree meeting was no different than what might be expected any given day on any street, school, subway, bus terminal, mall, hotel, retail venue, and similar public space where access is entirely unrestricted. Security like you arranged for June 8th is more in line with Big Brother than with necessity. I am asking you in the future to find another way to satisfy the security needs of the NRC and the hotel without resorting to officious, armed uniformed officers and the banning of mundane implements that are used regularly in grade-school classrooms across the nation.
You also did not address my whole last paragraph on the reality of protest, for which I used transcripts as an example.
I appreciate that the NRC would like to hold annual safety assessment meetings entirely free of public outrage over the questionable safety record of the plant's owners. A lot of us who steep ourselves with scientific and factual material are residents who will lose our property and everything we own as well as our health if we are forced to re-locate after a severe incident at Indian Point. From our point of view, loud and continued public protest has far more potential of changing the culture of for-profit corporate duplicity and NRC complicity than silence, as I demonstrated with my example of the commission's disingenuous dismissal of transcripts in years past and the NRC's present position of actually coming around and producing one.
I hope and expect that you will add these additional comments and your email of June 20th to the same record.
Julie Woodward On Jun 20, 2016, at 10:04 AM, Klukan, Brett <Brett.Klukan@nrc.gov> wrote:
Ms. Woodward, Thank you for your comments. I will append your email to the written transcript of the meeting (with your email address redacted).
Im sorry that you felt that my introductory remarks were too verbose. I admit that, due to the unexpected press conferences (of which I had no awareness prior to the meeting), the start of the meeting did not necessarily go as smoothly as I had intended. My opening remarks served multiple purposes: to go over room logistics, to discuss how speakers would be called, to introduce the NRC staff on the stage, and to go over the ground rules for the meeting. While I 1
did my best to streamline my remarks, I will take into consideration your feedback in preparing for next year.
Regarding the ground rules for the meeting, please know that my intent was never to be threatening or heavy-handed. Rather, my intent was to create an atmosphere in which individuals could, without interruption, use their three minutes to speak as they chose, addressing at liberty any topics of concern to them. The ground rules reflect the history of past Indian Point public meetings, at which there have been disruptions which impeded the effective sharing of information by the public in attendance. The ground rules sought to strike a balance between providing a free flow of information and maximizing opportunities for those in attendance to offer comments and to pose questions. I devoted much time to crafting the ground rules (along with the logistics for the rest of the meeting). With that said, I recognize, if by nothing else than your response, that there is room for improvement. So, I will take your comments into consideration when planning the meeting next year.
The first I heard of your exchange with local law enforcement agents at the security screening station was when you brought it up during the meeting. As such, I dont have any firsthand knowledge of the exchange and, thus, cant speak to it. Recognizing that, the security screening station is, most assuredly, not to function as a scare tactic of any sort. As you note in your email, security precautions are part of the world in which we live, unfortunate as that may be. The security provisions implemented at the meeting were there to ensure the safety of everyone in attendance.
With that said, I dont want public attendees to be caught off guard by the security screening process. As such, in advance of the meeting, I did work with stakeholders, including Mr. Shaw and Ms. Elie, to make sure that whatever props were brought to the meeting would pass through the security screening. If you believe that more information could be incorporated into the meeting notice regarding the security screening process, I would definitely consider your suggestions.
Thank you again for your comments. If you ever have questions or concerns, please feel free to write me.
- Cheers, Brett Klukan Regional Counsel, US NRC Region I From: Julie W [ ]
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2016 12:17 PM To: Klukan, Brett <Brett.Klukan@nrc.gov>
Subject:
[External_Sender] Comments on the NRC DoubleTree meeting in Tarrytown, June 8, 2016
Dear Mr. Klukan,
I am very concerned about several things about this years annual safety assessment meeting. I have attended several over the past years and have noticed some seriously worrisome changes, apart from the NRC's usual denials and obfuscation.
SECURITY In these days, I can almost understand a bag-check at every public meeting, but to be told that a small childs scissors could not be brought into the venue was completely inappropriate. I was able to leave this item at the hotel reception, where another similar item had also been left for safe-keeping. I have just spent the week in Washington DC visiting a dozen museums, libraries 2
and galleries. All of these places had bag checks, of course, but not a single security person even thought to mention the presence of my small scissors, which could have done a lot more damage to the treasures on display than to any person or thing at last week's event.
Not to mention the fact that the search was done by town policemen, not one but two. Even in DC, where precious items and crazy people abound, the security checks were not done by DC police.
Over-zealous searches and the use of local policemen are nothing more than scare tactics and should not be allowed to happen in a public meeting where residents are listening to a government organization explaining its record. I was appalled.
YOUR CONTROL OF THE MEETING I have never been at a public meeting where a facilitator has eaten up so much time threatening, admonishing, and crowd-controlling citizens who have very serious concerns about health and safety risks perpetrated by a for-profit facility operating in our midst.
Plants can NOT be safe if old leaks are found. Old leaks mean that for years there were leaks, and these went undetected. They corroded metals, weakened structures, and allowed radioactive materials to leak over time. If the NRC is willing to say the plants are safe in the presence of as yet undetected leaks, it may as well not have inspections or assessments at all. These become meaningless if the presence or absence of leaks makes no difference whatsoever to the assessment: in both situations leaks or no leaks according to the NRC, the plant is always safe. Why do they even bother preparing an assessment.
In addition to your 15 minutes or so of introductory ramblings, your techniques for crowd control included heavy-handed instructions on how we all were suppposed to behave and a procedure for removing individuals who stepped over your arbitrary line of what would constitute unacceptable behavior (2 strikes and youre out).
What world is the NRC trying to create when it tries to initimidate citizens who have real objections to the way regulatory agencies are artificially supporting the continued presence of dangerous facilities, in this case being artificially kept open past their designed longevity.
TRANSCRIPTIONS You say that the NRC will be providing a transcription of this event. It was only 3 years ago that we the outspoken voices you are so trying to stifle once again spoke vehemently out against the former NRC practice of not making transcriptions available. Regional Administrator Bill Deans response at the time was: "I would not recommend it because I don't think it's an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars." The comment was met with a fair amount of derision.
I therefore took it upon myself to make a transcription of a lot of the meeting from an audio recording made by another attendee of the meeting and posted it at this link with his audio (http://indianpointmiscellany.blogspot.com/2013/07/pressure-from-residents-to-close-indian.html). It was sent to several elected officials (including Sens. Gillebrand and Schumber) and to Neil Sheehan on June 22, 2013, by Marilyn Elie, who wrote:
3
I hope that next year the NRC will do its own transcript of public meetings. When this came up again at the last meeting the NRC was quite clear in its budget and cost benefit analysis in regard to a meeting where decisions were not being made. I do think that once again many other factors were left out of the calculation, public trust and confidence for example. I would think that the NRC would be better off with an official transcript rather than a myriad of unofficial ones, some of which might not reflect the meeting as you saw it. Certainly it would eliminate any confusion about who said what and exactly what was said.
I have attached a transcript I have every confidence that this one is 100% accurate. It has gone out to those who follow the issue closely and will be invaluable as the year goes by to track promises and as a basis for us to prepare for the annual assessment meeting next year. I thought you might find it of interest as well.
Citizen activism counts, though not nearly enough in the case of Indian Point.
Nobodys going to stab anyone at your events especially with kiddie scissors but our tenacious, knowledgeable, and very angry speakers do make a difference from time to time. Please attach these comments to the record of the meeting, and I hope you will re-think your offensive crowd-control measures next year. We are not the enemy, but radioactive materials in our ground, air, and water very much can be.
Julie Woodward Homeowner Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520 4