ML19206B412
| ML19206B412 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crane  |
| Issue date: | 05/07/1979 |
| From: | Stello V, Vollmer R Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 7905100054 | |
| Download: ML19206B412 (30) | |
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MR. A31'at'J4: "he pu.~xse of this bricfing is cuhavecopies!
3 to discuss the status of Three Mile Island, v 4
of the prepared text.
5; With us today, Victor Stello, Director of the 6 [
Division of Operating Reactors, who has been in charge of 7L operations here since Mr. Denton's departure; and his 84 Deputy Director, Richard Vollacr.
I 9t, MR. STELLO: I guess the first point that I wanted' i
104 to cake is that the level of activiP' at Three Mile Island l
11-with respect to the NRC review is still fairly high: we i
12j
't have about 70 pecple frc: the.iRC still at the "hree..Ila i-i i
13f'- Island site..
I 141 Today is the thirty-ninth day that I've been here,;
i i
15l and I hope to be able to return to Washington t day; and 161 Mr. Voll er vill stay with the remaining people who are 17!
an-site to continue to have the NRC presence during all 18{
phases of activities at Three Mile Island.
i I
191 I wanted to cover what I think are sc=a of the 20 icportant develop ents that have happened since the last 21; cpportunity we had to have a briefing; and in light of the 22 rather large nuaber of things ve have to cover, we'll cover i
23h the2 quickly hoping theca that I don't ecver to ycur satis-241 faction, we can get to is the questions and answers 2 5 3 0 1
.-3 m:pw m h:1 25{
"he fint :pic :.; anted to get thrcugh ra'.her
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RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCO RRECTE D 2,
briefly is the present plant status:
(
3 The reactor is still being cooled by the A-steam 4
generator via natural circulation through the A-steam generator 5
The B-steam genera tor is still isolated and is 6
not removing any heat from the core; and.'.t is not required i
71 to do so.
8 There have been li ttl a chanona wirh vaapac& en tha 9
core for the past week or so.
The temperatures continue 10 to decrease in the core, with the highest thermocouple reading 11 now about 310 degrees Fahrenheit.
12!
You recall that after natural circulation that i
13 therr.occuple was about 342 degrees Fahrenheit; and it has 14 continued to decline.
The original drop was fairly rapid, 15 and the decline now is gradual, probably just about equal 16 ta the proportion of decay heat that draps, th at thermocouple 17 decreases.
18 The decay heat lovels in the reactor today are about 19 1.7 megawatts, and, of t ourse, will continue to decrease with 20 i time as the nuclices decay.
21 There has been several activities in the plant 72 the handou t you have indicates the pressure is 900 psig; 23 last evening and this morning the pressure has increased to 24 raise the water level in the pressurizer to take the systen u.6.m1 % x 20 water solid just Somentarily to assure that the Water level 25 31 U
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RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 2
in the presurizer is where it's supposed to be.
That measure-3 ment is still gcing on now, and it will be evaluated over the 4
next several days to determine wheth-ar er not Ne s no' continue to operate with a steam buble ir tha r: r e s c u : _ : 3 r,
3 which is its normal mode, or-whether t:,,ould t( 0:m r s ?.e 6
to take the system and operate it as a water sol.d p....a ; ;
7 t
g system.
Either way is possible; and 2 vr. l u a '. ; o n, i _1 bc going on for the next several dajs mo do.:id: /h i ;;h..
9, i
10 best way to do it.
l 11l There has been a significar.t c.eas a reme n t " td e i
the weekend to try to evaluate what the activity is - e i _ _-
12, of the containment.
This is a questien thac "as ;;r.e up a t
a number of times, and I have in the handc" ' gi"nn y]u.he ja number and an CXPlanation of the number w r.a ':
h c u t :. v '.y 15l t
2 i nme n t-ch *, th2,;, n < a 4
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...: i yo!
Levol to incido ca f tlw
-2......
contained in the volune.
j7 The number is about 100r p3.
.m ar...
a.'.
jg activity contained in the gasses.
j9 There are other sources of activity w thir ths 20 containment and, o f ccurse, :hese are not re a r: : 2 *:1 by t
21 4
this nambe r x is deriv.:d.
taking gas sample; which is hcw l
22
.(.a. the 23l In order to accura tely understand c
t activity levels are inside, it will ta scme ;ime a c. :.. 2.-
24 l
actual entry is made before that meastranont is cPtat ed rev+ead u ann se m
25 25 311 1
o e
27 1
RAN TRANSCRIPT - L~NCORRECTED 7
through that mechanism.
3 Another measurement will be made over the next 4
several days; that meccurement will relate to determining 5
the level of water that's in the reactor building to determine 6
its accurate level at this time.
It 's expected that that 7
level is in the neighborhood of 1 bout five-and-a-half feet; 8.
and we want to know more accurately what that value is, and 9
to determine that, we will be taking a measurement to precisel" 10 define the water level inside the building.
II Let me briefly describe what I see as the future 12' cperations here at Three Mile Island.
I will first describe 13 vith respect to the reactor:
I4, The mode of cooling at the present time is very i
I 151 satisfactory. There is no need to change that rede.
- Mcwever, i
1 161 there are a number of system-modifications that will be made 17, which when incorporated decisions will be made to determine i
i I8' how and in what way to change the operating mode of the I7 reactor.
20 ;
But prior to that time tP~re will be semo activity 21 as related to ad, ting system parsmeters, one of which will 22 be the pressure in the primary system, which has been kept up 23 betecen 900 ar..
1,000 pounds; and over a period of time that 24 pressure will be adjusted, first, initially, to approximately u n noe m w.
25 500 psi; and then system parameters will be evaluated
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I 2 i to determine what further reduction in system pressure is 3
appropriate depending cn conditions in the core.
4 Aside from what will be happening in the reactor, 5
major activity, as we look to the future, we are going to be 6
handling and processing the highly-contaminated water, some 7
of which is in the basement of the reactor builc'ing, scme of 81 it is in the primary coolant system; and some of it ir 9
stored in tanks within the auxiliary ouilding.
10 There are systems that are being designed -- I'll 11 be getting to them in a moment-- which will be placed in 12; cperation for handling and storage of this highly-contaminated l
13!
water and, finally, removing activity from that water as a 14 part of what I characterize as the beginning of the restora-j l
15 tion program for the plant.
16 Let me very briefly next describe the major 17 plant modifications that are going on, and I've discussed some 18 of these in the past; and I would like to go through them 19 very briefly.
20 The first chart that you see is a chart which 21 defines the way in which the ventilation systems in the plant 22 work.
Ycu see in the chart thr' there are two ventilation 23 systems that are in existence in the plant, at the time it 24 was designed and were in operation during the course of the n.sm m In 25 accident.
These systems am the auxiliary buildi an te
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fuel handling building ventilation systems.
3 You will recall that as the filters in these systems 4.
have been replaced, the release o f radioactive iodine offsite 5l was significantly reduced.
We indicated at that time there 6,
was a new system being installed on the roof of the auxiliary 7
building, and when it went inro operation we expected to see 8
again a " cry significant improvement in protecting the 9
enviro nment from release of radio-iodine.
10 And that is the case, the syctem on the roof has 11 caused the ef fluent to be reduced by about a factor of 1,000 12 from those which we had had in the past; and as a result the 13 release of iodine from the plant is such that it is no longer 14l detectible; it is below detectible values of the environment.
I I
ISj The first portion of that system was placed in 16 operation with two trains on May 1st, with one remaining --
17 well, there are two additional trains:
one of them was 18 placed into service Saturday and has been running since; the I9 other two are available for service.
33' The stack could be capped and cause all the material 21 that's coming through the ventilation stack to be processed 22l through this system; however, we are finding that operating 23 three of the four trains has sufficient flow volure to not 24 re. quire the stack to be capped at this time; and that is w w w tx.
25 being considered further since -- when these systems are 9I 3k4 cJ
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placed in operation, they are able to naturally cause air to 3.
be pulled in from the top of the stack and prevent any iodine 4
going out th;cugh that source, and everything going out through 5
the new system.
6 If we can have the next chart?
I 7'
(Chart.)
8 Th *1 chart was T.ada up to try to describa more 9
fully modifications that are being raade in what is called 10 the B-steam generator.
You can see from this chart that II, there are two heat exchangars that will be available for i
f 12 ren.,ving the heat from the steam generator in series fashion.
13 You recall I mentioned that the first heat la a:: changer -- that's between
- Kca, if you could point to the 15 first heat exchanger? -- that's the one --
16 That '. eat exchanger is designed so that the 17 pressure in that system can be maintained at a higher pressure 18 than the primary system so that if there is a potential for i
19!
any leakage, that the leakage will be such that the water 20 from that system will leak into the primary system, rather 21 than the other way around.
22 The second heat exchanger is an existing heat exchanger which will ultimately remove the heat and move it 23 24 to what are cooling towers.
These are not the big cooling we %% i=.
is you see from the highway; they are small, forced-draft 25 towt gr 21F L3 Jl3 h
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RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 1
2 cooling tcwcrs that you can see in the background.
And that's 3
the ultimate heat sink for that purpose.
4 The next slide -- that system schedule has as I 5
indicated before has slipped somewhat; it is now scheduled to 6
be finished abnnt the middle of May.
7 There's a pressure volume control system that is 8I being constructed so that it can be used to controt the 9
pressure and the vo; ume in the primary envelope.
That system 10 will cause the reactor primary system boundary to go wa"_er 11 solid, and the pressure control boundary placed outside of the 12 contair. ment without requiring the primary coolant invento ry i
13 to be taken out of the containment by a series of tanks 14 as indicated on that particular slide --
15 (chart,)
lo'
-- where you see a series of tanks -- it's complex l
17 but a simple chart -- what it does is it will cause the M
"~2cnra to be controlled through this system, rather than 19 the way in which it is being controlled now through the 20 pressurizer.
21 If I can go to the next one?
22 (Char t. )
23 Thera have been some discussions of an alternate 24 decay heat removal system which is scheduled to be available we re iac.l 25 on a stanchy basis about the 18 th o f May.
These systems 25 316
19 II RAW TRAMSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED l
2 are coapact systems designed on a sledge which could be 3
moved in in the event they would ever be needed.
Interconnec-4 tions between it and the existing decay heat system, which you 5
heard me speak of before, which has been upgraded incorporatinc 6
various instrumentation systems to enhance ita reliability l! and menitoring capability, and performing varicus checks and 7
8 tests to make sure tha t it has the high reliability and 9
integrity that we want it to -- this is an additional system 10 to that system.
11 It aill have the capability to have further 12 connections made to it, and the system which will probably 13 be used for processing the primary coolant system water in 14 its 1cng-term cleanup of that water and allow recovery of 15 the plant; it will probably be through those connections.
16 A building suitable for housing such equipment 17 and equipment suitable for that purpose will be designed 18 and installed at tha t point.
19 If I can go quickly?
20 (Slide.)
21 There are a few other systems and plant modifica-22 tions which I won' t describe in detail new, but they are 23 included in the handout that you have in front of you.
24 I will ask Mr. Vollmer to describe the environmental u sm um u 25 information, both past and projected, as to what we see
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RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 2
in the future with respect to the various activities of the 3
plan t.
DLck?
5 MR. VOLLMER:
Thank you.
Okay, the first chart just indicates the people 6
who have been involved in the environmental radiation sampling 7
measurements, and the types of samples that have been taken 8
9 since the accident back en March the 28th.
10 As you can see, the Nuclear Regulatory Cctrission, 11 Cepartment of E.tergy, Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, and the State of Pennsylvania 12 I3 have all taken independent samples of various categories to I#
that both the public health and safety havo been assure protected and to provido cross-checks and cross-correlations 15 16 in the various samples.
I7 of particular interest, o f course, are the survey samples that have been taken around the Three M:.le 19 i
Islat:d site at the nearcst offsite locations.
These consisted 19 [
M^
o f what are called "TLD" measurements, which are very 21 tensitive measurements of the actual radioactive intensity 22 that exists at that location, as well as air samples, water, 23 milk and soil which indicate radioactivity that's either carried or deposited or is arrived at through the various 24 AM em inc.
25 food, or in particular, milk chains.
7E l l b' cJ J
LL.
1 RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 2
As I think you have been brief on all of these 3
samples in the past, and currently they are all o' these 4
types of samples show that the activity bo th in the ef fluents 5'
and the environment, as well as in the foot pathway, are down 6
to minimum detectible levels; that is, with very sensitive measuring instruments, the level of activity cannot readilf 7
8 be discerned from natural background radiation.
7 Now, the next chart --
10 (Chart.)
11 summari as the samples that were taken:
the 12 iodine-131 air samples -- and I might emphasize, those are 13 the NRC samples; and they consist of just a fraction of the l
Id total envirotunental samples that have been taken during the 15 course of the accident.
16 Air samples amount to about 200, and the iodine I7 concentration ranged, as you can see, from the very 1cw values I8 of 2x10-12 up to a maximum offsite of about a little over 19 10-10 microcuries per cubic centimeter.
Now, to calibrate you in terms of where these stand 20 21 in accordance with permissible levels, the permissible level 22 for unrestricted area is about 10-10 microcuries per ce; I
so the highest sample that we found in the air was 10-percent 23 '
over that permissible level.
And that was for a relatively-24 W r.,e,.m. x 25 short period of time.
7l4.
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RAW TPANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 2
Milk samples, we've sampled five farms around the 3,
arca; and our only one positive sample was in goats' milk, l
4 and that was of the ordor of 30 microcuries or 30 picocuries 5
per liter.
And I think this corresponded to -- reasonably 6
well with other milk samples that have been taken.
I think 7
there were a few higher ones; but, again, to provide a point 8
of reference, the action level that has been setup is for 9
when the milk level gets up to about 12,000 picocuries per 10 liter.
11 So you can see, we are at very small fractions of 12 !
that level.
13 Gail and vegetation samples were taken.
It's 14 difficult to provide a calibra tion for the relative activity 15 in these types of samples; but I might indicate that if 16 the cows were existing on the vegetation at this level, they 17!
would have measurable activities in the milk, but they weald 18 be far, far below any action levels.
And the levels that we 19 did find were on the order of or smaller than what we 20 normally see when we get fallout fron. a bomb test -- say, a 21 Chinese bomb test.
22 Water samples, we took random river samples; these 23 were all negative.
Nothing detectible above natural 24l background.
we ne iac.i 25 And many ground nurveys were taken with portable
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equipment as well as "TLD's", and these are summarized -- I 3
think have been summarized in our o :casional press releases.
But I will indicate that the summation of the exposures from 3
March 28th until April 7th -- and it hasn't really changed 6
much since then -- I think you are an aware the maximum dose 7
to an individual who exists near the North Gate for 24-hours 8
a day, 7-days a week, which we consider to be the maximum I
9f possible exposure, but not a realistic one, would have been i
10l 86 millirem.
II And the average dose to an individual.ithin 50-12 miles of the plant site in any direction has been estimated 33 to be about 1.6 millirem.
Id As you are aware natural background in the 15 11arrisburg area is about 100 millirem; so that the populace 16 has been exposed to an increase of roughly 1-to-2-percent 17 overwhat he would have normally received as part of natural I8 background radiar. ion.
And, of course, that does not include I9 the radiation from other sources, medical X-rays, and things 20 like that.
21 The future operations at the site will require 22 of considerable amounts of highly-cone minated water.
movement 23 The sources of water, of course, exist in the reactor building 24 itself, which has been maintained under a negative pressure m aen.oy i.e. '
25 since early in the accident, and still is under negative a\\
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RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRICTED 2
pressurc; so there is no release of activity from that.
3 But there is a fair amount cf activated water in it, 4
and there is activated water in the auxiliary building; all 5
of this will have to be moved into appropriate tankage and 6
be prepared for decontamination and disposal.
7 We feel that the activities which will be needed to 8
handle the radioactive water and whatever activity is 9) involved in the cleanup cperation, we feel that the equipment 10
' -place, or that will be in-place shortly, is adequate to 11 keep those releases frcm the facility down to those which 12 are experienced for a plant in normal operation.
13 Mcwever, we are dealing with fairly large amounts 14 of contamini.ted materal, and there may be some unplanned 15 releases; we certainly can't count that out.
But we do 16 believe that precautions that have been taken, and equipment 17 that is in-place, will keep all such releases to well '-
n<
18 the limits that are provided in our regulations.
And we talking here -- when I talk about a r o l ea s e, " I mean 19 are 20 a release at the point of discharge, not really giving credit 21 for any dilution by the envircament either in the water 22 pathway.
23 So, to summarize, then, we believe that based on 24 many measurements that nave been taken in the past few weeks w w e,p i=.
25 and that are currently being taken, that all such messurements ca }99 gr
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RAN TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 2
indicate radiation levels in all sorts of pathways are down 3
to the minimum detectible level; that is, dcwn to natural 4
background.
5 And we are reasonably confident that these low level:
6 of activity to the environment can be raintained in future 7
operations.
8 MR. STELLO:
I believe we are ready for question?.
9l QUESTION:
Do you gentlemen have a timetable I
to when the reactor will be closed down completely?
10 as Il MR. STELLO:
You mean when the fuel will be removed 12 from the reactor?
13 That's part of the plant restoration.
I can define 4
the beginning o f that activity; the end of the activity, when 15 ultimare removal of the fuel -- that cannot be defined until 16 considerable studies are made as to all that will need to be 17 done before fuel can be removed from the reactor.
18 I think the beginning of it will start with the 19 movement of the highly-contaminated water, processing that 20 water, and getting rid of the radioactivity.
21 Until the containment has been decontaminated and 22 the water removed, it's not really possible to give you a 73 definitive schedule.
24 Mr. Decamp earlier today had estimated in his A=r.d d b e tm.
25 remarks had indicated that he thought it might be up to a 84 m o f) eS t. )
L
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l 2!
year before the entry into the containment can be made; and if 3
that's useful for you, you can use that inforration.
I am not prepared to give an independent view until I've seen a study 4
5 that shows all the activity necessary -- although I think that 6
based on measurements of the activity we are seeing right i
7 now, I would think that entry to the containment sconer than 8[
that might very well be possible.
l 9'
QUESTICN:
- ihen do you expect to start processing 10 and treating the water?
11 MR. STELLO:
The processing and the treatment of the 12 water could begin at the time -- if you look in your handout 13
-- that system called "EPICORE II"? -- when that system ic 14 put into service, which is expected to be placed into service 15; about the end of May-it can be used to start processing
}
i 16' water that's already :.n the containment building and removing 17 the radioactive T.aterials frc= it.
18 QUESTICN:
You stated earlier you would dro p I
19 the pressure in the containment from psi?
20 l HR. STELLO:
Ycs, adjusting the pressurizer 21 parameters, princloally, the heaters that are in the procatrizar, 22 the amount of power provided to those heaters is reduced; 23l the reduction in power to the heater causes the water in the 24 pressurizer to drop in temperaturer the drop in temperature w.s.,os emo,*-i. tac.
25 of that water causes the vapor space above it to go into 9
'5 < 4
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17 RAW TFANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 2,
equilibrium at a lower saturation pressure.
l 3l It wi:1 generally track the temperatures of the 1
4l water, which is the highest temperature of the water in the 5
primary system, to control the pressure.
It is a balance 6
between the vapor pressure of water at some temperature.
7 CUESTION:
So it's a matter of leaks?
8 MR. STELLO:
No, it's all within the primary 9
system boundary.
10 Yes?
l 11 QUESTICN :
Can we go over in a little more detail 12 how you are going to deal with the waste -- EPICORE I, 13 EPICORE I!? -- and possiblr another building attached to the i
14 auxiliary building?
15 f I can't fit it all together, -- the tanks in the I
l 16l spent fue' pool?
17 MR. STEL.0:
Okay.
18 The tanks in the spent fuel pool are available as 19 a storage volume.
They, by themselves, do nct provide any 20 capability to remove radioactive materials; just simply to 21 store it if the need arises.
22 The EPICORE II system is a system that is designed 23 to remove materials frcm highly-contaminated water.
That system will be used to start to clean-up the contacinated 24 Acae+.w se t=.
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25 water -- EPICORE II.
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1 RAW TRANSCFIPT - UNCORRECTED 2
QUESTION:
Keep it in tanks?
3 L,
STELID :
The water -- all of the water, the water that is now in the basement of the containment building 5
and the wa ter in the tanks -- that system can be used to 6
start treating the water that needs to be treated.
That's 7l an existing system.
I 8'
QUESTICN:
It is being installed now?
MR. STELLO:
It will be completed by the end of May.
9 10 QUESTION:
EPICCORE I?
II MR. STELLO :
EPICORE II.
That is a new sy s tem.
I2:
The system that I described which will built I3 outside o f the exis ting auxiliary building c: one of the Id previous charts, is a system that will be usod to process 15 l the water from the reactor coolant system -- that's one way; 16 there are others -- and it will probably be designed with II some combination of demineralization and evaporation.
t I8!
That system will need to be in service to clean up 19 the primary water so that the head of the vessel can be 20I removed in its usual manner; and then it will continue to 21 provide the cooling mechanism reouired for removing the 22 damaged fuel from the vessel.
23 So those are wo principal mechanism ;hich will be 24 used to process the water.
A m t e i=.
25f QUESTION:
How much water are we talking abot3c'6 And o,., t e
L.
19 l
l' RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED terms will you be able to explain how this 2
in laymas s 3
processing occurs, ar.d what the treatment is of that water?
4 MR. STELLO:
Maybe I'd better let Dick do that.
He s better than 1 am at treatment.
5 i
6 MR. VO LLMER :
The total volumes of water -- we will 7
know the exac*. number of callons of water in the containment 3
building af ter we make this measurement we spoke of today.
9[
It's currently estimated to be somewhat in er cas of 1
10 400,000 gallons, 11 The primary system contains about another 85,000 12 gallons, and there's probably some odd-3.00,000-plus gallons 13 in the tanks within the auxiliary building.
And then there's 14 going to be additional quantity of water -- I cannot describe 15 what the number will be -- but there would be a need for 16 additional water to be used as part of the decontamination l'
17 activity.
18 Ncw, you want me to describe demineralisation?
19 The method for taking the radioactivity out of the 20 water, basically, is one which is similar to, let's say, 21 soft-water unit for home use; you run the water through a
22 what are called ion exchange beds or domineralizer beds; and 23 the activated products are captured onto resin, and the 24 resultant water has gone through a very significant decontami-w e r e w.
25 nation.
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Or, if it is no t a suf ficient decontamination to 3
allow the water to be disposed of, it can be run back through 4
again.
So basically you are just removing the activity from 5
the water essentially by domineralizing it, and the resins 6
that ar e lef t ever then are usually solidified by, say, 7
mixing them with concrete and putting them in drums, and are 8
disposed by placing them in a waste storage dispcsal facility.
9 Another way of reducing the radioactivity is basical] y 10 one of concentrating the wastes by taking and putting a 11<
radioactive liquid into an evaporator, sort of boiling it 12 dcwn, and the residual, as you mipet expect, gets core and l
13' more concentrated in radioactivity and it then can be I4' concentrated in some solid matrix, and shipped off-site for 15.
burial.
16 Those are two typical ways in which you can achieve 1
i 17 decontamination of the water, and the water can be reduced 18 down to limits of essentially safe drinking water ILnits I9 which they could dispose of it.
20 QUESTION:
The problem you talked about, there may 21 be unplanned relased; would that problem be when you start 22 to pump this water out?
Do you trust your pumps and the 23 systems?
24 MR. STELLO:
No, " unplanned" means scmething that u.a.mi se tac.
25 I cannot predict or anticipate:
for some reasons, water spilla 25 328
2 L; 4
1 RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTEC on the ficor and seco radioactive material can become 2
airborne.
3 The likelihood of that diminishes now very rapidly 4
with time, as the mobile, the highly mobile activity is 5
principally xenon and iodine, as gasses; and those have 6
7 decayed off now.
The xenon has a halflife of five-and-a-half 8
days, and the iodine has a halflife o f seven days.
Should something like that happen, the radioactive 9
10 material could be released into the building, into the jj auxiliary building.
And as you recall, there are still sources f radioactivity in the auxiliary building.
There are still 12 releacos of material into the building; however, the systems
- 3 that have been in-place, the first one I described, are ja highly effective and provide significant margin to the 33 I
removal f the radiciodine.
16 So that I do not foresee any significant problem 37 in the environment as a result -- that 's something that's 18 I
planned; and something that's unplanned is something I cannot 19 20 Predict today.
That is not intended t a mean that when I move 21 water, which is a planned activity, and as a result of the movement of dbat water thore is indeed a release of radio-22 active material; thr.re isn't; the system will be desigred 23 so that it doesn't occur that way.
24 wM ee %
25 QUESTION:
Could you better define the term
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3
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I EnW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 2
" cold shutdown"?
3 Also, where do you intend to dispose of the radio-4 active vastes?
5 MR. STELLO:
I'll take the first and Dick will take 6
the second one.
7 The first question is one that I have been trying to 8
deal with now for several weeks.
Cold shutdown is a term of 9
art that is used to describe an activity for a normal operatine 10 plant when the plant is ready to be taken off of its normal II heat removal system, which is the steam generaters in this 12 type of a plant, and when the heat is no longer removed by 13 the steam generator, but it is placed on a decay heat removal 14 and tho temperatures are lowered to essentially system; 15 below boiling, below 212 degrees Fahrenheit.
16 When the system is operating in that mode, it's 17 usually characterised as a plant in a cold shutdown condition.
18 aut this particular plant, there are two particular 19 attributes for which I am reluctant to use the classical 20 defini tion, because I don't think it applies:
21 The first one is thoro is a great deal of highly-22 contaminated water; and the best possible cooling mode to 23 place the plant in the long-term cooling mode, is to do that 24 in such a way that radioactive material does not have to 4,sm s pwt.n inc 25 he circula* 1 outsido of the reactor building until we are t 7 (\\
97)
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RAW TRXiSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 2
ready to do so, until we are ready to start to process it.
3 The second feature of this plant is such that the 4'
temperature in the core is higher significantly than the bulk 5
temperature of the water.
The cold leg temperature on the 6
steam generator is now running about 160 degrees Fahrenheit; 7
and the hot leg temperature is about 170 degrees.
- However, 8
the hattest thermocouple in-core is still operating at a i
9 temperature of about 310 degrees.
10 So the ct?.d shutdown for the inlet and outlat 11 temperatures are usually together, and that's representative 12 of the conditions in the core which don' t apply.
I think 13 the plant in its current mode is that it is in a long-term 14 cooling mode; and I think tha t for a plant in the condition 15 that it's in now, I think that that is the appropriate 16l definition for the equivalent for tne cold shutdown -- for 17 the plant as it is now.
18 Dick, you hava the second part?
19 MR. VOLLMER:
So f ar as the disposal of the wastes, 20 as I indicated that when the water is processed there will be 21 a residual waste which will -- can be solidified by a number 22 of means, and systems which are routinely used in plants 23 throughout the country; and from there the wastes would be 24 shipped to a waste disposal or burial site, after it has weem x 25 been determined that the waste is solidified, it can't leak 77*
7 r)
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l If out of the container, and so forth; and the containers them-2 selves are sealed.
Then it could go to a licensed burial 3
l facility.
I 4 l, QUESTICN: Do you know which one?
I MR. VOLLMER:
Not really.
That's scmething that 6
the licensee -- as I say, these are commercial burial 7
facilities; the licensee would take care of that.
Si QUESTION:
Does the level of activity seem to be j
9 decreasing inside the containment?
10 MR. STELLO:
Oh, most c :rtainly.
11 The gaseous activity now is probably.t about 100r 12 f airly reasonable number.
per hour, and quoted as a 13
.f you were to back-calculate the amount of activity 14 that would have been there earlier, just in decay of the xenon, 15 it would be approximately 100-times more than that, or on 16 the order of 5,000r to 10,000r per hour, earlier in the 17 accidene.
18 That's a difficult analysis to make because you 19 need to ask as you were venting the
-imary system and during i
20 degassing operations, more xenon was being added; so it 21 isn't clear what exactly the number is.
22 And I forgot my favorite question:
what 's the 23 monitor on the containment?
-- tha t 's always asked.
You know, 24 does it read correctly?
m g,
25 And to each time I've been able to find somgane'ro',
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I argue that tha t 's a correct reading.
2 Our estimate trday of about 100r per hour in the 3
containment -- and the =cnitor, as I recall, looking at it I
d' yesterday or the day before -- was reading abcut 8,500r per 5
hour.
6 In its earlier readings it was up to on the order 7:
of 50,000r per hour, and it stayed that way for I think 20 1
so, which certainly doesn't seem to be correct.
It 8
days or 9
should have either gone up or down or something; but staying 10 still doesn't indicato it was correct, 11 [
There's probably some explanation for why, but 12 we probably won't have the full explanation until we've 13, actually gone in and looked at what's on the monitor.
i 14 MR. ABRAHAM:
Let's just take two more questions.
15 CUESTICN:
When you expect the treatment of the 16 l' contaminated water to begin in a month, do you call that the t
17' "beginning of the end"?
18 MR. STELLO:
Well, I call it the beginning of the 19 final restoration, to restore the plant clearly, the first operations that's going to be needed is to remove the 20 contaminated materials.
And that meann processing the 2I i
22 f contaminated water and getting the activity out of it; and 23 that will have to be balanced and included with the various 2dl of decontamination afforts which eventually will lead to w.sa e. pan.n. %j kinde.
251 where the plant can be placed in a mode where the head of the 733 7 I)
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If RAW '"RANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 2
Vessel can be removed and finally, remove the fuel that's in 3 !
there, remove it from the system and examine to make an 4
assessment of what damage has been done within the core and 5
the inside of the structure of the internals of the core.
6!
QUESTION:
You give an average dose for individuals living within a radius of 50 miles.
I think at one time they were measuring the plume in 15 miles and that was only 8
9 in one directient and I heard of no indications of it going 10 50 miles.
II You spread the radiation amonng the people for 100 12 miles and it becomes even smaller; why do you use the 50-mile I3 figure at all7 14 It probably didn' t go out that far?
15 MR. VOLLMER:
Well, it probably did, bec~ase even at low levels, I me,in, the dispersion occurs for a nurter 10 even for a Chinese bomb test, 17 of milen.
As you might recall, 18 there are measurable ectivities in this country; and that 's 39 certainly a lot further away.
20 The reason bas:tcally that 50 miles is attacked is 21 because our environmental regulations and the guide where impose environmental survey and environmental estirstes 22 we of the population dose for plants during normal operation is 23 24 done out to 50 miles, wr.a-a ev%
t,=.
l And the way the numbers were then arrived at 23 9r f7 LU J-
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I RAW TRANSCRIPT - UNCORRECTED 2
were by looking at these various measurements that he? : Par-i place, knowing the meteorology, the wind dispersion, the 3
d!
conditiens that existed every day, hour-by-hour during the 5
whole course of the accident; and then one goes back and 6
calculates knowing the actual population that is living in 7
the direction where the wind is blcwing and so on, then you 8
T.ake an esticate of the total dose.
9 And these estimates can be fairly good; so it's 10!
just -- there's nothing magical about 50 miles, except that I
11' this is chosen to bc far enough out se that doses beyond 12 that are of negligible consequence.
13 CUESTION:
You say a person in Middletown and, I4 say, a person, say, at York, recieve -- I mean --
15 MR. VOLLMER:
No.
I mean the average dose to the 16l population out to 50' miles, the average dose is 1.6 millirem; the maximum dose, I indicated, was about 86 millirem, but I7 18 that was for a person that was essentially living at the 19 plant and at the worst-possible location day-and-night during the course of the accident, at the North Gat] of the 20 21 plant.
22 So it's quite true that there 's a range in between.
I mean, one could estimate what the possible doses were at 23 24 a civen point in Middletown, for example; but you'd also wu e. con.n. w have to determine how long they were at their home, you would 25 LU
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gr
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i 1l also have to calcualt.e the shielding that was provided by 2'
their existence in the building, and so on.
3, And in actuality the doses that to the real l
I 4-person -- are substantially less than the calculated; 5,
because calculated doses may not take into account such things i
I 6'
as shielding the houses they live in, and so on.
7 CUESTION:
Will that clean-up water be dumped 8
back into the Susquehanna River?
9 I MR. STELLO:
When the water is cleaned up so that 10 it meets the acceptable limits for disposing the water in the 11 river, then it can be placed in the river; yes.
Thank you very much.
13, (whereupo n, at 2:44 p.m.,
the press briefing was l
14 ( concluded. )
15 16, 1
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18 19 20 6 21 22 23 24 grb Q,*j )s u3 ~~, 25}}