ML18130A901
| ML18130A901 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | HI-STORE |
| Issue date: | 04/30/2018 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards |
| To: | |
| jsc1 | |
| References | |
| NRC-3668 | |
| Download: ML18130A901 (172) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Public Scoping Meeting for the Environmental Impact Statement for Holtec International's Hi-store Consolidated Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel Located in Lea County, New Mexico Docket Number: N/A Location: Roswell, New Mexico Date: April 30, 2018 Work Order No.: NRC-3668 Pages 1-171 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 PUBLIC SCOPING MEETING FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL 5 IMPACT STATEMENT FOR HOLTEC INTERNATIONAL'S 6 HI-STORE CONSOLIDATED INTERIM STORAGE FACILITY 7 FOR SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL LOCATED IN 8 LEA COUNTY, NEW MEXICO 9 + + + + +
10 MONDAY, 11 APRIL 30, 2018 12 + + + + +
13 ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO 14 + + + + +
15 The Public Scoping Meeting was convened in 16 the Commissioners' Hearing Room at the Eastern 17 University of New Mexico-Roswell, Campus Union 18 Building, 48 University Boulevard, at 4:00 p.m., Chip 19 Cameron, facilitating.
20 21 NRC STAFF PRESENT:
22 CHIP CAMERON, Facilitator 23 BRIAN SMITH, Deputy Director, Division of Fuel Cycle 24 Safety, Safeguards, and Environmental Review, 25 Office of Nuclear Material Safety and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 Safeguards (NMSS) 2 JILL CAVERLY, Environmental Review Project Manager, 3 Environmental Review Branch, NMSS 4 JOSE CUADRADO, Licensing and Safety Review Project 5 Manager, Spent Fuel Licensing Branch, NMSS 6 JOHN McKIRGAN, Chief, Spent Fuel Licensing Branch, 7 NMSS 8 CINTHYA ROMAN, Chief, Environmental Review Branch, 9 NMSS 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 2
3 Public Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4
5 Opening Remarks and Introductions . . . . . . . . 5 6
7 Welcome and Meeting Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . 21 8
9 NRC Licensing Review/EIS Process . . . . . . . . 27 10 11 Question and Answer Period . . . . . . . . . . . 40 12 13 Public Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 14 15 Closing Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 3:55 p.m.
3 MS. KNIGHT: My name is Cathy Knight. I 4 live in Roswell, New Mexico. I appreciate that you 5 have been tasked with a difficult decision. Many 6 lives will be affected by your choices. I do not want 7 high-level nuclear waste moved across the United 8 States. In 1982 the U.S. agreed to provide permanent 9 disposal of high level nuclear waste. During the last 10 36 years, our knowledge concerning nuclear waste has 11 evolved. It is no longer a prudent choice to move 12 high level nuclear waste to a large storage site. The 13 dangers of transport should not be underestimated.
14 Environmental contamination, illness and death of U.S.
15 citizens will occur.
16 A better option is to leave the high level 17 nuclear waste where it is. Store it according to the 18 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Guidelines of five years 19 in spent fuel pools and then transfer to dry cask 20 storage. Have a robust system in place to assure 21 compliance. Monies collected from nuclear electricity 22 producers and placed in the Nuclear Waste Fund totals 23 approximately $40 billion. It can be returned to 24 those energy producers on a set schedule so they have 25 the resources needed to follow the National Regulatory NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 Commission's storage guidelines. I do not consent to 2 bringing high level nuclear waste to New Mexico.
3 (Pause) 4 MR. GROGAN: I just want to speak out in 5 favor of the storage site. We have some 90,000 metric 6 tons of nuclear waste. I feel like that is the best 7 place that I could think of to put it -- for future 8 generations our nation needs to have somebody to 9 dispose of it, or do it in a safe manner. That's 10 about it.
11 (Pause) 12 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everyone. I 13 am Chip Cameron and I am going to be facilitating the 14 public meeting tonight. We have a poster session 15 scheduled from 4:00-7:00, and then we are going to 16 have comments from everybody. Some NRC presentations 17 and then comments from all of you that we're putting 18 on the record with our court reporter. The reason I 19 asked you all to come in is that we have the mayor of 20 Roswell here, Dennis Kintigh. And Dennis has a 21 conflict later on at 7:00. And so I wanted to give 22 him the opportunity to just say a few words to all of 23 you before he has to leave. And thank you for all 24 coming in.
25 MR. KINTIGH: Thank you. All right, full NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 disclosure, my wife went to Texas on Thursday to visit 2 grandkids. She is on her way home tonight. So, I am 3 sorry, I am going to go see my wife who I have not 4 seen in four days. Nothing personal. Don't mean to 5 diminish the importance, but family does come first.
6 I want to thank everybody from Roswell for coming out 7 tonight. I want to thank you folks from the NRC for 8 participating and putting this forward. This is an 9 opportunity for a respectful dialogue. And I know 10 that the folks from Roswell here are that kind of 11 people. So I look forward to a honest, respectful, 12 informative dialogue. Share of concerns, state your 13 opinions, listen for each other and have a great 14 evening. And I encourage everybody here who is not 15 from Roswell to check out some of our sites while you 16 are here. We have a couple of great art museums. I 17 encourage you to go visit. And check out our -- we 18 have some wonderful restaurants. And it's a 19 fascinating town. So, without further ado -- and I 20 do apologize, I have another meeting now -- actually, 21 I have two meetings now, but I will have to move on.
22 So, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Have 23 a great evening.
24 (Pause) 25 MS. BROOKS STEPHENS: I have toured the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 website. Prior to the accident. I've been to Los 2 Alamos multiple times. This is all an accident 3 waiting to happen. I was witness to a pickup truck 4 almost plowing into a WIPP truck that was taking waste 5 to Carlsbad. And they were within inches -- it was 6 a drunk driver. They were within inches and it was 7 just during the trial period before they really 8 started shipping. And I know that accidents happen.
9 Again, I know multiple people that are dying or have 10 died from working at Los Alamos. And I know that this 11 waste leaks. Even though they tell us it doesn't, it 12 does. And it's going to be leaking on our roads.
13 It's going to be leaking on our railroad track. You 14 have tracks running by schools. Dexter, New Mexico, 15 you're within feet of the -- of two of the schools, 16 the junior high and the high school -- or, mid-school 17 and high school. And there -- this is far too 18 dangerous for us to have in our state. Let them keep 19 it where they created it. This will be going across 20 the entire United States and they may very well bring 21 it in internationally. And I am fed up with the whole 22 discussion. They need to stop it. We don't want it.
23 I have over -- I counted them up last night -- over 24 60 relatives in the Roswell area alone. I don't want 25 my children, grandchildren and extended relatives to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 light up like lightbulbs. And they swore to me at 2 WIPP it would never happen. But within a couple of 3 months of my touring WIPP, it did happen there. And 4 as I said, I know multiple people -- a neighbor, my 5 former boss -- all dying or dead because of the Los 6 Alamos situation. We don't want this. It's that 7 simple.
8 And I am not just representing me, I am 9 representing a lot of people. And I teach my students 10 this. As a teacher, I teach my students. I 11 challenged the young people at the -- when I was 12 teaching in the Apache and the Navajo. They didn't 13 even know that -- that we were doing storage on the 14 reservations. And I challenged them to go home and 15 ask their parents. Their parents didn't know. So 16 they went to the tribal headquarters and found out 17 that, yes indeed, we were. And they got upset and are 18 making the government clean that up. And this isn't 19 something that just popped out of my ear. I've been 20 watching this for years. I grew up in Alomogordo part 21 of my life is growing up there, even though I am 22 Roswell native. I don't want it.
23 Again, I grew in Alomogordo, but I am from 24 Roswell originally and I simply don't want it. Seen 25 enough of it. We don't need it. Don't know how much NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 else to say other than I've watched it firsthand. So 2 -- thank you so much.
3 PARTICIPANT: You said you grew up where?
4 MS. BROOKS STEPHENS: I was born in 5 Roswell, I grew up in Alomogordo.. So I would have --
6 I watched the Trinity site. I had the friends that 7 have died from that. Up in Los Alamos, I had a boss 8 that died from there. I had a neighbor that died from 9 working up there. All of them with these horrible 10 cancers and -- enough. And it's -- we don't want 11 our kids going up in smoke. Thank you so much. Just 12 let them keep it where they creat it -- onsite. Not 13 dripping it on our roads. Not dripping it past our 14 schools. Remember two years ago when they had the 15 WIPP site closed down and they were having them store 16 it on trains?
17 PARTICIPANT: Do you want this to be more 18 of your comment? Or -- -
19 MS. BROOKS STEPHENS: Yes, this part.
20 Three years back, two years back they stored nuclear 21 waste on trains on our tracks. And some of those 22 trains were sitting on the railroad tracks between 23 here and Albuquerque. It was all over the new shows.
24 But we have schools next to these tracks. We have 25 churches and homes and neighborhoods. And again, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 we've had enough. We don't want any more.
2 (Pause) 3 MS. SUDERMAN KING: Ronda Suderman King.
4 It's R-O-N-D-A and then S-U-D-E-R-M-A-N and then 5 second name -- or, third name King, K-I-N-G.
6 PARTICIPANT: Whenever you're ready.
7 MS. SUDERMAN KING: Okay. Well, I am from 8 Carlsbad, New Mexico. And I am one of the increasing 9 number of people who oppose strongly the nation's 10 deadliest radioactive waste in our community. This 11 waste site would consist of used fuel rods that have 12 bene inside operating nuclear reactors. And much of 13 those used fuel rods can be degraded within a century, 14 but some remain active for 1,000,000 years. My 15 concern is that it's considered a temporary 16 repository. And that's what Holtec International's 17 project is, is a temporary repository. But these fuel 18 rods come from all over the country. But only for a 19 temporary site. But there's no permanent site.
20 Holtec has no long-range plans for a permanent site.
21 And I haven't heard anything from the federal 22 government that they have plans for a long-range 23 permanent site.
24 My concern is for the generations beyond 25 me. I am not going to be here in 125 years when --
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11 1 or maybe less than that when it needs to go to another 2 site. But my children, my children's children, my 3 children's children's children -- they're going to be 4 here. And I think a permanent site needs to be 5 planned before this temporary site comes into 6 operation. In fact, the temporary site doesn't make 7 much sense to me. A permanent site will, and I would 8 be glad to entertain plans for what that permanent 9 site is.
10 The federal government has failed to come 11 up with a plan for a permanent site for many decades.
12 Holtec International is a for-profit company. And 13 when they cease to make a profit over this, then 14 what's going to happen to these spent nuclear rods?
15 Are they going to stay where they're at? Or is there 16 going to be a plan for a permanent site for these 17 kinds of things? So it seems ridiculous to me how 18 people can think that a temporary site is a good idea 19 when there's no permanent plans for this nuclear 20 waste. Which is important. I agree that it's very 21 important to come up with a permanent site. And I 22 agree that nobody wants nuclear waste in their 23 backyard. But at this point, it's because there is no 24 permanency to this site and no permanency to what 25 they're going to do with it. And that's my objection.
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12 1 Okay, thank you.
2 (Pause) 3 MR. HARBAUGH: Gene Harbaugh, G-E-N-E, 4 Harbaugh, H-A-R-B-A-U-G-H. Okay, just a moment there.
5 Well, I think that the main objection to this proposal 6 is that it is to be a temporary or interim site. And 7 I do not consent to that for the reason that 8 continuing to move nuclear waste around the country to 9 temporary sites simply exposes more people to the 10 dangers and raises the possibility of accidents, 11 especially given the state of the infrastructure in 12 this country. I am speaking particularly of rail 13 shipment. I live within 300 yards of a railroad 14 switch yard. They are constantly having to repair 15 track and work on that facility and I am sure it is no 16 different in other parts of the country where this 17 waste will pass through. So until there is a 18 permanent repository, I believe the NRC would serve 19 the best interest of the people of this country by 20 denying this Holtec proposal.
21 (Pause) 22 MR. BURNAM: Okay, I am Lon Burnam, I live 23 in Fort Worth, Texas. For 18 years I served Central 24 City Fort Worth in the Texas Legislature. And during 25 that time I learned quite a bit about the rail system NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 in Texas, but particularly in Fort Worth where we had 2 eight different rail lines coming into Fort Worth.
3 The rail transportation infrastructure in this country 4 is totally inadequate to handle the proposed transport 5 of these really, really heavy casks through our urban 6 centers and over our rural bridges, some of which are 7 100 years old. It's ludicrous to think that our 8 transportation system can handle what's being proposed 9 and any environmental impact statement that is worth 10 its weight in the paper it will be printed on will 11 take into consideration that this is a national 12 environmental impact. They're proposing to transport 13 this waste from over 100 plants, most of which are 14 east of the Mississippi, through my home community in 15 Fort Worth, and to Southeastern New Mexico. And 16 that's enough for now.
17 (Pause) 18 MS. C. SMITH: Okay, my concern is nuclear 19 waste, accidents happen. I live in Pennsylvania where 20 Three Mile Island happened and my youngest daughter 21 ended up with a birth defect. I am part Native 22 American, and I am not really concerned for our 23 generation or the next generation, but for the next 24 seven generations. That was one of my concerns of 25 many, but that is my main concern -- that the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 environment will be safe. My generation and my 2 children's generation and my grandchildren's 3 generation -- their generations. That's it.
4 (Pause) 5 MS. CARDONA: Patricia, P-A-T-R-I-C-I-A, 6 Cardona, C-A-R-D-O-N-A. Okay, I am ready. Okay, what 7 I would like to do is talk about several areas. One 8 is the liability for losses to the state -- in case 9 of accidents to private individuals and property 10 damage as well as personal injury, property 11 devaluation and stigma that will -- that may occur to 12 businesses as well as to the property of the 13 individual residential areas. But I'd also like to 14 talk about stewardship and continuous stewardship of 15 any proposed site to be sure that there is no 16 abandonment in the future of the site and the casks.
17 And the casks themselves, the process for possessing 18 -- for taking possession of the casks -- who takes 19 possession? And who has liability at what point in 20 the process? How the casks will be labeled? And the 21 documentation preserved in order to ensure that the 22 company maintains liability for any casks that are 23 improperly -- are improperly passed on to the -- you 24 know, passed on to the -- to the next step.
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15 1 with the liability for losses. One of the things that 2 you have liability exposure and State Representative 3 Brown has stated that the federal government will 4 assume the liability for any and all losses. However, 5 it is not clear what the role is of the utility 6 company and whether or not the utility company has the 7 right to transfer the risk to other groups. Or to 8 another state or to another entity. One of the 9 problems is that if there is an LLC in the middle of 10 this, an LLC can declare bankruptcy. And in the case 11 -- this happened in New Mexico with the brine well.
12 We can end up with the state of New Mexico for any 13 accident or any loss of revenue because of an 14 accident, shutting down businesses, shutting down 15 state revenue. Who is going to assume the liability 16 for those losses? The State of New Mexico has a lot 17 of gas and oil. And activity at the -- near the site 18 and all along the area of Southern New Mexico. If 19 there is some kind of leak and shutdown, is it indeed 20 the federal government who is going to assume the 21 liability for the loss of the business as well as for 22 state revenue? Because the businesses generate 23 revenue to the state -- about 30 percent of our 24 revenue comes from gas and oil. So that -- those 25 issues need to be dealt with. Who is responsible for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 that? Especially when an LLC can just declare 2 bankruptcy and have no -- no liability in it.
3 The other thing in this area is if there 4 is an incident or a release of radioactive material, 5 it will devaluate the property. It will also 6 devaluate products, especially if they're, like, dairy 7 products, tourism -- people are going to be loathing 8 to come to an area that is infected with radiation.
9 And products become permanently stigmatized. Who pays 10 for the property devaluation and who pays for the 11 devaluation of products? Does the federal government, 12 as stated by Cathrynn Brown, our representative? Does 13 the federal government assume that liability?
14 I am moving on to another issue which is 15 the issue of how that site, should it become -- it 16 should become constructed, how will stewardship be 17 handled? Will it continue on to how many generations?
18 There is no provision at all that I can see for making 19 sure that the site does not become abandoned after, 20 say, ten, fifteen years. They -- something happens 21 with a budget and there's no longer any money -- how 22 are they going to ensure money will continue to be 23 available for guarding the site and for repairing 24 casks that may be damaged during the -- during the 25 process of storage? And there is a real big issue, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 which I am not going to talk about right now, is the 2 fact that that area that is proposed has karst 3 formation. There's a lot of caves, brine wells and 4 that -- and water running around that -- underneath 5 those areas -- in and around those areas. If there 6 is an incident, who is going to repair the cask?
7 Where's the money going to come from? Does it come 8 from the federal government? Holtec is a company.
9 They can declare bankruptcy. Then where is -- where 10 is the population left?
11 The cask itself -- at what point does the 12 federal government assume liability for the cask? And 13 at what point in the initial transfer -- how is that 14 cask going to be labeled? The source? The date? The 15 condition? How are they going to document the 16 condition of the cask? And if it is improperly 17 transported because it, in fact, is damaged, who --
18 who has the liability for that? And how is it going 19 to be document? In other words, are the casks going 20 to be numbered? The utility company's name on the 21 cask? And the date of the transfer and the inspector?
22 Who inspected the cask? And who verified that it was 23 in good condition to be able to be transported?
24 That's my statement for today.
25 (Pause)
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18 1 MS. J. SMITH: So, my name is Judith Smith 2 and I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Unfortunately, 3 I had to travel three hours in order to be able to 4 talk to the Holtec company and to talk to the EPA 5 people about this -- whatever your group is -- NRC?
6 What is this? Whatever. They're very good -- the 7 government people were very helpful. My biggest 8 concern right now is that the way these canisters are 9 going to be sticking up to the surface of the earth 10 and the only thing protecting them is a six-inch steel 11 plate on top. And I don't see how that can withstand 12 some clever terrorist attack. Bomb, drone -- I don't 13 know what. It's a huge target. It's a huge field --
14 out in the open, in the middle of the desert near the 15 border with another country that's probably a little 16 bit upset with us right now anyway, and I can't be 17 sure that that steel plate is going to protect us.
18 I am also concerned about any cleanup 19 because the government and the companies have been 20 very unkind to New Mexico over the years with uranium 21 cleanup, which is still making people in the northwest 22 part of our state sick. And there are also companies 23 here who are leaking methane all over the place and 24 polluting our air. And the government and other --
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19 1 stepping in. We're trying to struggle with it as a 2 state, but we're taking waste from all over the 3 country, which seems to us -- that this state 4 shouldn't be held responsible for these possible 5 disasters.
6 (Pause) 7 MS. J. SMITH: Should I just continue with 8 my own comment? I just want to add a comment that the 9 people from the NRC have been very kind and very 10 forthcoming. However, the problem I have is that this 11 opportunity is three hours from my home and along 12 drive through the desert, and three hours drive back.
13 It couldn't be much further from one end of the state 14 to the other -- probably five hours -- and I think 15 that these opportunities need to be spread out across 16 the state, especially to places in our state where 17 there are large populations who would like to make 18 their thoughts known and ask questions. Because in 19 this state, we all care about each other. There 20 aren't that many of us. It's big and we love it. And 21 it's the Land of Enchantment. And it's not going to 22 be enchanting if we get a reputation for leaked 23 nuclear radioactivity. That's it. Thank you.
24 (Pause) 25 MR. JOHNSON: Daniel Johnson. Thank you.
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20 1 My concern is from the permian basin. How will it 2 affect the oil drilling in that area? Because of our 3 dependence on the fossil fuels. And especially in New 4 Mexico -- our economic impact. If our fossil fuels 5 are somehow impeded or somehow they're not -- we 6 can't get into them because of this area. And will it 7 affect it going down, burying this stuff like they 8 intend to -- if it will affect the fossil fuels. So 9 I am looking at the economic impact of the oil 10 industry -- and drilling and so forth. It's -- I 11 see that as a possible problem. Also, I know 12 something about that grade of waste in twenty year, 13 Navy Marine. I've been around it. And it's 14 dangerous. So that -- that's my comment.
15 (Pause) 16 MR. RAMERO: Okay, so I thought I would 17 come out here today. I am the chairman of the 18 Democratic Party of Chaves County. Just to give you 19 a brief -- without getting into, you know, specifics 20 of anything -- had a rudimentary sense, in my 21 opinion, I know there will be arguments in favor of 22 this. But my opinion is I am against this. I think, 23 you know, dumping radioactive waste in our backyard, 24 honestly, I think just at any level for me, at least, 25 is a bad idea and I am against it.
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21 1 (Pause) 2 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everybody.
3 It's so nice to see all of you tonight and thank you 4 for coming out to join us for the first of three NRC 5 meetings in Southeastern New Mexico on the NRC's 6 review of the license application that they received 7 from Holtec International to build and construct an 8 interim spent fuel storage facility in Lea County, New 9 Mexico.
10 And my name is Chip Cameron and I'm going 11 to be the facilitator for the meeting tonight, and in 12 that role I'll try to help all of you to have a 13 productive meeting.
14 The focus of tonight's meeting is on 15 something called scoping, and scoping is a term that's 16 used under the National Environmental Policy Act, a 17 federal law that requires the preparation of an 18 Environmental Impact Statement in certain 19 circumstances, and this is a circumstance that the NRC 20 is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement.
21 So what does scoping mean? It's simple 22 really. It's what should be evaluated in the 23 Environmental Impact Statement? What doesn't need to 24 be evaluated in the Environmental Impact Statement?
25 In other words, what's the scope of the statement?
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22 1 And the NRC staff is here tonight to hear any comments 2 or suggestions you have on that matter.
3 And there's two objectives tonight for the 4 meeting. First objective for the NRC staff is to 5 clearly explain the NRC license review process to you.
6 Second objective is for the NRC to have an opportunity 7 to listen to your comments, your advice on the 8 important issues. And those two objectives, they 9 correspond to the two segments of the meeting, to the 10 agenda of the meeting.
11 First of all, we're going to hear from the 12 NRC staff. They're going to explain the review 13 process to you on this license application. And the 14 second part of the meeting is to hear public comment 15 from all of you. And there's going to be a few 16 minutes; and probably I should emphasize "few," to see 17 if there's any clarifying questions on the license 18 review process. And I'm emphasizing "process." See 19 if we can answer some of those before we go on to 20 public comment.
21 We have an amazing amount of people who 22 want to talk tonight, around 50 people. And usually 23 I set a guideline of five minutes a speaker, but 24 because there's 50 people, we're going to go to four 25 minutes. And I apologize to those of you who I have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 to ask to finish your comments tonight because I know 2 that you've spent time and energy preparing comments 3 and coming to this meeting.
4 Now fortunately there are several other 5 ways to comment, provide scoping comments to the NRC 6 staff; and the staff will tell you how to do that, but 7 basically you can send a comment in in writing. Even 8 if you comment tonight, if you want to amplify on your 9 comments, feel -- you're perfectly free to do that.
10 So we have sort of a safety valve on that score for 11 people to comment.
12 And only one comment per person, 13 obviously. We won't go around for a second round, but 14 it is for minutes. Try to be crisp in your comments, 15 okay, so that we might get out of here at a decent 16 time.
17 Now we are taking a transcript. We have 18 a court reporter here. Matthew McMullen; thank you, 19 Matthew, is here. He's taking a transcript, so that's 20 going to be a formal record of everything that was 21 said here tonight and it's going to be publicly 22 available to all of you on the NRC web site. And I 23 think we'll say a little bit more about how you will 24 get into that. It's probably going to be two to three 25 weeks before that transcript will be on there, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 you'll be able to see it all.
2 One important point is that the NRC staff 3 is here to listen carefully to what you have to say.
4 They're not going to be responding to your comments.
5 They're not going to be responding to any questions 6 that you have in your comments, okay, but they will be 7 reviewing those comments including questions when they 8 evaluate the scoping comments. And the NRC issues a 9 Scoping Report that will also be on the web site where 10 they evaluate the comments that were given.
11 So they're going to be carefully 12 evaluating your comments and questions when they 13 prepare the draft Environmental Impact Statement, when 14 they prepare the Scoping Report. The draft 15 Environmental Impact Statement is also subject to 16 public comment, public meetings. So they'll be out 17 here again with all of you.
18 And I know that when we're in a situation 19 where there's a company, a private enterprise that is 20 a license applicant to the NRC, people understandably 21 have a lot of questions that they'd like to ask the 22 license applicant. Well, we do have Holtec staff here 23 with us tonight and they're going to be available 24 after the meeting to talk with you, to tell you know 25 you can contact them, if you want to communicate with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 them. And I'd like to introduce Joy Russell.
2 Joy, can you just stand up?
3 Joy is the leader of the team from Holtec 4 International. They'll be here to talk to you if you 5 need to talk to them.
6 In terms of the NRC presenters, the 7 speakers tonight, we have three speakers: We have 8 Cinthya Roman, who's right here. Now she's Chief of 9 the Environmental Review Branch at the NRC, and it's 10 in the Division of Fuel Cycles, Safeguards, and 11 Environmental Review in the NRC's Office of Nuclear 12 Material Safety and Safeguards. So Cinthya is the 13 branch chief.
14 The project manager for the environmental 15 review of the Holtec application is Jill Caverly, and 16 she's going to be talking to you about the process.
17 And we also have our senior NRC official 18 here, Brian Smith. He's the Deputy Director of the 19 Division of Fuel Cycles, Safeguards, and Environmental 20 Protection. He'll say a brief comment after Jill's 21 done, but he'll also close the meeting out for us.
22 I also want to introduce the main NRC 23 staffers who are responsible for the safety review.
24 And this is an important point. You're going to hear 25 about it. When the NRC reviews a license application NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 1 to see if it should be granted, there is an 2 environmental review. Jill. Cinthya. And this is a 3 scoping meeting on the environmental review, but 4 there's also a safety review to see if the application 5 meets the NRC's safety regulations. And tonight we 6 have John McKirgan here, right here, and John is the 7 Branch Chief where the safety review for this 8 application takes place. Jose Cuadrado, he's the 9 project manager on the safety review.
10 They're here tonight so that if any of 11 your comments fall more in the safety area rather than 12 the environment scoping area, they're here to listen, 13 to know that you made those comments, to consider 14 those safety issues as they do their safety review.
15 Okay. We're fortunate to have the staff 16 of two of New Mexico's congressional delegation here 17 tonight. And Diane Ventura is right here, and Diane 18 is with the Roswell Office of Senator Heinrich. We 19 also have Gloria Ann Salas. Gloria is with 20 Representative Steve Pearce.
21 So thank you for being here and thank you 22 for the attention of the congressmen.
23 Now what I'd like to do is just -- I don't 24 think I need to say this, but I always like for all of 25 us to remember courtesy, and I mean all of us: NRC NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 1 staff, myself, whatever. You may hear comments 2 tonight that you disagree with, but just respect the 3 person who's giving that particular comment.
4 Now I'm going to go to Cinthya Roman, the 5 branch chief, and she not only is going to give you an 6 introduction to this, but she's also going to say a 7 few remarks in Spanish to you. So I'm turning it over 8 to Cinthya right now.
9 MS. ROMAN: Thank you. I'm going to start 10 with a Spanish person. It's basically summarize what 11 he said.
12 (Spanish language spoken.)
13 MS. ROMAN: So as Chip mentioned, staff in 14 my branch is going to be working on the environment 15 review for the license application for Holtec. Our 16 main goal today is to hear from you. So I'm going to 17 try to be very brief in my remarks.
18 First, I want to give you a very quick 19 overview of what NRC does and what is our role in 20 regulating the Holtec project.
21 Our agency is charged by federal law to be 22 the nation's only regulator of commercial nuclear 23 materials independently ensuring these materials are 24 used, handled and stored safely and securely. Our 25 mission is to protect the public health and safety, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 promote common defense and security and protect the 2 environment by regulating the civilian use of 3 radioactive materials. To accomplish our mission we 4 carefully review each license application we receive 5 before making a decision on whether or not to grant 6 the applicant's request.
7 Next slide. NRC regulates the operation 8 of 99 nuclear power reactors that generate about 20 9 percent of the electricity in the United States. We 10 also regulate civilian use of nuclear materials, 11 research reactors at universities, transportation of 12 nuclear materials and their storage and disposal.
13 NRC strives to be open and transparent in 14 their reviews. As such, stakeholders may have many 15 opportunities to participate in public meetings on 16 environmental and safety issues. This scoping meeting 17 is one of those opportunities.
18 Next slide. As an independent regulator 19 the NRC determine whether it is safe to build and 20 operate a storage facility at the proposed site. The 21 NRC does not promote or build any nuclear facility.
22 Also we do not own and operate the facilities. Our 23 mission again is to protect the public and the workers 24 and the environment.
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29 1 waste. They are not asking NRC for permission to 2 reprocess or generate more nuclear waste. NRC does 3 not select the location for the storage facility. We 4 just evaluate the impacts of building and operating 5 the storage facility at the location proposed by the 6 licensee.
7 As we will explain later in this 8 presentation the results of our environmental review 9 will be documented in an Environmental Impact 10 Statement which is a public document. This analysis 11 along with other factors will inform the basis for the 12 staff decision to issue a license or not. This 13 concludes my remarks and now Jill Caverly will provide 14 additional details about the environmental review 15 process.
16 MS. CAVERLY: Thank you, Cinthya. So my 17 name is Jill Caverly and I'm the environmental project 18 manager for the review, and I'm assisted by Stacy 19 Inboden who you might have met outside in the lobby.
20 The next few slides will be specific to 21 the Holtec storage facility application and review.
22 Holtec has applied for a license to 23 construct and operate a storage facility under 10 CFR 24 Part 72. The NRC regulations governing storage of 25 spent nuclear fuel and reactor-related greater than NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 1 Class C waste. If granted, Holtec would receive a 40-2 year license to construct and operate the consolidated 3 interim storage facility. The current application 4 before the NRC requests construction and operation of 5 only the first of up to 20 planned phases.
6 In this current application Holtec is 7 requesting storage of up to 500 canisters of spent 8 nuclear fuel. The spent nuclear fuel would come from 9 shutdown and operating nuclear power plants from 10 around the country. Holtec anticipates applying for 11 up to 20 phases of construction and operation of 500 12 canisters of spent nuclear fuel each for a total of 13 10,000 canisters of spent fuel storage. However, 14 these additional phases would require separate 15 applications from Holtec and would be subject to their 16 own safety and environmental reviews. The 17 Environmental Report provides information on the full 18 build-out of the site, or 10,000 canisters.
19 Next slide, please. This slide shows the 20 approximate location of the proposed consolidated 21 interim storage facility in New Mexico, and as you can 22 see the facility is located approximately halfway 23 between the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs in Lea 24 County.
25 Next slide, please. Holtec plans to use NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 the HI-STORM UMAX system for the storage of the spent 2 fuel. HI-STORM UMAX stands for the Holtec 3 International Storage Module Underground Maximum 4 capacity and is an NRC-certified design, which means 5 we have evaluated it and determined that it meets NRC 6 regulations and can safely store spent fuel.
7 The system is a dry, in-ground spent fuel 8 storage system. Each of these modules hold one 9 canister of spent fuel and Holtec has applied for 10 storage of 500 canisters of spent fuel. The canister 11 transfer facility will be below ground. This is a 12 low-profile design as seen in the conceptual drawing 13 from Holtec's application.
14 Next slide, please. This flowchart 15 provides an overview of the license application review 16 process which can be described generally as a three 17 parallel phase process. After the application is 18 submitted the NRC conducts an acceptance review to 19 determine if the application has sufficient 20 information to begin a detailed technical review. if 21 so, the NRC dockets the application and this begins 22 the safety and environmental review paths.
23 From the safety standpoint we work through 24 a separate safety review to decide if a license should 25 be issued. The result of this phase of the review is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 a Safety Evaluation Report. This is graphically 2 represented in the left column of the flowchart or the 3 steps in orange. Jose Cuadrado, as we mentioned, will 4 be the project manager coordinating that aspect of the 5 review.
6 The environmental review can be seen in 7 the middle column and the results of that are the 8 Environmental Impact Statement, which describes the 9 impacts on the environment of the proposed project.
10 On the right-hand side you'll see the 11 adjudicatory hearings. This blue box on the figure 12 refers to the opportunity for the public to request a 13 hearing on the application. These hearings would be 14 held if a petition to intervene is granted.
15 The results of these three processes: a 16 hearing if granted, the results of the environmental 17 review documented in an Environmental Impact 18 Statement, and the safety review documented in the 19 Safety Evaluation Report, will factor into the NRC's 20 final decision on whether or not to grant the license 21 to Holtec for the storage facility. It's important to 22 note that the focus of tonight's meeting is on the 23 environment review process.
24 Next slide, please. This flow diagram 25 outlines the environmental review process or the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 1 middle column of the previous slide. And as you can 2 see the opportunities for public involvement are 3 highlighted in light blue. After staff receives an 4 application it is reviewed to ensure it is complete 5 and technically adequate, and if acceptable, the 6 application is docketed and we proceed on both the 7 environmental and safety reviews.
8 The NRC starts the environmental review by 9 publishing a Notice of Intent which informs the public 10 of our plan to prepare and Environmental Impact 11 Statement and conduct the scoping process. The light 12 blue box on the right identifies the current scoping 13 process, which is the meeting tonight. The purpose of 14 this phase is to gather more information to use to 15 help us prepare our EIS.
16 Comments gathered from this meeting, as 17 well as many other information collections, will be 18 independently evaluated for impacts of this particular 19 project on the environment. We will document your 20 comments today in the meeting transcript. The public 21 can also provide written comments through the end of 22 the scoping period.
23 We analyze all the information gathered.
24 We'll develop an EIS and issue it for public comment.
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34 1 the draft EIS, and that's represented in the lower 2 blue box. At that time the staff will again -- at 3 that time the staff will schedule a meeting to hear 4 comments on the draft EIS. We'll again evaluate those 5 comments and consider modifying the draft EIS before 6 issuing a final EIS. The final EIS will result -- the 7 final EIS and the results of the safety review, 8 otherwise known as the Safety Evaluation Report, again 9 contribute to our final decision.
10 Next slide, please. Our environmental 11 review is based on the requirements of the National 12 Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. NEPA requires 13 federal agencies to apply a systematic approach to 14 evaluate the impacts of its actions. For major 15 federal actions NEPA requires agencies to document 16 their evaluation the EIS. NRC will prepare the EIS in 17 accordance with these regulations and guidance. NEPA 18 also encourages public participation in the process.
19 That's why we're here. We are looking for public 20 input to our environmental review process.
21 Next slide, please. So here's a graphical 22 representation of the types and sources of information 23 that NRC is gathering when we're preparing our EIS.
24 We'll conduct a site visit, we'll meet with local and 25 state officials and other federal agencies, and we'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 1 also meet with tribes. We're currently gathering that 2 information for scoping to help us determine which 3 issues should be considered in our review. We also 4 expect to request additional information from Holtec 5 following the completion of these activities.
6 Next slide, please. NRC will gather 7 information on a wide range of topics related to the 8 environmental issues, and this slide provides many of 9 the resource areas we will consider in our 10 Environmental Impact Statement. So as you can see, we 11 include many different resource areas including 12 transportation and environment justice, groundwater, 13 surface water, waste management, air quality, geology 14 and soils.
15 Next slide, please. This slide is a high-16 level timeline for anticipated environmental review.
17 This stepwise approach meets our responsibilities 18 under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, 19 that we talked about a little earlier. We stated that 20 the review -- we started with the review with a Notice 21 of Intent to Conduct Scoping and to prepare an EIS.
22 This started a 60-day scoping period. The public --
23 this public meeting is part of that process and we 24 will continue to gather information and analyze 25 information as the review continues and we develop the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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36 1 EIS.
2 We tentatively expect to publish the draft 3 EIS in June 2019. At that point we'll publish a 4 notice of availability, and that starts a period of at 5 least 45 days for the public or other agencies to 6 comment on the draft EIS. Those comments will also be 7 addressed and the analysis adjusted if necessary. We 8 tentatively expect to issue the final EIS in mid-2020.
9 Next slide, please. So the scoping 10 process is intended to do many things: to determine 11 the scope of the EIS and identify significant issues 12 that NRC should analyze in depth; also to identify and 13 eliminate issues which are not significant; to 14 identify other environmental reviews and consultation 15 requirements related to the proposed action. So in 16 other words, we want to hear from you because you live 17 in the local area and may bring issues to our 18 attention that we're not aware of.
19 Next slide, please. The NRC is requesting 20 information about -- the NRC is requesting information 21 and input specific to the proposed facility regarding 22 what should be included or excluded from the scope of 23 the EIS. Some examples of information that NRC is 24 requesting are are there local projects that are being 25 planned or developed nearby? Have you identified NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 1 wildlife or habitat that should be considered? Are 2 there cultural resources that should be considered in 3 the evaluation? Are there particular populations 4 nearby that should be considered? Are there unique 5 characteristics of the project site or local 6 communities that NRC should consider in the 7 evaluation?
8 Next slide, please. So there are many 9 ways that you can provide your scoping comments. You 10 may present comments orally or in writing at this 11 public meeting. You may submit comments through the 12 regulations.gov web site by searching for the docket 13 ID listed here. And I'll just say it for the record.
14 It's NRC-2018-0052. You may also mail comments to the 15 address on this slide. Remember that all the comments 16 should be submitted by May 29th in order to ensure 17 that they will be considered.
18 Next slide, please. So additional 19 information on the application and review can be found 20 on the Federal Rulemaking web site or at the NRC's 21 public document room through the NRC's Agencywide 22 Document Access and Management System, also known as 23 ADAMS, or through the NRC's project-specific web site 24 for the Holtec application. And all those links are 25 listed here. In addition, the public libraries in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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38 1 Hobbs, Carlsbad and Roswell have agreed to hold a copy 2 of the environmental report for public review.
3 If you want to be on our mailing list or 4 our email list, please make sure that your name and 5 your address are provided to one of the NRC staff at 6 the registration table. This is the one way to ensure 7 that you will be notified of upcoming meetings and 8 issuance of the draft and final EIS. At the bottom of 9 the slide are the NRC's points of contact. And just 10 to remind you once again to please provide your 11 comments by May 29th.
12 And I'm going to pass -- turn this over to 13 Brian Smith for comments.
14 MR. SMITH: Thank you, Jill.
15 Good evening and thank you for coming out 16 tonight and attending our scoping meeting.
17 My division, the Division of Fuel Cycle, 18 Safeguards, and Environmental Review, has a 19 responsibility for leading and conducting and 20 preparing this Environmental Impact Statement. It's 21 a responsibility that we take very seriously.
22 We encourage and welcome your comments 23 tonight on the scope of the NRC's EIS. The NRC's job 24 is to protect the public health and safety and the 25 environment by thoroughly reviewing each license NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 1 application we receive before deciding whether or not 2 to grant an applicant's request.
3 We understand that in the audience tonight 4 there are those who may oppose Holtec's license 5 application as well as those who may support it. I 6 want to assure you that we want to hear from both 7 sides. However, I want to remind you that the purpose 8 of this meeting is to gather comments for the scoping 9 of our EIS. We want to know what important 10 information and issues we need to consider and analyze 11 in our EIS. We treat all of the comments we receive 12 the same, whether a comment was made by one person or 13 by 100 people.
14 We give each comment we receive the same 15 careful consideration during the preparation of our 16 EIS. We will consider all of the oral and written 17 comments we receive here tonight as well as those we 18 receive via letter, email, or through the federal 19 rulemaking web site, regulations.gov.
20 The EIS combined with the NRC's safety and 21 security review of Holtec's license application 22 request will result in an NRC licensing decision to 23 either approve the license request or disapprove it.
24 And to allow as much time as we can for 25 public comment I'll turn it over to Chip. Thank you.
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40 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Cinthya 2 and Jill and Brian.
3 As I mentioned earlier, we have a few 4 minutes to see if there's any clarifying questions on 5 the process, the review process that we could answer.
6 And I wonder does anybody have a question? Yes?
7 PARTICIPANT: Thank you.
8 MR. CAMERON: Here, let me give you this 9 so they get you -- it's not --
10 PARTICIPANT: I can speak up.
11 (Laughter.)
12 MR. CAMERON: It's not -- I'm not saying 13 anything on that.
14 PARTICIPANT: Oh, you're not -- he's 15 not --
16 MR. CAMERON: I'm not saying anything.
17 But it's not so people can --
18 PARTICIPANT: That's fine.
19 MR. CAMERON: -- hear you. It's so we get 20 it on the transcript.
21 PARTICIPANT: Oh, that's fine.
22 MR. CAMERON: That's why it has to be 23 on --
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41 1 out. They circle the room. They stare us down. I'm 2 afraid -- no offense, hon -- I'm afraid. I mean, what 3 is going on? I'm trying not to wiggle too much. I'm 4 trying to breathe too hard. Serious. What is with 5 the police presence? We're highly educated, 6 reasonably intelligent people. Why all the cops?
7 What are you guys going to do?
8 MR. CAMERON: Well, there are several 9 paddy wagons outside --
10 (Laughter.)
11 MR. CAMERON: -- waiting for you.
12 (Laughter.)
13 PARTICIPANT: I wouldn't doubt it.
14 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
15 PARTICIPANT: You know, could they take --
16 (Simultaneous speaking.)
17 MR. CAMERON: No, no. No, it's a -- and 18 I have to tell you that Chief Newberry and his people 19 have been very helpful all night in terms of making 20 sure that, for example, the NRC staff leave if we have 21 to bring people in. So the NRC -- and I'll answer 22 this process question for the NRC, is that when we go 23 to public meetings, we sometimes encounter people who 24 may be violent. Okay?
25 (Laughter.)
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42 1 MR. CAMERON: I know you find that hard to 2 believe, but that's why we have security. And in this 3 case when we're -- and I have to thank the university.
4 When we're using a space at the university, the 5 university is going to want to make sure -- if it's a 6 meeting on a controversial subject, they're going to 7 want to make sure that they have their security staff 8 here in case something does happen. so we'll all take 9 a chill pill.
10 (Laughter.)
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay? So I'm going to go on 12 to other questions. And I'm going to go to Kevin 13 Kampus in the back and we'll come up to you next.
14 Okay? Okay. This is Kevin Kampus.
15 Kevin?
16 MR. KAMPUS: Hi, Kevin Kampus with Beyond 17 Nuclear, and I had this question last Wednesday, but 18 didn't get to ask it because there was no time.
19 Twice now I've heard Cinthya Roman say 20 that NRC is not a promotional agency, but I attended 21 a Spent Fuel Project Office regulatory conference in 22 North Bethesda where Tony Hsai, who was acting 23 director at the time said, together we can get this 24 done, speaking about centralized interim storage. And 25 that was just a few years ago. So tremendous concern NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 1 that at least for him that day this was something he 2 wanted to get done. So can you address NRC's role?
3 Has NRC ever denied a permit for something like this 4 in its history?
5 MR. CAMERON: And thank you for that 6 question. And that is a process question because it 7 goes to the neutrality of the NRC review. So thank 8 you, Kevin.
9 Is there -- I don't know if, Brian, you 10 can talk to Tony's remark, but you can certainly 11 clarify what the NRC position is.
12 MR. SMITH: Yes, I was not at the 13 conference that you're referencing, so I don't know 14 the context in which Tony made that remark. Tony Hsai 15 is still the Deputy Director of the Division of Spent 16 Fuel Management. The division has the lead for the 17 technical safety review of this license application.
18 Our role is, as Cinthya said a couple of 19 times, is not a promoter of the industry. As I 20 mentioned in my remarks, our job is to protect public 21 health and safety and the environment to making sure 22 that the applicants and the licensees meet our 23 regulations so that they can be protective of their 24 workers, the public and the environment itself.
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44 1 denied or turned down an application like this in the 2 past? I'm not aware that we have. There's only been 3 two other applications that I'm aware of. One was 4 private fuel storage in which we did issue a license 5 back in 2006. The facility was never constructed. We 6 did receive the waste control specialist license 7 application. That has been on hold for some months 8 now. And now we've received the Holtec license 9 application.
10 MR. CAMERON: So there haven't been many.
11 But thank you, Kevin, for that.
12 And thank you, Brian, for clarifying that.
13 And, yes, ma'am? Could you just please 14 just tell us your name, too?
15 MS. HERNANDEZ: My name is Charlene 16 Hernandez, a concerned citizen and I just want to ask 17 you a question, if the person is here that's applying 18 for the license, the agency or whatever?
19 MR. CAMERON: Yes, I introduced Joy 20 Russell, who's right back there, and she's here with 21 two of her colleagues. And in fact Joy, like --
22 Holtec International, like anybody else here, can sign 23 up for their time to speak. So she's going to speak 24 later on and you'll be able to hear her and know who 25 she is.
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45 1 MS. HERNANDEZ: Okay. Thank you.
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
3 Let me go here and then we'll come up to 4 you. Yes?
5 MR. BURMAN: Chip, as you know, I'm Lon 6 Burman and I had 18 years in the Texas legislature, so 7 I'm real familiar with bureaucratese, but I'm still 8 struggling with the concept of bifurcating health and 9 safety with EIS. To me they're kind of interrelated 10 and I'm not sure how to frame my comments since I 11 think health and safety are the most important 12 environmental issues.
13 MR. CAMERON: Now that's a very good point 14 because they're separate reviews, but there will be 15 information probably in the environment review that 16 has safety implications. And I heard a good 17 discussion of how that works.
18 And, John, are you going to talk to that, 19 because that's a -- people need to know that?
20 MR. McKIRGAN: Yes, thank you. I 21 appreciate that question. So this is John McKirgan.
22 I'm Chief of the Licensing Branch.
23 And I think there are two very important 24 points to differentiate the environmental review and 25 the overall licensing process. And so it really has NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 1 its roots in the statutory requirements that both of 2 these review processes are seeking to comply with.
3 One is based, as you heard, in the Environmental 4 Policy Act and the other of course is based on the 5 Atomic Energy Act. And those two statutory 6 requirements work together and the NRC implements both 7 of those to achieve an overall finding when we issue 8 the license, but the NRC is working towards ensuring 9 compliance with all of the relevant statutes there.
10 As Chip mentioned, the environmental 11 review and the safety review often touch on very 12 similar concepts and themes. Certainly siting 13 characteristics. Soil characteristics for example are 14 one that impacts both the environmental review and the 15 safety review. And we talk quite commonly amongst the 16 reviewers to make sure that the information is shared 17 across those two. So even though the processes are 18 somewhat unique, there is a great deal of connection 19 between those two activities.
20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much. And 21 that last part about the consultation between the 22 review -- environmental staff and safety staff is a 23 very important one.
24 Yes, sir?
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47 1 in Roswell, New Mexico and somehow have managed to 2 live here since 1974.
3 In a couple of the slides the word 4 "interim" was included in there. And it's interesting 5 because my background is in linguistics. Believe it 6 or not, I didn't waste my time at New Mexico State.
7 And there -- in the field of linguistics you have 8 what's called a gradable ambiguity, and some people 9 would define for instance the climate in here as cold.
10 Others may cool. Others may say warm.
11 So right now this university, if I'm not 12 mistaken, has an interim president until they find a 13 suitable replacement. So we know there will be 14 eventually another president.
15 When we talk about interim storage who 16 gets to stipulate the limits? Who gets to define that 17 word? Will it be Holtec, or will it be you guys, or 18 will it be the voters? But there has to be more 19 accuracy in the definition of the word "interim,"
20 because I used to be a member of the Concerned 21 Citizens of Roswell and we were concerned that this 22 would happen eventually, that they would bring spent 23 nuclear rods and store them here indefinitely. So if 24 you could possibly -- one of you define the length of 25 time, please.
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48 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very 2 important question, and I don't know where the term 3 "interim" actually originated, okay, but, Jill, 4 Cinthya, Brian, I think you see what the concern is 5 behind the question.
6 And there may not be something that we 7 really -- there may be a larger issue than the NRC, 8 but, John, do you want to talk to that?
9 MR. KcKIRGAN: Yes, thank you, if I could.
10 So the application as put forward is for 11 40 years. And now we do need to be clear and candid, 12 right? There are opportunities to renew that license 13 for an additional 40 years. But that is the interim 14 concept that's being put forward today is a 40-year 15 license. A renewal would be subject to further review 16 by the NRC staff, but that's the term that's put 17 forward here.
18 MR. CAMERON: And on that particular issue 19 all of us: NRC, citizens, you sort of have to follow 20 what the Congress is doing in terms of connections 21 between storage facility and Yucca Mountain or 22 wherever the repository, if there is a repository --
23 so that's sort of the game we're in and -- but great 24 question.
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49 1 gentleman back there that we're going to go to on 2 this.
3 Yes, sir?
4 PARTICIPANT: Yes, you're asking for 5 names, addresses and contact information of everyone 6 who signs in here in the front, and that is all the 7 information that you have and the knowledge you have.
8 And knowledge is power. So may I suggest that as soon 9 as this meeting is over you post these lists on the 10 Internet so that we all have exactly the same 11 information that you NRC and Holtec have?
12 (Applause.)
13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
14 Okay. There's a recommendation.
15 Okay. We're going to go to public comment 16 now, and we have a lot of commenters.
17 I'm going to start with people from 18 Albuquerque, from Midland, Texas, from Los Cruces, New 19 Mexico who have long travel. So we're going to go to 20 these people first. Okay?
21 PARTICIPANT: Sister Joan came with some 22 people that have to leave tonight. If her group could 23 speak first, that would be --
24 (Simultaneous speaking.)
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50 1 exactly who I was referring to. How about that?
2 Okay. And in fact we're going to start with Sister 3 Joan. Where is Sister -- oh, here's Sister Joan. And 4 I'm going to put this here, okay, sister, and you can 5 talk to the NRC. The people will be able to hear you.
6 Okay. Go ahead.
7 SISTER JOAN BROWN: Okay. Everybody hear?
8 Okay. Great.
9 Thank you. My name is Sister Joan Brown, 10 J-O-A-N, B-R-O-W-N, and I live in Albuquerque. I'm 11 the Executive Director of New Mexico Interfaith Power 12 and Light and I'm a Franciscan sister.
13 And I'm very happy to be here in this part 14 of our state in this desert place, which quite 15 beautiful actually. And I come from a long tradition 16 and Christian tradition of people going to the desert, 17 not because it was a throwaway place or a place where 18 nobody lived or it was not important, but because that 19 is where people find God and that is where we find our 20 souls and we meet our souls and ourselves in a very 21 deep place. So those of you coming from back East, I 22 welcome you these days to uncover that and discover 23 that here as well, as well as our friends from Holtec 24 who do not live here in the state as well.
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51 1 tradition there are several things that are really 2 important: One is that we are brothers and sisters to 3 everyone and everything, every element. Again, there 4 is no out there, there is nothing that is a waste, 5 there is nothing that is to be thrown away or 6 discriminated against. We're also called to use 7 primacy of conscience, which means to follow the law 8 of God inscribed in our hearts, and that is a moral 9 law and a law that is high that we need to choose to 10 do what is right.
11 Also within my tradition there are some 12 environmental justice principles that we hold that I 13 think are important for the NRC to understand. Human 14 life and dignity, that every human life is important.
15 It doesn't matter if you live in an urban area or if 16 you live in a rural area. A life is a life and none 17 are dispensable. We need to be concerned about the 18 safety and health of all lives. And in this state we 19 have a history of that not being respected. We have 20 many people dying of cancer who are downwinders who 21 are suffering from uranium mining, and we are very 22 skeptical because we do not want to see this 23 continued. And that is why we are concerned with this 24 new proposed Holtec project.
25 We're called to be stewards of creation.
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52 1 That means to be caretakers. Like your gardens at 2 home, how many of us would put nuclear waste into my 3 garden, which I just planted my tomato plants in. I 4 do not think so. It is holy ground. We have an 5 obligation to future generations far beyond -- I can't 6 even imagine. In terms of religious traditions 7 250,000 years that we're dealing with with this 8 nuclear waste is eternity. It's an eternity.
9 There is a concept of spirit of 10 subsidiarity, which really addresses environmental 11 justice. And this project is proposed in one of the 12 poorer areas of the state, a predominantly Hispanic-13 speaking area and very low-income area, as if people 14 here are not intelligent, do not have a voice and 15 cannot say, yes, we want something or, no, we don't.
16 It speaks of again human life and it is not just for 17 economic gain for a few individuals or a few 18 companies.
19 MR. CAMERON: Sister, if I could have you 20 sum up now?
21 SISTER JOAN BROWN: Okay. So these are a 22 few of the concerns. I do have some suggestions and 23 I'll make those very brief, that the storage site for 24 this needs to stay where it is at the nuclear power 25 plants where it is already stored.
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53 1 Second, we need a longer comment period 2 and in other locations in the state because this will 3 be transported throughout the state and affect many of 4 us.
5 And finally, that we need to have all the 6 information, adequate resources including financial 7 verifications and analysis. Thank you very much.
8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank you 9 very much, sister.
10 (Applause.)
11 MR. CAMERON: Sister Marlene Perrotte?
12 She's -- okay.
13 How about Carol Merrill? And here's --
14 Carol, do you want to use this microphone up here?
15 Thank you.
16 MS. MERRILL: Thank you. My name is Carol 17 Merrill, a retired librarian and teacher from 18 Albuquerque. I'm a published author and have been a 19 member of CARD, Citizens for Alternatives to 20 Radioactive Deposit -- Dumping for 30 years. I wish 21 you were having public meetings in Santa Fe and 22 Albuquerque so that more citizens could voice concerns 23 in person.
24 Two of my friends live in Cerrillos, New 25 Mexico, one block from a railroad. They want to say NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 1 to you leave the high-level waste where it is.
2 Another of my friends owns a newspaper 3 north of Albuquerque in the village of Corrales, the 4 Corrales Comment, where I work as a freelance 5 reporter. He is unable to be here because it's 6 deadline day. He wants to say; this is important, 7 back in the '70s and '80s New Mexican citizens were 8 repeated reassured that locating the Waste Isolation 9 Pilot Project, WIPP, would not lead to the deposit of 10 high-level waste in New Mexico. This current proposal 11 is an unconscionable breach of those promises never to 12 allow this to happen. This is inexcusable.
13 For my concerns personally there is no way 14 to justify hauling high-level nuclear waste across 15 thousands of miles of aging train tracks endangering 16 countless communities. The canisters that Holtec is 17 trying to get the Government to pay for are defective.
18 For one, they are not able to withstand the high 19 temperatures of Southern New Mexico. And engineer who 20 studied Holtec's specifications for their proposed 21 canisters told me this. Is this correct? I need to 22 know that. I want it on paper one way or the other.
23 The temperature around Southern New Mexico 24 sometimes reaches 120 degrees and their canisters are 25 not effective at that high temperature. The canisters NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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55 1 will be 12 inches up out of the ground. Perhaps this 2 project was not well-planned.
3 The spent fuel rods are from power plants 4 mostly on the East Coast. We do not even receive 5 benefit from the electricity that was generated. If 6 the nuclear waste is so safe for us here, why don't 7 the people around the nuclear plants keep it there?
8 (Applause.)
9 MS. MERRILL: The best solution is to 10 leave high-level waste near where it was generated.
11 It is important to have effective sealed storage on 12 site where it is now without exposing millions of 13 people along railroads to deadly high-level waste in 14 ineffective canisters.
15 One additional concern: If there would be 16 a serious example -- for example, a derailment in a 17 heavily-populated urban area with a breach of the seal 18 on the canister necessitating a mass evacuation, with 19 an area becoming uninhabitable for a long, long time; 20 think Chernobyl --
21 MR. CAMERON: And could you sum up for us, 22 Carol, please?
23 MS. MERRILL: -- and Fukushima, who would 24 be liable? I'm almost done. Is Holtec willing to be 25 responsible should an accident occur? Do they have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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56 1 good insurance? If they are not liable, if they go 2 bankrupt, how can we as citizens expect them to invest 3 in an effective canister?
4 I have three more sentences. They require 5 an act of Congress -- they require an act of Congress 6 to proceed. What they're doing now is illegal. That 7 is out of the question. Time to reconsider. This 8 proposition is unacceptable.
9 One more sentence. For our energy 10 concerns in this great nation it is time to employ 11 natural genius to find more elegant, safe generators 12 using wind, sun, water, tides, solar, geothermal for 13 starters. Thank you for listening. Thank you.
14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.
15 (Applause.)
16 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Carol.
17 And I'm going to follow the recommendation 18 of the gentleman in the back. I'm going to call a few 19 names so that you know you're coming up. And we have 20 three people here from Interfaith Power and Light from 21 Albuquerque who signed up. They didn't give the last 22 name. One of them did, but Tom, Stephen and Judy 23 Smith. And then we have a group of five coming up.
24 And is this Tom?
25 MR. GORMAN: Yes.
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57 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
2 MR. GORMAN: Good evening. I am Tom 3 Gorman and I live in Santa Fe County and I came down 4 here tonight just because I felt very strongly about 5 this project.
6 I have a background in emergency 7 management. I was an emergency manager for a number 8 of years in Colorado Springs and then when I moved to 9 New Mexico in 1992 I worked at the State Office of 10 Emergency Management for 14 years doing emergency 11 planning.
12 And everything I can see about this 13 project tells me it's not properly planned. I agree 14 with the gentleman that brought up the idea of interim 15 storage. Interim is an interesting concept for 16 something that might last 120 years.
17 In emergency planning we didn't think 18 along those terms. We always had a -- If we were 19 doing an interim plan we had a permanent plan in mind 20 that we started working on. That isn't happening 21 right now.
22 So I am very much opposed to this and I 23 just, I don't want to go over the same comments others 24 have made, but I am very concerned on all of the risks 25 that are expected to be handled by the people of New NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 1 Mexico along the rail routes, around the communities, 2 near the site, and so for that reason I am very much 3 opposed to this. Thanks.
4 (Applause) 5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Mr.
6 Gorman. And Stephen from Interfaith Power and Light 7 is here and then Judy Smith.
8 MR. PICHA: Good evening. My name is 9 Stephen Picha and I am from Albuquerque as well. We 10 were greeted earlier this afternoon by the Mayor who 11 was unable to then stay on because he said family is 12 first.
13 I make my passage here this evening 14 because my family is first, too, and that family is 15 not just my immediate family but my New Mexican family 16 and my Creation family.
17 This is an old place. People have 18 inhabited this land for many, many years, longer than 19 where people who have helped create this nuclear waste 20 come from, and that cannot be forgotten.
21 And it made me grateful to hear that you 22 said that there would be conversations with the elders 23 here because it is important in New Mexico that we 24 speak to our elders.
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59 1 is not lost here in New Mexico and the due diligence 2 calls us not as people of privilege to come in and do 3 what we think is best but as you have said to listen 4 and to listen closely and to listen carefully to the 5 people who can tell us what 120 years means to them.
6 In the native tradition they speak of 7 seven generations. We make decisions based upon seven 8 generations, which, interestingly enough, is kind of 9 your 120 year model, and so I appeal to each of you to 10 draw from a deep place of your own wisdom.
11 I come forth as well remembering my father 12 who died less than a year ago and he said sometimes 13 that in your gut when you know something just doesn't 14 sound right you got to believe it, and this is one of 15 those where in my gut, and I think in many people's 16 guts, this just isn't right. Thank you.
17 (Applause) 18 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you 19 very much. And we have -- Judy Smith is coming up, 20 but we're going to go next to a group of five, Randy 21 Prude, Tim Carlisle, Cody Rogers, and Steve 22 Schafersman. Go ahead. This is Judy Smith.
23 MS. SMITH: So hello, everyone. My name 24 is Judy Smith. I, too, am also living in Albuquerque.
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60 1 Mexico with all my heart.
2 When I heard about this project I thought 3 about not only the 120 years of the temporary storage, 4 because time matters, and it made me think back to the 5 time when my congregation, I belong to Congregation 6 Albert, which is a Jewish reform congregation that was 7 established in New Mexico a little bit more than 120 8 years ago, and so we have incorporated the wisdom of 9 the State into our own traditions and it made me think 10 more and more about the passage of time and that what 11 is temporary to some may not be the long view that we 12 need to take.
13 For example, my religion, according to our 14 scripture in the Old Testament, we received the wisdom 15 of God from Mount Sinai 5778 years ago and that 16 tradition was discovered in the desert so I take that 17 as symbolic.
18 But I wanted to mention Genesis 2:15 which 19 says that not only will we as humans rule over the 20 earth but we are called on to tend it and keep it, and 21 those thoughts have guided us for these 5778 years and 22 sometimes we have been successful and sometimes not.
23 In this case I think we need to take a 24 long view in order to be sure that we are successful 25 and I call success keeping being, actions that keep in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 1 mind justice, justice for the people of our State, for 2 all of us who live in this beloved, enchanted land, 3 justice for the State itself and for the land, and 4 justice for the next generations in years to come, and 5 we need to think about the impact of these decisions 6 on the next generations.
7 I am asking for some actions that have 8 already been mentioned, including time for comments in 9 accessible locations for people across the State.
10 Thank you.
11 (Applause) 12 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 13 Judy. And this is Steve Schafersman. Okay.
14 MR. SCHAFERSMAN: Good evening, everybody.
15 Thank you, NRC, for scheduling this unscheduled 16 scoping session tonight.
17 I am a consulting scientist in Midland.
18 I work in both the petroleum and environmental 19 industries. In Midland I live downwind from a 20 potential burning interim waste site with its 21 radioactive plume.
22 I can't think of a -- I have taught 23 environmental science and environmental geology and 24 environmental law and I am very experienced in sites, 25 waste sites.
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62 1 I have been to six different superfund 2 sites in Houston where I got my Ph.D. at Rice and I 3 know I have been opposed to these sites from the 4 beginning.
5 I can't think of a worse place, well I 6 can, but it's hard to think of a worse place to choose 7 for placing an interim waste site than right here.
8 The area is surrounded by aquifers, some close, some 9 far.
10 The sediments and the sedimentary rock are 11 porous and permeable. The thin barrier they claim is 12 on the top is not sufficient. It's just like the WCS 13 site, which is really no better.
14 So this is not a good place to put a 15 hazardous waste site, especially one for nuclear 16 waste. I could go into much more detail about these 17 since I am a geologist and understand this stuff, but 18 I'm not.
19 The exposed casks on the surface are 20 subject to terrorism. They are exposed and a simple 21 attack with heavy explosives would create that burning 22 plume that I spoke of without much difficulty.
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63 1 caverns, the caverns collapse and sinkholes develop.
2 It is conceivable that a sinkhole would 3 collapse and take down the depository with it, which 4 would be a terrible, colossal tragedy. In addition 5 there is the soluble Salado formation below that.
6 In West Texas unplugged wells carry fluids 7 to this formation, the salt dissolves, and sinkholes 8 develop. This is a matter of fact. Now I can't be 9 sure how close these are to the aquifers, but there is 10 several aquifers nearby, especially the Capitan Reef 11 Aquifer.
12 I need more detailed maps to be sure, but 13 that's the aquifer that has developed Carlsbad 14 Caverns. This is just not a good place to site this.
15 What about transportation issues? You 16 always have to do a risk benefit analysis. There is 17 a risk to transporting these hazardous materials. Ten 18 thousand canisters is calculated in a risk benefit 19 analysis that there would be one accident. That would 20 be a terrible calamity.
21 If you double that transportation to move 22 it a second time that would double the risk, you would 23 have possibly two. You might have none but you might 24 have four, it's just a statistical calculus.
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64 1 acceptable? Yes. If you transport the waste once to 2 a permanent waste depository the risk is acceptable, 3 and that's what should be done.
4 MR. CAMERON: And, Steve, could you sum up 5 for us, please.
6 MR. SCHAFERSMAN: Sure.
7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
8 MR. SCHAFERSMAN: So why was the site put 9 here, proposed for this place, or for that matter the 10 one in Andrews County? The companies want to exploit 11 the region's assumed favoritism for free enterprise 12 and business.
13 They also want to use who they think are 14 people who don't care much about dangers but just want 15 to get the jobs. In fact, the jobs are very few and 16 the dangers are enormous.
17 The oil companies provide plenty of jobs 18 now, so this is not a good situation. The reason for 19 this proposal is that there is a fund of $50 billion 20 that the companies want to use to develop their waste 21 sites.
22 It is likely the interim site, if 23 approved, would become a permanent site for two 24 reasons. First, there would be no more motivation to 25 develop a permanent site because the companies would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 1 no longer have title, the government would.
2 And, second, by that time the $50 billion 3 would be gone because they would be using that money 4 to transport the waste. So I want to make a modest 5 proposal, my last sentence.
6 I propose that we look for a good site 7 which would be hard, igneous rock that is non-porous 8 and non-permeable, bore into it, place the casks 9 there, call that the interim site, and then in 120 10 years change the name to the permanent waste 11 repository.
12 That would solve all of our problems.
13 Thank you very much.
14 (Applause) 15 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Steve. Thank 16 you, Steve. And, okay, please introduce yourself to 17 us.
18 MR. ROGERS: All right. My name is Cody 19 Rogers. I am going to be as brief as I can possibly 20 be. I can never -- I can't believe I'm in front of 21 the NRC.
22 I am an ex-Navy nuke. I have operated 23 nuclear reactors for eight years. I am a huge 24 proponent of nuclear power. I think we need it, we 25 need to go to France's model.
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66 1 Ladies and gentlemen, I was called here 2 today along with my friends from Midland to talk about 3 this issue. This is a major, major, major problem in 4 the United States right now.
5 We have 99 operating nuclear reactors, we 6 do not have anywhere to dispose of the spent fuel, 7 okay. This is a major, major problem and we have to 8 fix it.
9 I believe the NRC is doing their absolute 10 best to fix this problem. As Navy nuclear operators 11 we have been transporting full reactors across State 12 lines on railroads for over 60 years successfully 13 without accident or failure.
14 Now let me get to the main point that I am 15 here today. I don't know what you guys have seen when 16 it comes to the studies of the geological parts of 17 Midland, Texas, but we are on the cusp of being the 18 world's largest energy producer, okay.
19 We are going to control oil very soon. We 20 are going to control our own destiny. So West Texas 21 is one of the most valuable places in the world right 22 now, especially the United States, and, unfortunately, 23 because of this I implore you to look up Dr. Zong 24 Liu's study from SMU, this is very, very new, West 25 Texas is sinking.
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67 1 We're not sinking slowly, we're sinking at 2 a rate of four inches per year. As a matter of fact 3 it is sinking so fast we have actually had a lake near 4 Pecos, it's a 4000 square mile area that is literally 5 sinking beneath us. I know we need a site. This is 6 not it.
7 If this thing sinks and we get something 8 like the WIPP accident, that was never supposed to 9 happen, that was a non-serialized container of 10 radioactive waste that they had no clue what was in it 11 and had to re-dig up to find out, we can't re-dig 12 these canisters up and if it sinks below us and we 13 lose them the environmental impact is forever and if 14 we lose West Texas oil, natural gas, the people of 15 Roswell, the people of New Mexico, the people of 16 Texas, the United States, we're done.
17 We're not going back to Saudi Arabia and 18 getting their oil. We need independence and this site 19 is sinking and I truly believe that we need to look at 20 that and study its environmental impact. That's all 21 I have to say. Thanks.
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
23 (Applause) 24 MR. CAMERON: And I think we have -- This 25 is Jim Carlisle and after the Midland crew is done NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 we're going to go to Patty Hughs, Ed Hughs, and we're 2 going to hear from Joy Russell. Go ahead, Jim.
3 MR. CARLISLE: Thank you, sir, I 4 appreciate it. My name is Jimmy Carlisle. I work for 5 Fasken Oil and Ranch based in Midland. We are an oil 6 and gas company but we also are a major landowner in 7 the State of Texas.
8 We own some 200,000 net acres in the State 9 of Texas. Our largest ranch is a 165,000 acre 10 contiguous ranch just north and west of Midland. The 11 WCS site definitely comes into play in this 12 discussion.
13 The Holtec side, however, has the same 14 issues we believe, and Steve mentioned a few moments 15 ago talking about groundwater issues. On our ranches 16 everything we look at, we look at vegetation, we look 17 at soil characteristics, we look at moisture in the 18 soil, but the thing we watch the closest is the 19 quantity and the quality of our groundwater.
20 Our company is the first one really in 21 West Texas that made the determination to get off of 22 use of fresh water in our drilling and fracking 23 operations and we started recycling produced water and 24 using brackish water as a result.
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69 1 issue is a major significance that has to be 2 addressed. Steve mentioned the groundwater issues 3 around this site, the Holtec site, and the lenses and 4 the area that is unmapped in the New Mexico system.
5 The State Engineer's Office has maps, they 6 don't have complete mapping of what's going on out 7 here. We need a better understanding of the 8 groundwater in New Mexico, which we don't have at the 9 moment.
10 We're not alone in this battle when it 11 comes to ranchers that have a real issue with these 12 two sites. We secured in less than two hours four 13 letters from major landowners in West Texas, the 14 Cowden Ranch has been in the ranching business in West 15 Texas since the 1880s, we received a letter from the 16 Button Estes Ranch, they've been in business for over 17 100 years, the Barrow Ranch, been in business since 18 1906, and I don't think I said it, Fasken Oil and 19 Ranch has been in business since 1913. All of these 20 ranches are over 100 years old.
21 Groundwater, folks, is the life blood of 22 the ranching business. If you don't have groundwater 23 you'd just own dirt. Think about that for a second.
24 The bottom line is we believe that this application 25 and the WCS application need to be withdrawn.
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70 1 We don't believe them. We think there are 2 great issues with both and it's a situation --
3 (Applause) 4 MR. CARLISLE: It is a situation of 5 groundwater, because without groundwater in this area 6 of land that we live in we're out of, we don't have 7 anything.
8 MR. CAMERON: And, Jim, could you sum up 9 for us, please.
10 MR. CARLISLE: Certainly. And please 11 understand we are not against permanent disposal, and 12 I mean permanent not this 120 year interim stuff. We 13 know as was mentioned earlier by Cody there is an 14 issue with this waste that has to be addressed, we 15 agree with that completely.
16 But let's find the real permanent site 17 that doesn't have these issues, that doesn't impact 18 people's lives, it doesn't impact groundwater, and the 19 other things these other folks and all these folks are 20 talking about, let's get the right place the first 21 time and move this stuff, if it has to be moved let's 22 just move it once. Thank you very much.
23 (Applause) 24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, Jim.
25 MS. RENTERIA: Hi, guys. I am Christina NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 1 Renteria. I am a pilot out in Midland, Texas. Thank 2 you for listening to all of our comments tonight, we 3 really appreciate you guys taking the time to make us 4 know all of us count, our voices count.
5 And thank you to all of you. We have come 6 from Texas, we support you guys, and we support not 7 having all of this moved over here.
8 As I pilot I have flown all around, you 9 know, Midland, New Mexico. One thing that we have in 10 common with you guys is oil. Midland is covered in 11 it. You have Hobbs, Euince, Lovington, there is pump 12 jacks everywhere you go.
13 Now while drilling is not directly 14 associated with earthquakes the extraction of water as 15 well as your brine water and basically the 16 redistribution of that has been proven by scientists 17 at the University of Texas to cause earthquakes with 18 a magnitude of 3.0 or greater. There have been some 19 between 4.8 and 5.8.
20 I think what we need to do is find ground 21 that is completely stable before we plan on moving any 22 of this nuclear waste because we want to make sure 23 that it's not going to leak out, obviously.
24 So, oil, we're all involved in it.
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72 1 that has not been proportionately allocated to 2 everyone out here.
3 Where this is being proposed is 4 disproportionately not represented here. We have 5 millions of people that could be affected by this 6 project, however, look at this, we have less than 100 7 people in this room.
8 You know, in Andrews, Texas, there is also 9 a waste site. However, Odessa is one of the closest 10 towns to there. Nobody there knows that it's there.
11 The citizens are not aware of this and that is one of 12 the biggest things that needs to change both in Texas 13 and in New Mexico.
14 We need our voices to be heard. You know, 15 there is also a disproportionate amount, or there is 16 an age gap here, the people that this will be 17 affecting 80 years from now, no offense to anybody, 18 are not in this room.
19 (Laughter) 20 MS. RENTERIA: More people need to know 21 about this and about what is going on. There we go, 22 right here. So I won't take up --
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73 1 all's time, but, in conclusion, I don't believe that 2 this is the right area because of the unstability of 3 the ground, or the instability of the ground, but also 4 simply we need more people to be involved and more 5 voices to be heard on this.
6 New Mexico, their citizens need to be 7 aware of what is going to be going on with their land.
8 So thank you again for listening and I hope you all 9 have a good evening.
10 (Applause) 11 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. And this 12 is Randy Prude.
13 MR. PRUDE: Yes. My name is Randy Prude.
14 I am a county commissioner in Midland, Texas, and I 15 have a county commissioner for 20 years and I just 16 choked myself so my voice is about to go.
17 By the way, speaking of uranium I have 18 titanium in my back so I kind of like the rare metals.
19 It's keeping me standing up right here.
20 I have been elected again for my sixth 21 term, so, the Lord willing, I'll be serving for 24 22 years. I am very passionate about this subject. I 23 spent over $2000 to bring our team here from Midland 24 and I think we have a great group.
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74 1 evening. I am very proud of them.
2 (Applause) 3 MR. PRUDE: And I will tell you in our 4 commissioners court we had all the employees of WCS 5 and even some public citizens come try to tell us why 6 this was a good idea to have WCS, which is similar, 7 all the employees of Holtec I am sure are really fine 8 people, all the employees of WCS are fine people.
9 They are raising their families there, 10 they believe in what they are doing, it's not a matter 11 of bad people. And I will just tell you, I said your 12 oops is going to ruin everything for us for eternity, 13 your oops.
14 Our land is the same processes that formed 15 Carlsbad Caverns, I'll repeat something, are all 16 throughout this region. The land is going up and 17 down.
18 These SME studies, the first I've heard 19 of, and in fact they just recently came out, about 20 some pieces of land have come up 40 centimeters in the 21 last year and some have gone down.
22 We are extracting at a record, at ten to 23 100 times per year what we have ever extracted from 24 the permian basin, and I have lived here all my life, 25 since 1952, we've had oil and gas there for all these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 years, and we are extracting more now by a factor of 2 ten to 100 than we have ever extracted, so whatever is 3 happening right now will be greater.
4 I intend -- I agree with everything my 5 partners have said, we need to find one place, one 6 time, and move it. I do know that there is a problem, 7 guys. There is a problem in all these sites in 8 America, they are running out of space.
9 We have 100 sites for potential terrorists 10 to attack. It does need to be moved. It does need to 11 be moved safely, it needs to go somewhere safe. The 12 Navy has proved that things can be moved safely, and 13 so let's find a real place, like a geologist would 14 say, with igneous rock that is hard and solid and not 15 in a place that is subject to oil and gas.
16 And I will tell you one last thing, so 17 I'll sum it up right now --
18 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
19 MR. PRUDE: -- is I intend to organize all 20 the ranchers and all the commissioner's courts and 21 everybody in all the governments in all this whole 22 region, right now many of them -- by the way, I will 23 tell you I am an odd duck, I am a Republican --
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76 1 Republican or a Democrat issue, this is an important 2 issue to all of us and I believe that there is -- I 3 just cannot tell you the horror that could happen if 4 we ever have an accident.
5 And so I intend to organize all of our 6 governments that are willing to listen, but the way I 7 am going to do that is get my friend Jimmy and all the 8 ranchers and all the ranch oil men to contact their 9 commissioners and their mayors and their 10 representatives, house representatives, senators, and 11 so forth, and I don't intend to let this thing run 12 over us.
13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
14 MR. PRUDE: So thank you so much, but 15 thank you for coming to listen to us.
16 (Applause) 17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Randy.
18 MR. PRUDE: And I apologize, my pilot has 19 a real early flight tomorrow, so we have to leave. I 20 would love to hear the rest of your comments.
21 MR. CAMERON: Well thank you for coming 22 up, all of you.
23 (Applause) 24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And we are going to 25 go to Ed Hughs and -- Do you want to talk, too?
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77 1 (Off microphone comment) 2 MR. CAMERON: Yes, come on up. And then 3 we're going to go to Joy Russell and then to Dan 4 Holland and Timothy Jennings and Karen Howard-Winters.
5 This is Ed Hughs. Go ahead, Ed.
6 MR. HUGHS: Thank you Mr. Cameron. My 7 wife Patty and I own and operate a ranch, a small 8 cattle ranch, in Quay County, New Mexico. My family 9 has been there over 110 years.
10 We just have lived through the attempted 11 borehole siting of high-level nuclear waste about 2-12 1/2 miles south of our south fence. Now looking at 13 this current proposal one of the major transportation 14 routes is the Union Pacific which runs right next to 15 our south fence so the problem has even gotten closer 16 if there is an accident somewhere, nobody knows where, 17 it could be there.
18 Coming down here on Highway 70 between, 19 north of Elida I passed about five railcars that had 20 been turned over on the, had been in an accident. You 21 know, those happen.
22 I think the question -- What we have 23 learned in going through this borehole thing that we 24 have been living through is that these consequences 25 are essentially eternal and they are extremely non-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 partisan, as has been stated.
2 We just finished our spring branding this 3 weekend and we came down to this meeting. We are very 4 concerned with passing on what we have to future 5 generations. We have nine grandchildren right now who 6 are very interested in the place and we hope to pass 7 that on.
8 Well here is our experience that I want to 9 share with you with the borehole. Our experience is 10 that the high-level nuclear waste industry pushes the 11 myth, and I want to repeat that, the myth, of economic 12 development when actually it is the end of our 13 sustainable base economy and it is an economic 14 replacement or disaster.
15 What happened with the borehole is that 16 several ranches were negotiating some loans from their 17 bank for their current operating system, season, they 18 didn't want to let their banker know what was 19 happening because they were afraid they were going to 20 have to put up more collateral.
21 Another rancher who wanted to get his 22 ranch evaluated was told that he couldn't do it now 23 because he didn't know the effects of the borehole 24 site that was awfully close to his ranch, what that 25 economic effect would be, but it would be negative.
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79 1 So I think this -- A lot of things have 2 already been said tonight in a sense that I am 3 concerned with, but one of the things that came out in 4 the borehole controversy in Quay County was what was 5 the kill zone.
6 If there was an accident at the disposal 7 site what's the kill zone? It was a 50 mile radius.
8 I want to know what the kill zone is for this site 9 with that southwest wind blowing or -- What is it?
10 This is a much higher level contamination that what we 11 have had, what we were talking about at that borehole.
12 What is the kill zone?
13 Also, you know, the ranchers and 14 businessmen that when we were going through this 15 borehole controversy in Quay County they made the 16 statement that death had come to our region with the 17 proposed disposal of high-level nuclear waste.
18 And I want you to think about that, death 19 came to our region. We managed to fend it off in this 20 occasion, but, you know, if we are already approved, 21 and this is already approved as a safe storage 22 concept, which I kind of took from your comments that 23 you made, why are we here.
24 You know, I think there is a real issue of 25 what we are talking about here. Where is the justice NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 1 in taking out whole regions that never benefitted from 2 building the economy and destroying the economy with 3 waste, high-level waste, that benefitted other 4 economies, where is the justice in that?
5 (Applause) 6 MR. HUGHS: You know, we are putting at 7 risk, it's already been mentioned, the infrastructure, 8 huge infrastructure, incalculable costs if anything 9 happens. Given that rail accident north of Elida 10 there will be spills, the question is how many and 11 where.
12 And I think that there are a lot of things 13 to evaluate in this and looking at this, this just 14 came out in December, I haven't had a chance to look 15 at a lot of it, but there is a lot of questions in 16 here that have not been answered at this kind of 17 disposal site.
18 You know, what is -- One of the questions, 19 how do you retrieve if there are accidents? How do 20 you monitor? How do you repair? Those questions have 21 not been answered.
22 So I guess in summing up I want to say 23 that the Holtec and Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, and I 24 agree with an earlier statement that, you know, you 25 aren't bad people in the sense that you are trying to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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81 1 do us harm, but you are making a huge mistake, and I 2 thank Mr. Heaton and the rest of you involved in that, 3 you are in fact proposing to bring death to New 4 Mexico. Thank you.
5 (Applause) 6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Ed. Thank 7 you, Ed. And now we are going to go to Patty, Patty 8 Hughs, and then Joy Russell, Dan Holland, Timothy 9 Jennings, Karen Howard-Winters, then Thomas Jennings.
10 Okay, Patty.
11 MS. HUGHS: I want to I guess reinforce 12 the comments that Ed made about economic development, 13 whether this is economic development or not.
14 I have an article here from San Onofre who 15 has nuclear waste that wants to see it leave their 16 area and some people may be happy for it to come here.
17 This article says in the search for 18 finding a place to move the 3.55 million pounds of 19 nuclear waste from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating 20 Station one question always come up, sure, it would be 21 great to sent all that spent fuel as far away from the 22 beach as possible but who would ever be willing to 23 accept it.
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82 1 heard from representatives of a private entity wanting 2 to do just that.
3 That person says "one person's waste is 4 another person's most valuable possession" and the 5 Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance wants to build a massive 6 nuclear facility in the desert of Southeast New 7 Mexico.
8 He goes on to say "we think it's an 9 important project for us in terms of jobs and capital 10 investment in our part of the State."
11 Unless the NRC can assure us that in 12 transporting 10,000 canisters of high-level nuclear 13 waste across the country handling aging canisters and 14 in doing that that we will never have an accident, I 15 want to say that while the Energy Alliance is looking 16 for jobs and capital investment in our part of the 17 State that one accident could take out jobs and 18 capital investment of whatever economy is there.
19 All of the infrastructure that has been 20 built for the oil and gas industry, for the ag 21 industry, and for every other enterprise going in 22 southeastern New Mexico, one spill can eliminate all 23 that.
24 I was asked when I came in here to show 25 the contents of my purse to one of our security NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 1 people. This is what she said, in case I had 2 something in it that could do harm to someone else, 3 and I thought that's an interesting question to be 4 asked when we are going to be discussing one of the 5 most dangerous potential things on the planet.
6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 7 Patty.
8 (Applause) 9 MR. CAMERON: And now we have Joy Russell 10 from Holtec International. Joy.
11 MS. RUSSELL: Hi, good evening everyone.
12 As Chip said, my name is Joy Russell, I'm the Vice 13 President of Business Development and Communications 14 for Holtec. I've been there for over 21 years.
15 It's my pleasure to be here tonight to 16 meet you. I had the opportunity to meet several of 17 you earlier at the open house. I appreciate the open 18 dialogue.
19 We'll be here after to continue the 20 dialogue should you choose to do so. Be happy to 21 provide to you, facts about our Hi-Store facility, 22 facts about storage of spent nuclear fuel, 23 transportation of spent nuclear fuel.
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84 1 put it down because I like to see? Thank you. Thank 2 you. Because I know what it says. I like to see what 3 everyone looks like. Thank you.
4 Our partner, the Eddy-Lea Alliance, who 5 members of that Alliance are here tonight, was formed 6 in 2006 to help you diversify the area, the economics 7 of the area and to help encourage economic growth in 8 the area. And we're happy to be a part of that.
9 Holtec International, my company, is a 10 strong technology company. We, our core business has 11 been, and is, the storage, the safe storage of spent 12 nuclear fuel and has been for the past 32 years.
13 Sixty percent of the nuclear plants in the 14 United States safely use our dry storage equipment 15 every day with no issues, no incidents. We're very 16 happy, we're very proud of that.
17 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has 18 licensed all of those systems and they regulate the 19 systems. They regulate the industry very rigorously.
20 All of the equipment that we supply from 21 Holtec is made here in the United States. We're an 22 American Company. We have three manufacturing 23 facilities here in the United States and we are the 24 largest exporter of nuclear products.
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85 1 Camden, New Jersey. We're an American Company and 2 we're very proud of that.
3 We have an impeccable safety record. None 4 of our equipment has ever experienced a safety issue, 5 leak, as you so call it. But I would like to point 6 out, spent nuclear fuel is not a liquid, it can't 7 leak.
8 (Applause) 9 MS. RUSSELL: Thank you.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay, let's allow Joy to 11 finish her remarks.
12 MS. RUSSELL: Thank you. Thank you. The 13 members of Lea asked Holtec to be their partner in 14 2013 after performing a very rigorous evaluation about 15 the safety and security of our dry storage system.
16 Our storage system stores the canister 17 completely below grade. Unlike what we've hear here 18 this evening, it does not sit 12 inches above the 19 ground.
20 I ask that you guys come and talk to us, 21 come and get the facts. You need to listen to both 22 sides of the story before you make your decision.
23 That's your prerogative, I understand that.
24 Okay. We have asked the NRC to review our 25 license application. The NRC will perform a rigorous NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 evaluation and review, taking into consideration, all 2 of your comments this evening. And we look forward to 3 that review in responding to any information that is 4 requested of us.
5 The people here in the State of New Mexico 6 are very well versed in technology. You have a very 7 technically savvy state, especially in the nuclear 8 technology industry with two national laboratories, 9 both with offices in Carlsbad.
10 You have three air force bases, one Army 11 base. And in this particular area of New Mexico you 12 also have WIPP and Urenco.
13 The geology, the site characteristics, 14 environment and other factors in this region are 15 actually idea and very well suited for the storage of 16 spent nuclear fuel.
17 (Off microphone comment) 18 MS. RUSSELL: Our goal is to offer a 19 temporary, safe and secure used fuel storage facility 20 to store the nation's used nuclear fuel. We vow, we 21 commit to be good stewards of the environment and also 22 good neighbors.
23 MR. CAMERON: And if you could just sum up 24 for us, Joy.
25 MS. RUSSELL: Absolutely.
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87 1 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
2 MS. RUSSELL: And I look forward to 3 speaking with any of you that wish to speak with us.
4 Again, my colleagues and our partners from Lea will be 5 in the adjacent room after. Thank you very much for 6 your time and your attention.
7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Joy. Thank you 8 very much. Thank you. Dan. Dan Holland? And then 9 Karen. Oh, come on, Karen. Go ahead.
10 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: I wore this for you 11 all.
12 (Laughter) 13 MR. CAMERON: Karen, you're using your 14 time, but you can do it.
15 (Off record comments) 16 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: Okay, thank you so 17 very much. I want to thank the Nuclear Regulatory 18 Commission for this opportunity to speak to you this 19 evening.
20 And thank you, Ms. Russell and all of the 21 people from Holtec. I know you all folks are not bad 22 people, I know you're not.
23 And you don't mean to do any harm, 24 personally. And I understand that. And all the other 25 folks here understand that, you all are not bad NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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88 1 people.
2 But one accident could just blow the whole 3 game. And even though it may not be your fault or it 4 could be a slip or something could happen, you know, 5 who knows. Accidents happen. And, it could just ruin 6 the whole ball game.
7 We didn't make this. We didn't make this, 8 this stuff. This stuff is made on the east coast, 9 it's made on the west coast. We didn't make it, we 10 didn't benefit from it, I don't believe that it should 11 come here.
12 I live in Odessa. I live 202 miles away 13 from here. Although I live very close to Andrews, and 14 that's another thing that we're talking about, I just 15 don't think that it's a good idea to move this, to 16 have an interim site. I think we need to have a 17 permanent site if you all are going to move it all, 18 okay.
19 The karst topography, huge. Just like the 20 gentleman was saying, this place is sinking. You all 21 really need to take a look at what's going on with the 22 earth.
23 That alone, without any even accidents of 24 human causes, nature has got a really big thing to do 25 with this that none of us have control over. None of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 1 us. Only, that guy up there or her, whoever, has got 2 a big thing to do with this.
3 Also, we got bad people who might want to 4 drop a bomb, human domestic, I mean, enemies domestic, 5 foreign.
6 And the oil. The oil, we are the largest, 7 the Permian Basin has got the largest oil field in the 8 country. If anything happens to that, like that guy 9 was saying, we're shot, okay.
10 The railcars, we have got antiquated 11 rails. And the infrastructure, the bridges, our 12 bridges are D minuses, how are we going to get that 13 heavy stuff across there?
14 I mean, you know, these, and we're not 15 thinking about this stuff. Notification. All the 16 cities that are, these railcars are going through, 17 these people really need to be notified. They need to 18 have a say in this.
19 People in New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama 20 and Charlottesville, North Carolina, they all need to 21 have a hearing like we were having. They're important 22 too.
23 I mean, our lives, out here, have just as 24 much meaning as those lives do on the east coast. And 25 if they want to get rid of it, you know, why is my NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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90 1 life less important than theirs.
2 You got to follow the money. I mean, no 3 offense to you all folks at Holtec --
4 (Laughter) 5 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: -- I'm sorry, but you 6 all people can come in here and build this thing, make 7 money, 40 years later, you're gone.
8 MR. CAMERON: And, Cinthya, could you sum 9 up for us too please?
10 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: Yes, sir.
11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
12 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: And the stuff could 13 still be here. The permanent site may not be built, 14 we don't know. We don't know into the future.
15 And the people who also live here and have 16 got the jobs there, we have to stay here. Our lives 17 are here.
18 So, there is so many things that we 19 haven't thought of yet. It's just not, it's just not 20 thought out yet, we need to think some more about this 21 before we do it, please.
22 And, again, I thank you for the 23 opportunity to --
24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 25 Karen.
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91 1 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: You're welcome.
2 Thank you.
3 MR. CAMERON: And, thank you, Karen. I 4 usually don't do this, oh, good. I wanted to make 5 sure that my NRC colleagues did not miss anything that 6 you had to say so I was going to call a bathroom break 7 for them but I think that that's being taken care of.
8 How about, I guess Dan Holland is not here 9 anymore. How about Timothy Jennings? Timothy and 10 then Thomas Jennings and Sean McDaniels, Ronda 11 Suderman King.
12 Okay, go ahead, Timothy.
13 MR. TIM JENNINGS: I'm Timothy Jennings, 14 I've been elected official in this area for 38 years.
15 I represent, I'm probably one of the, the only elected 16 official who was here when we started, when they had 17 the hearings on WIPP.
18 My brother is also here. We both attended 19 the hearings on WIPP. And I will just tell you, for 20 something that started out as being nothing more than 21 transuranic waste, nothing but gloves and equipment, 22 we seem to have gone a little further a stream then 23 what they told us then.
24 Now, I would just tell you, in any public 25 hearing I hope our congressional delegation will be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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92 1 informed in the manner in which this public hearing 2 has been held.
3 Number one, anybody who comes to a public 4 hearing should be able to be free to express for or 5 against any idea without any fear of anyone clapping, 6 any retribution, anybody saying anything. They should 7 have that. And that has not happened here.
8 If you want to have a public hearing in 9 Albuquerque, have it, but don't come to Roswell and 10 tell the people in Roswell that they have to wait for 11 three hours or four hours more than they were supposed 12 to, to come to a public hearing. When it was 4:00 to 13 7:00, it should have been 4:00 to 7:00.
14 And, you know, I'm just saying, you all 15 need, NRC needs to be honest with us. And they 16 certainly weren't honest when they said WIPP was 17 nothing more than transuranic waste.
18 It has not, look at it today, it's not 19 there. But that's exactly what they said, and we have 20 film, I think Pete White filmed it. So just look at 21 that.
22 Now, I'm going to tell you that I think 23 when you look at this stuff, look at what you're doing 24 and come back and have a public hearing that is 25 meaningful and not one that comes in here and it's so NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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93 1 mismatched.
2 Our University here is placed with 400 3 seats in it, everybody can be there and sit in there.
4 Everybody can see everything that you put on display 5 up there. No one else in the back of the room, only 6 the first three rows can see that stuff.
7 You know what, do a decent public hearing.
8 You're a government employment, you should look after 9 all of us and not just the ones that you want to look 10 after.
11 You know what I'm going to tell you, I 12 haven't complained much about WIPP or anything else in 13 all my times with Mr. Heaton. I haven't said a whole 14 lot about WIPP being so bad or anything else.
15 WIPP is here because we had very little 16 political clout when it happened, that's why we got 17 it, and so we're making the best of it.
18 But this thing here is, it's 50 miles from 19 our ranch, and like other people from Midland and 20 Texas and everything, I don't have a 160,000 acre 21 ranch, I have one I share with my five other brothers 22 and sisters. But you know what, it's just as 23 important to me.
24 And I think we really need to look at that 25 before we go through and you do this stuff, let's have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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94 1 real decent public hearings. Have some in Hobbs, have 2 some here, have some in Albuquerque, have some in 3 Midland. And let's have some real decent public 4 hearings and do a good job of what we're doing and be 5 honest with the people.
6 And just remember that because I tell you, 7 transuranic waste is not what's in that place in WIPP 8 now. And that's exactly what the people were told, 9 no, don't clap. Please don't do that, that's not fair 10 in a public meeting.
11 But, you know, I spent 38 years doing this 12 stuff, about listening to people, and you need to 13 listen as well as learned in the legislature in New 14 Mexico.
15 And I really, I think this is something 16 that we need to really look at and study very deeply 17 and have more than just six or seven little posters on 18 the wall in there and tell people that's what this is 19 about. And so I really hope you will open this up and 20 do it right. Thank you.
21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 22 Timothy. And now we're going to hear from Thomas.
23 Thomas Jennings.
24 MR. TOM JENNINGS: Before my time starts 25 I'd like a point of order for this meeting. This NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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95 1 meeting should be conducted under Robert's Rules of 2 Order.
3 And there should be no clapping, cheering, 4 standing up and all that stuff, and the snide comments 5 in the back. So that's with due respect for the way 6 governments are run.
7 And, first of all, thank you for coming 8 and listening to us. I too was with the WIPP 9 hearings.
10 I went through almost all those hearings.
11 We were promised there would never be high-level waste 12 here.
13 And I can tell, George President Bush, 14 Senator Domenici, Senator Bingaman, Representative Joe 15 Skeen, DO Secretary John O'Leary, officials from 16 Carlsbad, Hobbs in Lea Counties, all promised that 17 there would never be any high-level waste here. We've 18 been lied to, we've been deceived, we've been misled.
19 We need to stop that. You need to stop 20 that. We don't want that any more. We're done with 21 that.
22 Our roads are bad, you know, they fixed 23 our road. Roswell has a two-lane bypass. It's the 24 only WIPP route road in the country with a two-lane.
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96 1 dangerous as hell. I've had friends almost killed at 2 those crossings. That's not safe. We need to make it 3 safe.
4 This Holtec deal, how much money comes out 5 of there for roads, for infrastructure, for training 6 for our emergency preparedness, not a damn dime, 7 nothing. We got that with WIPP. We don't get 8 anything with Holtec.
9 And I'm in the oil business, and I'm 10 drilling more wells this year than I ever have in my 11 whole life. And the Permian Basin is the hottest oil 12 play in the world.
13 There is major oil companies spending 14 literally multi-billions of dollars in this field.
15 And to put this, whatever it is in the ointment --
16 PARTICIPANT: Fly.
17 MR. TOM JENNINGS: -- fly in the ointment, 18 I was going to say turd, but it should be fly in the 19 ointment, is wrong.
20 You know, what happens if there is an 21 accident, what happens to our budget of our state?
22 Most of the money comes from the oil extracted 23 industries, including oil.
24 What happens to the State Permanent Fund?
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97 1 accident, that funding will go away and we're going to 2 have to stop and shutdown the oil business.
3 And all my life savings is in the oil 4 field. And I'll probably be broke. And I don't think 5 that's fair to me. I don't think that we should have 6 this slammed down our throat.
7 It might be good for Carlsbad and Hobbs 15 8 years ago, but today with the oil business, the way 9 the technology is, it's all technology driven.
10 Horizontal wells, three miles long. Think 11 how long of a threat that is. Underground lateral 12 costing millions, multimillions of dollars.
13 Technology, this is all technology driven.
14 We don't have the technology developed to store this 15 stuff in Southeast New Mexico.
16 MR. CAMERON: And, Thomas, can I get you 17 to sum up for us please?
18 MR. TOM JENNINGS: Okay. And, you know, 19 there is a lot of other businesses that are related.
20 We have a lot of agriculture. If you look 21 at the Pecos River Valley, all the dairies, all that 22 stuff comes in on railroads and all that sand comes in 23 on for fracking, all the feed for dairies. You know, 24 it would be devastating to our industry in this area.
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98 1 jobs. This is like 55 jobs. Thanks for listening, 2 and I would ask you to refrain from clapping and 3 cheering and all that stuff because it's 4 inappropriate.
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 6 Thomas. Sean. Sean McDaniels?
7 Ronda Suderman King? Karen Hadden? I 8 know Karen is here. Oh, wait a minute, let's see if, 9 is this, no, that's not Ronda. Go ahead, Karen.
10 And then we're going to go to Mary Beth.
11 No? Okay. Noel Marquez, Patricia Cardona and Lon 12 Burnham. Okay. And this is Karen Hadden.
13 MS. HADDEN: Good evening, my name is 14 Karen Hadden, I'm the director of a nonprofit 15 organization called SEED Coalition, Sustainable Energy 16 and Economic Development Coalition.
17 There are so many reasons why I think this 18 project ought to be withdrawn. This and WCS. Many 19 speakers have made those comments.
20 This is not the right place for high-level 21 radioactive waste. There is no justice. It doesn't 22 make sense, and it is not safe.
23 In one of your first slides you mentioned 24 that you're here to ensure that it's safe. We're 25 here, I think you can get the message from the people NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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99 1 in this room tonight, it is not safe. Let's be clear 2 about that.
3 And I've read through the documents, and 4 I've never seen an application like this that is so 5 full of holes. Its half done. It's sort of like the 6 karst topography which is Swiss cheese. It's like the 7 same thing. There is so much information missing.
8 And I've looked back, this land is the 9 exact same site for the GNET Project that was proposed 10 years ago. For decades, there are some people in this 11 area who have been trying to bring in deadly poison 12 and I don't know why. It's got to be greed, there is 13 no other good explanation.
14 And when you compare that previous 15 application and you look at the environmental 16 analysis, you will find that it is much more complete 17 than what is passing for an environmental report 18 today. So in your review, I urge you to go back to 19 that original document and study it and add in what 20 has been left out.
21 I also encourage you to look at climate 22 change, which to the best of my knowledge, is not 23 being considered. And to look at the new SMU report.
24 There are so many factors that need to be considered 25 in this analysis.
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100 1 Furthermore, when you come to 2 alternatives, let's really consider some. Not just 3 whether to do this site or not, let's consider what 4 alternatives that land could be used for. Whatever it 5 may be because there are many.
6 And there are many ways to build the 7 economy and to build this community. And everybody 8 wants that. But why risk everything existing for a 9 few jobs and for money for some people.
10 I think the application should make clear 11 some things that are not clear. How much money, who 12 gets it, how does it get distributed. And I found 13 myself trying to find an analogy for this.
14 It was very late at night and I was like, 15 this is all about paying people to do what no one else 16 will do. Nobody on the east coast wants it, nobody on 17 the west coast wants this stuff so it's like, let's 18 find a community that we can bride. How much money is 19 it going to take, what will it take.
20 And so I started thinking about the fact 21 that, okay, I like rattlesnakes, I'm fine with them, 22 but I kind of like them where they are, they have 23 their role, their place in nature. I have no desire 24 to have a lose rattlesnake in my bedroom. And you 25 could not pay me to, any amount of money, to have a NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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101 1 rattlesnake in my bedroom loose for 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. That 2 would be a deadly poison.
3 And then you could not even pay me more to 4 do it for a year or 100 or 120 years, nor could you 5 give me any money that would say, okay, we're going to 6 keep adding snakes, so there is 10,000 of them in your 7 room over 20 years.
8 And you know, I can see some fancy math 9 because I look at the license application and I see 10 these fancy formulas that reduce it down to no risk 11 because it's never happened before. Well, I'll bet 12 every single one of 10,000 snakes never bit anybody 13 before, but I'll bet if you put them all in my room I 14 get bitten. And who knows if I'd survive.
15 And I know that this is a very strange 16 analyses but, you know, I think this high-level 17 radioactive waste is a thousand times more risky than 18 the rattlesnake that never bit anybody.
19 And I don't by this mathematical magic 20 where we say, it's never happen before so it's not 21 going to. NRCs own studies done for Yucca Mountain 22 show that accidents are going to happen, the question 23 is, how fast.
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102 1 modeling, it is not full-scale testing.
2 A lot of times it can be small scale 3 testing, in a few instances, and they don't tell you 4 the full picture. They don't tell you what happened 5 after the test period, they don't tell you all the 6 details.
7 We have already had train crashes head-on, 8 65 miles per hour in West Texas.
9 MR. CAMERON: Can you sum up for us Karen?
10 MS. HADDEN: I will. That exceeds all of 11 the testing that's been done.
12 Furthermore, I think that this license 13 application needs to clarify. Because it says, 14 conflicting things on many points.
15 One of them who would have title to the 16 waste, whether it's DOE or private hands. That has 17 got to be made clear because depending on that is 18 whether this is legal to move forward at all.
19 Secondly, there are two different numbers 20 for the tons of waste and there is not total number of 21 waste. So, if you do 8,680 tons for 500 canisters 22 times 20, you come out with 173,000 tons of waste, 23 whereas we are told this is going to be kept at 24 100,000. This needs to be clarified.
25 I will wrap-up in just a moment.
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103 1 Furthermore, there needs to be a legal description of 2 the property because how can we, as members of the 3 public, truly analyze the site and get down into the 4 exact environmental issues when the defining 5 boundaries are not given. I cannot understand why 6 that is not in there.
7 The heavy train cars need to be looked at 8 and the crumbling infrastructure of the rail lines.
9 Thank you.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Karen. Can 11 we have Noel Marquez? Okay, hi, Noel. Go ahead.
12 MR. MARQUEZ: Hello, my name is Noel 13 Marquez. I'm from the rural area of Artesia, New 14 Mexico. The Town of Artesia is one of many rural 15 communities in New Mexico being left out of these NRC 16 hearings.
17 I am the face of ground zero and the 18 father of this 11 year-old-daughter here that always 19 ask, why is that old people always make rules and 20 choices without considering us and future generations.
21 The NRC and Holtec International are 22 intentionally drowning the voices of thousands, if not 23 millions, of New Mexico people by limiting our 24 participation in the destination outcome of this 25 extremely hazardous and toxic waste proposal.
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104 1 Your rush to make this Holtec dump a 2 nightmare for us who live along the railroad tracks, 3 that only have one home, and we plant our own gardens, 4 we are outraged that you would disregard our families 5 and children and unborn generations.
6 Your nuclear regulated industries have 7 little consideration for our livelihoods and our 8 native people of the State of New Mexico. Nuclear 9 power plants want to pass on their worst waste 10 product, spent uranium fuel rods where it is now 11 currently in a safer mode of storage to a centralized 12 temporary storage facility.
13 Who can blame them, it's killer stuff.
14 And for the most part, 80 percent of our communities 15 in New Mexico do not know what the NRC and Holtec are 16 planning.
17 And the issue as critically important as 18 this one, there should be an available environment 19 impact study available in English, Spanish and Navajo.
20 With plenty of time to inform the public through 21 newspaper, radio, television, billboards and other 22 public spaces in order for us to make an informed 23 decision.
24 Thirty state representatives wrote a 25 letter to you, the NRC, to slow the process down for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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105 1 this same purpose and you denied the request. The 2 reality is we don't live in the People First Democracy 3 but rather a Money Power First Reality, and the NRC is 4 their tomb.
5 The science and technology of your 6 experiments are always flawed as we have seen the WIPP 7 in Los Alamos where the nuclear industries are always 8 desecrating more of our lands, air and water.
9 Billions of tax payer dollars are being spent at WIPP 10 to repair the damages.
11 The State of New Mexico is already 12 overburden with ten official radioactive dumps. And 13 now you want to crown us with this worst possible dump 14 ever.
15 Our current and future generations would 16 have suffered this stigma and health consequences for 17 hundreds, if not thousands of year, for being crowned 18 the official nuclear dump of America. Many possible 19 better job industries will reconsider before coming to 20 our hazardous radioactive waste first state.
21 The plain and simple truth is the ionizing 22 radiation hazards will not be contained to the Holtec 23 Site. My daughter always says, what makes you think 24 you can control the molecules.
25 (Laughter)
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106 1 MR. MARQUEZ: It will contaminate more and 2 more lands through the transportation route, railway 3 accidents from the eastern and western United States, 4 accidents, acts of terrorism, weather related causes 5 and sinkhole geology from the nearby extractive 6 industries.
7 There is also major concern of 8 contamination that the site with casks, that are made 9 for temporary storage, but will probably never make it 10 out of New Mexico.
11 Holtec's guinea pig experiment is to stack 12 these casks on top of each other, which has never been 13 done before.
14 MR. CAMERON: And, Noel, can I get you to 15 sum up for us please?
16 MR. MARQUEZ: Well, the State of New 17 Mexico deserves better than this low-quality science 18 scheme and we will never consent to poisoning our 19 current and future generations. Thank you.
20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 21 much. Patricia? Patricia Cardona.
22 (Off microphone comment) 23 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
24 (Off microphone comment) 25 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Patricia. How NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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107 1 about Lon Burnham? Aha, here he is.
2 MR. BURNHAM: So, good evening, my name is 3 Lon Burnham and I live in Fort Worth, Texas but I was 4 born in Artesia and my mother went to public school 5 there, my grandparents are buried there and I've come 6 to this part of the world every year of my life.
7 Sixty-five of them now.
8 I was also in the Texas legislature for 18 9 years and known as like the environmental activist in 10 the Texas Legislature. And one of the thing in the 11 environmental, I always call it the DREG committee 12 because that's the nature of Texas politics.
13 In theory, it's about protecting people's 14 health. And there is a permitting process. And I 15 always remind people, the permitting process is 16 permission from the government to pollute your air and 17 water.
18 And so the question is, we now have an 19 application to pollute the air and water. It is 20 inherently a polluting activity. And the question is, 21 just how dangerous is this and what are the 22 probabilities, what kind of risk management are we 23 looking at.
24 In the environmental reg committee of the 25 Texas House of Representatives, we talked about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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108 1 cumulative impacts of air pollution permits. If you 2 were to do a proper environmental impact statement, 3 you will take into consideration the cumulative 4 impacts on the communities of New Mexico, starting 5 with the mining process where the Denae (phonetic) had 6 been so polluted that they died disproportionately of 7 cancer for any population in the country.
8 You will think about the cumulative 9 impacts on the plutonium that's already in the Rio 10 Grande River, which is a water supply for people from 11 Santa Fe downstream from them.
12 You will think about the cumulative 13 impacts of the three-year hiatus of the WIPP site.
14 What if that had been worse, what if that had been an 15 accident above ground, what kind of economic impacts 16 are we talking about?
17 See, I think the system is fundamentally 18 flawed because the NRC does not exist to support 19 public health and welfare in the environment. The NRC 20 exists to serve as a Chamber of Commerce Agency of a 21 fundamentally flawed, and I think immoral industry.
22 I take it as immoral to split the atom and create 23 plutonium.
24 So I agree with the earlier speakers, the 25 Faith Community. We are committing a sin against NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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109 1 creation and it is a cumulative impact as the NRC has, 2 as Kevin tried to point out with his question that was 3 parse the nuance, they've never denied a permit to 4 pollute our air/water and soil. They have never shown 5 restraint that needs to be shown.
6 So I would ask each of you, as a person of 7 conscious, as Bishop Matthiesen said to the Pantex 8 workers, resign your post, you work for a 9 fundamentally flawed agency that is not about 10 protecting the health and welfare, it is about 11 corporate greed and corporate money, it is time to put 12 an end to this.
13 A true environmental impact statement will 14 look at the concerns that I talked to Jose about. You 15 know, I live within a mile of Tower 55. The 16 transportation system in this country is fundamentally 17 flawed.
18 The railroad system is not owed by the 19 national government, they don't have to take this 20 product. And they can't.
21 A lot of those bridges you know are over 22 a hundred years old. My grandfather worked on the 23 Santa Fe Railroad, they're fundamentally flawed.
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110 1 supposed to be protecting us from. Thank you for your 2 time.
3 MR. CAMERON: All right, thank you. Thank 4 you, Lon. Rose, would you come up and talk to us?
5 And then we're going to go to Bobbi 6 Reydel, Robin Gail Seydel, John Buchser and Linda 7 Squire and Allen Squire. Rose.
8 MS. GARDENER: Hi everybody, I'm Rose 9 Gardner, I'm from Eunice, New Mexico. I'm also a 10 founder of the Alliance for Environmental Strategies.
11 I'm here to tell Holtec hell no, we don't 12 want it. I am so sick and tired of all these big 13 companies coming into New Mexico or close to my town 14 in Eunice, wanting to give us all this crap. This 15 crap that could kill us.
16 And you know what, these folks are sitting 17 up in their little mansions in New York, Minnesota, 18 San Antonio, heck, I don't know where you live and I 19 really don't care.
20 (Laughter) 21 MS. GARDENER: But I am concerned about 22 the transportation issue of this cargo, 10,000 cargo 23 cars. They're already too heavy. They're too heavy 24 for the cars, they're too heavy for the railways.
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111 1 it's going to have on the oil and gas and potash 2 industries.
3 Also, how is the health and welfare going 4 to be considered in this area. We're already poor.
5 We don't have insurance. You got to have a good job 6 to get good insurance.
7 I'm also concerned that these canisters 8 are inferior. Do you realize there are canisters out 9 there this thick and we're settling for something 10 that's this thick? That's stupid.
11 I'm also concerned that the waste will 12 never be moved. We already know that 120 years will 13 be way longer than any of us in this room. My little 14 Pai there, it will be past her lifestyle, my time.
15 This isn't the right thing to do. It's an 16 injustice to this state, to this community, to these 17 peoples.
18 Most of the people in this area are like 19 me, Brown-skinned or darker. We speak another 20 language and we're at least 50 percent here.
21 And that's an environmental injustice 22 because they're basically saying it's okay to duck 23 because those people aren't going to speak up, because 24 they can get run over just like they've been run over 25 for the last several hundred years.
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112 1 What I do think ought to happen is that 2 those big containers that I'm talking about, ought to 3 be implemented at all nuclear facilities now. They 4 should be protected from that nasty waste that's been 5 created.
6 They've had to live with it for this long, 7 they're going to have to live with it a little longer.
8 Let's make it safe for them until a permanent 9 repository is found. Let's make sure that they're 10 going to be okay, that they're babies are okay and 11 that they're babies are okay.
12 One thing I wanted to mention is that, I 13 think it's already been mentioned that there were 14 about 30 political leaders in our state that sign on 15 to a letter to the NRC that asked for more time. I 16 have copies of the letter in the other room if you 17 want to review it, and you can see some of those 18 people who signed that letter.
19 But then we got seven other, apparently 20 more qualified, more intelligent, maybe they are on 21 the take, I don't know. But Senator Carroll Leavell, 22 Senator Gay Kernan, Senator Ron Griggs, Representative 23 Cathrynn Brown, Representative Jim Townsend, 24 Representative Larry Scott and Representative David 25 Gallegos, how dare you.
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113 1 How dare you withhold evidence, material 2 that they need to know to make fair decisions about me 3 and my family. How dare they. They are wrong and 4 they should be called out on it.
5 And you know what, they got voted into 6 office, let's boot them out. Thank you.
7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, Rose.
8 I promised one of the public that I would 9 put one thing out that he wanted to say. This is Bob 10 Press. I don't know if any of you know him but his 11 ride was leaving so he just wanted me to offer one 12 comment for him. And as the Facilitator, I'll do 13 that.
14 He said that this should be put before, it 15 should be put on the ballot in New Mexico about 16 whether this facility should be here or not. So I 17 offer that, for him.
18 And is Bobbi, Bobbi Reydel? This is 19 Bobbi. Hi, Bobbi. And then we're going to go to 20 Robin Gail Seydel and John Buchser. And the Squire's.
21 (Speaking foreign language) 22 MS. SCHROM: I can do this in both English 23 and Spanish, but I don't know how many people speak 24 Spanish here in this room, but I'm here representing 25 Hispanic Women in Science.
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114 1 My name is not Bobbi, my name is Jenna 2 Schrom, but she gave me her place to speak to you 3 tonight, so I just want to say that I'm woman, I'm 4 Hispanic and I'm coming from a very conservative 5 Catholic family.
6 And I grew in a place where I was raised 7 to be intuitive and to always make questions about how 8 to make this world a better place. So, and one of the 9 other things that is also very important to mention, 10 is that I'm coming from this new generation.
11 So, and I'm here to give voice to this new 12 generation. And the reason why I am here is because 13 I decided to choose a career that is going to change 14 people's lives in a positive way, and that is nuclear 15 engineering. Because I do believe that nuclear 16 engineers will be able to provide a better future for 17 everybody.
18 So, I think that this consolidated interim 19 storage is going to work. So, I know that many people 20 don't agree to that, but I mean, we need to use facts.
21 And I don't know if you guys have already checked the 22 reports, environmental reports, all the information is 23 there.
24 And the other thing that I would like to 25 mention is, that thousands of people in this world, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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115 1 they benefit from nuclear industry. Thousands of 2 people. So, that's also something that we need to be 3 aware of.
4 So, one of the things that I've been 5 seeing, while being in this industry, is that I can 6 smell the fear of the oil industry. I can smell it in 7 this room unfortunately.
8 So we know, actually, we already 9 transferred spent fuel and we haven't had a single 10 accident. So I am here, as a woman, as a Hispanic, as 11 a millennial, to bring innovative ideas in the nuclear 12 industrial realm.
13 And also, I have a moral obligation to 14 defend our future. And I believe that ignorance is a 15 very dangerous weapon, so I am here to defend this 16 future with knowledge and facts.
17 So, all the technical details about 18 security in environmental aspect, if they have been 19 realized, they have been checked already. But we're 20 still dealing with ignorance and that's why I'm here 21 because I believe that the nuclear industry is going 22 to regenerate the world in a positive way.
23 And I know, even do you guys want it or 24 not, we are getting benefits from nuclear industry 25 already. So, that's all that I am going to say NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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116 1 tonight because we already have all the records and 2 everything out there.
3 And I will invite you, everybody, to read 4 and to learn a little bit more. Thank you so much.
5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Robin? Robin 6 Seydel.
7 MS. SEYDEL: Thank you so much. Thank you 8 for your patience. I really appreciate you all being 9 here. It was good to talk to some of you earlier. I 10 really appreciated that.
11 (Off microphone comment) 12 MS. SEYDEL: This mic? This mic. Oh, 13 okay, I got the right mic now.
14 So, I live two miles from the railroad 15 tracks and the transportation issue is very concerning 16 to me. And just because there hasn't been an accident 17 doesn't mean that there wouldn't be an accident.
18 And really, statistically speaking, when 19 there hasn't been an accident yet, you have a greater 20 possibility or probability of having that accident 21 soon.
22 I also ran a small food company for almost 23 35 years and we built six stores, six retail stores, 24 we employed 300 people and we worked with over 300 25 farmers around the state. So, any kind of accident NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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117 1 could cause for us what people are calling radioactive 2 stigma.
3 Which is, that all of those farmers, that 4 $40 million business, which is really a drop in the 5 bucket when you think that the, just the dairy 6 industry alone is worth about $5 billion annually in 7 New Mexico, our $40 million looks really tiny. But, 8 it's the livelihood of 600 people.
9 And to trade that for a mere 55 jobs just 10 doesn't make sense. And it seems that it's really not 11 a very well thought out project.
12 One of the things that your poster said is 13 that you're taking into consideration socioeconomic 14 issues. And so that to me is really important, that 15 you could bring, for 55 jobs, right, you could take 16 away 23,000 jobs in the dairy industry and our messily 17 little 600 jobs, 300 farmers and their livelihood and 18 300 retail grocery store workers.
19 So I would ask you also, if you've never 20 denied a project before, maybe now is the time to 21 change that record. That you take a good look at 22 what's happening.
23 People here have so much more 24 technological knowledge than I have, and so I would 25 say to you, many people have spoken much more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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118 1 eloquently than I could, but it's really time to deny 2 a project.
3 And I also would say that you need to, and 4 I'll wrap-up in a second, that you would need to 5 include in your financial strategies and information, 6 the alternatives of what happens if the dairy industry 7 goes down and how are you going to indemnify people, 8 how are you going to reimburse all of those people 9 whose livelihood is one little accident, one little 10 leak has taken away.
11 And so, that's really important. And that 12 needs to be in your environmental impact statement, 13 how much, where are you going to find the money, who's 14 going to cover that insurance cost, how are you going 15 to make all of us whole who might experience an 16 accident who live along the railroad lines, who farm, 17 who do all that. So, I would ask that.
18 And, Rose, you were so eloquent and so 19 beautiful and so many people here have such deep 20 spiritual and social and cultural concerns and all of 21 that needs to be written really clearly in your 22 environmental impact statement. And I really look 23 forward to seeing you again at the EIS draft hearings.
24 Thank you so much for your time.
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119 1 very much. John. Is it cold?
2 MR. BUCHSER: Hi, my name is John Buchser, 3 I live in Santa Fe. I have lived in New Mexico most 4 of my life and I have come to love New Mexico and I 5 even come to love Texans.
6 (Laughter) 7 MR. BUCHSER: They bring a lot of money to 8 our state and by golly, they are pretty nice people.
9 I think that Holtec is actually providing 10 a needed solution, however, they are proposing to use 11 it in an extremely inappropriate manner.
12 Currently, nuclear reactors produce 13 electricity. I use a lot of it, but I think we have 14 other alternatives at this point in time.
15 When a reactor fuel rods are used up they 16 are placed into fuel pools, and that's actually the 17 most vulnerable part of the fuel process after the 18 used fuel. Then it's placed into a cask and left, at 19 present, it's mostly left onsite.
20 It may actually be that leaving the waste 21 for a longer period of time, at ground level, is good 22 because it generates a lot of thermal heat. And if 23 you stick it in a long-term facility, it may not work 24 out so well because of the amount of heat generated 25 that's not dissipated.
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120 1 We should be looking at a process that 2 considers potentially a waste site in every single 3 state, because this problem is not just New Mexico's, 4 it's everybody's problem. Until a permanent solution 5 is determined, the waste should not move unless it's 6 a high-risk location.
7 San Onofre is a good example. It's both 8 at risk due to tsunami, due to corrosion from salt 9 water and from being very close to a fault line.
10 Potential destinations for this waste, 11 that's particularly high-risk, could be Military bases 12 or nearby reactor sites that are already guarded. The 13 Holtec site is not a controlled airspace.
14 The public along routes needs to be 15 engaged on a regular basis not grandfathered in 16 because of a past NRC decision.
17 We should stop creating this waste. We 18 should not reprocess it and perpetuate the problem.
19 We have a super nuclear reaction a few million away, 20 the waste is handled, our atmosphere deals with what 21 waste products come our way. Let's use that, let's 22 not turn Southeast New Mexico and West Texas into a 23 waste site. Thank you.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, John. Thank you 25 very much. Is Linda Squire or Allen Squire, Linda, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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121 1 come on up. Please, talk to us.
2 MS. SQUIRE: Thank you for hearing us 3 tonight. My name is Linda Squire and my husband and 4 I are here to speak tonight because of our experiences 5 owning and running a dairy in Hagerman, New Mexico.
6 My husband and I are both veterinarians.
7 We both graduated from Ohio State University in 1975.
8 And I was one of the first women to be allowed into 9 vet school in any great numbers and I remember well 10 being a woman in a man's profession.
11 And I will say to some of the younger 12 people here that I believe that, I thought I knew more 13 when I graduated than after I had worked for an older 14 veterinarian who was about 65 years old, worked for 15 him for a couple years. So there is a learning curve 16 to all professions.
17 One book that I have found helpful 18 recently is a book called Nuclear Wastelands. And it 19 gives a history of the nuclear industry and all things 20 nuclear. So that's a really good reference book.
21 For the past 25 years our family has had 22 this farm and I believe that a serious incident at a 23 nuclear storage facility, in really close proximity to 24 the dairy farms, could have a really serious negative 25 impact on the local economy. I also see this facility NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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122 1 as a potential health threat to myself and my herd.
2 Animals can serve as sentinels to warn us 3 of impending human health issues. Animals all around 4 us are telling us about the effects of exposure to 5 radioactive materials.
6 The materials can enter the bodies of the 7 animals through the respiratory tract or through 8 inhalation of airborne particles, followed by 9 deposition in lung tissue or absorption into the blood 10 stream.
11 Entry into the gastrointestinal system is 12 also possible. If the animal drinks contaminated 13 water or eats plants that have been contaminated with 14 radioactive elements.
15 And radionuclides absorption can also 16 occur across the skin. Direct skin contact.
17 Most of the uranium, thorium and radium, 18 taken in orally, will be eliminated by the kidneys and 19 via the intestinal tract. But the fact that these 20 elements are of the heavy metal category means that a 21 certain amount of each of these will end up being 22 deposited in bone where they will be sequestered for 23 a very long time.
24 In the early 1990's, New Mexico 25 Environment Department, Division, Environment NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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123 1 Improvement Division, found high radionuclide levels 2 in cattle that were raised in proximity to abandoned 3 uranium mines and mills. Levels of uranium in the 4 kidneys of these cattle were found to be over eight 5 times the levels of the control animals.
6 Concentrations of Radium 226 in the femur 7 bones, of exposed cattle, were almost 50 times the 8 level of the control animals. And this is from the 9 New Mexico Environment and Improvement Division.
10 Rabbits captured near tailings piles near 11 Grants were found to have radium concentration in 12 muscle that was about four to 40 times the background 13 levels.
14 Strontium 90 can enter the food chain when 15 it falls from the air as fallout, onto grasses or 16 forages that are then eaten by a cow. Later it can 17 appear in the cow's milk. Eventually it may deposit 18 in the bones of a milk drinker. Strontium 90 from 19 fallout has also been detected in deer bone, antlers 20 and teeth.
21 Isotopes of iodine can also be taken in 22 with forages and they can appear in milk and it can 23 potentially cause thyroid cancers in the consumer.
24 Cesium 137 is another one that can appear in meat and 25 milk.
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124 1 After the Chernobyl incident, there were 2 reports of wild boar, who had eaten mushrooms, which 3 bioaccumulate radionuclides. And these wild boar, 4 which are considered a delicacy in that area, were 5 declared unfit for human consumption because of the 6 radionuclide contamination.
7 So, after many years, contaminated regions 8 are still dangerous, potentially, because wildfires 9 can release the stored radioactive elements that the 10 plants have absorbed. So during a smoke incident, 11 animals and plants downwind of the burn can actually 12 become contaminated by virtue of the smoke.
13 Fifty years after two plutonium fires that 14 have occurred at the Rocky Flats facility north of 15 Denver, they did some studies on deer carcasses and 16 they still found that two of the analyses for the 17 various isotopes still exceeded the thresholds for 18 "acceptable risk range associated with ingestion of 19 those tissues."
20 The Hanford site in Washington, the Idaho 21 National Laboratories, Fernald in Ohio, Oak Ridge in 22 Tennessee and Pantex in Texas, and the Savannah River 23 site are all just a few of the glaring examples of 24 what can go wrong when government fails to provide 25 reasonable planning, oversight and management of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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125 1 dangerous facilities and then chooses to ignore and 2 minimize the damage.
3 MR. CAMERON: And, Linda, can I ask you to 4 sum up?
5 MS. SQUIRE: Sure.
6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
7 MS. SQUIRE: For the past five years I've 8 been doing an independent study of geographical areas 9 that have been recognized as places where human or 10 animal prion diseases have occurred.
11 I've looked at clusters of chronic wasting 12 disease in deer and elk. I've examined the sparse 13 information out there about BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob 14 disease, which is the human form of BSE.
15 I've identified four factors that seem to 16 be present in almost every location that I study.
17 Radionuclide contamination, the presence of various 18 heavy metals, including manganese and lead in many of 19 the sites.
20 Fluorides is another thing that's in these 21 sites. And aluminum. Usually in the form of 22 bentonite or montmorillonite.
23 So I am urging you to study these clusters 24 of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and BSE and chronic 25 wasting disease. If you map up a line, a map of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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126 1 Colorado where these diseases occur in deer and elk 2 and you superimpose abandon mine tailings and uranium 3 deposits and the fluoride sites where they have high 4 fluoride in wells and the clays in those formations, 5 you will find that they are almost the identical maps.
6 And I hope that you'll study this because 7 it really needs to be studied. If not by your Agency 8 then by possibly the Department of Defense, who are 9 doing active research on prions right now. They are 10 funding prion research.
11 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
12 MS. SQUIRE: They must know something that 13 we don't know.
14 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
15 MS. SQUIRE: Thank you.
16 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Linda. And I 17 would just say that, you know, you have an opportunity 18 to also amplify on your comments by submitting written 19 comments. And scientific information, like that, 20 would be appreciated by the NRC.
21 Now we're going to Allen Squire.
22 MR. SQUIRE: My name is Al Squire. It's 23 kind of hard to follow my wife. She does a pretty 24 good job. And I think most of the other speakers 25 tonight have already covered most of the points I have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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127 1 to say, but I'm going to try to do a few of them again 2 anyway just to kind of refresh your memory.
3 My wife and I moved here 25 years ago, and 4 we built, started building a dairy and we wound up 5 currently to where we have 50-some employees. I like 6 to tell you a little bit about the Mexico dairy 7 industry. We currently, and somebody else has already 8 used my fire here but I'm going to repeat it anyhow, 9 we currently have a total economic impact in the state 10 exceeding $5 billion a year. And that is second only, 11 I guess a pretty small second, to the gas and oil 12 industry as far as contributions to the state and the 13 state economy. We're still proud of our industry 14 anyway.
15 The dairy industry currently provides 16 employment for nearly 6,000 people directly and over 17 17,000 people indirectly with the various businesses 18 that we do business with. Part of that is the fact 19 that we ship our milk to two of the largest cheese 20 plants in the world, the Leprino plant in Roswell and 21 Southwest Cheese in Clovis. So if you compare that to 22 the number of jobs that Holtec is planning on having, 23 I think 50 or 60 jobs there, I think we have a fairly 24 major contribution to the state.
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128 1 not raise come in on railcars, and so they'll be using 2 the same transportation routes that these fuel rods 3 would be using. A lot of the feeds that we raise we 4 have to have irrigation, so we depend on clean water 5 not only for our cows to drink but also for raising 6 the crops. Basically, everything we do has to be 7 really, really clean, and we depend on a really clean 8 water supply with no contaminants in it to feed our 9 dairies and our cows and calves.
10 Our dairy industry depends upon being able 11 to deliver a very safe and wholesome nutritious dairy 12 product, milk. Any hint of radioactive contamination 13 of any of our feed, any of our milk supply, would 14 cause an immediate loss of our markets for milk and 15 beef. That actually happened after the Three Mile 16 Island accident in Pennsylvania. They told people put 17 your cows in the barn and just feed them stored feed, 18 we don't know what's going to happen. Well, we can't 19 really do that out here.
20 I guess one of the biggest concerns we 21 have is then what do we do? If we have a 22 contamination, if we have something that was as 23 substantial as what happened in Colorado or any of the 24 other nuclear accidents, you know, these are the rods 25 that cause things like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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129 1 and Fukushima.
2 So what happens if we contaminated our 3 feed and our cows and we can't sell the milk? What do 4 we do? What do we do? We've got 4,000 cows. We 5 can't sell the milk, we can't afford to keep them, and 6 we can't sell the beef. Now, who in the hell is going 7 to be responsible to indemnify the dairy producers for 8 something that's happened like that? Who is 9 responsible? I want to know who is responsible for 10 the liability that is created by this situation? And 11 those of us in the southern part of the state know 12 this well: we feed the rest of the state, not only the 13 dairy industry, the ranching industry, the gas and oil 14 industry. The rest of the state lives off of us. So 15 whatever happens down here, negative or positive, 16 affects the rest of our state.
17 And I guess I'm going to close with the 18 age old comment, don't poop where you eat.
19 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Al. Thank you. We're 20 going to go to Melanie Deason. Then we're going to 21 get Kevin Kampus up here, and then we're going to go 22 to Ramda Galo, James Pike, Deiter Hanbicki, and Jemma 23 Strong. But this is Melanie and next Kevin.
24 MS. DEASON: Thank you for hosting us. I 25 know it was a bit of journey, but thank you for being NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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130 1 here. My name is Melanie Deason. I've lived a decade 2 in Roswell. Shortly before retiring, I spent eight 3 years as wetlands coordinator with the New Mexico 4 Environment Department and wrote the state's EPA-5 funded wetlands conservation plan.
6 I seriously question the science of 7 Holtec's environmental assessment and section on water 8 resources because Holtec violates two siting premises:
9 isolated from populated areas -- pay attention on this 10 one -- and away from water sources. Their proposed 11 site puts both at risk.
12 Point one: I disagree that there are no 13 sensitive or unique aquatic or riparian habitats or 14 wetlands at their site. Holtec uses a federal 15 jurisdictional wetland definition and fails to mention 16 the 1997 NMED included plio lakes as wetlands. Truth:
17 plio lakes at Holtec's site do meet criteria for New 18 Mexico's wetlands. Only one of three defining wetland 19 characteristics must be met: wet soils, wet living 20 plants, or wet conditions.
21 Point two: I take exception to Holtec's 22 misleading surface water statements that there is no 23 external drainage within two plios on site, that 24 losses are only by evaporation including four off-site 25 ephemeral plios, and that runoff does not drain to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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131 1 river 26 miles to the west. Because they portray plio 2 lakes as self-contained holding ponds, like stock 3 tanks, that catch and contain but do not drain.
4 Truth: plio hydrology is unique and external drainage 5 does exist by draining down to unseen water tables and 6 aquifers below and substantiated by Holtec's own 7 report, my next point.
8 Point three: I commend Holtec's report for 9 stating the site's near surface water table appears to 10 be 35 to 50 feet deep, likely controlled by water 11 levels in plio lakes, highly saline from industry 12 abuse, but Holtec ignores the obvious. They propose 13 digging approximately 20 feet below grade, which is 14 dangerously near their admitted fluctuating water 15 table. Past dumping of brine into plios has reached 16 the Pecos River in this region, proof that should 17 radiation escape Holtec's storage it could reach the 18 aquifers not just in New Mexico but Texas and possibly 19 Ogallala of eight states. Truth: Holtec's storage 20 caster design is for breathing air, not drowning from 21 ground water below or rain above. Any breach, in or 22 out, intensifies and releases radiation to water, 23 ground, and air. Regional heating and ground 24 subsidence, common in New Mexico and nearby Texas, 25 could flood Holtec's below-ground storage and drop it NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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132 1 into the water table below, poisoning the Trans-Pecos 2 area.
3 Point four: per Holtec's report, April to 4 September thunderstorms provide 60 percent of the 5 annual flow in the Pecos basin. But has Holtec 6 forgotten New Mexico's 1938 Pecos River Compact with 7 Texas and the 2009 settlement for sharing the river's 8 irrigation waters equally as beneficial use of any 9 unappropriated flood waters? Truth: the region's plio 10 lakes hydrology ensures these important seasonal rains 11 reach the Pecos River and, because Holtec's own report 12 acknowledges impoundment of all surface water into 13 plios, we've now come full circle. Water does leave 14 Holtec's site, impounded or not, due to plio basin's 15 unique hydrology. Holtec's proposal violates the 16 Pecos River Compact, radiation cannot benefit the food 17 chain. It causes irreversible harm to plants, 18 animals, and humans. That is genocide. I, Melanie 19 Deason, do not consent.
20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Melanie. Next, 21 we're going to hear from Kevin Kampus, and then we're 22 going to hear from Ramda and James Pike. Kevin?
23 MR. KAMPUS: Thanks, Chip. Good evening, 24 everyone. Thank you, NRC, for hosting this town hall 25 style public comment session. I have prepared several NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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133 1 sets of comments on different subject matter, 2 different aspects of the high risks of the Holtec 3 proposal. And if they're of use to anyone in 4 preparing their own comments, please feel free to use 5 them in any way that's helpful.
6 So tonight I'll start with transportation 7 risks. The risks of transporting highly radioactive 8 irradiated nuclear fuel, whether by train, truck, or 9 barge, on rails, roads, or waterways, is a high risk.
10 The risks include the release of disastrous amounts of 11 hazardous radioactivity, whether due to severe 12 accidents or intentional attacks. Severe accidents 13 could include high-speed crashes into immovable 14 objects, like bridge abutments, or high-temperature 15 long-duration fires, or long-duration underwater 16 submergence. This is not a complete list.
17 Intentional attacks, such as by anti-tank missiles or 18 shaped charges, could also breach shipping containers 19 and release their contents into the environment.
20 For these reasons, critics have long 21 called such shipments potential mobile Chernobyls, 22 dirty bombs on wheels, and floating Fukushimas. As 23 Holtec has claimed in its license application that any 24 and all NRC certified canisters can be accommodated at 25 this facility, not only rail-sized shipping containers NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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134 1 must be worried about, but so too must legal weight 2 truck casks which would travel on interstate highways.
3 Thus, whether by truck, train, or barge, on roads, 4 rails, or waterways, the mobile Chernobyl risks of 5 this scheme must be addressed.
6 But another aspect of shipping risks is 7 the risk of so-called routine or incident free 8 shipments, nonetheless, being like mobile x-ray 9 machines that can't be turned off. This phrase was 10 coined by Lauren Olson more than 20 years ago. This 11 is due to gamma and neutron radiation being emitted 12 from the highly radioactive wastes aboard.
13 To shield it all would require radiation 14 shielding so thick that containers would be 15 extraordinarily expensive to construct but also so 16 heavy as to be difficult or impossible to move. So 17 NRC allows a certain amount of gamma and neutron 18 radiation to be emitted. Granted, this radioactivity 19 dissipates quickly with distance, but, at six feet 20 away from the container's exterior surface, a dose 21 rate of 10 millirem per hour is allowed. That's about 22 one to two chest x-rays' worth per hour.
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135 1 worth. Workers, such as truck drivers, locomotive 2 engineers, inspectors, security guards, etcetera, who 3 come in very close physical proximity into the 4 shipping container would be exposed to the highest 5 radiation dose rates. But even innocent passersby and 6 bystanders in the general public would also be 7 exposed. This includes those who live close to 8 transport routes exposed to large numbers of shipments 9 going by over time. Some people, such as pregnant 10 women, should not be exposed to any radiation dose 11 that can be avoided due to the high risk of harm 12 caused to the fetus in the womb.
13 Of course, shipments externally 14 contaminated with radioactivity would emit even worse 15 radiation dose rates. The state of Nevada, based on 16 federal government data, has documented 49 incidents 17 of accidental surface contamination on these highly 18 radioactive waste shipments between the years of 1949 19 and 1996. And in France, Areva Corporation had many 20 hundreds of externally contaminated shipments, a full 21 one-quarter to one-third of all shipments bound for 22 the La Hague reprocessing facility. On average, these 23 French contamination incidents emitted 500 times the 24 allowable radiation dose rates. One even emitted 25 3,300 times the allowable dose rate. Allowable does NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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136 1 not mean safe. Any exposure to ionizing radioactivity 2 carries a health risk, and these risks accumulate over 3 a lifetime. Thank you.
4 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Kevin.
5 This is Ramda. Okay. And if you could just introduce 6 yourself to us.
7 MS. GARDENER: Okay. Hi, my name is 8 Ramda. I'm a student at the University of New Mexico 9 and I'm studying nuclear engineering. I would like to 10 start by saying that radiation is natural. We're all 11 radioactive. We produce radioactivity naturally. But 12 I understand the concern of high-level radioactive 13 material, and that's okay. But the only way to 14 overcome that fear is through true understanding and 15 knowledge without bias.
16 One of the main concerns is the 17 transportation of the spent fuel. Transportation of 18 spent fuel or radioactive material is not new and it 19 has already been done. URENCO stores and ships tons 20 of radioactive material by rail and truck without any 21 incident. And I can be more than certain that this 22 project wouldn't take off without first thoroughly 23 testing and assuring safe transportation.
24 In one of the posters outside today, we 25 can see the different environmental and hypothetical NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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137 1 accidents the canisters can endure. Some of these are 2 heat, cold, pressure fluctuation, vibration, water 3 spray, free drop, compression, penetration, 30 feet 4 free fall, crash emersion, puncture, and 800-degree 5 Celsius fires. And so I would highly doubt that, you 6 know, they would put people in danger without testing 7 these things.
8 I would also like to mention that Holtec 9 has already been transporting spent nuclear fuel for 10 decades here in the U.S. and around the world. So it 11 is not new and it's not a mere luck that this has been 12 done with excellence. It is not luck. We have tested 13 and taken and are still taking the necessary 14 precautions to get these materials to their 15 destination safe.
16 So there's the question of the rails and 17 how they are going to withstand the weight. And, yes, 18 these things will get tested, and if they need repair 19 there will be repair. And I understand our industry, 20 the nuclear industry, is so fragile because we are 21 constantly being watched by people, so we want no 22 mistakes. So I believe that the NRC, along with 23 Holtec, will do everything in their power to make this 24 project safe for our environment, our community, and 25 our next generation. Thank you for listening.
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138 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 2 Ramda. We have -- this is James? Okay. And Jemma?
3 Okay. James, James Pike.
4 MR. PIKE: Hello, everyone. My name is 5 James Pike. I'm also a student at the University of 6 New Mexico studying nuclear engineering. I'm a 7 graduate student looking into material science so a 8 lot of applications of radiation and how to store 9 stuff, too.
10 I just want to point out I grew up in Los 11 Lunas, New Mexico. I know what a small town culture 12 feels like. I understand you guys' safety and 13 concerns. But I want to let you guys know that what 14 the NRC is doing is they are trying to keep you guys 15 safe. They are the guidelines for the world for any 16 type of radioactive material handling or any type of 17 nuclear power plants.
18 I just went to a talk recently, and they 19 talked about how countries around the world look to 20 the NRC for safety and for health and for everything.
21 They model what they look at after the NRC, and I know 22 the NRC takes pride in that. So I don't think they 23 would lie to you guys because they are setting a world 24 example for you guys.
25 One thing I'd also like to mention, and my NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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139 1 colleague touched on it, radiation is everywhere. Who 2 had a banana this morning? That had radiation in it.
3 Also, one thing you guys might not know is 4 radioactivity is used in the oil business, and you 5 guys are not protesting that. They use radioactive 6 tracers to put into the ground and they track oil.
7 They use radioactivity to find the formation of where 8 oil is.
9 So radioactivity, it is kind of scary, but 10 we have knowledge of it and we know how to keep it 11 safe and keep it away from dairy farms and from places 12 like that. And as future nuclear engineers, we want 13 to ensure that safety. That's why we're down here, 14 too. We are listening to you guys' concerns and, in 15 the future, we want to make sure you guys' concerns 16 are in our design. Thank you guys for listening.
17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, James. Thank 18 you, James. And is it Jemma? So in other words, when 19 I called Bobbi Reydel, you guys are changing 20 identities. But do you want to talk? Well, go ahead.
21 MS. REYDEL: Hello, my name is Bobbi 22 Reydel. I'm sorry for any confusion. Today, I want 23 to say I'm a nuclear engineer. I'm a graduate student 24 and Ph.D. candidate of the University of New Mexico, 25 and I want to say I ardently believe in this project.
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140 1 Nuclear spent fuel casks are designed in 2 such a way that they are designed to be with -- the 3 fuel, the dry fuel is in a leak-proof container that 4 is sealed. And that is within a larger container that 5 is filled with an inert gas that allows cooling of 6 that spent fuel.
7 I've heard a lot of really important 8 concerns tonight about radiation leakage, about the 9 fuel leaking out of these containers. And if you look 10 at the actual designs of these spent fuel casks, 11 you'll see that this isn't a problem. We are here 12 today as experts in this field to talk to you about 13 your concerns, to speak with you, and I'm so glad that 14 I spoke to so many of you today.
15 I would also like to say that the fear 16 that people have around radiation, it is a concern.
17 But if you actually look at the design of this place, 18 if you are at the edge of this facility, let's say 19 you're at the fence of this proposed Holtec facility, 20 you will receive 25 millirems per year if you stood at 21 the edge of this Holtec facility for an entire year.
22 Now, what is 25 millirems? Well, if you took a plane 23 flight from New York to L.A., it's about that much.
24 So if you stood there an entire year, day and night, 25 that's what you would get.
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141 1 How many of you like to take vacations?
2 I would assume that many of you like to take 3 vacations. Many of you have flown in planes. Many of 4 you have gone to the dentist. Many of you, I see we 5 have an older population, maybe many of you have 6 suffered from cancer. Did you know that all of the 7 diagnostics for cancer treatment, that's radioactive 8 material.
9 The nuclear industry, if you actually look 10 at CANDU reactors up in Canada, they produce all of 11 the medical isotopes for the U.S. Things that you use 12 everyday, things that help you survive are 13 radioactive.
14 And so what I'm here saying is is that you 15 don't need to fear this. You don't need to fear, 16 like, oh, my gosh, there's going to be some radiation 17 that leaks. Like, okay. If you ate a banana this 18 morning, you also got potassium-44 in your system, as 19 well. That's a radioactive isotope.
20 I heard that people have said nuclear 21 power hasn't done anything for me. The Palo Verde 22 reactor in Arizona supports 35 percent of the carbon-23 neutral energy for New Mexico. Twenty percent of all 24 power in the U.S. is from nuclear power plants, and 25 all of that, zero carbon emissions. If we get rid of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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142 1 our power plants, if we decide we don't want to find 2 a place to store this nuclear waste, it would be like 3 getting rid of every single windmill in the U.S. You 4 would be destroying the environment.
5 I am here because I believe in supporting 6 the environment and mitigating climate change. I am 7 here because I believe that this is a safe facility, 8 and I believe that we, as a community, with knowledge 9 and understanding and talking to these people and 10 reading the reports and learning about, okay, what is 11 ALARA, what is a millirem? How many of you know what 12 a millirem is? Learning those things are so 13 important.
14 I want to answer your questions. We'll be 15 here. You have questions for me? You have concerns?
16 You're a skeptic? Please ask me. Thank you.
17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 18 Bobbi. And Deiter. This is Deiter, and then we're 19 going to go to Karen Bonime, Ira Strong, Charlene 20 Hernandez, and Jimi Gadzia. Deiter.
21 MR. HANBICKI: Hello. I am Deiter 22 Hanbicki. I'm a current junior at the University of 23 New Mexico where I study nuclear engineering. Before 24 I get into my speech that I've prepared, one of my 25 classmates wanted to show this. It is a letter of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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143 1 recommendation that we go along with the Holtec plan.
2 We have 31 signatures on this petition along with it, 3 including one of the distinguished faculty members at 4 UNM, Dr. Robert Bush, and the incoming American 5 Nuclear Society president.
6 So three years ago, I decided to move from 7 my sleepy little town in Southeastern Pennsylvania to 8 New Mexico for my degree. I had never visited the 9 state before, and my first thought when getting off 10 this plane was, wow, it's hot. Later, I would go to 11 see the state and see everywhere and see how beautiful 12 it is. I started my New Mexico journey because I saw 13 online that the Bureau of Labor Statistics website say 14 that nuclear engineers make a starting salary of 15 $80,000 a year, and I came to UNM because they 16 accepted me.
17 Holtec states that they will have about a 18 hundred operators, a hundred construction jobs, and 19 perhaps 50 manufacturing jobs if they get to stage 20 three just in this area. That may not seem like a 21 lot, but that would be 250 well-paying secure jobs for 22 a minimum of up to 40 years. The little town in 23 Pennsylvania that I hail from has a population of only 24 3,000 people with a median income of $56,000 per 25 household. So while it doesn't seem like a lot, to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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144 1 me, that seems like a lot of jobs and a lot of money.
2 In addition, my little town of New 3 Britain, Pennsylvania recently vetoed, we had a town 4 hall meeting like this where a gas plant wanted to be 5 built in the town and we vetoed it. So I know, I 6 sympathize with you guys of not knowing something that 7 we don't want in our town because we think it might be 8 dangerous.
9 Additionally, I agree with all of you we 10 should have a permanent waste solution site here in 11 the United States. However, we don't, so this is the 12 next best thing that we can have.
13 New Mexico was here in the beginning of 14 the nuclear industry, and it should continue to be 15 there in the future of the industry. Even if it's for 16 selfish reasons, I want the Holtec plant to be here so 17 that I may be able to live here for the foreseeable 18 future. Thank you.
19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Deiter.
20 And, Karen, are you going to come up and talk to us?
21 Okay. And then we're going to Ira Strong, if Ira is 22 still here, and then to Charlene.
23 MS. BONIME: According to these -- can I 24 just hold it? Okay. According to this guideline for 25 commenting on the scope of the EIS, some examples of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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145 1 information NRC is requesting are, I'm going to skip 2 to the second one, what reasonable alternatives to the 3 proposed action should be analyzed and why? I think 4 the reasonable alternative that should be examined is, 5 sure, if these casks are so safe, great. Let's 6 distribute them to the places where the nuclear power 7 plants are, and I think this would be safer because 8 having a centralized target for terrorism is a dumb 9 idea. I know that they're vulnerable just being in 10 pools with a roof over them or whatever. I don't know 11 enough about that. I'd like to know more. But if 12 these dry casks are really so great -- and I want to 13 thank John McKirgan for explaining to me how they 14 actually go about putting the fuel rods into these 15 casks. It's done underwater, and then there's a 16 drying-out process where helium, an inert gas, 17 replaces the water vapor that's left. And I like 18 that, and I think it's a great idea, and I think they 19 should stay right there where they've lived their 20 whole active lives.
21 Also, he did mention that a tiny bit of 22 water vapor -- can you all hear me -- would probably 23 remain inside the cask but only a tiny amount but that 24 radiation escaping the inner container, the stainless 25 steel cask, which someone mentioned is only a half-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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146 1 inch thick and in Europe they're much bigger. I 2 wonder why NRC is considered model if Europe has 3 something better. Something is funny?
4 So, anyway, the little bit of radiation 5 that can exist inside the larger cask could cause that 6 water vapor to separate into hydrogen and oxygen and 7 hydrogen, of course, is explosive in the presence of 8 oxygen. So that sounded to me like a concern. I hope 9 that that can be controlled somehow. Maybe it's not 10 enough. Maybe I didn't understand you completely, but 11 maybe it's not enough to cause harm.
12 But I also learned from talking with you, 13 John, about the fact that when the fuel rods are first 14 transported to the nuclear power plants they're not as 15 hot as they are later because, as uranium breaks down, 16 giving off this tremendous energy that's used to boil 17 water to drive turbines to make electricity, they 18 break down into other radioactive elements. And so 19 some of those have longer half lives or, instead of 20 alpha, maybe they've got beta or gamma radiation so 21 the things actually get hotter, and this is a concern 22 to me.
23 But what I'd like to move to is what local 24 sources of information should the NRC consider? I 25 think you've already heard eloquent testimony from the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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147 1 dairy industry, and I know you're going to hear about 2 the pecans that we grow here, which are yummy. And 3 then you've heard about the immense amount of oil that 4 we're sitting on that could be at risk.
5 What I'd like to look at in terms of local 6 information, and I don't mean just local to Southeast 7 New Mexico, I'm talking about the state as a whole.
8 We have paid our nuclear dues starting at the Trinity 9 site where the first bomb was exploded. The people of 10 the Tularosa Basin who lived, I forget, 16 - 18 miles 11 away were never warned, were never acknowledged. They 12 suffer still. Even the ones who've moved away from 13 that poisoned community have children who develop 14 cancers that are thyroid cancers especially that are 15 associated with exposure to radiation.
16 MR. CAMERON: Karen, I'm going to have to 17 ask you sum up, please.
18 MS. BONIME: All right. I will. Other 19 people have mentioned the Navajo miners, and it wasn't 20 just Navajos it was also Laguna Pueblo people, a woman 21 named Dorothy Perly testified in the 90s at an event 22 that was sponsored by CARD -- oh, and I forgot to say 23 I'm a member of CARD and a retired teacher. She 24 testified about how she was given no warning and no 25 protection as she drove trucks full of mining, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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148 1 uranium ore to the milling sites and all the dust that 2 she was inhaling and so forth. She was already dying 3 of cancer at that time. It's environmental racism all 4 over the state.
5 The first nuclear victims to be 6 compensated were white. They were the Utah Mormon 7 Downwinders. One of them was also at this dinner 8 honoring atomic veterans, and she said, "We are the 9 most patriotic people in the United States, Mormons.
10 We could not believe our government did this to us."
11 Then, finally, after a while, after a lot 12 of legal work --
13 MR. CAMERON: Karen, I'm going to have to 14 ask you to wrap up, please.
15 MS. BONIME: Yes. Navajos began to be 16 compensated but not the ones in New Mexico and not the 17 ones who worked in mines and mills after 1970. There 18 are so many gaps. We have paid our dues, and we have 19 not, some of us, the most vulnerable, not been 20 compensated or acknowledged. That's it.
21 MR. CAMERON: And, Karen, just for the 22 record, could you tell people what CARD stands for?
23 I don't know if people know.
24 MS. BONIME: Oh, yes, yes. CARD, and I've 25 only been a member for a few short years, although I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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149 1 attended many of the hearings that they invited me to, 2 it stands for Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive 3 Dumping. We don't want our state to be a dump.
4 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. And that's a New 5 Mexico group?
6 MS. BONIME: Yes.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
8 MS. BONIME: It formed when WIPP was first 9 being discussed.
10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 11 you, Karen.
12 MS. BONIME: Thank you.
13 MR. CAMERON: All right. And is Ira, Ira 14 Strong here? How about Jimi, J-I-M-I? Oh, here comes 15 Jimi. And then we're going to go to Charlene. Hey, 16 thank you, everybody, for your patience tonight, but 17 I think we're in the homestretch or at least at the 18 far turn.
19 MS. GADZIA: I'm the one that's going to 20 talk about pecans. A lot of my concern -- sorry. My 21 name is Jimi Gadzia. My family and I came here in 22 1906, so we've been here a long time, love New Mexico 23 and really care about it.
24 I could talk about a lot of issues, but 25 they've really been covered here tonight. Health is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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150 1 a concern for me. Water is a concern, been discussed, 2 and the oil and gas industry which has also been 3 discussed.
4 Our family has three properties, oil and 5 gas interest, that's within ten miles of the site. So 6 it is a deep concern that we depend on, as our family.
7 But tonight I'm going to focus on 8 agriculture because my family is also pecan farmers.
9 Just after oil and gas, agriculture, and I'm going to 10 talk about agriculture in general, is the second 11 largest industry in New Mexico. This region, Chaves, 12 Eddy, and Lea Counties, are the largest agricultural 13 region in the state. We have over 145,000 irrigated 14 acres just in the Pecos Valley Conservancy Districts 15 alone.
16 Pecans specifically are New Mexico's 17 number one food crop. In 2016, which is our latest 18 numbers because we've just finished harvesting the 19 2017 crop, New Mexico producers produced 72 millions 20 pounds of pecans worth over $213 million in sales.
21 Now, New Mexico is only second in the 22 nation in producing pecans, second only to Georgia, 23 but we lead in cash receipts due to our improved 24 varieties and our superior quality. So New Mexico 25 also has the highest concentration of pecan production NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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151 1 in the nation, and this production is from Roswell 2 south, also west but all in the southern part of the 3 state.
4 There's a lot of front-end costs to 5 starting a pecan field, so it's really a multi-6 generational kind of crop because the trees last a 7 hundred years and it takes about seven to ten years 8 before you even get a first crop. So there is a lot 9 of front-end investment.
10 So we started our farm in 1965. It took 11 us five years to get our trees in. So seven to ten 12 years from then is when we first started seeing a 13 little bit of crop. So we have had invested a lot of 14 time and money into our pecan orchard.
15 My concern has been mentioned before when 16 talking about the dairy industry. Consumers are 17 really looking for cleaner foods. They're looking for 18 higher-quality foods. They're buying organic foods.
19 They want less contamination. People eat pecans 20 because they taste great but also they're very 21 nutritious, high in vitamins, fiber, and protein, high 22 in good cholesterol-lowering fats. Pecans are heart 23 healthy. The American Heart Association suggests that 24 it reduces the risk of heart disease. So that's kind 25 of our market and, as consumers demand better, higher-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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152 1 quality products, our agriculture is moving in that 2 direction, as well. So just the siting of this 3 facility could seriously impact our product, as well 4 as all agriculture in the state. And there's never 5 been accumulation of this magnitude before, and so I 6 truly believe that, once the association is made, I 7 think it could be an insurmountable reputation to 8 overcome and could seriously devalue our product or 9 eliminate it altogether. Any accidents will just 10 exacerbate that problem and really could gut the food 11 industry in New Mexico.
12 And there's just an example of the E. coli 13 contamination that's going on with romaine lettuce.
14 It was discovered on one farm, and the message to 15 consumers or consumers are deciding, you know, I'm not 16 eating any romaine, I don't care where it's from. And 17 that's the way it happens. Even the CDC is supporting 18 that, even though they've already identified where 19 it's happening. You can clean E. coli up but I don't 20 know that you can even clean up contamination from 21 radioactivity.
22 So I think, at that point, it's all over 23 for us here and there's no coming back from it.
24 That's my concern.
25 MR. CAMERON: And could you sum up for us?
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153 1 MS. GADZIA: Really? I have five pages.
2 Just kidding. So I want to restate that this isn't 3 really our waste. I mean, the gal said that we have 4 30 percent in New Mexico, but really most of this has 5 been produced in other areas. So I have a really hard 6 time agreeing to house all this waste that was not 7 produced here.
8 So let me get to my last page. And I 9 think with so much that New Mexicans have to risk, I 10 have to ask myself what are the benefits to us, to us 11 New Mexicans? And I can't come up with any. So, I 12 mean, a few jobs maybe, but I think that's it. So all 13 we're asking for is to keep our clean environment so 14 we can continue to make our living, and that's really 15 all I have to say.
16 So I don't consent to bringing material 17 here. I think it will impact my livelihood and my 18 life. So thanks. Thanks for being here and thanks 19 for letting us speak.
20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you.
21 We're going to go to Charlene Hernandez, and then 22 we're going to go to Janet Greenwald. And then we're 23 going to go to Pakeia.
24 MS. HERNANDEZ: Good evening, everybody.
25 My name is Charlene Hernandez, and I was born in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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154 1 Capitan, New Mexico in 1945. No, actually, it was 2 1946. My mom was pregnant with me when the atomic 3 bomb at Trinity site was exploded, okay? So that 4 said, I want to say that I agree with most of the 5 speakers that spoke tonight and I hope you listen well 6 because this is my state where I was born. We were 7 already blasted once, and we're still suffering the 8 effects from that atomic bomb blast.
9 Now, if this is so safe, like these people 10 have said here, why does it cost so much for clean-up?
11 I have read that it costs not just hundreds, not just 12 thousands, but billions of dollars to clean up after 13 a problem with these waste containers, like we had at 14 Carlsbad, okay? That was shut down for two years, and 15 the clean-up, all that other stuff, and little brief 16 places, I read it in the paper over the last few 17 years, I've been keeping track of what's happened 18 there. But I also have been in contact with people, 19 like the Downwinders, who have families, who have lost 20 entire families because of Trinity site.
21 Now there is, I've been telling people 22 about the RECA Act. When I looked in the computer, 23 the RECA Act is radiation compensation, Radiation 24 Exposure Compensation Act. It was passed in Colorado, 25 Utah, parts of Arizona, but not New Mexico. I've been NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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155 1 keeping track with Senator Udall who says that they're 2 trying to expand the law to cover New Mexico and that 3 means they will compensate people who have relatives 4 who have certain cancers, and they will pay people up 5 to $50,000 for each loss for certain cancers. They 6 will also pay your medical costs. If you're found to 7 have those certain cancers, they'll pay your medical 8 bills until you die. Now, not too many people know 9 about that. I'm making that discovery, and it's a sad 10 thing.
11 Why are New Mexico people always the last 12 to know, and why did they pick New Mexico? They 13 picked New Mexico to test the atomic bomb, and they 14 didn't ask anybody. I mean, scientists that didn't 15 know what was going to happen did it to us.
16 Now, Lincoln County used to be where they 17 had the very best apples. You go over there now, you 18 can't find a single good apple bigger than that. We 19 had big, huge apples, wonderful apples, different 20 kinds of apples, not just one little kind. You know, 21 we had several different kinds of apples. Now 22 nothing, nothing grows that's bigger than that. A lot 23 of contamination has happened.
24 I agree very much with the scientist who 25 spoke earlier, Mr. Steve Shuffleman, Schafersman?
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156 1 Okay. He was from Texas. I totally agree with him 2 200 percent. The stability of this place is not good.
3 I was in my house one day when my house shook like in 4 California when I was out there. So what's up with 5 that? My house shook. The ground is not stable here, 6 and that man was absolutely correct.
7 Now, did you hear about the new caves that 8 they found in Fort Stanton? The longest cave in the 9 nation vertically, like this, or horizontally, 10 whatever. But it's the longest one, more than 30 11 miles. The end of that cave is at the bottom of the 12 Ruidoso Airport. It ends there. It's a beautiful 13 cave. And then my cousin said to me, my cousins live 14 there, they said, "Charlene, that cave connects up to 15 the other caves that are there and probably the 16 Carlsbad cave." So I think that you pay attention to 17 that gentleman. I think he had it all exactly 18 correct, and that's all I have to say.
19 Thank you very much. And thank you for 20 being here and for looking into this situation. I 21 hope you can come to a good conclusion that this is 22 not a safe state. My suggestion is to let the people 23 who have those things where the radioactive waste is 24 made, the nuclear reactor people who have those, they 25 can keep it in their own place where they have their NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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157 1 reactors, not send it somewhere else.
2 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 3 Charlene. And we're going to go to Janet Greenwald, 4 and then we're going to have Pakeia Marquez come up, 5 and then Susybelle Gosslee, Soya Stevens, Alfredo 6 Dominguez, and Stephen Picha I think. And this is 7 Janet.
8 MS. GREENWALD: Hi, I'm Janet Greenwald.
9 I'm a coordinator of Citizens for Alternatives to 10 Radioactive Dumping, and that was an organization 11 formed 39 years ago by people in this part of the 12 state.
13 I'd like to report to you from a community 14 that's close to a nuclear facility. It's the 15 community where I raised my children, a beautiful 16 little place in the Embudo Valley which some people 17 consider the organic bread basket of New Mexico. It's 18 in northern New Mexico. This community is a bedroom 19 community from Los Alamos and it's also directly 20 downwind from Los Alamos.
21 Over a decade ago, there was a fire there 22 that Cerro Grande fire. And after that, the New 23 Mexico Environment Department visited the valley and 24 they said there's cobalt in your plums and there's 25 cesium in your broccoli, but don't worry about it, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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158 1 it's below regulatory concern. And then several 2 months later, my daughter-in-law became pregnant and 3 a few months later she lost one of her twins, and that 4 was the first time in our memory, and we have twins on 5 both sides of the family, first time anyone lost a 6 twin. And then they found out that the remaining 7 twin's fallopian tube was malformed. So then she had 8 a double-risk pregnancy. So in order to have her baby 9 in the Espanola hospital, my son and she had to look 10 through this book of the deformed babies from Espanola 11 Hospital. We're talking about badly deformed babies, 12 no arms, etcetera. And they had to look through this 13 book because they had to decide if their baby was born 14 deformed, would they want to hold it after it was born 15 or did they just want someone to take it away?
16 So we were very lucky because Olivia was 17 born whole. But Espanola is also downwind and a 18 bedroom community for Los Alamos.
19 Not long after that, we found out that one 20 of the mountain lakes that feeds the river that goes 21 through the Embudo Valley had so much cesium around 22 its shore that it was close to being a super fund 23 site. This is the head waters in the Embudo River and 24 also the Rio Grande.
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159 1 brother, Ezra, and I went to the library in this 2 little community, and on the door there was a sign and 3 it said, "Support Group for Contaminated Los Alamos 4 Workers 9 a.m. on Saturday Morning." So what do you 5 think? Are nuclear facilities a benefit to the 6 communities around them? Perhaps you've had a 7 different experience than I've had. You can judge 8 from what I've said.
9 Thank you for this opportunity to speak.
10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 11 much. Pakeia, could I ask you to come up? And this 12 is Pakeia Marquez, and I can hold this for you or do 13 you want to hold it?
14 MS. MARQUEZ: I can hold it myself. Thank 15 you. My name is Pakeia Marquez and I am 11 years old.
16 I'm here on behalf of unborn kids and born kids like 17 me. I think this whole situation is very important 18 because it affects everything and everybody. It 19 affects the plants and wildlife around here.
20 I have recently been writing an essay 21 about ecosystems and how it can be changed and 22 affected and damaged and, you know, but I read that 23 ecosystems can be very easily poisoned through water, 24 air, and soil. Water, if all this radiation leaks 25 into the water, everything needs water, everything NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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160 1 that's living needs water. It's going to suck up all 2 of that, and it's going to get poisoned.
3 My house, it has a pump. We pump 4 underground water to our house, and we use it for 5 everyday necessities. What if that gets poisoned? We 6 will get poisoned and all of our produce, our garden.
7 My dad planted a bunch of trees. Is that going to get 8 poisoned, too?
9 We also are pecan farmers, too, and we get 10 a living off that, too. And we use it for our food.
11 We also grow chili, tomatoes, and a lot of other 12 stuff. Is that going to be affected, too? Who is 13 going to be, you know, who is going to give us back 14 all that produce that we just probably lost? Who is 15 going to be, you know, who is going to pay for it?
16 Who is going to, like, you know, reimburse us for it?
17 I've been reading this book on climate 18 change. It says radioactivity does contribute to 19 climate change. It doesn't really produce that much 20 carbon dioxide, but, at the same time, it still does 21 affect. And if you've seen a microwave, that's 22 radiation. Imagine a microwave in the world. The 23 whole world is a microwave. Microwaves make heat.
24 That's going to be contributing to climate change.
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161 1 problems. You may think you might be solving a 2 problem but really you're just creating more problems 3 to solve, and they might just be forever and you might 4 just not be able to solve them.
5 So please do remember that I cannot vote, 6 so you need to vote for this because I don't really 7 have a vote for this. So please do vote against this 8 horrible mistake. Thank you.
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 10 you, Pakeia. And that will be a hard act to follow, 11 but Susybelle? Yes, I know. It's been one of those 12 nights. Do you want to sit down and have me hold this 13 for you?
14 MS. GOSSLEE: No, no, I do not. I'm 15 perfectly capable.
16 MR. CAMERON: All right.
17 MS. GOSSLEE: Sorry. I'm Susybelle 18 Gosslee. I'm testifying as a member and on behalf of 19 the League of Women Voters of Texas regarding the 20 license application for the consolidated interim 21 storage facility that has been described today.
22 We appreciate the opportunity to appear 23 before you today and thank you for allowing us to 24 share the League of Women Voters of Texas position on 25 this issue. We are very concerned about many aspects NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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162 1 of the high-level radioactive waste disposal, the 2 storage proposal, most importantly the health, safety 3 of people and the environment and the transportation 4 risks.
5 Our position on hazardous materials and 6 high-level radioactive materials, like other League 7 positions, is derived through a lengthy and thoughtful 8 process involving the participation of 25 city leagues 9 representing our members and supporters throughout the 10 state of Texas. We support the League of Women Voters 11 of New Mexico.
12 Neither Holtec International, WCS, or any 13 other company should be allowed to develop an interim 14 storage location without a plan for a permanent 15 disposal site and a robust system for storage. Doing 16 other site-wise would not protect local residents, 17 their health, or the environment from having this 18 temporary site become a permanent site. What is the 19 plan for locating a permanent repository for this 20 hazardous material?
21 More specific information is needed by a 22 verifiable independent third party to authenticate the 23 suitability of the proposed New Mexico and Texas sites 24 by using data accumulated with the most up-to-date 25 research, in addition to the past data that's been NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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163 1 accumulated. A conflict of interest and the 2 appearance of a conflict of interest should be 3 avoided.
4 Transportation issues are a great concern.
5 We have a number of questions concerning those, in 6 addition to the ones that have been presented.
7 Accidents do happen. They said that there would be, 8 you know, the Titanic would not sink and it did. I 9 can go on with numerous examples. What would be the 10 standards and guarantees for the railroad routes for 11 this highly-irradiated material? What would be the 12 financial assurances provided by the railroad 13 companies, the states, and Holtec International? How 14 would the financial assurances be monitored? Who 15 would inspect and monitor these systems? What would 16 be the penalties if the safety and financial 17 assurances are not adequate? There are many questions 18 that are posed in the paper that I will submit online.
19 I would also like to say, since the time 20 is so limited, the same questions for the railroads 21 apply for the roads and the highways that would be 22 carrying the heavy high-level radioactive waste. How 23 much transport of high-level radioactive waste would 24 be on the highways exactly, really? Heavy loads do 25 more damage to highways than the lighter traffic.
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164 1 We can learn from past accidents. In 2 fact, there was the comment about the incidents in 3 Sweden, and 80 percent of the reindeer had to be 4 killed after the Chernobyl site and every year 5 reindeer have to be killed in Sweden because of 6 continued contamination, even though that was over 30 7 years ago. The wind carried the radiation across 8 Sweden, Europe, and the Northern Hemisphere. That can 9 happen also in Texas and in this country.
10 Thank you for having the public comment 11 meeting in Roswell in Carlsbad, New Mexico. However, 12 none of these cities has easy access by airlines and 13 are accessible to most people. Meetings should be 14 held in Dallas and Fort Worth, a major hub of 15 transportation by rail. San Antonio, El Paso, 16 Albuquerque, Santa Fe. In addition, major cities 17 across the U.S. that would be highly likely radiation 18 transport routes. Thank you for considering the 19 League of Women Voters' comments.
20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Is Soya, Soya 21 Stevens? How about Alfredo Dominguez? Alfredo? And 22 then we're going to try Stephen P-I-C-H-A. I'm not 23 sure how you pronounce that. But, Alfredo, welcome.
24 MR. DOMINGUEZ: My name is Alfredo 25 Dominguez. I live in Roswell since 1980. I thought NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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165 1 a lot about what I was going to say here tonight, and 2 then when I get here and look at the slide show and it 3 says this purpose is to determine if it's safe to 4 build and operate a consolidated interim storage 5 facility at the proposed site. And I cannot conceive 6 any stretch of the imagination how transporting this 7 nuclear waste across Texas and the nation is ever 8 going to be safe. Each cannister is a target for 9 terrorists that want to do us harm. Terrorists have 10 already used our airlines against us, our postal 11 system. They're trying to hack our internet to 12 control the nuclear reactors. This is giving them a 13 giant bomb. All they have to do is formulate a shape 14 charge, and they won't set it off at the Holtec site, 15 they'll set it off at a major metropolitan center.
16 There is nothing that can stop, if that happens, 17 there's nothing that will clean that up ever.
18 Licensing this site for 40 years for 500 19 canisters will not help alleviate the problem of 20 permanent solution there. We'll just create another 21 site that's going to be contaminated. Thank you.
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 23 much. And is Stephen Picha here? Tom Gorman?
24 Abraham, Abraham Guevara? Cole Ford? Okay. How 25 about Morton, Morton Kral, K-R-A-L? Okay. Larry NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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166 1 Martin? Larry.
2 MR. MARTIN: Am I the last one?
3 MR. CAMERON: No, that honor goes to Bill 4 Madison if Bill is here. Is Bill here? Yes, Bill 5 will be our last speaker.
6 MR. MARTIN: I didn't see anyone come in 7 after me. That's why I said that. I'm sort of 8 neutral on this. I didn't hear about it until 9 yesterday, so I think the publicity was lacking, 10 although I was obviously out of the loop. I suggest, 11 just like Mr. Jimi said, that you get a bigger room.
12 I mean, there's a theater down here with 406 seats in 13 it. Instead, we're in this dinky little room here 14 where not enough to argue with you.
15 I realize you have a problem. You've got 16 all this waste sitting around on the East Coast, West 17 Coast, that somebody wants to put somewhere else. And 18 that's usually the politicians in those states, not 19 here. On the other hand, I don't want the politicians 20 in Austin and Santa Fe determining whether or not 21 Roswell gets them, okay? That may be against a lot of 22 the people who have come in from Santa Fe and have an 23 argument, but southeast and southern New Mexico always 24 seem to get on the short end of the stick in the 25 politics in this state.
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167 1 In Roswell, we have an aquifer. We don't 2 share it with Clovis or Midland. I don't think we 3 share it with Artesia. It's our own little lake down 4 there, and it's very valuable. If it should be 5 polluted, Roswell will dry up and blow away because 6 industry will leave. I mean, the agriculture will 7 leave and we're gone. The importance of maintaining 8 a clean aquifer, and that would be a problem if 9 something happened, would be catastrophic for Roswell.
10 The question I have is is the location 11 near an aquifer, which I might have missed. You may 12 have said it. I came in late. And also does this 13 place have to be cooled? I would imagine so. And the 14 problems with Fukushima, Chernobyl were cooling 15 problems, and Fukushima is still a spot where no human 16 can endure it's so hot and so polluted. And they 17 don't know what to do.
18 So if you have a nuclear problem where you 19 can no longer cool your trash, you are in serious 20 trouble and it will eventually, like the old movie.
21 I don't have much more to say other than that, but if 22 something happened where the cooling system fails, 23 such as a massive grid failure in this country, you 24 would have approximately 99 uncooled nuclear bombs.
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168 1 it forever. That's what they're trying to prevent, I 2 think.
3 But I don't see anyone arguing the case 4 that you have to maintain these places to be cool. No 5 one talks about it, but that's a major, major factor.
6 Thanks.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you for those 8 comments. Bill?
9 MR. MADISON: My name is Bill Madison.
10 MR. CAMERON: Let me get you in there.
11 MR. MADISON: My name is Bill Madison.
12 I'm from Roswell. I live in Northern New Mexico also.
13 I have property in Roswell that I take care of. I was 14 at the WIPP hearings when the WIPP hearings came, and 15 I don't know, none of you obviously were there, you're 16 too young. We were told that that would be all that 17 would be in New Mexico and there would be no high-18 level radiation in New Mexico, that there would be no 19 accidents at WIPP, it was failsafe, 100-percent 20 failsafe. So it's hard for me to kind of embrace 21 what's going on here because the government has lied 22 to us, blatant lie.
23 So I think that you should look at that 24 and understand that we've been told one thing and now 25 all of a sudden there's this new thing that's coming NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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169 1 at us.
2 A lot of eloquent speakers today. There's 3 a lot of information that you folks -- this thing at 4 SMU. I'm not aware of it. It sounds kind of 5 interesting. The fracking going on in the area and on 6 the introduction of the liquids causing these tremors 7 in Oklahoma, will that happen in the basin? It well 8 could. Obviously, there's holes there, and I'm sure 9 you folks are out looking at that.
10 But the really main thing is that we've 11 been lied to. So that's my spiel. Thank you for your 12 time and thank you for being here and listening to 13 this, and I agree that -- I just found out about this 14 today, but I'm not really in the loop very much. So 15 thank you.
16 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Madison. In 17 about a minute, I'm going to turn it over to the 18 senior NRC official here, Brian Smith, who is just 19 going to say a few final words. But I think that I 20 mentioned earlier in the evening that the NRC would 21 not be responding to any comments. Well, there's only 22 one time when they do do that when there were 23 statements or implications about NRC's statutory 24 authority or responsibility, and we don't want people 25 to leave thinking that the NRC regulates something NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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170 1 that it doesn't. I think he's going to talk about 2 something like that.
3 But before Brian goes on, I just want to 4 thank all of you for your patience and for your 5 comments tonight. And I have to thank Chief Newberry 6 and his officers again for helping us. And I have to 7 thank Porter's father for bringing Porter in here.
8 Maybe the most sensible sentient being that's here, 9 but I'm not going to go further into that. But, 10 Brian, go ahead.
11 MR. SMITH: All right. Thanks, Chip. I 12 guess the clarification, the one thing there, is the 13 WIPP site has been mentioned several times and has 14 been correlated that the NRC has been involved with 15 that. There's been no NRC involvement with the WIPP 16 site. That's totally under the Department of Energy.
17 So we are not a regulator of that site.
18 And just one other clarification. Earlier 19 on in the session there was a question about has the 20 NRC ever denied an application? The context of that, 21 the way I took it was an application like the one that 22 we're talking about here, a consolidated interim 23 storage facility application. So that's how I 24 answered the question. There's been three of those 25 that have been submitted. One has been approved, one NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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171 1 is on hold, and we're reviewing the Holtec one now.
2 But when you look at the NRC as a whole, 3 and we do lots of licensing for lots of different 4 types of uses of material, and we have denied 5 licenses, applications in the past. But what 6 typically happens is we ask so many questions, raise 7 so many issues with certain applications that they end 8 up being withdrawn and not pursued any further. And 9 it gets to the point or we don't get to the point 10 where we terminate or deny those applications. So 11 those two clarifications there.
12 So I just want to thank everyone again for 13 attending the meeting tonight. We appreciate you 14 coming out and staying this late, as well. We value 15 all of your comments, and we'll consider those as we 16 prepare our draft EIS. Once the draft EIS is 17 published, I want to encourage you to review the 18 document and again provide us any comments you think 19 that we need to complete the document itself.
20 So thank you again and have a good 21 evening.
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. We're adjourned.
23 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 24 the record at 10:42 p.m.)
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