ML17165A197

Comment (11) from Pilgrim Watch Regarding Regulatory Improvements for Power Reactors Transitioning to Decommissioning

ML17165A197
Person / Time
Site:	Pilgrim
Issue date:	06/13/2017
From:	Lampert M Pilgrim Watch
To:	NRC/SECY/RAS
SECY/RAS
References
82FR13778 00011, NRC-2015-0070
Download: ML17165A197 (16)

Text

PUBLIC SUBMISSION As of: 6/14/17 8:06 AMReceived:

June 13, 2017Status: Pending_Post Tracking No.

1k1-8wxp-lnkfComments Due:

June 13, 2017 Submission Type:

Web Docket: NRC-2015-0070Regulatory Improvements for Power Reactors Transitioning to Decommissioning Comment On:

NRC-2015-0070-0178Regulatory Improvements for Power Reactors Transitioning to Decommissioning; Request for Comment on Draft Regulatory BasisDocument:

NRC-2015-0070-DRAFT-0202 Comment on FR Doc # 2017-05141 Submitter InformationName: Mary LampertAddress: 148 Washington Street Duxbury, MA, 02332Email: mary.lampert@comcast.net General Comment See attached file(s)

Attachments PW COMMENT NRC Docket ID NRC-2015-0070 06.13.17Page 1of 1 06/14/201 7 https://www.fdms.gov/fdms/g etcontent?objectId=09000064826ccb44&format=xml&showorig=fals e

PILGRIM WATCH COMMENT NRC

-2015-0070: PROPOSED REGULATORY IMPROVEMENTS FOR DECOMMISSIONING POWER REACTORS

-MARCH 1, 2016 COMMENTS

-serves the public interest on issues regarding the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station specifically and on nuclear power in general. The organization is located at 148 Washington Street, Duxbury, Massachusetts, 02332. Its membership extends throughout the Commonwealth. licensee must do to protect public health and safety requirements (i) while there is still radioactive nuclear fuel in the reactor, (ii) while the spent fuel pool contains radioactive spent nuclear fuel for up to perhaps forty or fifty years after plant closure, and for the potentially hundreds of years that all of spent nuclear fuel that the reactor ever generated remains in dry casks on

-site. methodologically flawed NRC documents, other secret NRC studies and industry guidance. It assumes low probability but high consequence events can be effectively ignored.

NRC ignored the risks the vulnerability and consequences of a spent fuel pool fire, a canister drop during fuel transfer from the spent fuel pool, and from radioactive releases from dry casks.

rovides would be to save industry money again at the expense of public health and safety.

SPENT FUEL VULNERABILITY & CONSEQUENCES there are no possible design

-basis events at a decommissioning licensee's facility that could result in an offsite radiological release exceeding the limits established by the EPA's early

- NRC uses that erroneous assumption to justify exemptions to offsite emergency planning and reduction in liability insurance

, security and testing workers for drug and alcohol and fatigue requirements.

Pilgrim Watch discussed this in its March 2016 comment. The following n ew information from Massachusetts and California show the potential severe consequences from a spent fuel accident. T he consequences are so large that even a low probability accident becomes consequential and demands action by NRC not reduction in public safety protections as the draft recommends.

2 Cape Cod Times

- Maps Spent Fuel Pool Fire Consequences

- June 2017 The Cape Cod Times June 1, 2017 report, Fire danger in nuclear pools underestimated, scientists say, included maps that showed the potential impact of a spent fuel pool fire at Pilgrim Station

1. The maps are of spent fuel pool fire consequences at Peach Bottom reported by Richard Stone in Science Magazine

.2 The Times article is copied below for your convenience

1 http://www.capecodtimes.com/news/20170601/fire

-danger-in-nuclear-pools-underestimated

-scientists

-say 2 http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/spent-fuel-fire-us-soil-could-dwarf-impact-fukushima 3 A look at the map clearly shows there is no credible support for NRC not to require offsite emergency planning; no support for reducing liability insurance; no support for relaxing security requirements, aging and fatigue management; no support for allowing licensees to continue to operate and at the same time postpone implementing post Fukushima license requirements (such as severe accident capable vents, cyber security upgrades etc. until after the licensee shuts down) while fuel is in the pool. Further although the risk is less when fuel is in dry casks, it is not zero. Therefore, emergency planning and security requirements, liability insurance, and other measures can be lessened but not eliminated

-a tiered approach.

The Cape Cod Times, Fire danger in nuclear pools underestimated

-scientists say, is printed below

. PLYMOUTH A fire in just one of the 90 densely

-packed spent fuel pools at U.S. nuclear reactors could release considerably more radiation than the 2011 reactor meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi, according to magazine. The solution, say the scientists who wrote the paper, is to reduce the amount of radioactive fuel now in pools and store it instead in heavy duty dry casks.

communities near the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth are trying to legislate a requirement for dry cask storage.

Maps laying out different scenarios of contamination, should a pool fire occur at Pilgrim, show areas from the Cape & Islands up to Boston taking a heavy hit, depending on which way the wind is blowing.

The Science magazine opinion piece written by Union of Concerned Scientists senior scientist Edwin Lyman and Princeton University researchers Michael Schoeppner and Frank von Hippel criticizes the 4 Nuclear Regulatory Commission for not requiring reactor owners to move spent fuel that has cooled in pools for five years into heavy dry casks, as part of changes made post

-Fukushima.

ut from a simulated fire in a densely packed pool contamination beyond 50 miles of the plant.

The NRC study concluded about 4 million people would be displaced. While the consequences of a pool fire were high, the probability of one occurring was low so the cost of transferring all spent fuel into dry casks was not justified, concluded the NRC. The NRC estimated the cost at about $50 million per plant.

Based on their own study, Lyman, Schoeppner and von Hippel contend that a fire in the spent fuel pool at Peach Bottom could release enough radioactive material to contaminate an area twice the size of New Jersey. On average, radioactivity from a pool fire could force as many as 8 million to relocate and result in $2 trillion in damages, the researchers said.

that a fire in a fuel pool in southern Pennsylvania could mean having to Pressure from the nuclear industry and lack of appetite for more regulation among some members of Congress has resulted in the NRC downplaying the dangers of a spent fuel fire, the researchers say.

t fuel pools as can supply emergency equipment quickly, Sheehan said.

To the comment that federal regulators had based their decision on the opinion that transfer to dry casks there was not a signific Schoeppner developed simulations to show impact areas around Peach Bottom, the example the NRC used, based on weather and wind direction for three dates in 2015. Schoeppner developed maps for Pilgrim as well, at the request of U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, D

-Mass. packed on racks under about 40 feet of water. Making public concern even greater is the known deterioration of several hundred Boraflex panels needed to prevent fission from occurring in the pool.

5 Plant operators have been moving the hottest fuel assemblies away from the degraded panels, but the solution for addressing the problem only extends to September 2017, inspection report.

in a statement. Along with U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, D

-Vermont, Markey has once again filed the Dry Cask Storage Act that would require plant owners to transfer spent fuel into casks within seven years of submitting a plan for fuel management.

Republicans, sponsored a bill that would require owners of closed plants to complete decommissioning, assessment of $25 million until decommissioning is complete.

All but one of the 15 towns in Barnstable County overwhelmingly approved a non

-binding referendum this spring, written by the citizens group Cape Downwinders, calling for the governor to press for the fall. becomes consequential and demands action Follow Christine Legere on Twitter:

@ChrisLegereCCT Dr. Frank von Hippel & Michael Schoeppner (Princeton Peach Bottom Study (2016) showed:

A major fire could contaminate as much as 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles) of land and force the evacuation of millions

3. It would dwarf the accident at Fukushima resulting in trillion dollar consequences.

insider sabotage as it considered spent

-fuel pool safety; neither did it consider the consequences of property contamination more than 50 miles from the reactor site, even though a broader release is clearly possible. Also, NRC used outmoded statistical estimates for the value of human life; did not incorporate potential tourism loses after an accident, or consider the potential costs to the economy if a major accident forced multiple reactors to be shut down.

The Princeton researchers did not use the computer model (MACCS2) that NRC used at Peach Bottom but instead used HYSPLIT, a program able to design more sophisticated scenarios based on historical weather data for the whole region.

3 Science, May 24, 2016. (available at: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/spent

-fuel-fire-us-soil-could-dwarf-impact-fukushima 6 The researchers focused on Cs

-137, a radioisotope with a 30

-year half-life that has made large tracts around Chernobyl and Fukushima uninhabitable. They assumed a release of 1600 petabecquerels, which is the average amount of Cs

-137 that NRC estimates would be released from a fire at a densely

-packed -137 spewed at Fukushima.

They simulated the release on the first day of each month.

Again , no excuse to weaken decommissioning requirements, as this draft does.

Radiological Regulatory Failure

- San Onofre Report, 2017 Maintain Emergency Planning

-Tiered Approach

the draft decommissioning regulation is a prime example. The NRC can , and should

, write a decommissioning regulation that protects public safety thereby satisfying its AEC requirement to do so.

7 Southern California plan is a recipe for disaster Get the full report here

. Watch video here

. Get radio interview here SAN DIEGO, May 17, 2017, 7:30AM Today, Public Watchdogs unleashed a chronological 450

-page report and analysis of regulatory failure and the deeply flawed safety planning and emergency response plans at the now

-defunct San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) owned by Southern California Edison (SCE).

Under the current plan SCE will transfer hot plutonium fuel assemblies from its overcrowded spent fuel pools to 75 thin

-walled stainless steel canisters. The fuel inside the canisters is deadly for at least 250,000 years. The fuel will be buried 108 feet from the water behind a crumbling 15

-foot retaining wall, three feet above the water table and 108 feet from the beach.

vulnerable to terrorist attacks, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Once completed, it will become the largest privately operated high

-level nuclear waste dump in the USA.

The report exposes Southern California Edison and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for lax enforcement of common

-sense safety precautions against terrorist threats, earthquakes, and tsunamis at the failed nuclear reactors; and for unlawfully waiving common

-sense safety and security measures designed to protect the public.

Key Findings:

A disaster at SONGS could be 40 time worse than Chernobyl A risk analysis by nuclear physicist Paul Frey shows that a conservatively estimated worst case scenario would unleash more than 40 times the radiation released at Chernobyl with the potential of irradiated much of the Western United States.

Unlawful exemptions:

The report argues that the exemptions granted to Southern California Edison are so recklessly interpreted by regulators that they violate the public safety and national security intentions of the 1954 Atomic Energy Act.

8 FEMA will not respond:

The budget for FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been eliminated. In the event radiation travels offsite, the responsibility for planning evacuations and emergency response is in the hands of small local governments.

California Office of Emergency Services will not respon d: The budget for OES, the California Office of Emergency Services has been terminated relevant to SONGS Emergency response on the backs of local fire and police:

In the event of a worst-case scenario, where radiation travels outside the perimeter of the facility, the only offsite emergency responders will be local police and fire departments.

The SONGS nuclear waste dump will contain 3.6 million pounds of deadly plutonium

-laced fuel assemblies with a radiation payload that is the equivalent of 700 nuclear warheads, yet in a regulatory sleight

-of-hand, the NRC has reclassified it for security purposes as a non

-power nuclear reactor, requiring the same Only three people will monitor the dump: Staffing requirements for the planned beachfront nuclear waste dump are minimal: Only three staff members will be responsible for security and safety at any given time in the event of a terrorist attack or earthquake.

No requirement to estimate lethality of a radiation release: Under the new NRC rules Edison is no longer obligated to estimate public danger or mortality rates posed by radiation leaks that affect local communities.

Prompt public notification no longer necessary:

In the event of a worst

-case scenario, SCE is no longer obligated to notify the public with 15 minutes as required by law.

Requirement to respond to terrorists waived:

In the event of a terrorist attack there is no longer an obligation for SCE employees to respond to, or plan for, a hostile attack.

The report may be viewed at:

https://goo.gl/WLss2Y CONTACT: To arrange interviews, contact Charles Langley at (858) 752

-4600 or langleycharles@gmail.com NATIONAL ACADEMIES BEIR VII REPORT 4 - CLEANUP STANDARDS The purpose of decommissioning is the safe removal of the facility and reduction of residual radioactivity to a level that permits termination of the NRC license.

To protect the public and workers the cleanup standard must be based on recent and credible scientific information. NRCs standards do not and needs to be changed.

4 Report is available on the Web at http://books.nap.edu/

9 radiation cleanup standard allows 25 millirem per year total effective dose equivalent to an average member of the critical group

- limit includes the dose from drinking groundwater for a site released for unrestricted use and 100 or 500 millirem for restricted use. These limits are too high and not supported by recent research.

Vermont and New York, for example, have a 10 millirem standard.

PW believes that should be lowered and based on protecting the most vulnerable population, fetus, young children, and females and not, as now, reference man

-a healthy young Caucasian male. The National Academies BEIR VII Report is and should be the basis to set a standard.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) latest report on radiation risk conclusion was simple:

no amount of radiation is safe and women and children are the most at risk.

They are the most vulnerable popualtions that need protection.

Women and Children Most at Risk:

The National Academy reported that overall cancer mortality risks for females are 37.5 percent higher than for men, and the risks for all solid tumors (lung, breast, and prostate) are almost 50 percent higher. The differential risk for children is even greater.

The same radiation in the first year of life for children produces three to four times the cancer risk as exposure between the ages of 20 and 50.

Female infants have almost double the risk as male infants.

They also showed that the impact on offspring from parents exposure: While the report states there is no direct evidence of harm to human offspring from exposure of parents to radiation, the committee and tfamilies. Therefore the standard for unrestricted use should apply also for restricted sites to protect workers. Also using the unrestricted site cleanup standard would deal with the issue of contaminants running offsite and endangering the public.

FINANCES- NRC REQUIRE LICENSEES TO HAVE A FULLY FUNDED DTF UPON CLOSURE Decommissioning trust funds for reactor cleanup are underfunded. NRC incorrectly assumes that over time, perhaps up to 60 years, the funds required for cleanup would accumulate through investments. eventually. But cost increases to do the work accelerate faster than investments so there is no catchup. In utility structures, licensees can request rate increases but merchant reactors have no rate base to subsidize inadequate financial planning and there is no surety that the corporation responsible for cleanup will exist in 60 years. These merchant plants are LLC meaning when they run out of money, they run out of town leaving states holding the bag.

Flaws alculation

1. Site Specific Funding Formula

The size of the NRC

-required fund is determined using a pro forma generic decommissioning formula. The formula is not site

-specific; it simply asks the size and type of 10 reactor of the reactor (BWR or PWR) to determine a base amount, and then applies an escalation factor based on the Department of Labor regional data for labor and energy costs. See 10 C.F.R 50.75(b) and (c), and the Entergy 2015 Decommissioning Fund Report.

NRC is virtually alone among nuclear regulatory authorities in adhering to pro

-forma generic cost estimates. For example, Canada adopted site

-specific methodology. The inaccuracy of generic cost provide accuracy within 30%

-50% of the actual cost. Financial Aspects of Decommissioning, IAEA

-TECDOC-1476, at 13 (2005) 5 2. Characterization of site contamination

The presence of subsurface site contamination will greatly increase the cost of decommissioning and site restoration.

Decommissioning costs at Yankee Rowe million, in large part the result of the spread of groundwater contamination, some readings of elevated tritium in aquifer systems as deep as 300 feet.

6for cleanup of CT Yankee

7. A similar shortfall at Vermont Yankee is likely to result from, for example, the discovery of strontium and tritium contamination. Currently, monitoring wells show tritium leaks at Pilgrim. The source of the tritium remains unknown; a broken pipe, seismic gaps in buildings are suspected. Onsite contamination also resulted from Pilgrim opening with defective fuel and no off

-gas treatment system for filtration; and from an accident in 1982 where they blew its filters. Years of rain and snow has likely driven the contaminants, many long

-lived, deeper into the ground.

When to Assess Site Characterization:

To assure that sufficient funds shall be available, site characterization should be required at the beginning of the decommissioning process. Currently, if the licensee has addressed site-specific decommissioning activities in previous environmental analyses it can postpone a new site analysis at least two years before license termination. Instead a new assessment should be submitted at the beginning of the decommissioning process. Waiting to the end allows contamination to migrate and risks that most, or all, of the decommission funds will have been spent

3. Unrealistic assumptions about the extent to which the fund and decommissioning costs will grow

Fund Growth and Decommissioning Cost Inflation

financial investments will consistently produce 5% profit each year and that construction costs will increase conveniently by only 3% a year. Therefore, profits will always exceed cost increases and the fund will continue to grow. Neither assumption is valid.

Real Growth Raterate; and NRC and industry incorrectly assume that investment markets will provide a

5 Available at: www

-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/te_1476_web.pdf 6 Briefing on Decommissioning Funding, at 25, (February 23, 2010), NRC Electronic Library ADAMS Accession NO. ML100610257 7 Id 11 constant 2% annual real growth above inflation. For example, over the 100

- year period from 1910 to 2009 annualized real growth in the Dow Jones Industrial Average amounted to only 1.76%.8 NRC staff conducted several analogous analyses and concluded that the market has experienced several decades long periods in which real growth fell below 2%. See NRC Requests Plans from 18 Nuclear Power Plants to Address Apparent Decommissioning Funding Assurance Shortfalls, No.09-112 (ML091700104). The recent relative recovery of decommissioning funds after the economic crisis does not prove the viability of the funding assumption; the recent market crisis showed that large market events occur and it is difficult to predict them. Sufficiency of funds cannot be based on assumed constant market predictions. The consequence of missing the mark can lengthen the time a contaminated site remains in Plymouth and a shift of costs to the state and taxpayers.

Inflation: The NRC assumes that the cost to decommission will increase only by 3% annually. However, even Entergy acknowledges that a small error in its own 3% to 3.5% current assumption can dramatically alter decommissioning costs in future decades, and that even a 0.5% underestimation of decommissioning costs will lead to a 20%

-25% shortfall when a plant is decommissioned.

9 by 70% between 2007 and 2014. Per the founder of the Entergy subsidiary that makes all of growth of costs greatly -best can only predict costs within 20%.

10 Any error in either the assumed fund growth rate or the assumed inflation rate will magnify any error in the other, and likely will leave the fund far short of what is needed and require the states to shoulder a significant part of the costs.

The Government Accounting Office (GAO): A 2012 Nuclear Power Reactors 11that the NRC is inaccurately estimating the costs of decommissioning and inadequately ensuring that owners are financially planning for the eventual shutdown of these plants. The key findings of the GAO report included: The NRC decommissioning funding formula may be outdated since it was last updated in 1988 and is based on two studies published in 1978 and 1980 that used technology cost and other information available at that time. decommissioning funds would be adequate.

The NRC had not established criteria for acting if it determines that a licensee is not accumulating adequate decommissioning funds.

10 12 balances Every two years, licensees are required to report the status of their decommissioning accounts.

T- not 12 (i.e. removal residual radioactivity to a pre

-determined level)

NRC DTF calculations do not include any costs of management or site restoration when determining The entire NRC DTF calculation is a completely unreliable basis for determining what decommissioning will really cost.

Assurance Estimate for Pilgrim was $628,139,915.00; for Vermont Yankee, it was 622,775,764.

13 These one-half of the $1.24 3 billion that Entergy in 2014 estimated would be the cost to decommission Vermont less than what Entergy in 2008 estimated it would cost to decommission Pilgrim if Pilgrim had shut down when its then

-original license expired in 2012.

4. Cash flow analyses every 5 Years: We urge the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to rewrite 10 CFR §50.75 to require a cash flow analysis at consecutive five

-year intervals leading up to the ultimate decommissioning of the reactor. This cash flow analysis will provide policymakers with adequate information to determine when a nuclear plant will have the cash available to complete a decommissioning project.

5. Prohibit licensee from raiding the DTF- Limit use funds to radiological cleanupwhatever it has in its decommissioning fund to meet expenses that have nothing to do with cleaning

-up so, Entergy wants for worker retirement costs. Massachusetts must assume that Entergy will try to do the same thing with 12 March 27, 2015, p. 5 13 Decommissioning Funding Status Report.

13 6. Shorten SAFSTOR Period: A prolonged SAFSTOR period all but guarantees that the licensee will run out of money and taxpayers in deregulated electric markets and ratepayers in utility markets will get stuck with the bill. This is because the costs to decommission escalate at a higher percent than investment returns.

7. Limited Liability Merchant Plants what the Synapse Report: Financial Insecurity: The Increasing Use of Limited Liability Companies and Multi

-Tiered Holding Companies to Own Nuclear Plants describes. Pilgrim , for example, is an LLC with no significant assets beyond a single power plant a plant that will have negative value when Pilgrim stops generating electricity. Because Entergy chose this LLC structure, responsibilities and liabilities.

14 Over the last ten years, the ownership of an increasing number of nuclear power plants has been transferred to a relatively small number of very large corporations.

These large corporations have adopted business structures that create separate limited liability subsidiaries for each nuclear plant, and in several instances, separate operating and ownership entities that provide additional liability buffers between the nuclear plant and its ultimate owners. The limited liability structures being utilized are effective mechanisms for transferring profits to the parent/owner while avoiding tax payments. They also provide a financial shield for the parent/owner if an accident, equipment failure, safety upgrade, or unusual maintenance need at one plant creates a large, unanticipated cost. The parent/owner can walk away, by declaring bankruptcy for that separate entity, without jeopardizing its other nuclear and non-nuclear investments.

(Emphasis added)

• *

• As mentioned earlier in this Report, the multiple layers of subsidiaries, including LLCs that have been created by parent corporations in the nuclear industry are a cause of serious concern. Even if a court concludes that the liability of the subsidiary that actually operates the nuclear plant should be extended to business structures above it (for example, if under capitalization and profit distributions have left the subsidiary unable to cover the costs of unanticipated repairs or security improvements and the subsidiary decides to cease operations), the ability of the court to find a senior business entity with sufficient capital could be complicated by multiple layers of subsidiaries and LLCs.

• • • Given that the presumption in every state and federal statute is for the limitation of corporate liability, the burden is always on the party trying to extend that liability to show that the law, facts, and public policy all support violating the statutory presumption. Courts, in general, are reluctant to pierce the corporate veil and extend liability; when multiple corporations are involved, that reluctance only increases.

14 Massachusetts, nor any other state, cannot take the risk of millions of dollars of taxpayer expense if Pilgrim, or any other LLC, defaults on its decommissioning obligations.

NRC RESIDENT INSPECTOR REMAIN ONSITE DU RING DECOMMISSIONING CONTINUE INSPECTIONS Currently the NRC has little to no meaningful oversight during decommissioning. There are no resident inspectors and no regular inspections. Lack of NRC oversight means licensee compliance with regulations is impossible to verify and enforce on a timely basis. Lack of regular reporting leaves the public in the dark.

With no meaningful public involvement, no hearing rights, and no detailed planning required for decommissioning, the lack of NRC oversight means licensee compliance with regulations is impossible to verify and enforce at all, much less on a timely basis. NRC must provide for a meaningful oversight process for decommissioning, including dedicated inspection staff with relevant specialization and expertise, regular inspections and reporting, substantive public information and engagement, and timely enforcement mechanisms RESTORE THE NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY ACT (NEPA) COMPLIANCE

. Decommissioning should be reclassified as a Major Federal Action requiring NEPA compliance and the participation of the EPA in decommissioning. Cleaning up highly contaminated sites requires significant oversight. It should not be driven by licensees or their lack of adequate funding. The First Circuit Appellate Court justices opined in CAN v. NRC that decommissioning is a major federal action and requires NEPA action. To do so is manifestly arbitrary and the court for decommissioning. Doing so would reinstate the use of NRC resident inspectors and increase NRC oversight and public participation. It would reinstate EPA oversight beyond ground water contamination to address the significant chemical contamination at decommissioning sites. It could also support the requirement for an Emergency Planning Zone (EPZ) until the high level nuclear waste is transferred and secured in dry cask storage. It is essential for NRC to define decommissioning as a major Aand undermined citizen due process.

NRC SHOULD RESTORE ALL DECOMMISSIONING SAFEGUARDS INCLUDING THE HEARING RIGHTS OF THE PUBLIC.

well as states. Public meetings do not constitute the hearing rights required by the Atomic Energy Act and affirmed in CAN v. NRC. Adjudicatory hearings offer citizens the right to cross examination and discovery. A public meeting does not afford citizens the level of institutional accountability necessary given the dangers of contamination inherent in the cessation of reactor operations. Informational meetings do not 15 effectively address the concerns of residents since the local communityand, for that matter, states In CAN v. NRC, both the Federal District Court and the Appellate Court chastised the agency for this approach. If the community has concerns, and there is no regulatory recourse save one "meeting" with NRC, the Commission will, in fact, create greater polarization between the community and the regulator.

THE DECOMMISSIONING PLAN SHOULD BE REINSTATED AND REPLACE THE PSDAR.

Under the 1996 revision to the decommissioning regulations, the NRC eliminated the requirement that licensees submit a decommissioning plan. Instead, licensees are only required to submit a Post

-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report (PSDAR) within two years of final shutdown. The PSDAR is a brief document, lacking any meaningful detail as to the methodology and site

-specific plans. This change has eliminated any meaningful level of transparency and accountability for the conduct of decommissioning, allowing the licensee to proceed in relative secrecy and without NRC oversight. The decommissioning plan must be a thorough guide and road map for the cleanup process; it is an instrument to hold a licensee accountable for the cleanup commitments it establishes in the plan. A 30

-page narrative or report (PSDAR) rifiable licensee commitments. The rulemaking must reinstitute the requirement that licensees submit a complete, thorough, and substantive decommissioning plan; and that NRC review and approve the plan, and oversee its implementation.

Respectfully Submitt ed, Mary Lampert Pilgrim Watch, director 148 Washington Street Duxbury, MA 02332