ML19206A271

Transcript of 790417 Press Conference Re Tmi,Prior to H Dentons Return to Bethesda,Md

ML19206A271
Person / Time
Site:	Crane
Issue date:	04/17/1979
From:	NRC COMMISSION (OCM)
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NUDOCS 7904190012
Download: ML19206A271 (20)

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2 PROCEED ING S

l Dento.. Uanted to come down MR.

FOUCHARD:

Mr.

7

/17 on the situation at j

this morning and bring you up to dat 5

Three Mile Island, including the env._ronmental situation out 3

6 there.

f l

7

, So, Harold, why don' t you just go ahead.

f 8

MR. DENTON:

As a result of a lot of efforts by I

I people on the NRC staff, people in the tate of Pennsylvania, 9

10 j other federal and local agnencies, L consider my_f ask here I'll leave I plan to return to Bethpsda today.

11 completed..

He'll be here for an indefinite 12 Vic Stello here in charge.

period of time following the plant's. status from here on out.

I3 I

N Today the plant is still eing c,oled through k

the steam generators. The bulk core memperature,is about is i

Plans are being made do lower the temperature 4

245 degrees.

i I7 another 10 degrees by opening up new flow paths for about I8 steam to reach the condensor.

I are st ill underw y to develop procedures an I9 Efforts

]

20 put into place the preferred coolin plan which is taking a 1

longer than I had imagined it wduld take when I was here 21 J

lot It'shardformetorealfzeI'vebeenherefor19 22 l days ago.

'Obb this accident began.,

23 days now sinte i

24 Probably the most significant event over the weeken i

6 rrmi nrrr:&s. Int g inthereleaserathofiodineSaturday a

25 was the increase i

1 !l . 5 3 i l l 1 l RAW TRAI; SCRIPT - UNCORRECTED I ! avid 3 p 2' We noticed the iodine release rates were going morning. i i/17 beginning to be found on-site. By l 3i Concentrations were i up. .1 finding concentration s of f-site in the Sunday we were t 20 limits for unrestricted ~ trailer vicinity on the order of part 5 i I i, 6p areas. i { condition existed throughout Sunday night 7 This I and Irrge parts of Monday. By Monda we were taking three j 6 } I The the first of which concerned'the filter bank. 1 9[

steps, rates s( emed to coincide in time 10 !

ij increase in iodine release filters. When start of activities in replacing 11 5 T with the n filter replace.ent a,tivity, c we looked into the status of the 12 20 filters had been removed, but no replacements 13 I found that we 14 ! j had been put in. 15 l So there was a potential for bypass leakage through i being filtered. All 16 }lthat filter space getting out withopt I and filters have now been replaced in the plant, 171'l20 l of these future filter replacements will be on a one for one basis. 18 19!l Another potential for release of iodine was a makeu i y I ) d coolant is broucht frcm the 'O 'il tank. This is where the reactor ~ l in it. When the It has a lot of iodine 21 primary system. there were high iodine makeup tank pressure was high before, 22 i there were low iodine ^ 3 f[i and when it was low, -elease rates, i S2100 release rates. v.r.m. s -m. ac.., l 25,1 We noticed it was back cp to 10 to 16 pounds i

l \\ \\ 4 'I. 1 } I USCORRECTED _cid4 i RAW TgT" SCRIPT - 1 I taken beginning at about 4 :00 o' clock l I yesterday, and stcps were /17 l 3' the makeup tank to the waste gas decay tanks. These to vent I I have described previously I 4 waste gas decay tanks are what t And so the as being pumped back into the containment. 5 1 essentially atmospheric pressure. I 6' now at makeup tanks are - to spray the floors of I. 7 And the third effort was e l thicsalphate in case there the auxiliary building with 8 l I was iodine being evolved froa the floor. 9 t not certain which one of these three steps 10 ' We're is really ef fective, but measurement.s being taken both on-site l 11 i' l 3 iodine releasc rates are dropping. the i 12 and off-site show that I they ~ The most recent data I have on stacij measurements show 13 a f actor of three at !4 : 00 o' cloc,k this morning 14 l are down about I 15 } from a peak of yesterday. i I I think five samples this morning off-site under 16 d j i show iodine levels above the minimum it 17 the plume did not 18 detectable levels. i Right as we were. leaving there was one sample in 19 l If 20 'I which we did find measurable ar. cants of iodine of f-site. f amount of iodine release during this 21 i vou look at the total l and using the sampler in trailer city, which was 22 period I for the duration of the accide; 2 ~' b the predominant wind direction d i I 24 il someone would have roccived bv being d the total dose that j ws,i ;:cc-me. uc. b; hour period orlso is on eo er of 1 t 2 '* there during this 3C i n

i I 5 <l i I RAW TRANSCRIP1 - UNCORRECTED I I vid5 i '17 nillirems to the thyroid for a child. An adult would have 2 i ll-I' 3l received about a third of those values, assuing someone was l E I d cont'inuously present at that location. i i With with regard to noble gases, the release .I 5 i 6 rates are still low. I looked at the results of the I 7 47 dosimeter staticns that we monitor. All of those continue 8 to show background radiation levels. l 9 With that summary, why don't I turn to questions. i QUESTION: I think you said there were'20 filters 10 ! II had been taken out and t' Tere was a time when they that f 12 hadn't been replaced; was that intentional? 1 I3 MR, DENTON: I think it was probably intentional on the plant operator's part. I personally didn,'t know what Id 15 the detailed procedure was. I assumed it would be a one for l 16 { one type of replacement. These filtors are shaped somewhat i 17 8 like a box, about 2 feet w.tde and 6' inches and 40 inches i I 18 -long and weight about 130 pounds. l U And I felt the conventional practice was totakeon[ 20, out and replace it with another. Apparently, they -elected 1 2I for some reason to remove them, bag chen and box them, the l j old filters, and had not put any in up to about midnight last ; 22 So sometirne during the night, as a result of-our 0 m3' 2 ! night. 24 fI inquiries in this area and their efforts, they did replace

c. -i a,we,s inc. :

e 25 ll filters in all the empty slots. 0,2 A4 33 i; i I

I i 6 98 RAW TRTN SCRIPT - UNCORRECTED a h ii il f rom the NRC there Ih QUESTION: Was..there scmeone rcid6 filters and made the i. at the point when they removed the /17 a 3 ll! I decision not to -- there has been a continuing MR. DENTON: No, because 4 b, I in plastic suits. shortage of air supply for people working I 5 requires a double layer of-I it 6 il In order to enter this area, h And the plant has had sece 7N plastic suits and boots and hoods.' in difficulties in maintaining air sup ply to these people l} 8! f 9b suited area. O seven men per shif t,,and it's abcut There are about 10 y$1 to the extent that so il long airline for each m'n, 11 [ 300 foot a it's taking up air and the area, I2 l cn NRC person enters J j 1 that is act a6 lly going on. 17 {i' reduces the amount of working time that 's the predomini to say that we know that I And I don't want look at all the things that.were cause, because what we did is 15 h 1 than they were last i that were different going on in the plant iocine levels were so low. I7l Thursday and' Friday when the And how many - why did they decide I 18,1 QUESTION: i I to remove the filters. fac they did it based on the MR. DESTON: I think 20 h and if 11 they could do the job fastest that way, 21 they felt both th 22 'l! the dampers on the seal were really tightly I dampers, and if there was no leakage, i II! inlet and the outlet 23 lN Although, if 'f'reallyshouldn'tmatterwhichwayyoudoit.

.c..c,m. nex es. iac. j tightly,and there was some air flo seal 25 o the dampers did not 52'103 li

'n-i.

i 7 I,l I . h. i. I I h; RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTZD .id? j 17 2,. 'still moving

through, the're could have been a potential I.

,I ~; that this was a route. U QUESTION: Knowing what this situation was, wouldn't'. I it have been more prudent to replace them -- c 6 MR. DENTON: Well, since ve were not running 1: I don't know this'is really the source. It's i. scientific tests, 8N one potential source, and in the future, they will be one h 9 il for one. But it could have been the makeuo tank leakace or e O ' IO lI it could have been iodine from the floor. And what we did yesterday and Sunday was attack all possible routes that were i i responsible and whichever it was, it appears that the l'evels i 12 coming back now to whero thof were late lEst week. I3 now are 1' QUESTION: Can you tell me why -- why did it il 1 R {p{taka longer than you expected to get ready for this plan for uu ~ - cold shutdown? h. II MR. DENTON: Let me ask V:.c Stello, who has been i u'. attending the daily status meetings on the preferred plan, I3 i 19 0.g to discuss that. 20 MR. STELLO': The modification that Harold is 2Ilid referring l to is a modification necessary to put the so-called i 22 !3 steam generator water solid. We'll do this to provide .f 23 1 additional redundancy for natural circulation cooling. It's i -- there's nothing to preclude 24!' possible that they can now -:n smusm. soc. i however, having these .5 j oing to natural circulation today; ,g s 52-104

l ? 8 I I RAW TR}NSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED vid8 l 2 I '17 modifications is believed to be a desirable feature to i I 2-provide that additional kind of redur.dancy. i \\ l 4' 1 QUESTION: A backup -- s as. You can go natural l 5'l MR. STELT.0 : It I 6J and this would be a backup to also use it i circulation now, as a mechanism for natural circulation. Why it tapes this 7 long is you need to look at the eculpment you have available, i B f design a piping system to hopefully use the eqdipment that 9 is there and minimize the additional equipment that'might 10 need to be fabricated. And the design just takes time, and 11 it takes time to fabricate pipe and install.it. It's j,ust an 12 i activity under normal conditions that takes quite c bit of time,, 1 13 14 I is an activity that we wouldn 't want to try to get done an6 it 15 l too quickly in terms of finding difficul.ty with the activity. 16l So it is going slower. 17 'I:I It's been looked at very carefully, and I guess we'r, can have done as quickly as 18 .all anxious to have whatever we l we have -- and it's a disappointment not to have it sooner, 19 l .1 20 1 i but there is just no -- excuse me? i I QUESTION: Do you know right now -- 21 l MR. STELLO: I think it's still too soon to pick 22 1 i 23 }'lt the design ~ is finalized and the equipment is the date until 1 . m,,e u.>o u m. t ~,. !,ordered and we know exactly how many wells have to be made, 24 l ' 25 h',how many f eet of pipe will have to be run, apd all of that az a w

• O

,I

9 I P;W TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED e 1 I 12vid.9 4/17 information is not yet here with us and is not available to 3' i the licensee. t 44 And until that is availab:.e, it's not easy to i 5 predict an end date. i I 6 'l MR. DENTON: Since it takes six to eight years to build a plant, I'm beginning to thin}. we were overly 7 { optimistic two weeks ago in cur five and five projection. { 8 I l 9' things become more routinized, the requirements As 10 'l that must be met to install long runs of piping just seem to 11 take a lot longer than I had anticipated. a 12 OUESTION: Mr. Denton, can you clarify the levels 13 ~that were released -- iodine rolcasec and how that compares 14 to the federal standards? MR. DENTON: The -- our regulations in part 20 15 16. for unrestricted areas for occupancy during an entire year i I 17 i picocuries per cubic meter of iodine-131. And that's -- 1 are 100 and that's based on -- if that situation existed during the 18 19 : year, a dose to a child's thyroid,if he were present in that 20 } concentration for an entire year, would be 1500 millirem. i So if you take the actual air concentration measured 21 1 over the bulk of the period when releases were large in 22 i I trailer city and convert it to that s ame ra tio is how I got i 24 Y r< 4 1 to 2 to a child's thyroid. O .r m ve.com.tne.d the a Let me ash Frank Congel who does all our dose 25 [ i: l' .=

I I 10 I 2Vid10 l RAW TRAMSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 1 t i i ' calculations what the actual air con centration during that i I 3 perloc was. I I 4 MR. CONGEL: The 24 hour period reflected the j a level of 17 picccuries ! 5l highest average concentrat~ ion was at l 6[ per cubic meter; based on inhaving that concentration for a 7 day, a child would get less than 1h illirem to the thyroid. 8 The release, a s Mr. Denton has said, did not persist at that l 9 level. e release, wq estimated 10 so for the duration of tr i those in the 1 to 2 millirem region, 1r there were such an 11 I 1 ~ individual breathing in that concentration. l ~ QUESTION: Mr. Abraham was quoted in a wire story 13 l l ~' I saying these released exceeded the f ederal standard. You see to be indicating that they don' t. 15 16 MR. DENTON: Well, the federal standards are based f f I7 on that level being there for a whole year. And it's certain1 instaneous basis right under the plume we 1B j true that on an 19l did get, I think, three or four measurements yesterday out of l

!i the 11 where the maximum concentration we could find on an 20 21 instaneous basis was over 100 picocuries per cubic meter.

E 22 i QUESTION: Mr. Denton, I'd like to know if you m" !H have any comment on the impression that's been left upon the b 24 '!! release of the transcript of the early meetings that the NRC - l ,3.te-ev y P ramers, in:., the impression of one -- that no onc really know what was goin 25 52-107

l l 11 i l I RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 4 cidll l 17 2j 'on here and had very little grip on

he situation.

Some i specific quotations from Mr. 4endric, like " blind and j e i l[l of the 1 s tagge.'t.i ng " -- would you comment on that. Were things out d 5 of co:ltrol three days after thataccfdent? i f MR. DENTON: I guess I ca n comment best on my l 6 7 own views. I know that before I left Bethesda Friday l 8 morning I had received a report that there was a plume over the' 9 -plant,approximately 1000 millirem an hour, and since I IO didn't know for sure the status of the core or the composition ' and whether or not .of the atmosphere in the containment, i 12 the containment was leaking and how long this plume midht ~ / it was back in Bethesda tha't I was recommending 13 I

persist, evacuation to the Commission.

I l 15 ' And that's when I made a statement that we should 16 be acting and getting ahead of the plume rather than sitting I I7h on our hands and waiting to decide. I I I8 [ While the decision procers was going on, we began 'l the actual off-getting reports from ocople at the site that I9 I on the order of 10 to 20 millir ' O,' site doses f rom that plume were the meterology was such that the plume was just 21 an hour, that i i and that it was not a f ailure of the 22i sitti.:9 over the plant, l l ~ but it was or an anticipated sort of release, 2J containment generator steam to th_ 2', il to deliberate venting of: the 3 stca.m 'I due er.r p c.wrep. sac. ;> r l b7d QGg 25 l .ztacspherc. 'i

e 1 12 I j I RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNC' 2RECTED i f That had been actually stbpped by the time I found 2 .eidl2 l i D went back down 3d So my concern about bvacuation '17 e out the plume. t i site. And I think as I began to get better data from the 4 l t the statement back in somewhere along there I even nade 5~ l c n only be made by people like that 6I Bethesda that decisions I 7l1 at the site. j 8 i And I guess since I' ve gotten to the site, . have I f i the chairman used that confusion anc the analocy that 9 l not felt think for someone bhing in Bethesda who was 10 'll up here. But I I E facr, only hburs perhaps after it 11 - after the getting cata 3 guess I'/c learned that emprgencies really occurred, it's - I 12 J site. They can't d can only be managed by people at the 13 i I i 14 i be canaged back in Washington. j the NRC Are you saying then that 15 s f-QUESTION: 16 ! this happens again? suppose H 171~ MR. DENTON: Well, I not sure that the NRC can i i manage emergencies back in Washingdon any better than the 18 ! air that are out of 19 )! FAA can manage airplanes in the a mechanism whereby peopic in the 20 !l l control. You have to have E vicinity either -- the NRC inspectors getting here early or 21 L l d i that vou just can't 22 'l better state and licensee arrangements, from back in Washingron. 23 !; manage accidents pJ and I would 24

• think they have to be managed here, I

ets.t e.wm. me. { 52-109 m 25.: i

e l 13 RAW TRItNSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED l l l vid13 i to beef l anticipate we would be changing our pequirements i 2 it from here. up our ability to get here promptly far.d manage !17 I i 3' think our plans were based on makin,g decisive decisions in i I I ,I n the availability of linformation in Washington i ~ Washington, but I compared to the information I can g t here by beig'in the 5 i. 1 l control rocm, you know, is orders o5 magnitude different. 6 recommend that we attempt to manage accidents ; 7 And I would not in the future from back in Bethesda. 8 QUESTION: Do you think Qhe state of ficials will 9 I f_ lave to play a much greater role in ! situations like this 10 ' j I 11 i where there is so cuch confusing in#ornation and inability 1 of persons to get accurate informatkonontheplant?.jhat 12 first few l 13 changes do you see there? I'm tal? jing in those 1 14 hours after the accident and even i those first few cays. 15 '!'l MR. DENTOS: I think state involvement is essential, i a 16 3 l not only for the -- I found that I q'ould give the state I technical advice on the status of t e reactor and the probabili 17 i 18 f ertain releases or certain kindi of consequences. But h 191' the state nad of 'h I didn't have the detailed knowledge that i it 20 0 times recuired for evacuation anc the details such as I the I i I 21 l! would farmers really desert farms and leave their cattle with 22 ; no one to feed them. g need some mechanism whereby the integrate the 23 'I We ~ l 24 l information cm the plant status into the state and let the r,..,c m u,rj,iac. 25 ' ll state cake the decisions that have social, economic, and healt I '.l

l t I l 14 ? i 1 I i RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCQRRECTED costs for its citizens, and I expect lthis whole area to [ xid14 i 4 r n- 'I 2 {: be rethought as a result of this accident. i QUESTION: Can you give ug a little more detail i i 3i I on the modificat?.cns that are going on? For example, are you 4 I l i bypassing the. turbine itself, or houjdoes it go? 51 I l MR. DENTON: Well, the next 10 degrees will be 6 by opening up lines that go through some of the separator 7 t, ficw area in the ? 8 the turbine and will provide more carts of e e 9 I I pressure stea=, but not actually through the turbine. i I t 10 I are considering actually putting steam But we i 11 l' as another -- anotherpossibility to lower through the turbine 3 j 12 the existing temperatures. I Are you talking about in %he existing mode or -- 13 Ma. OUCHARD: Short term lor long term? 14 [J 15 [ QUESTION: Long term to c,cid shutdown 16 Let me just 'give an overall view of MR. DENTON: 17 I the long term, and then I'll ask Vic to elaborate. But I 18 ; for long term cooling, we'd likc to " nave both the B generator and then the -- have it relcased its; elf in the containment. 19 o' 20 ll We would like to upgrade the existing RHR, which is I the residual heat removal sys tem that would take contaminated 21 I 3 bring it outside and cool it and 22ll p water inside the containment, 23 lIreturn it. We'd like to upgrade thqt to make it as leak i' 52411 ti 2d 4 ^ 5,.-~. s e-n. ine. !j tight and maintainable as we can. There's a third system t'r a t 's being installed on th 25 t

I i II 15 - p: t RAW TRANSCRIPT - UFCORRECTED t 1i J slab; that is a leak proof, easily; maintained short term c:L615 ti ~ or I

l I

l. final system being installed will be a

7 3 h RER.

And then in a il the chemical engineering units that i g, concrete structure that contaminated water and cool the water also. S i process the l i I would an'ticipato cooldown to l 6' So ultimately, 7 be acccmplished through this new building, structure that contaminated eater out,of the containment, process' O SI take the can I it through the demineralizer and the evaporators and return 9 1 4 10 'I the scac water. t in a big sense, and I can ask Vic to give 11 But that's i 3 you the details of this. 1 12 as far Mechanically,iwhere are you at I3 QUESTION: as being able to go to solid I 15 t MR. STELLO: You can go water solid now in the I, l 16 A steam generator, if you wish to. jj i: 17 !' CUISTION: How about thc}B? f 2 i B steam; generator could also be IS, MR. STELLO: T. - 2 I i. 19ll } but they would bp using the main condensor, i taken water solid, F l removal equipment for the plant. 20 !l. the norr.al heat l s.eam generator may leak, 2I MR. DENTON: And the B t wcnted to ins all a tortiary innp in that h whicD is a reasun we lI l rr, 94o "- li system before using it. s) ' .x4 I-There have ceen mocifications made 24 ;l } MR. STELLO: !i _, re:.. n e m. w to the plant so that if you did ta}ie both steam generators I aq I 'f e l'.

I f i N 16 ' h k 41 RAW TitANSCRIPT ~ UNCORRECTED u ,,idl6 4 l l.l. and if there is a leak lin the B stemn generator, 21 i 1, water solid, I ,4 the air ejectors to process l on ~d. there have been filters put l 'i h condensor. 4p the air that would come out of the a it is to put it in an 5 11' The preferred way to do loop,whichwouldhavefthisinaclosedsystem, . ] intermediate of the main condensor and then have an addition I indeoendent ) ultimately frem the plant heat exchanger to remove the heat i 1 purpose. and not rely on the nain condensor for that gh I i e n Wonld that bypass the 10 fi QUESTION: h, 4 g 11 " MR. STELLO: It would bypass - yes, yes. d i i I'm amaze'd at how well educ~ated ),' 1 MR. FOUCHARD: ) I in th<e last three weeks. h same of you folks have become 13 Yes, sir. 4-l i; ~ l Has any prog; css been made with i s <f QUESTION: t l 16;: negotiations with South Carolina on the disposal of low leve L 17 F f waste? l I MR. DENTON: I understand the waste that was 'I 'S l i state of South Carolina will be shipped to i '19 u !) returned from the h are still ongoing with N the state of Washington. Negotiations 'O' i b the state of South Carolina about future shipments. 21 l Did any ;of that waste containment '2h QUESTION: 5 g 23 fission products or They wereibeing sampled to see if th 24 I. MR. DENTON: O ... m e, ::ewieri. t a:4 just don't know the and I contained transuranics or not, m5 P l'.

l i e l i; 17 ]f RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED /idl7 j: l I L7 answer to the result. Apparently, whatever they contained, 2 'j they were satisfactory to the state of Washington. ~ d' MR. FOUCHARD: Yes, sir. ; j A r if S I} QUESTION: This additional loop that you're t ~ s talking about is going to be constructed in the auxiliary buildi 6 t 7,-

cr wherc exactly?

2 8 MR. STELLO: It will be constructed in the turbine ! , building. It will bypass the equipment that was referred to t 4 carlier, at least for the ma-h condensor. It will bypass that 10 - 11 1 equipment and the -- hopefully, much of the equipment already 3 12 building can be uscd by just reconnecting pipes, and in that 1 i h U all of that activity will go on in the turbine building. I QUESTION: One other cuestion: do you have any i,- p ] new information or your latest data on the levels,of .I M~ i radioactivity inside the containment and what that breaks ? li '7 4 i; down to in terms of -- il MR. DENTON: I haven' t checked that monitor recently. 15 9 y 1: 19 r I guess everytime I looked, it was always reading 50,000 r j

5

" il an hour. There's some speculation all along tha t there may be Il

2. i.

.h radioactive particles lodged nearby. I've just not checked it.

2. '

4 el It seemed to be not varying at all. Ycu would expect it to i i si -, i! "i come down with radioactive decay in the containment. So it man not te an accurate monitor. There may be something lodced e, ce u rs.rp anc,, ,c ? ~~ nearby that's causing it to be errcneous. 52^114 g f:

I li 18 l li g RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED . avid 18 3 l - i. Yumyr all, we did hhve a failure of the p /17 2 I, : t rec = ner on the containment over the weekend, and this was U 3, recobbiner itself, but d j' found to be not related to the I e the electrical connections to it, and this was repaired and 5 i the recombiner is now back function'ing properly. 6 ;.I MR. EOUCHARD: How about.one more. I know some of ji i 7, I gl you want to -- QUESTION: (Inaudible). 9 lll i MR. DENTON: Not yet, but I understand its j} 10 !I, depa_m re-is immiser-t, nr.d-thc-aerangements have-been 3;, authorized between the plant and the state. ,f p-QUESTION: And it was the same waste - that was 13 l rejected by North Carolina? 34 i MR. DENTON: Two s h i p m e n't's o f the same waste, and u g l{ I think there's going to be additional waste going to h( I 3 i Washington in addition to the one that was rejected.

3. I g i,,

f f L MR. FOUCHARD: One more. ,8 !l.. h 79 y QUESTION: There's a high level waste repositary ',l. 3;h in Washington for higher level waste than for -- i i MR. DENTON: I don't know for sure. g 1 I'd like to ask one more general cuestio QUESTION: 3{- 9 23 - since you're not really on the site much anymore. A number of I; 74 [. the: members of the technical staff of the NRC have said over t e ems the the last week that they believe that the prob}02,,gyb . M.sr a' W rN'j r'5. I M. 25 A I. 'L a

19 L 1 RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED _vid19 j I v they shouldn't stand in the /17 2 l '. plant can bo solved and that I l 3t way of the plant's reopening. I i, I wondered if you had any general thoughts on that i 4 i the i ifyoucouldcomEentonthefutureoperation, 5 i and also i l l ^ i 6i future of TMI number one. 7 MR. DENTCN: I think I just recoived a letter to SI; today with regard to unit one that said they have no plans i 1 I would envision that 91 start up unit one in the near future. l unit one would be down for a considerable period-of time so 10 ! i. used to support unit two operations; 11 l parts of its system can be c 3 whether or not unit two ever starts up is somewhat of an j 12 13 i . economic uecision. 14 li. That's up to the utility and,the Public Utility. p 15 !. If they can repair the plant to meet our standard I, Commission. f 16 those modificarions that we're going to require L [ and make i I= ultimately of all plants of this general type and can 17 1-F [ demonstrate that they meet these, then we would not be oppo 18 ' : I .19 ! to a restart of the plant. think it's probably premature to specul" 20 ! i But I inside .it one until they have had an opportunity to get 21 the radiation damage to the e7:;aipment a. 22 and see how extensive p. there is damace that the cables has been and whether or.not 23 I 52-116 24 has not been previously kncwn. . 2 %,,u %.o im. in:.,, think it's mainly an economic decision by th 25 But I I l

1 N. 20 I II RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED da id20 I 4/17 2 ll company. We would hot let them start up until they meet i ii all the regulation ~ and rules applicable for this kind of i i 4l plant. i ~ MR. FOUCI!ARD: - Thank you'very much. S I 1 (Whereupon, at 12 : 59 a.my, +-he press conference 6- } I f was concluded.) i 7 4 i 8 i t C - 11 10 'f,. i j. i 11 l 12 J i 13,] l 1 14 !! i i 15 i ' 16 .g l! 17 ij 9 18 I-l 19 l' 1 20 i; r 21 22 i 23 i 24 l'l ; I i ,.:,w s ;;,x ne.,in:., 25 ll I 52 117 yi ',i .}}