ML19119A072
| ML19119A072 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Pilgrim |
| Issue date: | 04/29/2019 |
| From: | NRC Region 1 |
| To: | |
| Dimitriadis A | |
| References | |
| NRC-0277 | |
| Download: ML19119A072 (98) | |
Text
Memo to File: April 29, 2019 Attached is the transcript of the Annual Assessment Meeting for Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station held on March 26, 2019.
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
2019 Pilgrim Annual Assessment Meeting Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: Plymouth, Massachusetts Date: Tuesday, March 26, 2019 Work Order No.: NRC-0277 Pages 1-96 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 ML19119A072
1 1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2 + + + + +
3 2019 PILGRIM ANNUAL ASSESSMENT MEETING 4 + + + + +
5 TUESDAY 6 MARCH 26, 2019 7 + + + + +
8 The meeting was convened in Hotel 9 1620, 180 Water Street, Plymouth, Massachusetts, 10 Donna Janda, Facilitator, presiding.
11 PRESENT:
12 ELISE BURKET, Senior Resident Inspector, 13 Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station 14 ANTHONY DIMITRIADIS, Branch Chief, Projects 15 Branch 5 16 DAVID LEW, Regional Administrator, Region I 17 BRUCE WATSON, Chief, Reactor Decommissioning 18 Branch 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 2 NRC Introduction and Opening Remarks 3 by Donna Janda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4 NRC Discussion of NRC Oversight 5 by David Lew and Anthony Dimitriadis . . . 11 6 Public Q&A Session with NRC . . . . . . . . . . . 18 7 NRC Closing Remarks 8 by David Lew . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 9
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 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 MS. JANDA: Good evening, everyone. We're 3 going to go ahead and get started if everyone could 4 take a seat. Hello and welcome to the Pilgrim Nuclear 5 Power Station annual assessment meeting.
6 My name is Donna Janda and tonight I'll be 7 serving as the facilitator for this meeting. And 8 Brett Klukan who is over in the corner to my right 9 over there will be helping me out with this task 10 tonight.
11 So here's how, before we do anything I 12 just want to talk about exits really quick. If you 13 could for a regular exit just use those middle doors.
14 Is that okay, sorry, okay?
15 So just use those middle doors right 16 there. The front doors and the back doors right there 17 on the side are locked at this time.
18 But in the event of an emergency we have 19 the doors on the side, the doors to the back and the 20 doors to my left which are to the kitchen area and 21 that can take you outside also. So in an emergency 22 any of the doors.
23 But right now if you need to go out or use 24 a restroom or you want to sign up to speak please use 25 those middle doors right there. So here's how the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 meeting is going to be structured tonight.
2 We're going to begin with the presentation 3 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the assessment 4 of safety performance at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power 5 Station for 2018. The remainder of the meeting will 6 be an opportunity for members of the public to ask the 7 assembled NRC staff questions concerning performance 8 issues at Pilgrim or to present comments regarding the 9 same.
10 With respect to the second half of the 11 meeting, on the registration table just outside the 12 doors to the meeting room there's a sign up sheet for 13 public speakers. When you register to speak you'll 14 receive a ticket and the other half of which we 15 collected in the container that's currently at the 16 registration table.
17 The speaking order will be determined by 18 the numbers that are pulled from the container and the 19 intent of which is that the speaker order be at 20 random. Just so you have some advance warning of when 21 it's your turn to speak we'll be posting the numbers 22 on the screen over here to my right as they are 23 selected.
24 And I'd like to thank Matt and Pete over 25 here to my left for assisting me with that. So if you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 would like to speak this evening and haven't already 2 done so please step outside through those middle doors 3 and add your name to the list prior to the end of the 4 NRC's presentation.
5 Once we resume with the second half of the 6 meeting we're not going to add any more tickets to the 7 container. But if you then decide you do want to 8 speak, you know, and you register late you will have 9 an opportunity to speak if the container has been 10 exhausted and if time otherwise permits.
11 For your awareness, the meeting tonight is 12 being recorded and a transcript will be generated 13 after the meeting. Both the audio and the transcript 14 will be posted to the NRC website.
15 So in light of that I would ask that when 16 it is your turn to speak that you please identify 17 yourself. And I would also ask for the sake of the 18 audio recording that people not speak over each other.
19 I would ask also that we keep the area 20 beyond the front row clear. If you have something 21 that you would like to give to the NRC staff please 22 hand it to me or to Brett.
23 Now for some basic ground rules, while 24 recognizing that many of you have strongly held 25 opinions concerning the matters to be discussed NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 tonight I ask that you nonetheless adhere to civil 2 decorum, that you respect each other.
3 So please do not disrupt each other. Just 4 as you wouldn't want to be interrupted during your 5 three minutes at the microphone please respect the 6 speaking time of others.
7 Threatening gestures or statements will 8 under no circumstances be tolerated and will be cause 9 for immediate ejection from the meeting. If you feel 10 that you've been threatened please let me know or 11 please tell one of the NRC staff present at this 12 meeting.
13 So a few minor housekeeping matters. The 14 restrooms are located through those middle doors and 15 they are straight across that hallway where the tables 16 are for registration. And as I mentioned already 17 where the exits are.
18 And while cameras are permitted please try 19 not to obstruct the view of other audience members and 20 if you would be so kind to please silence your cell 21 phones at this time.
22 At this point I would like to offer 23 elected officials or any official representatives of 24 any elected officials that are here tonight on their 25 behalf the opportunity to stand and be recognized.
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7 1 So is there anyone who just wants to 2 introduce themselves?
3 MR. MURATORE: Good evening. I'm Matthew 4 Muratore, State Rep for Plymouth.
5 MS. JANDA: Good evening.
6 MR. MURATORE: And with me is Kathleen 7 LaNatra, State Rep for the 12th Plymouth District that 8 includes Plymouth and Monica Mullen is here from Vinny 9 DeMacedo's office.
10 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Any other elected 11 officials who want to be recognized at this point?
12 Okay. So at this point I'm going to introduce the NRC 13 staff that's assembled on the dais here.
14 I will start with David Lew. Mr. Lew is 15 the Regional Administrator for NRC Region 1. Prior to 16 that he served as the Deputy Regional Administrator 17 for Region 1 and had been in that role since January 18 2011.
19 Prior to his appointment to the NRC Senior 20 Executive Service in February of 2004 he was a 21 resident inspector at Oyster Creek and Indian Point 2 22 and a senior resident inspector at Indian Point 3.
23 To Mr. Lew's left is Anthony Dimitriadis.
24 Mr. Dimitriadis is the Branch Chief of Project Branch 25 5 which is responsible for oversight of Pilgrim and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 FitzPatrick Nuclear Plants.
2 Mr. Dimitriadis had previously served as 3 Branch Chief of Projects Branch 1 responsible for 4 oversight of Calvert Cliffs, Nine Mile Point and Ginna 5 (phonetic). Previous to that he served as Branch 6 Chief of Plant Support Branch in the Division of 7 Reactor Safety managing inspections associated with 8 security and emergency preparedness.
9 Mr. Dimitriadis has worked for the NRC 10 Region 1 for 28 years and has previously served as an 11 inspector and senior inspector. He graduated from 12 Drexel University with a Bachelor of Science degree in 13 Physics.
14 And to Mr. Dimitriadis's left is Elise 15 Burket. Ms. Burket is the Senior Resident Inspector 16 at Pilgrim. Prior to that Ms. Burket worked as a 17 reactor inspector in the Division of Reactor Safety in 18 Region 1.
19 Prior to joining the NRC in 2008, Ms.
20 Burket served as a nuclear surface warfare officer in 21 the U.S. Navy for seven years. She currently is a 22 Lieutenant Commander in the Navy Reserves and serves 23 as the officer in charge of her reserve unit.
24 She was recalled to active duty in 2015 25 for a 10 month deployment to the Middle East. And to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 Ms. Burket's left is Mr. Bruce Watson.
2 Mr. Watson is the Chief of the Reactor 3 Decommissioning Branch in the Division of 4 Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs 5 in the Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and 6 Safeguards.
7 He has been with the NRC since March of 8 2004. He has extensive experience in decommissioning 9 of reactor and material sites and was the technical 10 lead for the license terminations at Trojan, Maine 11 Yankee, Rancho Seco and Big Rock Point.
12 Now let me turn it over to Mr. Lew, Region 13 1's regional administrator.
14 MR. LEW: Okay, thank you, Donna. First, 15 let me welcome everyone to the NRC's annual assessment 16 meeting. I recognize that the majority of you today 17 are most interested in making statements and asking 18 questions.
19 And to be respectful of your time and your 20 interests Tony will make a presentation here that 21 should take less than ten minutes. Before I turn it 22 over we recognize that there is a great interest in 23 decommissioning.
24 As a result we have Bruce Watson who as 25 our Decommissioning Branch here, he will help answer NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 some of those questions. But we also have Ray Powell 2 who is one of my branch chiefs.
3 He is sitting in the second row here to 4 the left. And he will be responsible for the 5 oversight of Pilgrim once the plant shuts down.
6 You may have met both gentlemen earlier in 7 January when they were in Plymouth to meet with the 8 public on the post shutdown decommissioning activities 9 report as well as present to the Nuclear 10 Decommissioning Citizen's Advisory Panel.
11 And the information on those two meetings 12 are available on our website as well as YouTube.
13 Unfortunately, we will not be able to answer specific 14 decommissioning question as it relates to Pilgrim's 15 license transfer as that is still under review and 16 pre-decision.
17 And as many of you know, there has been 18 contentions for which a hearing is requested and being 19 considered by the Commission. However, we will be 20 able to answer process questions as well as past 21 operating experience from decommissioned sites.
22 So with that I'm going to turn it over to 23 Tony.
24 MR. DIMITRIADIS: Okay, thank you, Dave.
25 Good evening, everyone. I will go through six slides NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 to discuss Pilgrim's performance in 2018. If you can 2 go to Slide 3.
3 Based on the inputs that I'm going to 4 present here the NRC determined that Pilgrim operated 5 safely in 2018 and showed performance improvement.
6 It's also important to note that the site showed a 7 marked improvement in site safety culture.
8 In reviewing Pilgrim's performance for 9 2018 we took into consideration all of the inspections 10 and noted that Pilgrim successfully met all of the 11 commitments outlined in the Confirmatory Action Letter 12 or as we say the CAL. I'll refer to that term later 13 on.
14 Also part of our assessment we reviewed a 15 number of performance indicators to evaluate how the 16 plant performed in the past year. So in 2018 Pilgrim 17 had no performance indicators that were greater than 18 green and additionally Pilgrim had no inspection 19 findings that were greater than green.
20 Therefore, we determined that Pilgrim 21 operated safely in 2018. We came to this conclusion 22 by following our process.
23 We collected all of the inspection 24 information from the past year and in March of this 25 year we determined that Pilgrim's performance was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 representative of Column 1 performance.
2 This determination was based on our, based 3 on inspections as well as the five team CAL 4 inspections. Next slide please.
5 To give some background on how we got 6 here, in 2015 the NRC placed Pilgrim in Column 4 of 7 the NRC's action matrix due to the identification of 8 low to moderate or white safety findings and 9 performance indicators.
10 The NRC's reactor oversight process action 11 matrix basically has five columns that identifies the 12 range of NRC and licensee actions where Column 1 is 13 normal oversight where no additional oversight is 14 required.
15 As performance of a plant declines in 16 general its assessment can go into the action matrix 17 from Column 1 to Column 5. As licensee's performance 18 degrades the NRC may transition a plant in the action 19 matrix from Columns 2 to 3 to 4 or to 5 where 20 increasing additional NRC engagement is required 21 beyond the normal inspection program.
22 In this case Pilgrim was placed in Column 23 4 back in 2015 and we began enhanced oversight which 24 means a lot of additional inspections. Column 4 of 25 the NRC's action matrix means that the plant while NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 safe to operate had reduced safety margins.
2 And you can get more information about 3 what Column 4 is all about in our Inspection Manual, 4 Chapter 03035. Issues that contributed to this change 5 in columns included their electrical switch yard 6 reliability concerns and ineffective corrective 7 actions specifically to address the multiple 8 complicated scrams experienced at the plant in the 9 previous years including one involving a failed safety 10 relief valve.
11 This all pointed to a poor site safety 12 culture which we define as the core values and 13 behaviors resulting from a collective commitment by 14 leaders and individuals to emphasize safety over 15 competing goals to ensure protection of people and the 16 environment.
17 Following Pilgrim's placement in Column 4 18 we performed a series of comprehensive diagnostic team 19 inspections called the supplemental inspections as 20 part of our review process for plants in this 21 category.
22 These inspections provided an in-depth, 23 independent review of what led to the decline of plant 24 performance and assured continued safe operation. In 25 2017, we completed our supplemental inspections.
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14 1 And that report was issued in May of 2017.
2 Later that year in August of 2017 we issued what I 3 referred to earlier as the CAL, the Confirmatory 4 Action Letter that outlined Entergy's commitments and 5 the individual actions associated with each focus area 6 which we independently evaluated through direct 7 inspections.
8 In 2017 we saw progress and improvement in 9 Pilgrim's performance. However, we had not yet 10 determined whether this progress and improvement was 11 sustainable in large part because there was a lot, 12 there was remaining, there remained significant work 13 to be done to address the underlying causes.
14 So despite observing improved performance 15 we kept Pilgrim in Column 4 in 2017 or what we call 16 the multiple repetitive degraded cornerstone column of 17 the reactor oversight process. Next slide please.
18 This slide reflects what we did in 2018.
19 In 2018 Entergy corrected all of the issues that led 20 to moving Pilgrim into Column 4. For example, Entergy 21 addressed and we closed all of the white findings the 22 last of which was closed in June of last year, 2018.
23 We examined Entergy's actions by 24 conducting five team inspections to evaluate such 25 actions that Entergy implemented over the course of 14 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 months. We call these inspections the CAL follow up 2 inspections that I referred to earlier.
3 And we completed the last of these type of 4 inspections on January 16th of this year, 2019.
5 Through these CAL inspections our NRC staff inspected 6 and verified that all 156 action items, individual 7 action items were closed, complete and effective.
8 Based on this work we determined that 9 Entergy has demonstrated sustained performance 10 improvement at Pilgrim in 2018, satisfactorily 11 completed the work necessary for us to close the 12 Confirmatory Action Letter and addressed the issues 13 that led us to placing Pilgrim in Column 4 including 14 the associated underlying causes.
15 As a result we have moved Pilgrim from 16 Column 4 to Column 1 of the action matrix. Next slide 17 please.
18 We committed a significant portion of our 19 inspection effort in assessing Pilgrim's safety 20 culture. Our inspections included focus groups, one-21 on-one interviews and direct inspections to verify 22 corrective actions.
23 Based on these inspections we determined 24 that Entergy has indeed demonstrated a marked 25 improvement in safety culture. And this is something NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 that we think is very, very important which is why I 2 focused on it a little bit.
3 Over the course of 2018 we saw a 4 significant improvement with respect to effective and 5 timely corrective actions. That's another piece of 6 that.
7 As part of the site's recovery plan 8 Entergy took significant actions to train the site's 9 management on appropriate risk recognition and 10 decision making.
11 For example, site procedures were revised 12 to ensure the risk of significant plant impacts, 13 whether it is weather, equipment failures of changes 14 on the grid have been and are appropriately considered 15 during decisions related to plant operations and 16 maintenance.
17 Lastly, Pilgrim staff increased their 18 focus on effective and consistent use of human 19 performance tools through training and increased 20 management observations of field activities which 21 helped reduce the number of human performance events.
22 Next slide, please.
23 And coming to our assessment we considered 24 the observations and insights from nearly 11,000 hours0 days <br />0 hours <br />0 weeks <br />0 months <br /> 25 of inspections at Pilgrim in the last year. All NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 findings were of very low significance or as we say 2 green.
3 Performance indicators were all green with 4 improving trends. The frequency and significance of 5 equipment problems declined.
6 As I mentioned in an earlier slide, our 7 assessment concluded that Pilgrim's actions to address 8 the underlying causes were completed satisfactorily.
9 We arrived at this conclusion based on our independent 10 verification that all 156 actions in the CAL were 11 completed.
12 Based on the sustained improvement 13 demonstrated Pilgrim was returned to normal NRC 14 oversight, or as we say Column 1. Our oversight of 15 Pilgrim will continue through decommissioning. Next 16 slide, please.
17 We will continue our inspections with a 18 strong focus on safety and security until shutdown to 19 ensure that Pilgrim sustains its safety performance.
20 We will maintain strong oversight through the 21 shutdown, decommissioning and fuel storage.
22 After Pilgrim shuts down and transitions 23 to decommissioning we expect some level of 24 decommissioning activities to commence at the site.
25 Routine decommissioning inspections will be conducted NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 once the fuel is removed from the reactor vessel.
2 We will continue our inspections into the 3 decommissioning phase where we will examine areas such 4 as the licensee's safety reviews, spent fuel pool 5 safety, corrective action program, decommissioning 6 performance and occupational radiation exposure just 7 to name a few.
8 These inspections are conducted by 9 inspectors who have specialized training and have been 10 qualified in these core inspection procedures and are 11 managed by our Decommissioning Branch, Ray Powell 12 which is the Branch Chief within the Division of 13 Nuclear Material Safety.
14 This concludes my presentation. I just 15 want to turn it back over to Dave Lew.
16 MR. LEW: Thank you. You can just get 17 right into Q&A's at this point. Donna.
18 MS. JANDA: Okay, thank you, Dave. So 19 just a few comments before we begin with the second 20 half of the meeting.
21 As I noted as part of the introductory 22 remarks the speaking order will be determined by 23 numbers pulled from the container that was out in 24 front of the room, the intent of which is that the 25 speaker order be random. So when your number is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 called please queue up at the aisle microphone.
2 And if you need to have a microphone 3 brought to you please just let us know, raise your 4 hand and we will bring you the microphone. I do want 5 to emphasize there is no prohibition against donating 6 your ticket to others.
7 You are free to do so. However, both 8 individuals must be present at the time the number is 9 called and the donation must be announced at that 10 time.
11 And if an individual has already spoken 12 during the meeting as a result of someone donating 13 their ticket to that person then that individual may 14 also donate his or her ticket if called to someone 15 else. But that individual may not use that ticket to 16 speak again at that point.
17 And in an effort to give as many people as 18 possible an opportunity to speak this evening please 19 limit yourself to three minutes when speaking. There 20 is a clock positioned at the edge of the stage that 21 will count down three minutes for each speaker.
22 And at the three minute mark I will ask 23 you politely to conclude. Note that the countdown 24 clock will be paused if you ask a question in order to 25 permit the NRC an opportunity to respond.
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20 1 The clock will resume once you resume 2 speaking. So if possible, if you can just bundle your 3 questions together so then the NRC will have an 4 opportunity to answer all of your questions. Yes, 5 ma'am.
6 (Off microphone remark.)
7 MS. JANDA: Well there may be an 8 opportunity to ask additional questions after everyone 9 has had a chance to talk. So I think we'll --
10 (Off microphone comment.)
11 MS. JANDA: I'm not sure actually at this 12 point.
13 (Off microphone comment.)
14 MS. JANDA: It's fine. That's fine. So 15 the reason why we do it in this manner is everybody 16 gets that opportunity to ask questions or make 17 comments.
18 And then if time is permitting we're going 19 to give people probably another opportunity with some 20 additional questions. But we really want to make sure 21 everybody has that opportunity to ask their first set 22 of questions.
23 Right now that is the plan, correct, yes.
24 (Off microphone comment.)
25 MS. JANDA: It's not. My understanding is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 it's not working at this point. I apologize for that.
2 PARTICIPANT: Did you switch the people 3 that you normally hire to do this because we had it 4 for the last several meetings and I don't understand 5 why all of a sudden we don't have it.
6 MS. JANDA: Yes, my understanding is we 7 did not switch. It's just there was some technical 8 difficulty at this point with the closed captioning.
9 Okay, so before we begin with the public 10 speakers we will start with any elected officials or 11 their representatives who would like to speak or to 12 offer prepared statements. I do have a list here of 13 some that said they may want to speak. Rory Clark 14 from Senator Markey's office.
15 MS. CLARK: Thank you. A statement on 16 behalf of Senator Edward Markey. For years Pilgrim 17 Nuclear Power Station has received the lowest operable 18 safety rating from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
19 Now right as Entergy prepares to shutter 20 the plant and sell it to new owners the NRC is saying 21 that all of the safety concerns have been addressed.
22 The surrounding community has earned its 23 skepticism of Entergy's safety record and it is up to 24 the NRC to make sure the public is fully engaged and 25 briefed on this latest step in Pilgrim's process, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 particularly as Entergy continues to receive 2 exemptions from the NRC on safety requirements and as 3 Entergy and Holtec work to get approval for their 4 plans to decommission the plant.
5 After the NRC's last public meeting here 6 in January Senator Warren, Congressman Keating and I 7 wrote to the NRC asking them to address several 8 serious financial and environmental questions raised 9 by this community regarding the proposed sale of the 10 plant.
11 I am disappointed that the NRC felt it was 12 unable to offer a substantive response at this time.
13 This plant may be about to decommission but it will be 14 a part of this community for decades to come and this 15 community deserves to be heard.
16 I will continue to fight to ensure that 17 Pilgrim is held to the highest of safety standards 18 before, during and after the decommissioning process 19 and to ensure that this community's ongoing concerns 20 are received and addressed.
21 I look forward to continuing to work with 22 the, engage with the NRC, Pilgrim owners and operators 23 and community stakeholders. Thank you.
24 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Hannah Benson from 25 Senator Warren's office.
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23 1 MS. BENSON: Hello. I have a statement 2 here from Senator Warren. Senator Warren remains 3 extremely concerned about Entergy's management of 4 Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station as it moves towards 5 decommissioning later this year.
6 She is disappointed in the Nuclear 7 Regulatory Commission's recent actions that move 8 Pilgrim from a Column 4 station, the worst safety 9 rating a facility can have, to Column 1 without fully 10 considering the local community's safety concerns.
11 Since Pilgrim entered Column 4 in 2015 12 Senators Warren and Markey have sent six letters to 13 the NRC raising concerns about a number of ongoing 14 security issues at Pilgrim.
15 With the June 1st decommissioning of 16 Pilgrim fast approaching and the license transfer from 17 Entergy to Holtec International under review the NRC 18 must take aggressive steps to hold Entergy and Holtec 19 accountable, prioritize safety and environmental 20 concerns and remain transparent with the community 21 about any actions regarding Pilgrim Nuclear Power 22 Station. Thank you.
23 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Michael Jackman 24 from Representative Keating's office.
25 MR. JACKMAN: Thank you. Congressman NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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24 1 Keating apologizes for not being able to be here 2 tonight. He is in D.C. I am happy to be here to read 3 a statement on his behalf.
4 I have long urged the NRC to hold Entergy 5 to the highest inspectional standards so that the 6 plant was not allowed to remain at the lowest level of 7 allowable operational safety as it approaches the 8 cessation of power generation operations.
9 As the June 1st date is now just over 60 10 days away the decision by the NRC to move Plymouth 11 Nuclear Power Station from Column 4 to Column 1 is 12 welcome news but should not result in any reduction in 13 the NRC's careful oversight of the plant's operation.
14 I believe it is also important to 15 acknowledge the hard work of Pilgrim employees who 16 live and work in our community and who have a stake in 17 this plant's safe operation.
18 I will continue to work with them as well 19 as with my fellow state, federal and local officials 20 to hold the plant and its licensees accountable for 21 the safety of the residents of the Ninth District of 22 Massachusetts. Thank you.
23 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Matt Muratore for, 24 representing various state officials.
25 MR. MURATORE: Good evening. Thank you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 all for coming out here again this year. My name is 2 Matt Muratore. I'm the State Representative for the 3 1st Plymouth District.
4 That includes the majority of the Town of 5 Plymouth. And with me is Representative Kathleen 6 LaNatra from the 12th Plymouth District which includes 7 Plymouth, Kingston and surrounding areas.
8 I'm here to read a statement and ask a 9 quick question. The statement is on behalf of the 10 South Shore Delegation, the South Coast Delegation, 11 the Cape Cod Delegation of State Representatives and 12 Senators.
13 The Pilgrim Plant delegation of your state 14 reps and senators met earlier today with 15 representatives from the NRC. At that meeting we were 16 briefed on the current status of the plant.
17 The delegation asked probing questions 18 about the change in status and about the closure 19 process including Holtec's financial stability. This 20 delegation stands united in our efforts to pass 21 legislation to help ensure the prompt and safe 22 decommissioning of the power plant.
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26 1 can the trust fund money be used, decommissioning fund 2 money be used to pay a pilot program, pay in lieu of 3 taxes?
4 PARTICIPANT: That's a good question.
5 Yes, taxes for property taxes are an indirect expense 6 that can be used, decommissioning trust fund can be 7 used for.
8 I'm not familiar with the pilot project.
9 So I really can't comment on that.
10 MR. MURATORE: What it is, is payment in 11 lieu of taxes so I think you've answered the question.
12 Thank you.
13 MS. JANDA: Thank you. At this point are 14 there any other elected officials or their 15 representatives who would like to speak or offer a 16 prepared statement?
17 MR. DORFLER: Assistant Attorney General 18 Joseph Dorfler on behalf of the Massachusetts Attorney 19 General's office. We don't have a statement at this 20 time but wanted to note our appearance. Thank you.
21 MS. JANDA: Thank you. So now we're going 22 to, we will start with our first speaker. We're going 23 to read the numbers across in the rows. And the first 24 person will be Number 15.
25 MS. DUBOIS: Thank you. I was 14, so NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 1 Pine DuBois from the Town of Kingston and also the 2 NDCAP.
3 And my question really has to do not with 4 your recent decision to elevate Entergy's operations 5 to Column 1, that's fine. My question has to do with 6 your oversight during the decommissioning process, 7 what you said would be robust.
8 But I would like you to explain the 9 guidance that those inspectors will follow relative to 10 our changing environmental conditions.
11 When I was here in January I think I, we 12 had a little exchange about the way sea level is 13 rising and the impact that can have on the facility 14 not because of anybody's doing other than, you know, 15 our collective world view of things.
16 But sea level is rising. Storms are 17 increasing. Rain is falling harder. The ground water 18 will rise. The sea will rise.
19 The so the question has to do really with 20 where is the NRC at, at not only helping the industry 21 but in your guidance for having rapid decommissioning 22 and clean up of these sites so that they can be 23 successful?
24 If you are delayed, if you do not adopt 25 construction measures that will enable the kinds of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 work that you have to do, if you will instead and this 2 is the point I was trying to make in January, if you 3 will instead let everything wash everything out to sea 4 then in our minds and in our belief living here and 5 relying on that sea that's not an effective and robust 6 clean up.
7 So where is the NRC guidance there? You 8 know, we just had, you know, the deluge in Nebraska, 9 you know, flooding some nuclear facilities. You know, 10 it happened in New Orleans.
11 Where is the guidance? It is not in the 12 SEIS and it is not in the GEIS. You have to implement 13 some.
14 So given the inspectors are there are they 15 going to run and hide or are they going to help adopt 16 some construction mechanisms that is going to make 17 sure that this decommissioning and the clean up is 18 successful?
19 MR. LEW: So there was a number of 20 questions there. I understand your questions in terms 21 of how we deal with the change in flood heights. We 22 have, you know, we have required licensees to 23 reevaluate the flood heights relative to the operating 24 plant.
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29 1 that they are appropriately compensating for the flood 2 heights there. With respect to dry storage, you know, 3 we understand that pad is being moved up an additional 4 50 feet higher.
5 Generally when we look at our oversight we 6 do look at impacts on environmental, impacts on the 7 particular facility and we will be inspecting 8 accordingly. It's not specifically written in a 9 specific SER.
10 But it's a part of what we review relative 11 to changes in the environment.
12 MS. DUBOIS: To clarify, I guess, I think 13 that generally speaking your guidance, as in a lot of 14 construction guidance, is very exact. And it is very 15 determinative of what tools and methods should be used 16 in any sort of construction effort.
17 I do not know where that exists here. I 18 suspect that it does not exist. And what I am asking 19 and I'm not necessarily asking, Mr. Lew, for you to 20 tell me right now today, I am asking that you direct 21 your energies to address this major concern that is 22 going to affect Pilgrim as well as the other 23 facilities in the country.
24 MS. JANDA: Thank you. The next speaker 25 will be Number 7.
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30 1 MS. LAMPERT: Yes, Mary Lampert speaking 2 for Pilgrim Watch. I'll do it as quickly as I can.
3 The question really is how did Pilgrim, 4 even though you tried to explain, go from 4 directly 5 to 1 skipping any intermediate steps which I think 6 would have been a little bit more believable?
7 I think the decision is more of a 8 political decision not based on its performance. It 9 seems clear to me that once again NRC commissioners, 10 not the staff are once again acquiescing to the 11 nuclear industry's push for fewer inspections at 12 plants letting the industry self-assess its 13 performance and cut back on what it tells the public 14 about plant's problems.
15 The NRC Commissioners and industry 16 representatives, NEI, say changes in oversight are 17 warranted to reflect the industry's overall improved 18 safety records.
19 And how would NRC show improved industry 20 records to justify essentially a hands off policy 21 giving out green findings across the board in the 22 ropes that would show a justification for this policy?
23 And of course we know however, that 24 deregulation hands off from the NRC in this case would 25 compromise safety. And with an industry that can have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 1 huge consequences that's a very bad idea.
2 We have seen it in this administration 3 whether it's FAA, whether it's EPA, across the board 4 to deregulate.
5 Another high priority of NEI's Christmas 6 list to the Commissioners was to eliminate press 7 releases about low level, so to speak, safety issues 8 at plants meaning the kind of problems that could 9 trigger more inspections and oversight at a plant but 10 not constitute an emergency.
11 That's to save money for the industry.
12 The industry group also asked that NRC reduce the 13 burden of radiation protection and emergency 14 preparedness inspections.
15 All of this was laid out by the Associated 16 Press in a March 15, 2019, report and they have a 17 hyperlink in that report to the September 19, 2018, 18 NEI letter to NRC regarding the rope and allowing 19 essentially self-assessment.
20 And so I think you all have done a good 21 job. Brian Sullivan is far, far better as a VP than 22 we've seen here in a very long time. But it's the 23 Commissioners that I'm very concerned about.
24 MR. LEW: Thank you, Mary. Just for 25 clarification, the decision to move Pilgrim from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 Column 4 to Column 1 was not a Commission decision.
2 It was a decision made by the Commission 3 staff. And just to be clear, you know, all of the 4 plants that have been in Column 4, you know, the way 5 we approach things is we call it the way we see it 6 whether it was placing Pilgrim in Column 4 in 2015 or 7 taking them out at this point.
8 And most plants have actually transitioned 9 to Column 1, in fact. And those that did not the 10 reason that they did not typically is because they 11 still have an existing greater than green input, an 12 existing white or existing yellow.
13 In this case Pilgrim does not have an 14 existing input and in fact since we have put them in 15 Column 4 there was no greater than green or very low 16 safety significance, no greater than green performance 17 indicator or finding.
18 So it was appropriate for us to transition 19 from Column 4 to Column 1. Another thing I just want 20 to add. I know I'm talking to much.
21 The other thing I want to add is one of 22 the things that we, approach that we do is we want to 23 ensure that they address the underlying conditions of 24 what drove the performance decline back in 2015.
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33 1 improvement, progress and improvement but we weren't 2 ready to say it was sustainable. This year we 3 continue to see progress and improvement.
4 They have addressed the underlying issues.
5 And so there's been a history through the CALs that we 6 have issued as well as other documents.
7 And our goal is really to ensure that 8 these plants do not jump in and out of Column 4. We 9 want them to address the underlying issues and for us 10 to have a level of confidence before we take them out 11 of Column 4. We call it the way we see it.
12 MR. LAMPERT: Jim Lampert, Duxbury.
13 MS. JANDA: Excuse me, Mr. Lampert, you're 14 Number 8 just to be sure?
15 MR. LAMPERT: I am.
16 MS. JANDA: Okay, thank you.
17 MR. LAMPERT: That's what it says in red.
18 I want to pick up where my wife left off a couple of 19 things.
20 First off, the reasons the industry gives 21 for wanting to back off that things are too burdensome 22 and it gives them problems with the SEC I trust the 23 NRC would agree are no reason at all to back off 24 making the types of inspections you ought to be 25 making.
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34 1 However, there are examples of backing 2 off. And probably one of the clearest is the 3 decommissioning rule if you want to look at 4 burdensome.
5 The basic justification for what looks 6 like it's probably going to become the final 7 decommissioning rule is this is costing Entergy and 8 the NRC just too much time and we're going to save 9 time for the public who before has spent time getting 10 into things, never had any success but now they won't 11 have to waste their time and money and effort.
12 Looking forward I'm concerned about 13 inspections. Pilgrim moved from 4 to 1. They did so 14 because they had a good vice president, and I am glad 15 for a change, and because you had a lot of 16 inspections.
17 What's going on as we get to 18 decommissioning? Resident inspectors are going to 19 leave. There aren't going to be any resident 20 inspectors anymore.
21 We all know what happens when you put too 22 much out to "self-regulation". And if you think of it 23 look at Max 8's and Boeing.
24 There are going to be a lot of things 25 happening over the next 45 years that are going to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 1 very important to people who live around here and I'm 2 not going to be here for the next 45 years but heaven 3 knows a lot of our, now I'm taking to groups children 4 and grandchildren will be.
5 So let me ask just three or four 6 questions. Will the NRC be there when fuel is being 7 moved from the reactor into the spent fuel pool?
8 Will you be there when it goes from the 9 spent fuel pool into dry casks and eventually when 10 it's moved off site? Will you be there at the end 11 when somebody goes around and tests to see whether the 12 place is really clean?
13 I have no idea who at Holtec or at their 14 partner, Lavalin has any near the competence or 15 experience that Entergy finally stepped up to at the 16 tail end here.
17 Holtec has never decommissioned anything 18 in its life. Lavalin has never decommissioned 19 anything in the United States. And let's face it, it 20 had problems doing what it thought it knew how to do 21 out at Santa Nofre (phonetic).
22 And its overall reputation in the world 23 for doing the job and doing it honestly is not 24 particularly great. So my final question and I guess 25 it's to Tony is, you talked about increased oversight.
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36 1 I think what we need to know and we need 2 to know pretty close to right now is specifically what 3 oversight, what inspections? What are you going to do 4 to keep track of what is going on during 5 decommissioning when it's run by people who have never 6 done it before?
7 MR. LEW: Thanks, Jim. So I'm going to 8 ask our Decommissioning Branch Chief, Ray Powell to 9 answer the questions associated with decommissioning.
10 As he's getting up I just want to clarify 11 that relative to the question of will the NRC be there 12 when they move the fuel from the reactor vessel to the 13 spent fuel pool, that will still be under Tony's 14 responsibility.
15 He will still have residence on site to 16 observe the movement of the fuel from the reactor 17 vessel to the spent fuel pool. At that point once we 18 get a, I would expect the entity to provide us a 19 letter certifying that they have removed all of the 20 fuel from the reactor vessel.
21 At that point then it goes over to Ray 22 Powell who has the responsibility for the inspections.
23 MR. LAMPERT: After that the resident 24 inspectors are gone, correct?
25 MR. POWELL: Well let's talk about that.
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37 1 MR. LAMPERT: And also a question just a 2 little layer we talked about the first transfers.
3 There are at least three more of spent fuel by the 4 time you get stuff out of here long after I'm dead.
5 MR. POWELL: Okay. Let me start at the 6 beginning. As Dave mentioned, yes, we will be 7 watching them unload the vessel into the pool. I've 8 coordinated with Tony already.
9 We'll have one of my inspectors who are 10 ASFC (phonetic) qualified even though it's not an ASFC 11 loading campaign they are very familiar with fuel 12 movements. They will supplement the resident 13 inspector.
14 So, yes, we will be there. With respect 15 to when it comes time for what I call an extended 16 offload loading campaign I can't tell you that we're 17 going to watch every cask.
18 We will pick and choose and we will be on 19 site monitoring the activities. And I know you had a 20 third question and it's escaping me.
21 MR. LAMPERT: The next move we've got it 22 into the casks. Eventually we have to get it off site 23 probably in new casks or new packaging. What's your 24 involvement in oversight of that?
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38 1 future and a policy question. I don't know if you 2 have any more information on that then I would on 3 that, Bruce.
4 MR. WATSON: Yes. This is Bruce Watson.
5 In the future we would be there to monitor and inspect 6 the transfer of that fuel just like we do low level 7 waste today.
8 So those programs would have to be 9 developed along with when the DOE or if it turns out 10 to be a private consortium at this point to an interim 11 storage those types of containers and to make sure 12 they're properly packaged and shipped.
13 Right now the dry storage containers are 14 designed to be transported. And so we would expect 15 that.
16 I wanted to add one more thing. Part of 17 your question was who is going to verify that the site 18 was cleaned up. That will be the NRC.
19 If you look at what we're doing right now 20 at the Zion Plant, Lacrosse Plant and Humboldt Bay 21 which is what we've been doing since Day 1 with large 22 decommissioning projects, is we employ an independent 23 contractor.
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39 1 of Science and Education. They do perform independent 2 surveys for us.
3 They sample the soil and everything else, 4 survey the areas to verify that the licensee has met 5 the requirements that's going to be in their license 6 termination plan. They also operate a world class 7 laboratory for us and for the Department of Energy.
8 And so we have, we use that as the 9 comparison or benchmark for all radiological 10 measurements. So I think our program in that area is 11 quite extensive.
12 There's an inspection procedure on it.
13 It's publicly available on our website too. So I 14 think between our NRC inspectors and our supervision 15 of our contractor we have a very good program that 16 will verify that the sites are cleaned up.
17 As you know, we've done ten of these sites 18 and we're expecting to terminate both Zion 1 and 2, 19 Lacrosse and Humboldt Bay probably by, I'm going to 20 say mid 2020, okay. So we'll have 14 in the bank.
21 So, thank you.
22 MR. POWELL: And I think the last part of 23 your question was there an inspection presence, what 24 I can tell you is it will be commensurate with the 25 level of activity at the site.
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40 1 And to give a more concrete example than 2 just those words, if you look at what BY (phonetic) is 3 doing they have now entered active decommissioning.
4 I basically have an inspector on site for all key 5 activities.
6 And right now it's averaging about one 7 week a month. If it needs to be more it will be. If 8 it needs to be less we'll adjust.
9 The contrary would be someone like Crystal 10 River 3. They are in safe store. They haven't done 11 anything in quite some time other than some rad waste 12 shipments.
13 So we go down there about twice a year 14 because that's commensurate with the level of activity 15 at the site. And all this is spelled out in 16 Inspection Manual, Chapter 2561.
17 Understand, but it will give you 18 references in that to the procedure Bruce referenced 19 and the information though, understand, but it is 20 readily available.
21 MS. JANDA: Okay. The next speaker is 22 Number 3.
23 MS. TURCO: Hi. Diane Turco with Cape 24 Downwinders. It's my understanding that multiple 25 repetitive degraded is kind of what Column 4 is all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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41 1 about.
2 So I don't know what planet you're on 3 because what I'm reading is something very different 4 and it's from your reports, okay. Pilgrim's repeated 5 shutdowns are costly.
6 This is from 2018. They lost $63 million 7 in 57 days. That equals a poor safety culture.
8 They're not going to put money into fixes.
9 They aren't and it's being proven by these 10 shutdowns because of degraded equipment. We also see 11 ongoing problems with valves, parts being installed 12 backwards.
13 Valve closure causes an automatic shutdown 14 at Pilgrim. Pilgrim powers down a day after favorable 15 report. A fleet-wide order to prevent willful 16 misconduct issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 17 to Entergy because of willful misconduct.
18 And that happened at Pilgrim when a worker 19 did not do his rounds and falsified the records.
20 That's not the first time. It's happened may times.
21 So now the whole fleet has an order to put 22 a plan together to prevent willful misconduct. And 23 then hundreds of Pilgrim tasks were downgraded. They 24 went from, they were reduced because of a backlog of 25 work from adverse to non-adverse.
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42 1 That was in 2018. You can't tell me 2 Pilgrim is now in Column 1. These are from your 3 reports.
4 Specifically, 2018 Entergy personnel 5 failed to implement work order requirements on 6 feedwater regulating valve. That caused the scram.
7 That's happened many times, okay.
8 Entergy did not take effective corrective 9 actions to address issues in a timely manner 10 commensurate with their safety significance. Entergy 11 should still be in Column 4.
12 And why you moved them up to Column 1, I 13 mean maybe, you know, maybe you're miracle workers or 14 something. But the reality is it should have stayed 15 in 4.
16 It's still a threat to our communities.
17 Last thing, January 4th was a scram, loss of off site 18 power. We know that happens during many storms and 19 Pilgrim scrammed.
20 We wanted Pilgrim to be shut down. Their 21 procedures are to shut down early but they don't 22 follow procedures and you don't enforce them because 23 they're not regulations.
24 And you actually said when you inspected 25 that you said, let's see, Entergy had a documented NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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43 1 difficulty following, the inspectors also determined, 2 "it was not reasonable to foresee or correct the cause 3 during a storm".
4 So if operators cannot foresee the loss of 5 off site power during a predicated and reported severe 6 storm they shouldn't be operating a nuclear reactor.
7 And you're not doing your job.
8 So we're calling on the NRC to be 9 abolished just like the Atomic Energy Commission. And 10 that it be replaced with an authority that is 11 transferred to federal and state intergovernmental 12 agency independent of the nuclear industry including 13 representation by state and local stakeholders who 14 will have full authority for public health and safety 15 for their communities.
16 MR. LEW: Diane, I wasn't sure whether 17 those were statements or questions. But I will 18 address a few things, if I may.
19 First is those are issues that we 20 identified and were in the NRC report. And so just to 21 give you a little bit perspective in terms of how we 22 come to some of the conclusions and so forth, you 23 talked about the January trip, January 2018.
24 So it was about 14 months ago. And our 25 conclusion was that was an issue that was caused by NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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44 1 something miles from the plant, not owned by Entergy.
2 When we look at that particular issue and 3 we look at the switch yard I think over the years in 4 response to what we have provided oversight is, and 5 one of the bigger contributors into the, Entergy 6 being, Pilgrim being placed in Column 4 was the 7 vulnerability of the switch yard.
8 In that case it was not caused by the 9 switch yard. That was caused by something outside the 10 switch yard.
11 And the modifications that they 12 implemented, the procedures, the processes, the human 13 performance in fact improved the robustness of the 14 Pilgrim switch yard. In fact, there were no scrams 15 that were caused by the Pilgrim switch yard in the 16 last three winter seasons.
17 And they went beyond that. And just to 18 give you a sense of why we think the safety culture 19 improved and the conservative decision making. They 20 engaged Eversource, the company that owned the grid 21 and the equipment.
22 They worked with them in terms of ensuring 23 that the lightning lines that caused the trip was 24 addressed more holistically in terms of doing 25 inspections and so forth. So that's just a piece of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 1 what that reflects.
2 And also I will offer that we don't look 3 at how much money they lose or not. In some cases if 4 they're shutting down they are shutting down to fix 5 things.
6 And that, and from a safety point of view 7 that is in my mind not a bad thing.
8 MS. TURCO: The off site line was based on 9 Entergy's procedures to shut down if there's a 10 possibility of loss of off site power, not the switch 11 yard but loss of off site power.
12 And that storm was advertised all over the 13 news, the National Weather Service loss of power to be 14 predicted in this area and they didn't shut down.
15 MR. LEW: Yes, so, you know --
16 MS. TURCO: So they didn't follow the 17 procedures. But the issue is you can't enforce them 18 following their procedures. If it was a --
19 MR. LEW: No, I would disagree. They did 20 follow their procedures. And we can get into --
21 MS. TURCO: Okay, no. I'll show you the 22 procedures, yes.
23 MR. LEW: -- more of a discussion on this.
24 MS. JANDA: Okay, thank you. The next 25 speaker will be Number 4.
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46 1 MS. DICKINSON: Good evening. My name is 2 Elaine Dickinson and I am also with Cape Downwinders.
3 And with the closing of Pilgrim the most 4 pressing issue today is how to deal with the 5 radioactive waste in a manner that keeps with the 6 NRC's mandate of protecting people and the 7 environment.
8 Selling Pilgrim to Holtec produces so many 9 unanswered questions. The casks, all casks are not 10 created equal. Thin, cheap casks are not as robust as 11 the thicker casks used in Europe.
12 Moving the waste to an area across the 13 country opens more dangerous scenarios with 14 potentially devastating accidents. Putting the waste 15 in indigenous communities that do not want it is 16 racist.
17 And remember just because Holtec says they 18 will accomplish the decommissioning in a very short 19 time wouldn't it be foolish to think that haste is 20 best when dealing with this potentially lethal 21 material.
22 In '75, 1975 the Atomic Energy Commission 23 was abolished by an Act of Congress. A new agency was 24 created, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, your 25 agency with the mandate of protecting public health NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 1 and safety.
2 As your website banner says, protecting 3 people and the environment. The citizens demand you 4 uphold your mandate or be abolished as your 5 predecessor was and replaced with an agency that will.
6 By transferring Pilgrim's license to 7 Holtec, a company that has never decommissioned a 8 reactor before and which is joining with SNC-Lavalin, 9 a Canadian company under investigation for corruption 10 and bribery, seriously I ask you how can you uphold 11 your mandate by transferring the license to such a 12 company?
13 If there was no suitable company to do 14 this dangerous work why not allow Entergy to do the 15 decommissioning and take care of the waste that they 16 have produced? The community is watching.
17 MR. LEW: So I take that as a statement?
18 MS. DICKINSON: That's a question. Is 19 that a consideration? We've been to these 20 decommissioning Commission meetings and it sounds like 21 it's a done deal that Holtec is going to get it.
22 MR. LEW: Well again, I guess, you know, 23 I think as I stated in the beginning we are not, it 24 was under review. It's pre-decisional. Also there 25 was contentions associated with that issue.
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48 1 So we won't be answering those questions 2 that are directly related to the license transfer.
3 MS. DICKINSON: Well I'm just giving you 4 things to think about then. Thank you.
5 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Next speaker will 6 be Number 19.
7 MR. GARRITY: Good evening. My name is 8 John Garrity and I was the recovery manager at Pilgrim 9 as we came through this series of inspections.
10 And if you remember last time we were here 11 I got asked the question why was it going to take so 12 long for Pilgrim to return to Column 1. And I 13 explained that it was going to be a systematic very 14 detailed process of inspections that we would follow.
15 That we were scheduled to come back to 16 Column 1 right about this time frame. I also 17 explained that we as Pilgrim Station were taking 18 ownership of our problems which meant we had to work 19 very diligently on our culture which is our core 20 values.
21 One of our core values which is just 22 unmistakable is safety. So the NRC made sure that not 23 only did we solve our technical issues which were 24 relatively easy to show compared to our cultural 25 issues, and then they made sure that we took the time NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 1 to understand and correct the underlying root causes 2 of these issues.
3 That took a lot of time. And I personally 4 was involved with all five inspections. And I can 5 tell you those inspections were not performed by 6 politicians.
7 They were performed by engineers. And if 8 you deal with engineers they deal with facts. So we 9 dealt with the facts. We dealt with the causes.
10 And then at the very last inspection was 11 our safety culture inspection. And that one took the 12 longest because it's the hardest.
13 It's very hard to prove to people that you 14 care about safety, that you understand you own the 15 issues and that you, us were responsible for creating 16 them, correcting them and making sure they didn't come 17 back.
18 So I feel proud of the people that worked 19 on that project. I'm very confident that we corrected 20 the issues.
21 But I'm more confident that we learned how 22 we got there so that we will not go there again. So 23 thank you very much.
24 MS. JANDA: Thank you. The next speaker 25 will be Number 17.
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50 1 MS. CORRIGAN: Hi, Joanne Corrigan 2 (phonetic). I live here in Plymouth. I can actually 3 ride my bike down to the power plant. I have a couple 4 concerns.
5 And apparently there are those of us who 6 are skeptical that Pilgrim went magically from Column 7 4 to Column 1. And I have a problem with trying to 8 believe that since their corrective action plans that 9 they've had over the years they've failed this, this 10 didn't work, they didn't know how to fix it.
11 And they didn't give them six months, a 12 year, whatever to fix it. You guys gave them get to 13 it when you feel like it which is why a lot of stuff 14 never got done.
15 I was in the, I was an (inaudible) tech 16 for 45 years. We had hospital inspections. If JCAHO 17 finds out something was wrong, that we were doing 18 something in any part of the hospital we had a 19 corrective action plan with a set time frame which 20 these guys never got which is why a lot of stuff 21 didn't get done.
22 They have a laundry list of failures over 23 there starting with the operators failing your own 24 proficiency test, the equipment malfunctions numerous, 25 the repairs not done or done incorrectly and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 1 falsification of their medical physicals. That was a 2 good one.
3 So the violation of their inspections and 4 so many failures over so many years only resulted in 5 a pass or a slap on the wrist by the NRC. Do you 6 really expect us to believe that Pilgrim went from 4 7 to 1 in a short time as if by magic?
8 Which leads me to believe that apparently 9 Entergy hired Dumbledore and the Wizard of Oz and 10 that's how it got done. But there's one problem over, 11 after the other over there not to mention the nitwit 12 decision to put the casks next to the ocean.
13 What on earth were they thinking? They 14 didn't have to have big studies done. Just come down 15 in any Nor'easter stand at the step end of Priscilla 16 Beach. That wave comes up those 12 steps into the 17 street across the parking lot into the street.
18 And they put those casks so close to the 19 ocean with an area where we have Nor'easters, 20 hurricanes, full moon high tides constantly and not to 21 mention the sea level is rising.
22 So and then now they're going to put them 23 along Rocky Hill Road so the terrorists can see the 24 targets they need to hit with their RPGs.
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52 1 indicative of the lack of interest and concern to keep 2 us safe. Thank you.
3 MR. LEW: And thank you. I understand 4 your skepticism. I would maybe offer this for you to 5 consider and something that we look at.
6 It's beyond just having all the actions 7 that were done under the Confirmatory Action Letter as 8 well as the effectiveness review. But when I take a 9 step back and I take a look in the last two years 10 there were two scrams at Pilgrim.
11 One was outside their control, equipment 12 that was miles from the plant and not owned by the 13 licensee. But those two scrams, and one was an 14 equipment failure.
15 But that's not abnormal in terms of what 16 you see in other plants consistent with Column 1. But 17 the more salient piece of it is when the plants did 18 scram and you look at the response the equipment 19 worked the way it should have.
20 Processes and procedures were followed.
21 Performance of the operators were good. And that's an 22 important data point, you know, in terms of how the 23 plant responds to the scram.
24 And I just share that with you to sort of 25 contrast that to 2015 when they had the scram and they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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53 1 had a safety-related valve that did not work as it 2 should have. That there were risks, important 3 equipment that did not respond the way they did.
4 The command and control was not as strong 5 as it should be. So that's certainly an indication in 6 terms of how they addressed those issues and looking 7 at how the plant responded.
8 So, you know, certainly I just share that 9 as a data point for you to consider.
10 MS. CORRIGAN: Well Pilgrim did not do 11 what it had to do when it was generating and making 12 money and making electricity. So I can't imagine when 13 it goes offline how all of a sudden it's going to have 14 this big concern to keep us safe.
15 In March, we knew about those storms. It 16 was, March was one storm after the other last year.
17 The third of March we had a huge nor'easter storm.
18 I went all the way to 495, nobody had 19 power. I came down here to get to 495 and I couldn't 20 even get down Rocky Hill Road there were so many trees 21 down.
22 I got to the light here. All the power 23 was out. The only reason I got out of here was 24 through that little side road you have going to 3A and 25 that's only because I have a little standard and I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 1 went off road into the mud and snow to get out of 2 there.
3 And Entergy claimed they didn't lose off 4 site power. They didn't lose any power at all. Well 5 that's funny. They must have their own power source 6 because none of the street lights were working and 7 there was no power from here to 495.
8 They don't take into consideration where 9 this plant is, the kind of weather we get here. So I 10 don't know how if no one is inspecting them the whole 11 time that they have to wait, what four years for the 12 thing to cool down to take the rest of the rods out, 13 right?
14 MR. LEW: Right. And I just want to be 15 respectful of other's time. I don't want the 16 conversation to go a little long, you know, being 17 respectful.
18 And I'm looking at Donna to tell me to 19 yank me off the mic. But just to share with you last 20 year, 2018 was a significant winter season. It was 21 tough.
22 In each of those cases we had inspectors 23 on site ensuring that the licensee followed their 24 procedures, appropriately addressed those issues.
25 Yes, there was the January trip.
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55 1 There was also a delay in the start up 2 that was for another trip. But we were there. And I 3 just want to assure you that we were there and we 4 observed and inspected throughout.
5 MS. JANDA: Okay, thank you. Next speaker 6 is Number 1.
7 MR. GOLLINGHAM: John Gollingham 8 (phonetic). I'm really glad I got Number 1. I've 9 read some NRC testing that acknowledges the potential 10 for chloride stress corrosion cracking in the type of 11 steel used in Holtec's dry cask storage system.
12 And because the casks are so close to the 13 ocean do you include testing, did you include testing 14 in your safety assessment of the casks?
15 MR. WATSON: Let me just speak to the fact 16 that chloride stress corrosion is a known entity for 17 attacking stainless steels.
18 The stainless steels are, the design of 19 the casks and the thickness of the walls all take that 20 into consideration along with long term monitoring of 21 the containers.
22 MR. GOLLINGHAM: So how do you, what 23 monitoring is used?
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56 1 surveillance requirements for looking at the casks.
2 Not long ago one cask was removed from 3 Maine Yankee and tested and it had been there for, I 4 think a dozen years. And so no signs of any corrosion 5 or other activity.
6 MR. GOLLINGHAM: And what emergency plan 7 is intact in case a cracked cask, right? I can't 8 even, the plan of an event of a cracked cask, is there 9 an emergency plan in place? What happens then?
10 MR. WATSON: Yes, the casks are inspected 11 or at least the facility is inspected at least 12 annually. There are plans in place for and the fact 13 that if they were to detect a leak that actions could 14 be taken.
15 MR. GOLLINGHAM: What actions?
16 MR. WATSON: One would be to make sure 17 that the monitoring of the cask continues and see what 18 kind of provisions could be made to have the cask 19 removed and encapsulated or placed in another cask to 20 ensure its integrity.
21 MR. GOLLINGHAM: It doesn't sound like 22 anything is in place. And can a cracked cask be 23 moved?
24 MR. WATSON: Well I guess you have to 25 define crack. We expect a crack would be very minor.
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57 1 However, you know, to have a crack is extremely 2 unlikely.
3 There would have to be some kind of cause 4 for that. That's why we would inspect them and 5 periodically to make sure that there is no corrosion 6 or attacks on the particular metal for the long term 7 storage of these casks.
8 MR. GOLLINGHAM: From my obsessive 9 research the chloride stress cracking is like spider 10 cracks. It's not like a nice little crack that you 11 can weld or anything like that.
12 Holtec's president said if you could find 13 a crack it couldn't be fixed. So that's why I'm 14 curious, I'm not hearing, you know, you have a plan in 15 place because you can't fix the crack. It's not a 16 fixable crack.
17 MR. WATSON: And this is why I mentioned 18 taking and putting the cask in another cask to ensure 19 the integrity of the material.
20 MR. GOLLINGHAM: Are those casks going to 21 be on site? Are you going to have Holtec have those 22 extra casks on site?
23 MR. WATSON: There's no requirement for 24 that right now.
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58 1 be important.
2 MR. WATSON: Well let me finish. Holtec 3 is not the only manufacturer. New home facilities 4 actually have a transfer cask which could be used to 5 load an old cask into.
6 I was just out at Rancho Seco. They still 7 have the old transfer cask there which is available 8 for how they transferred it from the plant to the dry 9 fuel storage.
10 MR. GOLLINGHAM: So there was a container 11 at the Koeberg Plant in South Africa which was thicker 12 steel than what is used in Holtec steel. And that had 13 a through the wall crack within 17 years.
14 Can you talk to that? Do you know any 15 more information on that?
16 MR. WATSON: I really don't know any 17 information about that.
18 MR. GOLLINGHAM: It's in one of your 19 documents.
20 MR. WATSON: Yes, I do decommissioning.
21 I don't do spent fuel management. I'm trying to at 22 least answer some of your questions.
23 That one I don't know the particular 24 technical details on. But I would point out that 25 there's been comments made that thicker casks are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 1 safer.
2 I don't know that's necessarily true. If 3 you say this cask was thicker, so --
4 MR. GOLLINGHAM: Well that was my next 5 question. Why are thick wall casks used in other 6 countries and not in America? Why aren't we doing 7 that?
8 MR. WATSON: The primary reason that we 9 have thinner walled casks than those made in Europe is 10 our casks are designed to be transferred. So they are 11 intended to be able to place in a transfer cask so 12 they could be shipped to a permanent repository.
13 MR. GOLLINGHAM: Well that's a concern of 14 mine as well because if they sit by the ocean with the 15 chlorine and now they're next to the road with more 16 chlorine coming up with road salt if that steel 17 becomes more vulnerable and you're not catching that 18 cask and then you're shipping it across the country 19 that's, right, it's not that funny. I mean I'm 20 concerned about that.
21 MR. WATSON: Well fundamentally to do any 22 type of radioactive material shipment you're going to 23 ensure the integrity of the container before you put 24 it in a transportation mechanism to be moved. That's 25 part of our inspection procedures.
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60 1 MR. GOLLINGHAM: Promise?
2 MR. WATSON: It's part of our inspection 3 procedures even for low level waste today.
4 MR. GOLLINGHAM: All right. My last 5 question is how quickly would the public be informed 6 if a cask cracked?
7 Are we going to be, are you going to keep 8 that to yourselves or will the public be informed that 9 a crack, that you have had an event?
10 MR. WATSON: There are emergency plan 11 procedures in place for dry fuel storage facilities.
12 I would assume those procedures would be followed.
13 Again, it's not my area. But I know they 14 have plans in place for notification of not only the 15 public but the NRC of safety issues.
16 MR. GOLLINGHAM: All right, thank you.
17 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Next speaker, 18 Number 6.
19 MS. CARPENTER: I'm Susan Carpenter with 20 the Cape Downwinders. And I'm concerned about the 21 finances of all of this, about the decommissioning.
22 And one of the things that concerns me is 23 several other companies have requested waivers to use 24 decommissioning funds for other purposes. And I'm 25 wondering has the NRC ever refused to grant a waiver NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 1 to the industry?
2 PARTICIPANT: I guess to rephrase your 3 question is have we ever denied an exemption. And 4 specifically your question is for the separation or, 5 of spent fuel management funds and decommissioning 6 funds.
7 I think there was one. But I can't 8 remember exactly. It may have been either withdrawn 9 by the licensee. There was something that had to do 10 with Vermont Yankee not too long ago.
11 But most exemptions are, the fact that 12 most utilities or licensees at the time the original 13 rules required one fund. And the rules were changed, 14 I think, back a little while ago that you had to have 15 separate funds.
16 But since they have a single fund under 17 one trustee by an independent bank where the money is 18 kept there is actually an accounting by the trustee 19 that separates the two. So that's the equivalent 20 almost of having separate trust funds.
21 So we've granted that exemption where they 22 can show to us that we have two accounting and which 23 money goes where and what it's for.
24 MS. CARPENTER: So it's not a common 25 occurrence then? I mean it's been used for taxes Mary NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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62 1 just said and a waiver was granted.
2 PARTICIPANT: I can tell you that the 3 payment of taxes from the decommissioning fund are 4 only allowed once the plant is in decommissioning.
5 When they're operating they can't use those funds for 6 any other purpose.
7 So they stay with the trustee in the bank.
8 They are not allowed to release the money for anything 9 but decommissioning funded activities.
10 MS. CARPENTER: And that's coming up quite 11 quickly. Thank you.
12 MS. JANDA: Thank you. The next speaker 13 is Number 16. My apologies for missing that. Okay, 14 we're going to move on to Number 2 please.
15 (Off microphone comment.)
16 MS. JANDA: Okay, thank you. Number 11.
17 MR. ROTHSTEIN: Richard Rothstein, Town of 18 Plymouth and Member of the Massachusetts NDCAP. Let 19 me first state that I'm not opposed to nuclear 20 decommissioning trust funds being used for on site 21 spent nuclear fuel management as may be necessary or 22 appropriate.
23 That said, are there any current 24 applicable NRC regulations or policies for existing 25 nuclear power plants which are still operating or have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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63 1 been permanently shut down and undergoing 2 decommissioning per their submitted PSDARs that 3 mandate any monies recovered via lawsuits against the 4 U.S. Department of Energy for on site spent nuclear 5 fuel management be used by the licensee to fully 6 reimburse the decommissioning trust fund if such 7 monies were or will be used via exemptions granted by 8 the NRC for such said purposes?
9 The basis for my question is NRC's October 10 17, 2018, approval of Northstar's financial exemption 11 request made for Vermont Yankee.
12 In that approval the NRC determined that 13 Northstar's revised PSDAR demonstrated reasonable 14 assurance existed that funds within the nuclear 15 decommissioning trust when combined with other funds 16 including a "anticipated future United States 17 Department of Energy reimbursements" would be in 18 excess of the amount needed to cover the estimated 19 costs of radiological decommissioning and irradiated 20 fuel management.
21 MR. WATSON: In the Vermont case part of 22 their justification for maintaining adequate funding 23 to do the decommissioning was that they were going to 24 take credit for any monies that come from DOE go back 25 into the trust fund to either complete the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 1 decommissioning or manage the spent fuel.
2 So that was a commitment they made and we 3 agreed that was okay. Does that answer your question?
4 MR. ROTHSTEIN: Partially. I wasn't 5 questioning the decision of the NRC.
6 My question is more related to regulatory 7 policy in terms of even if the funding is deemed by 8 NRC to be sufficient in that case or in the case for 9 Pilgrim for any future exemptions that may be granted 10 by the NRC is there a current or even a proposed 11 regulatory requirement that such monies recovered from 12 DOE be placed back into the DTF in the event that the 13 licensee has needed to use any portion of the DTF for 14 spent fuel management?
15 MR. WATSON: Well, I guess I'll have to 16 answer your question this way. First of all, you're 17 not supposed to be using decommissioning funds for 18 spent fuel management without our prior approval such 19 as in Vermont because they agreed to put the money 20 back into the fund.
21 But there is no requirement to take the 22 money that you get back from DOE back into the spent 23 fuel fund in order to manage the spent fuel into the 24 future.
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65 1 maintain sufficient funds to make sure the fuel 2 remains safely into the future and that it's properly 3 managed and kept under good security.
4 MR. ROTHSTEIN: I'm satisfied with that, 5 Bruce. What concerns me is why is there not an NRC 6 regulation that spells that out even from a simple 7 bean counting exercise to make sure those monies which 8 were used for spent fuel management costs would go 9 back in terms of recoverable funds from DOE?
10 I know you can't answer that totally. But 11 it's more of a recommendation.
12 MR. WATSON: Yes, I understand that. The 13 decommissioning trust fund is supposed to be 14 independent and sufficient to reasonably, to give us 15 reasonable assurance that they can complete the 16 decommissioning fund.
17 And that's why we have a separation 18 between the two funds designated for the two different 19 issues.
20 MR. ROTHSTEIN: And please note I'm not 21 questioning about NRC's ability to watch everything as 22 carefully as you intend to do and do there, but having 23 that regulation in place is just another belt and 24 suspenders there. Thank you.
25 MR. WATSON: Thank you.
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66 1 MS. JANDA: Next speaker is Number 13.
2 MR. AGNEW: No real concern. The 3 industry's captive regulatory agency has raised 4 Pilgrim from Column 4 to Column 1. I take that as a 5 bad joke but also as a sign that things with our local 6 Mark 1 BWR have been worse.
7 And I'm counting the 67 days until 8 Pilgrim's final shutdown and the unknown number of 9 days until the final defueling of the reactor and 10 removal of all (inaudible) material from the pool.
11 As the Patriot Ledger wrote, "what the 12 public and the regulators need to watch now is how 13 well decommissioning is done." No cutting corners, no 14 substandard materials, no shoddy work.
15 Given that Entergy seeks to hand off 16 Pilgrim to SNC-Lavalin, a scandal plagued outfit 17 facing fraud and corruption charges in relation to 18 millions of dollars of bribes given to Libyan 19 officials, it's not a great start.
20 Abuse of the populous by the nuclear 21 industry will continue. How much abuse? At least as 22 much as the public will tolerate.
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67 1 regarding decommissioning claiming the would be 2 interveners rely on speculation.
3 As if the corporations don't speculate 4 with their own projections. It's ludicrous that the 5 NRC has allowed Entergy to put nary a penny into 6 Pilgrim's decommissioning trust fund in the 19 years 7 they've been the licensed operator.
8 Entergy says that the fund has enough 9 money. The Commonwealth needn't worry it's pretty 10 little head. And they want to tap into the DTF to 11 deal with the waste fuel, the pad, casks, transfer of 12 the high level waste.
13 I guess they failed to speculate that 14 these things would be needed. And by the way, Entergy 15 expects the rate payers to pay Plymouth $13 million 16 for hosting their liability.
17 I wish we could trust the NRC to disallow 18 these obvious attempts at theft. But as former NRC 19 Commissioner Victor Gilinsky said, the Agency is a 20 wholly owned subsidiary of the nuclear power industry.
21 I don't know if I mentioned, I'm David 22 Agnew from Harwich.
23 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Next speaker, 24 Number 9.
25 MS. CHIN: Hi, yes. I'm Rebecca Chin.
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68 1 I'm the co-chair of the Nuclear Advisory Committee for 2 the Town of Duxbury.
3 I have a comment. I've been listening to 4 what will happen with the NRC during decommissioning.
5 My concern is that you will actually have 6 eyes on the ground and you will be protecting the 7 public health and safety of the environment here which 8 we care about.
9 My question is that when you do your final 10 sampling and you send it to your labs to determine the 11 clean up standard, are you going to have split samples 12 so the Massachusetts Department of Public Health can 13 also confirm those numbers?
14 MR. WATSON: Yes, this is Bruce Watson.
15 I'll answer that. The state is welcome to take as 16 many samples and do their own independent analysis as 17 they choose.
18 We will be doing normally sampling on our 19 own, independent sampling of the licensee. But we 20 will also split samples with the licensee to verify 21 the performance of their laboratory because our 22 laboratory is world class.
23 It's always in the top one percent of the 24 laboratories performing in the country. So, yes, 25 there will be split sampling with the licensee to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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69 1 verify their lab work and also we'll be taking our own 2 independent samples at the completion of the clean up 3 to make sure that it meets our standards for meeting 4 our unrestricted release criteria.
5 MS. CHIN: But you won't do split samples 6 of your samples with the Massachusetts Department of 7 Public Health? You're going to make them take their 8 own samples?
9 MR. WATSON: It's up to them if they want 10 to do that. But my point is that they're welcome to 11 take their samples if they choose to. It's up to, 12 whatever they would like to do we are willing to talk 13 about that.
14 It just costs money to do that and it's up 15 to them whether they want to expend the funds or not 16 because we have a very good program, I'll say an 17 excellent program for verification of the final status 18 of the sites.
19 MS. JANDA: Thank you. The next speaker 20 is Number 20.
21 MS. CALDWELL: So I'm almost 74 and I've 22 been fighting all the problems with nuclear power 23 plants it seems like more than half my lifetime. And 24 when I was in graduate school it was the honor system 25 and we were supposed to try and do our best and be the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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70 1 best.
2 And when we couldn't be the best then we 3 would go back and try to be the best. And when we 4 made a mistake we would try harder and harder and 5 harder until somebody would tell us this is not good 6 enough and then we would go back and try to be better.
7 And when I look at the Nuclear Regulatory 8 Commission I am just so sad because I know you all 9 want to be your best. I know you want to go home at 10 night proud of what you've done.
11 And all that I hear at the Citizen's 12 Advisory meeting or with you is failures when we 13 couldn't live up to my expectations of what the best 14 is. So this is my question.
15 How can we have nuclear power in the 16 United States when we can't plan how to decommission 17 a plant safely so that it can go 50 years into the 18 future, 100 years into the future? We're just arguing 19 about a few seven years of decommissioning and then 20 the money runs out.
21 When are we going to tell the people of 22 the United States that we don't know how we're going 23 to decommission a plant? The people of the United 24 States are not going to allow nuclear waste from one 25 state to travel to another state.
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71 1 They'll be more massive riots about 2 nuclear waste passing through any state than we've 3 seen to date. So if they're not going to allow them 4 to travel to any site that's forced to take it, it 5 means that Pilgrim and Yankee and all the plants 6 across the country have to be safe for storage.
7 But you said, this gentleman over here 8 that we're worried about money. So we're worried 9 about money.
10 We don't have enough money to really put 11 in thicker steel or thicker casks or watch cracks or 12 we don't even have enough money to go through what 13 Entergy has done to find out where the spills and 14 mistakes are.
15 How do I know that, because at the 16 Citizen's Advisory meeting when we asked where are the 17 spills and we keep saying where are the spills, where 18 are the spills and they say it's a lot of paperwork to 19 go through and find the spills.
20 So I guess this is rambling and I can see 21 your faces. I guess I'm just really depressed about 22 the bad state of the nuclear power industry.
23 And I don't see how we can hire Holtec.
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72 1 or deal with anything except the chaos we're in.
2 I'm sorry it wasn't written up. I'm just 3 depressed about the future of the industry and 4 Plymouth.
5 PARTICIPANT: I apologize if we had facial 6 expressions. It was in an attempt to try and better 7 understand. And I think what you're saying here is 8 just a statement, rhetorical.
9 Was there anything specific you wanted us 10 to try and answer?
11 MS. CALDWELL: No.
12 MS. JANDA: Ma'am. Could you give your 13 name for the record? I'm sorry.
14 MS. CALDWELL: Irene Caldwell.
15 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Next speaker is 16 Number 21.
17 MR. BURKE: My name is Kevin Burke. And 18 I've been coming to these meetings off and on for over 19 20 years. I've not been a true dedicated activist 20 with regard to the nuclear industry.
21 And I thank you people who I follow in the 22 newspaper for what you've done to keep this on track.
23 And tonight I can tell you that I don't feel much 24 confidence in terms of what's going to happen in the 25 future.
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73 1 I see the ocean levels rising. I see not 2 enough attention being paid to these casks and 3 ultimately where they're going to go. I just don't 4 understand how we ended up in the mess that we're in.
5 I read the newspaper about a woman who 6 left the Cape in a banged up car and drove right up to 7 the reactor. This was in the Globe. Where is the 8 security?
9 I just, it's beyond me. I met a man down 10 on the canal. He was an engineer over at the nuclear 11 reactor and he had retired. And he had a cap on.
12 And it said Kellogg, Brown and Root. And 13 I said to him isn't that the same firm that is 14 involved in Iraq? He said, yes. I said do you work 15 for them, where do you work?
16 And he said I work over at the Pilgrim 17 Plant. And I said give me an insight into how things 18 are going over there. This was about five years ago.
19 He said well I'll tell you a little story.
20 We use pumps to pump water. And we've got pumps 21 coming in and the pumps didn't have the proper packing 22 in them.
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74 1 on vacation and lo and behold he got a panicked 2 telephone call they had taken, one of the pumps had 3 broken down and they used this pump, supposedly new 4 pump and put it in its place.
5 And they had a room full of radioactive 6 water. Now you don't hear about any of this stuff.
7 You hear about the anecdotal stuff and it really makes 8 you wonder what the hell is going on.
9 So once again, I thank my concerned 10 citizens for their dedication and I hope it just keeps 11 us out of trouble. But just remember the thermal 12 expansion of the ocean is out there and you can't stop 13 that.
14 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Next speaker will 15 be Number 14. Number 18.
16 MR. PERRY: My name is Doug Perry. I'm a 17 resident of Plymouth and an employee of the plant.
18 And I just wanted to express my 19 appreciation to my coworkers and friends at the plant 20 for the hard work and dedication that it's taken over 21 the last three or four years, I guess, to work through 22 the recovery and also for the folks who preceded them 23 and us and the 47 years of safe, reliable plant 24 operation and, you know, I guess the contribution that 25 Pilgrim has made to carbon-free energy here in New NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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75 1 England over the last well 47 years. Thanks.
2 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Next speaker, 3 Number 18.
4 MR. PERRY: I was 18.
5 MS. JANDA: You were 18, sorry, Number 12.
6 MR. DOVE: Hi, good evening, folks. My 7 name is Dan Dove, a citizen here in Plymouth part time 8 while I work at the power plant. I've been there 9 approximately five years.
10 And I wanted to respond to some of the 11 questions regarding the sampling. In my position I do 12 what's called (inaudible) shipping. So I'm 13 responsible for sending off the samples that you 14 people are talking about.
15 And in regards to Massachusetts Department 16 of Health and Public Safety I send them samples 17 regularly. They are split samples. Chemistry takes 18 the samples.
19 We send part to a lab that is a lab we 20 choose and we also send them to Massachusetts 21 Department of Health. So to say that you don't know 22 what we're going to do, we already do it.
23 We're going to continue to do it in 24 decommissioning. In regards to Oak Ridge National 25 Labs and the ORISE facility I've been there. I've NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 1 seen how they work.
2 It's a great facility. In regards to 3 moving from Column 4 to Column 1 if you think three 4 years is a short period of time, I don't think so.
5 It didn't take them that long when they 6 said hey, we've got a bunch of problems here at 7 Pilgrim. Did they move us from 1, 2 to 3 to 4? No, 8 didn't happen that way.
9 So to go the opposite direction in three 10 years I don't think is a big deal. Let's talk about 11 costs. Things I know factually, I've worked for Plum 12 Brook which was part of NASA at a decommissioning 13 there.
14 And you want to talk about costs I'll tell 15 you what costs cost. They did a study in 1976 and the 16 good people said it's going to cost a million dollars 17 to decommission that.
18 Way too much money, can't do it. Fast 19 forward, waited until 1998. It cost $250 million just 20 20 short years later. We have a billion dollars in 21 our trust fund.
22 Eight years may seem aggressive. You say 23 Holtec has never done it before. Someone has to be 24 first. You can't have one company do all the 25 decommissionings otherwise people are just going to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 1 stack up.
2 So long story short, as an employee of the 3 Entergy Company I'm proud to work there. I think we 4 do a great job. I think our NRC oversight keeps us in 5 check.
6 And you know what, we've created lots of 7 tools. They're in this little book right here, 8 Achieving and Sustaining Excellence. Human 9 performance tools you can work with, you can live by.
10 That's all I have. Thank you so much.
11 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Next speaker will 12 be Number 10.
13 MS. GASLIC: Good evening. My name is 14 Mary Gaslic (phonetic). I'm a resident of Plymouth.
15 I've been here for 34 years. And for the sake of 16 transparency I am also an employee of the Pilgrim 17 Nuclear Power Station.
18 And I've worked there for 24 years. All 19 right, this is the last public meeting we're going to 20 have as an operating nuclear power plant. You know, 21 it kind of saddens me.
22 It would have been nice to continue to 23 provide clean, carbon-free energy until 2032. But 24 that's not the case here. I was not surprised when 25 the plant, I'm not surprised that the plant is back in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 Column 1.
2 The return to Column 1 was not because of 3 fairy dust, by no matter but rather the hard work and 4 the dedication of the employees and the individuals 5 there. And I have seen it, I've been a part of it.
6 And so anybody to say anything else is a 7 slap in the face to those guys that work there. The 8 NRC annual assessment letter indicated that Pilgrim 9 had demonstrated sustained improvement.
10 The plant had addressed all of the reactor 11 oversight program items that had initially moved it to 12 Column 4 and had completed all of the recovery plan 13 items that were in the Confirmatory Action Letter.
14 I'll tell you what the best part of 15 reading that letter was. You know what it was, it was 16 reading those words Pilgrim will transition out of 17 Column 4 and into Column 1.
18 As the plants sets down the road to 19 decommissioning it still will be with NRC oversight.
20 It's not like the wild west where anything goes.
21 The plant will be decommissioned under 22 guidelines just as strict whether it's under safe 23 store DCON (phonetic) the same vigor will be applied 24 so that the process will be done safely and 25 environmentally sound.
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79 1 And as a resident of Plymouth I'm not 2 afraid of having dry cask storage in the town. I am 3 however disappointed that the government has not lived 4 up to the contract that they, the contract and 5 supplied the nuclear industry with a final repository.
6 This has been an ongoing battle since the 7 1980s. I implore you, the NRC, to grant the DOE's 8 license application for the (inaudible) Project.
9 And I as a citizen promise you that I will 10 tell my lawmakers to get off their duffs and approve 11 it. Thank you.
12 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Next speaker will 13 be Number 5.
14 (Off microphone comments.)
15 PARTICIPANT: All right, question.
16 Entergy has said that if there's a problem with the 17 casks that they would be putting an overpack over the 18 cask as their way to resolve that. Are you aware of 19 that situation?
20 PARTICIPANT: We're aware that the 21 manufacturers are, that is their plan for any 22 potential degradation of the casks in the future.
23 Right now I don't have any physical evidence of that 24 right now other than for the new home facilities.
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80 1 approved that?
2 PARTICIPANT: They have not submitted them 3 for our approval yet.
4 PARTICIPANT: Okay, all right. Well 5 Entergy is saying that's what they're going to do with 6 the casks, the 17 on the pad now.
7 But I just want to go back to Mr. Lew.
8 You mentioned when we talked before that, you know, 9 that Entergy has taken care, during that January storm 10 scram that Entergy has taken care of the switch yard 11 and everything.
12 But my question was regarding off site 13 loss of power. And you brought it back to the switch 14 yard and that everything is fine there.
15 I want to read from your website, okay 16 that they have to take action based on criteria by the 17 National Weather Service forecast. This is from your 18 website.
19 For the most severe cases the intent of 20 the directed action is to reduce the risk of core 21 damage due to a loss of off site power by reducing the 22 plant's heat load before the loss of off site power 23 occurs.
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81 1 power is high the procedures change is now direct 2 shutting the plant down and immediately placing the 3 shutdown cooling system in service to cool down to 4 less than 200 degrees.
5 That is your, on your website regarding 6 loss of off site power and that didn't happen during 7 that storm. And are you also aware during the March 8 4th storm that the governor declared no, a travel ban 9 and the local emergency directors said they could not 10 implement their emergency plans?
11 And they sent that to the Massachusetts 12 Emergency Management Agency which pushed it up to the 13 NRC. So here we have a situation where our local 14 emergency directors are saying they cannot protect the 15 public, they cannot implement their emergency plans 16 and the NRC sat on it for 40 hours4.62963e-4 days <br />0.0111 hours <br />6.613757e-5 weeks <br />1.522e-5 months <br /> until the MEMA 17 reported back to them that it was all clear.
18 MR. LEW: So let me try and address and 19 certainly 14 months ago I want to make sure, I want to 20 caveat that I probably need to go back and take a look 21 at it.
22 My recollection though relative to the 23 January event was the only loss, when you talk about 24 loss of off site power we ought to be clear in terms 25 of are you losing all loss of off site power in that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 1 particular case.
2 My recollection and may look for some help 3 here was only one line --
4 PARTICIPANT: That's true.
5 MR. LEW: -- of off site power was lost.
6 PARTICIPANT: Right, that's true, yes.
7 MR. LEW: And actually Brandon was 8 actually, were you on site for --
9 PARTICIPANT: And shortly after that the 10 second line went down, yes.
11 MR. LEW: Not in January, okay. So just 12 a clarification that it was one line of off site 13 power. The licensee then took corrective actions to 14 shut the plant down. Relative to the --
15 PARTICIPANT: Loss of off site power, yes.
16 MR. LEW: -- MEMA that was back in March 17 of 2018 --
18 PARTICIPANT: March, yes.
19 MR. LEW: -- you are talking about. And 20 so when we receive the information and I believe Doug 21 Tift (phonetic) who is also here received that 22 information that evening about the question about 23 evacuation I will offer that MEMA and FEMA worked 24 through the night so not 40 hours4.62963e-4 days <br />0.0111 hours <br />6.613757e-5 weeks <br />1.522e-5 months <br />, but worked through 25 the night and made a determination relative to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 1 ability to evacuate.
2 So that call goes to MEMA and FEMA. From 3 the NRC's perspective, you know, certainly it's the 4 role of MEMA and FEMA to make that determination. But 5 from our perspective we establish a defense in depth 6 approach.
7 And emergency preparedness is just one of 8 those defense in depth. And from our perspective the 9 short period of time that MEMA and FEMA took to make 10 that decision and make that call was reasonable and it 11 would be inappropriate based on that to order the 12 plant to shut down.
13 And relative to defense in depth during 14 that storm Entergy did in fact strengthen their safety 15 defenses in terms of actions for severe weather, 16 multiple actions that they have. And we were on site 17 verifying that they completed those actions and 18 ensuring that the plan continued to operate safely.
19 PARTICIPANT: Yes, and I was here, the 20 inspectors were on site during the storm June '02 when 21 it crashed, yes.
22 But so we see repetitive degraded nuclear 23 reactor still operating, the valves are repetitively 24 degrading. There is mismanagement. There is ongoing 25 issues that should still keep it in Column 4.
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84 1 They're not resolved. But that's why we 2 call for the abolishment of the Nuclear Regulatory 3 Commission to be replaced by an interstate 4 governmental agency.
5 MR. LEW: So if I can just ask Donna at 6 this point just for transparency and how we want to 7 move forward. Do you want to discuss how we want to 8 move forward since we've gone through the first round 9 of questions and we're continuing?
10 MS. JANDA: Yes. So before we go to any 11 other questions and then I can answer that. Dave, we 12 were going to offer up some more time because we still 13 have time before the end of the meeting.
14 It's scheduled into 8:45. So if there are 15 other people. But before we get to that, one sec. I 16 understand there is a selectman who would like to make 17 a statement. If that's the case please come forward.
18 MR. MAHONEY: Good evening, everyone.
19 John Mahoney from the Plymouth Board of Selectpersons.
20 My colleague Shelagh Joyce and third colleague is in 21 the room, Chairman of the Board of Selectmen back 22 there is Kenneth Tavares.
23 So in a meeting we were a little tardy.
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85 1 coming out.
2 Every time I see Bruce he knows this is 3 one of his favorite stops throughout the course of the 4 year and he tells me that all the time. But we 5 appreciate the passion that is being shown by the 6 individuals in the room.
7 You can tell and I certainly appreciate 8 your patience with respect to answering their 9 questions. But you can tell this is a significant 10 thing not only to the community but to an entire 11 region.
12 I would say it's one of the top issues in 13 the state but certainly in the region south of Quincy 14 and out to "P" (phonetic) Town it's, this is right up 15 there. So we're looking forward to working with you 16 in a partnership.
17 We want a safe and prompt decommissioning 18 process. And one of the prior speakers referenced, I 19 think evidenced based or everything was based on 20 engineers.
21 Yes, we want it to be non-political and, 22 you know, just a disciplined process moving forward so 23 that, you know, ten years down the road, God willing, 24 you know, this thing is behind us and we can move on.
25 Thank you.
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86 1 MS. JOYCE: And if I could just emphasize 2 as well transparency and communication are a priority 3 as well. So we appreciate your time and your effort 4 and look forward to the rest of the meeting. Thank 5 you.
6 MS. JANDA: Thank you. Did we get your 7 name, I'm sorry.
8 MS. JOYCE: My name is Shelagh Joyce, one 9 of the Plymouth Selectmen.
10 MS. JANDA: Thank you.
11 MS. LAMPERT: Mary Lampert, Pilgrim Watch.
12 Question to Bruce. I didn't quite get the details of 13 your response to Rebecca Chin on the NRC's plan for 14 environmental monitoring.
15 So help me out here. Do I understand that 16 the NRC itself, and this would be a couple years 17 before termination I guess, takes actual samples and 18 sends it to the laboratory?
19 Do you also take some of the split samples 20 from Entergy and send those for verification also to 21 the laboratory then the results of your samples, the 22 results of the split samples are they made public in 23 a timely manner or do you put the results up on your 24 website?
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87 1 Public Health, how they would interface? Would they 2 just send some of their samples and that would be 3 ridiculous that they test in their own lab in Jamaica 4 Plain or instead do they get a split from NRC's sample 5 and a split from the split of, that sounds ridiculous, 6 but of Entergy's sample to be able to see the results?
7 And would MDPH have to pay the cost of 8 this or is there a procedure other than legislation in 9 the State of Massachusetts to assess the licensee for 10 the environmental monitoring? Last question, could 11 you direct me to whatever regulation or NUREG 12 discusses this?
13 MR. WATSON: Well I think I counted 15 14 questions. But I lost count after 12. All kidding 15 aside, the one thing I want you to realize is that the 16 NRC environmental monitoring program which is in 17 effect today continues all the way almost to the end.
18 And by that I mean at the end there is 19 hopefully nothing to measure, okay. So we will do our 20 independent sampling all through the process.
21 We will have our samples analyzed just 22 like we would do today if the residents or the HP 23 inspectors that inspect the plant will take samples 24 and they'll be analyzed by our independent laboratory 25 just like it is today.
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88 1 One of the things I wanted to, we don't 2 necessarily publish results on the website. But they 3 are referenced in inspection reports or discussed in 4 inspection reports. So those are publicly available.
5 As far as the splitting samples with 6 Massachusetts Department of Public Health, I think 7 it's MPH, I was glad you brought this back because 8 Rebecca Chin, yes, I had some more thoughts after you 9 sat down.
10 And at Maine Yankee they had the state 11 inspectors doing sampling and surveys. And we always 12 compared results with them. I don't recall 13 specifically splitting samples with them.
14 But we always compared results. The State 15 of Connecticut also with Connecticut Yankee because I 16 was involved, very much involved in Maine Yankee.
17 So we worked with the, they had, typically 18 had two inspectors there frequently. I'm trying to 19 think of the guy's name. Pat Dosties (phonetic) was 20 the name, as a matter of fact. He was an employee of 21 the state.
22 And one of his jobs was to follow up on 23 the, just like we did on inspections and doing surveys 24 and sampling. So, yes, there's an opportunity to do 25 that.
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89 1 It depends on what the State of 2 Massachusetts, MPH decides they want to do. They can 3 discuss that with us. You know, we, I'm sure they 4 have their own lab which you mentioned which I'm sure 5 is a quality lab.
6 I'm sure they do the kind of, what we call 7 the inter-comparison laboratory tests with blind 8 testing to make sure they have a good quality control 9 on their laboratory just like our lab does.
10 But as far as funding that's up to the 11 state how they fund their own programs. There's 12 nothing that I know that the NRC provides to them.
13 It's really their choice on what level of 14 involvement they want to have in the decommissioning.
15 So I think I answered most of your questions.
16 PARTICIPANT: And is there a NUREG?
17 MR. WATSON: There is an inspection 18 procedure. We do talk about sampling I think in NUREG 19 1757, Volume 2. That's a thick volume.
20 It's a lot of technical stuff. I'll admit 21 that. And we're in the process of actually revising 22 that. It's going to be even thicker for the stuff 23 we've learned over the last ten years.
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90 1 kidding, anyway, there is some guidance on that.
2 I can't think of anything specifically.
3 It covers a cadre of technical issues that also 4 includes a verification and when we do sampling 5 throughout the decommissioning process to validate the 6 licensee's historical site assessment, the 7 characterization actually going out and doing what we 8 call in process surveys where we do them side by side 9 with the licensee to see how good their program is 10 with our inspectors and our experts.
11 And also do the split sampling to verify 12 their lab works, they are getting quality results. We 13 have had issues with contracted laboratories that some 14 of the licensees have used, not specifically the 15 utilities but other labs that, in material sites.
16 And also of course I just talked about the 17 independent verification at the end to make sure that 18 they've met our criteria for the actually terminated 19 license.
20 (Off microphone comment.)
21 MR. WATSON: That would be when they 22 complete that. The licensee will generally start that 23 at the beginning of the decommissioning. And that is 24 generally based on what's called the 10 CFR, yes, G 25 file.
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91 1 Yes, and that's the regulation that was 2 put in place back in the 1990s. And it was 3 established to capture data related to spills and 4 other radiological events or mishaps so that the, it's 5 basically established a record that's important to 6 decommissioning.
7 I know there is a file there at Pilgrim.
8 I've already talked with the residents about taking a 9 good look at that and having our inspectors look at 10 that.
11 So there is a large, fairly large file on 12 that from issues that they've had through the years.
13 So keep in mind when the plant goes into 14 decommissioning many of the things that we do today 15 when the plant is in operation continue into 16 decommissioning.
17 And that includes the environmental 18 monitoring program. Excuse me, it is the same, okay.
19 That program continues.
20 And so that in association with the rules 21 that we put into place, what we call the 22 decommissioning planning rules in 2012 with the 23 additional groundwater monitoring up close to the 24 plant give us a good assessment on the radiological 25 situation at the site as well as the licensee and for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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92 1 planning decommissioning.
2 So like I said, that rule was intended to 3 detect leaks up close to the plant so that you detect 4 it early so that the plant would know there is a leak 5 to go fix it and most utilities have done that. So 6 it's really to prevent large areas getting 7 contaminated.
8 MS. JANDA: Is there anybody else who 9 would like an opportunity to speak who hasn't had a 10 chance? Sir.
11 MR. COUGHLIN: Joe Coughlin, resident of 12 Plymouth. Also a member of the NDCAP. I want to 13 thank Bruce for attending our NDCAP meeting the day 14 after you all were here last January.
15 One of the issues that came up at that 16 meeting was, and comes up at a lot of meetings, the 17 adequacy of the DTF. A question was raised in that 18 regard that if the licensee who says with their 19 filings with you that the, they can do the full 20 decommissioning job in compliance with your 21 requirements based on the amount of funds in the DTF.
22 But if during that decommissioning process 23 the funds in the DTF prove to be inadequate the 24 question was raised in regard to that using this term.
25 Could the corporate veil be pieced?
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93 1 Meaning that if there are other companies 2 involved even though they're not the direct licensee 3 could in essence they be gone after to acquire the 4 additional funds that may be necessary to complete the 5 decommissioning process so such a burden would not 6 fall on the host community, such as Plymouth and/or 7 the Commonwealth.
8 Bruce, I think you said at that time that 9 the NRC's attorneys were looking into that issue. Is 10 it possible to give us an update on where they may be 11 in researching that?
12 MR. WATSON: Yes. Excuse me, 13 unfortunately, you know, we have this, we're in 14 hearing space with the contentions that have been 15 filed.
16 So I kind of have to be careful here what 17 I say just to be --
18 MR. COUGHLIN: Sure.
19 MR. WATSON: -- honest with you. Right 20 now I'll tell you what the process is. And that is 21 the regulations require at the end of March, March 22 31st that the licensees report to us the status of 23 those decommissioning funds for the previous year.
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94 1 the independent trustee what those funds really are, 2 true that they're there.
3 And so each year we will be doing an 4 evaluation to ensure that the amount of funding is 5 reasonable to complete the decommissioning. If we 6 feel it's not we will address that to the licensee to 7 come up with a plan on how they're going to recover 8 that money in order to ensure that there are adequate 9 funds or a reasonable amount of assurance that the 10 funds are going to be there to complete the 11 decommissioning.
12 So that review goes on annually. And also 13 so that's fundamentally what we do to verify that 14 there is adequate funding throughout the 15 decommissioning.
16 MR. COUGHLIN: So would it be safe to 17 assume that going through that process if in one of 18 those annual updates the issue arose that there 19 appeared not to be adequate funding to complete the 20 decommissioning process and you then went back to the 21 licensee to rectify that, that the NRC probably 22 wouldn't care where the funds came from as long as the 23 funds were made available to complete the process?
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95 1 had that happen to my knowledge because I haven't been 2 following the financial parts very closely.
3 I know that we have one self-funded plant 4 for an (inaudible) 1 that is kind of funded from the 5 utility. It never had a decommissioning fund. It 6 only operated for a couple years.
7 And that the utility has actually been 8 directly funding that. And so they stopped 9 decommissioning right now to allow the fund to grow 10 back.
11 But they're about 90 percent complete on 12 the decommissioning. And, you know, they did a 13 significant amount of work to get there. And so now 14 they're letting the funds grow.
15 MR. COUGHLIN: Thank you.
16 MS. JANDA: All right, thank you. Are 17 there any other individuals who would like to speak or 18 have any questions that haven't had a chance yet?
19 Okay, so I believe this will end the 20 public meeting and I'm going to ask Dave if he has any 21 final --
22 MR. LEW: Just a very, a big thank you to 23 everybody. I do appreciate the respect that you've 24 shown each other and the questions.
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96 1 any other questions, you know, as always we remain 2 available to answer those questions either one on one 3 or afterwards. Thank you.
4 MS. JANDA: Thank you very much for 5 attending tonight.
6 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 7 off the record at 8:17 p.m.)
8 9
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