ML19317D077

NEIMA Meeting Transcript

ML19317D077
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Issue date:	09/10/2019
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Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title:

NEIMA Section 108 Public Meeting Docket Number: (n/a)

Location: Brattleboro, Vermont Date: Tuesday, September 10, 2019 Work Order No.: NRC-0515 Pages 1-102 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433

1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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PUBLIC MEETING NEIMA SECTION 108

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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

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BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT

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The Public Meeting was held at the Brattleboro Area Middle School, 109 Sunny Acres, Brattleboro, Vermont, at 6:00 p.m., Brett Klukan, Facilitator, presiding.

NRC STAFF PRESENT:

BRUCE WATSON, Branch Chief, Reactor Decommissioning Branch TED SMITH, Project Manager, Reactor Decommissioning Branch KIM CONWAY, Project Manager, Reactor Decommissioning Branch BRETT KLUKAN, Region I Office NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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2 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S NRC Staff Introductions and Presentation on NEIMA Section 108 Brett Klukan......................................4 Bruce Watson......................................4 Statements from Elected Officials or Representatives of Elected Officials Haley Pero for Senator Bernie Sanders............16 Tom Berry for Senator Patrick Leahy..............18 Thea Wurzburg for Representative Peter Welch.....20 June Tierney for Governor Phil Scott............ 21 Feedback from Community Officials or Local CAB Donald Hudson....................................25 Eric Howes.......................................34 Chris Campany....................................37 Public Comment Chris Campany....................................46 Clay Turnbull....................................53 Deb Katz.........................................57 Bruce Montgomery.................................61 Howard Shaffer...................................65 Lissa Weinmann...................................68 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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3 Mike Mulligan....................................74 Derrik Jordan....................................82 Schuyler Gould...................................82 Lorie Cartwright.................................85 Gary Sachs.......................................86 Josh Unruh.......................................90 Mike Mulligan....................................93 Schuyler Gould...................................94 June Tierney.....................................96 Lissa Weinmann...................................98 Adjournment......................................102 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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4 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 6:00 p.m.

MR. KLUKAN: All right. Welcome, everyone. We're going to get started here in just a minute or two. I want to check the thumbs up from the transcriptionist.

We good?

(No audible response.)

MR. KLUKAN: And then from the local public TV station. We good?

(No audible response.)

MR. KLUKAN: All right. Fantastic. So welcome, everyone. My name is Brett Klukan. I'll be facilitating the meeting. I'm going to turn it over to Bruce Watson to start with the NRC presentation.

So, welcome and thank you for coming this evening.

MR. WATSON: Thank you, Brett. Can you hear me or do I have to bring it up closer?

(No audible response.)

MR. WATSON: Okay. My name is Bruce Watson. I'm Chief of the Reactor Decommissioning Branch at the NRC Headquarters in the Division of Uranium Recovery and Waste Program -- Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs.

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5 I have two people here from my staff with me up here at this table. This is Ted Smith. He's a project manager. And Kim Conway. She's also a project -- decommissioning project manager at the NRC.

If we could go to the first slide, please?

This is an NRC Category 3 meeting. It means that it's our -- it's the NRC's meeting, public meeting.

We have certain protocols we will follow. And so --

but our purpose tonight is to obtain comments to identify the best practices for the establishment and operation of local community advisory boards for decommissioning of nuclear power plants including lessons learned from existing CABs.

As it said on the cover page we're doing this because this is a requirement in the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, Section 108.

And so we've been tasked with that.

As far as the meeting safety procedures, we have exits on both sides to leave if the fire alarm goes on.

With that I'll go ahead and introduce --

ask for members of the NRC staff that would like to be identified.

MS. HOLAHAN: I'm Trish Holahan. I'm the Director of the Decommissioning, Uranium Recovery and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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6 Waste Programs, and this is -- I'm glad everybody's here and I'd like to hear your comments.

MR. KLUKAN: All right. Thank you.

MR. WATSON: Okay. With that, we'll continue. I have a brief NRC presentation and at that

-- after that I'll turn it over to Brett for the ground rules of tonight's meeting. We have a number of invited guests from the future other -- other CABs around the country, from Maine Yankee and Connecticut Yankee, and Yankee Rowe also.

So let's -- with that, we expect to hear your comments tonight. We are here exclusively to hear your comments. And so hope -- we have not a great crowd, but we have a good crowd, and so we expect that we'll have plenty of time for people to make the comments they want to. And I plan to close the meeting promptly at 9:00 because that's when we have to turn the school back over.

With that, let's go to the next slide.

The NRC's current decommissioning regulations are performance-based and they're risk-informed. They have been in place for over 20 years now, so the NRC has extensive experience in oversight of nuclear decommissioning projects, and a total of 10 nuclear power plants have completed decommissioning.

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7 Unfortunately, seven of those still have spent fuel on the site, which is continuously -- or excuse me, is --

continues to be inspected by the NRC at least annually at those sites.

We also have -- just so you know, we have four sites that we'll be terminating in 2020. We expect them to complete -- they're in the process of completing the decommissioning now, so the plants at La Crosse, Humboldt Bay and Zion 1 and 2 are expected to be completed. In total we've done -- almost 80 complex material sites have completed decommissioning and had their licenses terminated.

Next slide, please. This is a picture of Vermont Yankee. The staff and I toured the site today. There's been a lot of work done. The site does not look like that picture up there on the upper left. There's been extensive work done inside the --

on the reactor system itself and they are processing the waste for disposal in Texas.

Next slide, please. If you're new to this, the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act; as we call it NEIMA, Section 108 -- the legislation was issued January 14th of 2019. It was assigned to my group at the NRC, the Reactor Decommissioning Branch, and it basically says the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 Commission shall submit to Congress a report identifying best practices with respect to the establishment and operation of a local community advisory board to foster communications and information exchange between a licensee planning for and involved in decommissioning activities and members of the community that the decommissioning activities may affect including lessons learned from such boards in existence.

Now, I realize your name here in Vermont is the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel, right? They come in various names, but we recognize that the Congress used the word CAB, so we'll continue to use that in most cases.

Next slide. Also we expect -- we will accept comments until November 15th, so you still have plenty of time to think about it and get your comments in. And you can do that; we'll have a slide at the end, through our website, the regulations.gov website.

You can send us a letter or you can email us.

Next slide, please. So a community advisory board. It is an organized group of citizens interested in safe decommissioning practices and safe spent fuel management at a decommissioning facility.

The sponsor is usually a local licensee or mandated by NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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9 state legislature. The composition typically includes local community leaders and elected officials, state representatives and members of the licensee's staff.

Most CABs have a governing charter to establish roles and responsibilities.

Next slide, please. So what are the typical CAB responsibilities? They review the licensee's plans for decommissioning, they provide insight into the potential impact on the local community, they provide an opportunity for public education on decommissioning, and they can make recommendations to state officials. They also provide input on site restoration, plans for future reuse of the site and economic development.

Next slide, please. So our report to Congress will contain a description of the CAB discussion topics, CAB recommendations to inform the decision making process during decommissioning, CAB interfaces with the Commission, and other federal regulatory bodies to support the Board members' overall understanding of the decommissioning process and promote dialog between the affected stakeholders and the licensee involved in the decommissioning activities. It also will include a description on how a CAB would offer opportunities for public engagement NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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10 throughout all the phases of a decommissioning.

Next slide, please. So again our report to Congress will include the CAB best practices for CAB membership composition, the selection process and the terms of the membership, when the CAB was established and the frequency of the CAB meetings. We will also include specific logistics required to support the CAB and other identified best practices or activities. We have a questionnaire. A copy of the questionnaire was out on the table. It's also available on our website and it can be submitted electronically if you go to our website. And I have that information coming up. But there is a questionnaire out there, the questionnaire. We got approval from the Office of Management and Budget to ask the public those specific questions.

Next slide, please. All right. You already got it up there. Okay.

Okay. You can provide comments to us at this meeting. We'll be recording it. Mr. Paul Holland is over here. He's our transcriber. He will be transcribing the meeting. That will also be made publicly available. You can fill out the NEIMA questionnaire online. Here's where you can find it on our web site. You can submit comments electronically NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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11 to the federal rulemaking website, regulations.gov.

And that's the NRC docket number there. And you can scan completed questionnaires and send them to NEIMA108.Resource@nrc.gov. Or you can mail them to Kimberly Conway right here. And that's her address right there. This information is also on a little card we had out front, so you can take the card with you and choose how you want to submit your comments to us.

Next slide, please. You can go to our website. We specifically added this to what we call our Spotlight section, which is highlighted in -- with a red circle there. So you go to nrc.gov. You can go to the Spotlight section on the -- as you -- when you get on the public web page. You can click on that and it will take you to our website for the questionnaire and providing comments.

Any other questions you can also refer --

we can -- they can be referred to our office of public affairs. This is Dave McIntyre from our Headquarters Office of Public Affairs, and his website also.

Next slide, please. In summary, this is an NRC Category 3 meeting. We're here to listen to you on CAB best practices. Again, we are transcribing the meeting so we have a public record of it. It will NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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12 be made publicly available. We want to stick on that specific topic tonight. That's the sole reason we're having this meeting, to fulfill what the Congress has asked us to do or told us to do.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Brett for the meeting ground rules and get the meeting underway. Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Hello, everyone, again. And I'll keep this short.

So again my name is Brett Klukan.

Normally I'm the regional counsel for Region I, but tonight I'll be acting as the facilitator as I do at other sites within Region I, Pilgrim in particular and Indian Point.

So Bruce has already covered many of the logistics for the meeting: where the bathrooms are and what not, so I'm not going to over that again.

And I say this next rule at every meeting, so don't feel like I have any indication that this is going to happen here, but I feel compelled to say it.

There's no expectation it's going to occur tonight.

Let me make this clear: Under no circumstances will threatening gestures or statements of any kind be tolerated. If you engage in such behavior, you will be immediately ejected from the meeting. Again, I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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13 have no expectations that's going to occur, but I feel compelled to make that clear at the start of every meeting that I facilitate.

So you'll notice for those of you who signed up to speak tonight already; and if you haven't done so, I'd ask that you step outside to the registration table to please add your name to the list, you were given a ticket. So normally at these meetings when we have a large attendance I will call those tickets in random order. Given that it's unlikely that we are going to exceed the amount of time or that we should -- let me put it this way:

We'll have plenty of time for everyone who wants to speak to have an opportunity to do so tonight. So I am just going to call those in order, one to seven, instead of having to go through a random ordering system, if that's okay with everyone. There's no -- I don't foresee us not having an opportunity for everyone who registered to speak to get an opportunity to do so. So we'll just go through that.

You will notice; for your awareness, Bruce already mentioned, there is a transcript being provided, and as such when you go to the microphone to begin your public comment, please state your name and then if you wouldn't mind spelling it, especially if NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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14 it's a longer name, just for the sake of our transcriptionist so we can actually capture your name on the record. And then again, I would ask that while someone is speaking please don't talk over them or make comments when you don't have a microphone in front of you because it makes the -- his life that much more difficult in creating a complete record of the meeting tonight.

I do have a time clock up here. Based on the number of speakers we have right now, which is seven, I'm going to say that probably everyone will have eight minutes to speak, or that's what I would like to keep us to. Again, if we have extra time at the end, people can get up and speak again. I don't hold elected officials to that, of course. But that's where I'd like to keep it at. That should build us in a little bit of buffer in case people go long after the end.

As Bruce already mentioned, the purpose of this meeting tonight in accordance with Section 108 of NEIMA is to solicit public comments in an effort to identify best practices and lessons learned for the establishment and operation of local community advisory boards. In keeping with that purpose, we ask that you be mindful of what topics you're discussing.

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15 And then moreover, as the intent of this meeting is principally to hear from you, the members of the public, in order to gather your ideas and your thoughts, the NRC staff will be more in a listening mode, meaning that technical questions regarding Vermont Yankee decommissioning posed to -- can be posed to individual staff members after the meeting, but we won't be addressing them during the meeting.

And again, please don't take that as commentary upon your questions. It's just that we're trying to keep the focus of this meeting on the intent provided to us by Congress and the statute.

All right. Before we turn it over to elected officials or representatives of elected officials, I'd like to ask does anyone have any process questions about how Section 108 operates or how -- NRC is implementing Section 108?

(No audible response.)

MR. KLUKAN: Any process questions?

(No audible response.)

MR. KLUKAN: Going once? Twice? Sold.

All right. At this point I'd like to --

now would like to call up elected officials or representatives of elected officials -- the opportunity to be recognized and to give prepared NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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16 statements.

So with that said, we will start with the representatives from Senator Sanders' office. You can come to this microphone.

MS. PERO: Thank you and good evening. My name is Haley Pero and I handle outreach for Senator Sanders on energy and environmental issues. I am here tonight with Katey Thomas, who is Senator Sanders' policy advisor based in D.C. for energy and environmental issues.

We want to thank the NRC staff, and most importantly we want to thank area residents and NDCAP members for coming out tonight to discuss the important role of community input in the nuclear decommissioning process. I appreciate the opportunity to share a few words on behalf of Bernie.

Senator Sanders has long believed that communities impacted by the decommissioning of nuclear plants deserve a seat at the table during the process as they bear the brunt of the environmental, safety and economic impacts of plant closure. It is these communities that are left with the legacy of nuclear power and its consequences, and their input and concerns must be taken seriously.

That is why in 2015 and again in 2018 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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17 Bernie introduced the Nuclear Decommissioning Act which would give states a formal role in shutdown plans and license transfers, and that is why he worked to include a provision in the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act which requires the NRC to hold public meetings in at least 10 communities impacted by a nuclear plant shutdown to create a report for Congress about the role of citizen advisory panels in planning decommissioning activities and helping share lessons learned with other communities around the country experiencing decommissioning.

This provision is what brings the NRC to Brattleboro and nine other communities impacted by nuclear decommissioning, to learn about the best practices of citizens advisory boards like Vermont's Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel. Our hope is that these meetings show the NRC how essential panels like NDCAP are the lessons NDCAP learned will help other regions facing the challenges of plant decommissioning.

The input of surrounding communities is especially critical given the potential for non-operational plants like Vermont Yankee to sit idle for decades before radioactive and other hazardous materials are removed and the plants are completely NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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18 decontaminated. These meetings will help transform a process that's currently weighted almost entirely toward the power plant owners into one that strikes a reasonable balance between owners and the impacted communities. These meetings should show the NRC why it must take more seriously the need for public input in the entire decommissioning process.

As a member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that has oversight of the NRC Senator Sanders has and will continue to advocate for giving Vermonters a voice in decommissioning. I look forward to hearing from you all tonight and I will bring back what I learn to Senator Sanders. Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

Next we'll have Tom Berry of Senator Leahy's office.

MR. BERRY: Thank you. My name is Tom Berry; that's spelled as in strawberry, and I'm here representing Senator Leahy.

I would like to thank the representatives of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for bringing this opportunity to Brattleboro and I would also on behalf of Senator Leahy very much like to thank all of the representatives, organizations and the citizens who NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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19 have come tonight, many of whom have spent literally thousands of hours over the past several years engaging in this process. And so we'd like to thank you all for your contribution. And a lot of credit goes to of course Senator Sanders for his work in bringing this about.

On behalf of Senator Leahy I would like to comment briefly; we may submit some additional comments for the record, that the question before us:

best practices for community advisory boards at decommissioning nuclear power reactors, is one that is important that we answer and establish community advisory boards that can function effectively and have the resources that they need to contribute to the process in a way that engages local citizens.

But I think it's also important to point out that the community advisory boards can only be as effective as the process and the environment in which they function. And so I think a close reading of the legislative language would indicate that this process and questions that we're engaging in tonight should speak not only to the citizens advisory boards and how they're constituted and their resource needs, but also to the process through which they engage in the decommissioning work.

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20 And that process needs to accommodate the citizen advisory boards and give them the opportunity to have an impact and be successful. Otherwise, the best advisory board in the world won't have the opportunity to be effective.

So it's great that we're having this opportunity and I think that the entire process and the boards themselves deserve a look. Thank you on behalf of Senator Leahy.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

Next we'll have Ms. Wortzberg from Representative Welch's office.

MS. WURZBURG: Good evening, everyone.

Again, my name is Thea Wurzburg. I work for Congressman Peter Welch. I am an outreach representative. I cover environmental issues as well as some other.

I just wanted to reiterate thank you to everybody for being here and thank you to the NRC as well for -- and staff for making the trip out here.

This process is very important to Congressman Welch. The congressman played a critical role in getting language into the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act that requires NRC to make these best practice reports and he is also a very NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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21 strong supporter of the local hearings that we're having tonight that Senator Sanders worked to make happen.

As my colleagues have stated already, these public meetings are a very important opportunity for communities that are impacted by the decommissioning of nuclear power plants to ensure that their concerns are heard. Congressman Welch believes that it is crucial for state and local advocates to have a seat at the table when important decisions are being made.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you all and to taking your comments and concerns back to the congressman, and thank you again for being here tonight.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

I just want to double check. Are there any other representatives from a -- yes, from a congressional office, a senate or congressman?

(No audible response.)

MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Next we will turn to Commissioner Tierney from the State of Vermont.

MS. TIERNEY: Good evening. My name is June Tierney. I am the Commissioner of the Department of Public Service and I am here representing the Scott NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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22 administration this evening. The governor sends his greetings and thanks all the citizens who turned out tonight, as well as the staff and the members here of the Commission from the NRC.

I think that this process that Congress has ordained for looking at best practices is long overdue. It's a welcome development when I consider how nuclear energy first emerged in this country. It was very much a federal government-driven project in the service of national defense. And then from that sprung nuclear energy generation that has served the country. However, I don't think it was very democratic in its inception.

So it's wonderful to see the agency evolving and that Congress is looking actively into hearing from the people what their experience has been trying to participate in this process of informing the decommissioning process when they've not had a formal role to my knowledge at the federal level.

Here in Vermont we have a long history of having created a state-level role and formalized that first in a predecessor panel to our NDCAP called the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel. That history actually became the basis for what's today the Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel. That's been NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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23 entirely state-originated and conducted by a balanced combination of citizens who are interested in the matter, legislators who are by law vested with an interest in the matter, and state agencies that have tried to be comprehensively engaged, whether from my point of view as an energy regulator, or from a commercial point of view, or from a natural resources point of view, or a health point of view and the like.

You can tell from the breadth of our Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel that something similar in my view would be called for as well at the federal level.

An issue that we have struggled with a great deal here is resources. Those resources have come largely from the state and specifically they've been funded by rate payers who benefitted once upon a time from the generation. In my judgment that is not a sufficient arrangement. I believe that the NRC needs to have a formal access point for the role and the weight to be given to the citizens' participation, and that participation in turn needs to be properly resourced so that it can be relevant to your proceedings.

What I spend a great deal of time doing as the governor's representative for my agency on this NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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24 panel is emphasizing the importance of your everyday person's views. Those are not necessarily expert-driven point of views, but rather those are the folks who can tell you what it means to live in a community that has hosted such a facility, what it means to deal with the impact. There are other folks' point of views though that are relevant as well such as the individuals who have paid the rates, that have in turn accumulated in our trust fund for dealing with decommissioning, and then beyond that Vermonters at large who are left with a question, which is if those resources are not sufficient for decommissioning, who will ultimately bear the burden?

And I think that that would be an area that Congress could spend a good -- make a good investment of time in clarifying because it's not clear to me that payment when the resources turn out not to be adequate in the nuclear decommissioning trust fund should necessarily be completely borne by rate payers or taxpayers in Vermont.

Those are my comments for today. I thank you very much for being here tonight and again I thank the citizens of Vermont for the energy that they have invested over the years in participating. You've been a model of citizen engagement. Other states in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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25 nation have learned from you and you have a lot to be proud of. Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Any other representatives from a state-level office, whether a commission or whatnot?

(No audible response.)

MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Any local elected officials who would like to give prepared remarks?

(No audible response.)

MR. KLUKAN: And then -- anyone?

(No audible response.)

MR. KLUKAN: Okay. And next I'm going to turn to -- so I have them in order of -- first we're going to start with Donald Hudson of Maine Yankee.

He'll be followed by Eric Howes of Yankee Rowe. These are CABs. Excuse me. And then Chris Campany of the Vermont NDCAP. And then we'll open it up to other NDCAP members from Vermont Yankee who would also like to give their own impressions of it.

So I would like to invite you up to this microphone.

So again first we're going to start with Donald Hudson.

MR. HUDSON: Good evening. This looks like about the third year into decommissioning at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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26 Maine Yankee in terms of crowd size. My name is Don Hudson, spelled like the river, and I am currently the chair of the CAP that replaced the decommissioning CAB. Our facility was fully decommissioned about a dozen years ago and we now have a community advisory panel that is engaged with the existing site, which includes 64 casks of Class C waste and 60 canisters of spent fuel.

I come here from Arowsik, Maine. I was born in the St. John's area, so it's good to be back.

We decommissioned -- and I think the --

you three folks have my slides. I'm not -- oh, you do have them? Okay.

Next slide, please. I'll just give you a quick overview. Everybody can read. The high points are especially the second bullet. Everybody's decommissioning is different. It depends on a number of factors that have to be taken into account. We did publish at the end of our decommissioning a sort of best practices, a document that the NRC has copies of and that any of you can find online. And each of us as members of the CAB made comments about the process.

And the comments run the gamut from, to be frank, disgruntled and dissatisfied to satisfied. And I think that you will experience at any decommissioning NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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27 around the country that range of reactions from the people who are engaged. But the take home lesson is that the people were engaged.

Next slide, please. That was our site just prior to decommissioning in the upper left-hand corner. That's what the same site looks like today, although there are probably more turkeys on that field than in that picture. And that's what the site looks like at the moment from a bird's eye view a few years ago. And what's left at Maine Yankee is what we all struggle with as part of this decommissioning process, and that is how do we ultimately take care of the spent fuel and greater than Class C waste. And you can see the -- in the middle of the bottom figure is a field of those casks that are waiting to be transported.

Next slide, please. We're a 14-member CAP. This bullet doesn't mention this. I'll add the fact right now that this was early days for decommissioning in the United States and the -- Maine Yankee had the idea to create the advisory panel based on some advice they got from people involved with Superfund sites, and they spoke about it with the governor.

And so the population of that -- of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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28 CAP -- there were five of us who were appointed by the governor, five who were appointed by the company, and four who held seats such as a selectman in the town of Wiscasset, the Wiscasset town planner, and a couple of other positions on the CAP that were -- those people were there because they held a certain position. And when they transferred or were voted out of such position, they were replaced by the people who followed them in the position. I was appointed by the governor as someone with a background in science who lived and worked within 10 miles of the plant, and I've been involved since it started.

It was all voluntary, although Maine Yankee obviously paid our expenses, and those expenses included several trips to plants just to learn about what was happening with spent fuel. We visited plants in Michigan and in Maryland and -- two in Michigan and one in Maryland. And we also visited Yucca Mountain.

And the visit to Yucca Mountain and the scheduling of the decommissioning meeting in Nevada was largely triggered by urging by CAP members that they better understand, that we better understand where this fuel was intended to go. And so early on in the process we got a tour of Yucca Mountain as it was at the time.

And you can read the rest there on the slide.

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29 Next slide, please. Our education in the process of nuclear power and decommissioning was wide and deep, and we had over 50 meetings. We sometimes had to have emergency meetings because events arose, and that's among the advice that we gave you, that CAPs or CABs, or whatever we're called, NDCAPs, should be responsive to the public and to need. I'll give you the one example that you can read in the document a couple of times.

During decommissioning it came time to decouple the spent fuel pool from the water cooling that had -- it had been used to for 24 years to air cooling. And a large -- large fans were brought in to cool the spent fuel, air cool the spent fuel. And those large fans produced a lot of noise. And the noise kept the people on the adjacent Westport Island awake for days. And that issue was dealt with. The CAP was charged with dealing with that issue, and the company was very responsive once that meeting ended to finding a solution to noise because those fans had to stay in place until the fuel was ready to be loaded into storage casks, which was about five years. And the solution was found and it worked.

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30 we thought, well, we could just give them the report.

And a lot of these best practices are -- you can find in the report, but they may not be as clearly bulleted as this.

Strong leadership is important, and our leader at the beginning was a state senator, Marge Kilkelly who's currently in Senator King's staff. And Marge led the way. I was her vice chair at the beginning. And when she finally left the state to work with Angus in Washington, I took over. And that was just a few years ago.

The company bought into the process genuinely. And I know that this has not been true everywhere, but this particular company at this time bought into the process. And I'll give you an example that I gave at a Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing in Rockville when I served on a panel about decommissioning 13 years ago, 14 years ago.

On the very first night when the room had probably six or seven times as many people as we have here tonight and we were all being introduced, the 14 of us were being introduced one by one, and at the end of the line -- at the beginning of the line was the president of the company. He was a member of the CAP.

Mike Selman. And at the end of the line was Raymond NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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31 Shadis. And I know many of you know Raymond. And Ray represented Friends of the Coast and he had a position on the panel.

And it came to Ray and he said I've got some things I want to know. And he began to discuss a particular topic. There had been rumors about exposure of workers to levels above which they should not have been exposed, and had the company buried this information. And it -- there wasn't a noise in the room when Raymond asked this question. And Mike Selman leaned forward from his end of the panel and said, well, Ray, can you come over to my office tomorrow morning? Let's go through those files together. And from that day forward Ray had regular access to everything that was inside Maine Yankee's headquarters. In fact he had an office in the building by the end.

And Raymond was involved in things outside the responsibility in the CAP. He was directly involved in negotiations in the FERC settlement, which was not in the CAP's purview. And so he was engaged in many more things than just the CAP. But he had what I thought was remarkable access when in fact he was, to put it bluntly, the enemy of the process. And so that was really, really important. And for anybody NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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32 who represents a company here, boy, if you can do that, you build a lot of good will if you can make sure that you got nothing to hide. And I'm sure most of you, all of you have nothing to hide.

Company buy-in. You've got to embrace openness and respect diversity, listen and take risks, Both the CAP members and the company, and to a certain extent the NRC. You got to take risks.

Next slide, please. We only have one meeting a year now because we're waiting for our fuel to leave Wiscasset. We have regular email contact monthly, almost monthly reports that we all receive and discuss by email and we meet once a year. We met 50 times and I think very few people ever missed a meeting. And may you be so lucky to have that kind of engagement.

Our meetings were well-planned, scheduled well in advance. And when we had to have an emergency meeting, we got the buy-in from the local press and other public communications in order to make sure that people knew that there was a meeting that was going to be held here, there or somewhere about an issue.

We wrote a charter. We had a -- we have a charter. And in fact our current CAP has a two-year life. Every two years we decide shall we continue to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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33 do this? And every year we decide we should because we're a bit anxious. We're far enough away from the rest of you in the world and there are so few of us that you'll forget that we have 64 canisters of spent fuel. And so we meet once a year and we write a letter to our congressional delegation and reporters come to the meeting and we talk about the fact that we got to get on with this. And that's our purpose now.

But we met regularly all the time.

Next slide, please. As I said, Ray was involved in more than the CAP was involved and at times we were enticed to get out of our lane, which was to focus on decommissioning and get involved with the FERC regulatory settlement, but that was up to other people. And we needed to put our blinders on to that part of the process and just to focus on what was happening at Bailey Point and not necessarily what was happening either in the legislature -- other people were doing that. Raymond was doing that. Other folks were doing that. And we had that covered.

Last bullet. This may be the last bullet.

Share what you learn. We've been at it since August of 1997. I remember when the governor's office called me in July. We've been it at since August 1997 and we're not going to quit as long as I'm alive and -- or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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34 the fuel is taken some place. And then we'll all go out of business. And may you see that day.

I think that's the last slide.

PARTICIPANT: (Off microphone.)

MR. HUDSON: Oh, there are? Oh, jeez.

(Laughter.)

MR. HUDSON: I think -- yes, yes, yes. I think you've got as much information as you need from me and you guys have our full -- my full testimony.

MR. WATSON: Okay. Thank you very much.

MR. HUDSON: You're welcome.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much for that.

Next we'll have Eric Howes of the Yankee -

-- or Connecticut Yankee and Rowe Community Advisory Boards.

MR. HOWES: Thank you very much. Thank you to the NRC for hosting this meeting and for inviting us to be here. I'm going to only speak for a couple of minutes. I'm the Director of Public and Government Affairs up at Maine Yankee, but I'm here tonight to also speak about the community advisory boards at Yankee Rowe and Connecticut Yankee.

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35 Board. They were also established by the company --

by the companies. Like Maine Yankee the Yankee Rowe site in Rowe, Massachusetts and the Connecticut Yankee site in Haddam Neck, Connecticut are stand-alone ISFSI sites, meaning all that's left there is the spent nuclear fuel.

These plants were decommissioned in the 1990s. All the fuel had been moved to dry cask storage by 2005, 2007, depending on which site you're talking about. And the -- both sites had community advisory boards that were established roughly the same time as Maine Yankee's. And once the fuel was moved to dry cask storage, they also transitioned to what we're referring to as spent nuclear fuel CAPs rather than decommissioning CAPs.

This was done when it was evident that the Department of Energy was not going to meet its obligation to remove this material any time soon. And as Don Hudson said, it was important for the community panels to remain in place while the fuel remains at the site.

The lessons learned by the community boards at the three sites. The other two sites are similar to what Maine Yankee lessons learned were, what Don talked about in his presentation. The NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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36 company- established model has worked well at the three sites, though we recognize that one size does not fit all, as the NDCAP shows that there are different models.

I'd note that the -- while Maine Yankee was the one site that wrote a report about their decommissioning experience to share with others for plants that will be decommissioning in the future, the other -- the Electric Power Research Institute wrote fairly detailed reports about all three site decommissionings, and those reports are available publicly. And there is discussion about the community advisory board process in each of those three reports, though Maine Yankee's is the most detailed.

And I would just note that the three community boards, along with the companies, are beyond frustrated that the spent nuclear fuel and greater than Class C waste remains at these three sites many years after decommissioning. When we began decommissioning at Maine Yankee in 1997, at that time I don't think anybody envisioned that we would still be at it today.

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37 much.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

Next we're going to turn to Chris Campany of the Vermont NDCAP.

MR. CAMPANY: Good evening. Thank you, Nuclear Regulatory Commission for being here and thanks to our federal delegation and to Bernie for making this happen.

My name is Chris Campany. That's C-A-M-P-A-N-Y. I am the Executive Director of the Windham Regional Commission and that says as representative for the regional commission that I have a seat on the panel. And I was elected chair about a year ago.

I've served on the panel since it first met on September 25th, 2014, and what I'm going to share with you tonight as chair of the panel is an overview of the establishment of the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel; and hereafter I'll refer to that as NDCAP, and a short history of what the panel has done to date. Later on during the public comments I'll offer my own perspective just as an individual panel member without wearing my chair cap.

The 19-member NDCAP was established during the 2014 State of Vermont legislative session. With NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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38 the Vermont Yankee announced closure by the end of 2014, the Vermont legislature and governor believed an advisory panel with citizen representation that focused specifically on decommissioning and site restoration issues facing Vermont Yankee would be helpful in ensuring timely and relevant information is gathered and shared with the local and state communities. NDCAP replaced a seven-member Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel, VSNAP, that had been in place since the sale of Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station to Entergy Corporation in 2002.

The stakeholders and appointing authorities for individual NDCAP members are as follows: (1) The Vermont Secretary of Human Services, ex-officio or designee, the Vermont Secretary of Natural Resources, ex-officio or designee, the Vermont Commissioner of Public Service, let's just say ex-officio or designee will continue on most of these, Vermont Secretary of Commerce and Community Development, one member of the House Committee on Energy and Technology chosen by the Speaker of the House, one member of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Energy chosen by the Committee on Committees, and one representative of the Windham Regional Commission or designee selected by the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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39 Regional Commission, one representative of the town of Vernon, Vermont, or designee selected by the legislative body of that town, six members of the public as previously noted, two each selected by the Vermont governor, the Vermont Speaker of the House, the president pro tempore of the Vermont Senate.

Under the subject of each appointing authority initially appointed one member for a three-year term and a second number for a four-year term.

Subsequent appointments under the subdivision are appointed to four-year terms. All citizen appointees have been appointed to four-year terms at this point.

Two representatives of Vermont Yankee management, which is now NorthStar, selected by the Vermont Yankee ownership, a representative of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers selected by the IBEW who is a present or a former Vermont Yankee employee, one member collectively representing the towns of Chesterfield, Hinsdale, Richmond, Swanzey and Winchester, New Hampshire selected by the governor of New Hampshire at the invitation of the Vermont Commissioner of Public Service, one member collectively representing the towns of Bernardston, Colrain, Gill, Greenfield, Leyden, Northfield and Warwick, Massachusetts selected NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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40 by the governor of Massachusetts at the invitation of the Vermont Commissioner of Public Service.

One important thing to note, NDCAP serves in an advisory capacity. The duties of NDCAP are to hold a minimum of four public meetings each year for the purpose of discussing issues related to the decommissioning of Vermont Yankee. The panel may hold additional meetings as deemed necessary. And I'll just note in our history this past year we've met four

-- well it will be four times this year, but when we first got rolling we had a big learning curve and we were meeting almost monthly, as I recall. If it wasn't, it sure felt that way. It was very frequent because we had to get up to speed on what decommissioning is, what the rules and regs were, what is a post-shutdown decommissioning activities report, and lots of other things.

To advise the Vermont governor -- so our primary purpose is to advise the Vermont governor, the Vermont General Assembly, Vermont state agencies and the public on issues related to the decommissioning of Vermont Yankee. A written report is provided annually to the governor and to the energy committees of the Vermont General Assembly to serve as a conduit for public information and education on and to encourage NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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41 to be involved in matters related to the decommissioning of Vermont Yankee and to receive written reports and presentations on the decommissioning of the station at its regular meetings, to periodically receive reports on the Decommissioning Trust Fund and other funds associated the decommissioning of or site restoration at the Vermont Yankee site including fund balances, expenditures made and reimbursements received, to receive reports regarding the decommissioning plans for Vermont Yankee including any site assessments and post-shutdown decommissioning activity assessment reports and provide a forum for receiving public comment on these plans and reports, and to provide comment on the Vermont Yankee decommissioning and site restoration plans and reports as the panel may consider appropriate to state agencies and/or the Vermont Yankee owner, and in the annual report.

Additionally, NDCAP is charged with assessing whether further changes to the panel's membership or duties are appropriate. And we're to include those recommendations on such further changes in the annual report that we prepare.

NDCAP created and approved a charter in early 2015 that provides additional guidance for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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42 executing these duties. And a lot of this information will be -- we've -- NDCAP has developed a report.

We'll get that to you guys. It has hot links to all this information, not only for your use, but hopefully other communities that are interested in how we formed.

In compliance -- we operate all of our meetings in compliance with Vermont's open meeting law. All NDCAP meetings and all special meetings or committees created by NDCAP are open to the public and follow open meeting notice requirements.

NDCAP routinely receives reports from VY owners and several Vermont state agencies responsible for overseeing decommissioning and site restoration on topics relevant to NDCAP's statutory duties. These reports are -- at the meetings are reported --

presented by the plant owners and agency reps. And these include summaries of recent decommissioning activities at VY authorized by the plant owner including a transition of the plant from an operational electrical generating station to a long-term spent nuclear fuel storage facility, the demolition of off-site structures, on-site construction associated with the long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel, the monitoring and transfer of VY NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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43 spent nuclear fuel to on-site long-term spent fuel storage, changes to VY infrastructure resulting from on-site demolitions and transitioning to long-term spent fuel storage, estimated rates of off-site water intrusions into the VY turbine building, the volume of turbine building intrusion water shipped for off-site disposal, an overview and efforts to reduce the water intrusions, brief overviews of upcoming on-site activities, changes in staffing, requests for reimbursement from the Decommissioning Trust and Site Restoration Funds, reimbursements for on-site spent nuclear fuel storage resulting from litigation against the U.S. Department of Energy, overall value and physical status of the Trust and Site Restoration Funds, summaries of reactor operator license filings to the NRC and the Vermont Public Utilities Commission and several state agencies that provide oversight, Vermont agency responses to reactor operating license filings before the NRC and Public Utility Commission, state agency filings regarding NRC and other relevant federal agencies, stage agency filings regarding the NRC and other federal agency rulemakings, and agreements and Memoranda of Understanding reached by VY ownership and Vermont state agencies through the Public Utility Commission proceedings.

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44 So that's been a lot of information that's been shared.

A variety of special topics have also been discussed at Vermont NDCAP meetings. Many of these presentations were made at the specific request of panel members. Several resulted from public comments or requests received at public meetings and these include an overview of the VY post-shutdown decommissioning activity reports and the related filing process, a review of the Vermont Public Utility Commission filing process, several high-level presentations on NRC oversight and regulation during the transition to decommissioning and the onset of active decommissioning, overviews of relevant federal and state laws governing radiological and hazardous materials cleanup, background information on radioactive waste storage, transportation and disposal policies, spent fuel dry cask storage system design, summaries of relevant NRC meetings and U.S. Department of Energy planning for spent fuel -- nuclear transportation and disposal.

Guest speakers from the NRC, Department of Energy, nuclear industry vendors, Holtec International, WCS, Orano and Burns & McDonnell, the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Compact Commission NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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45 and other relevant industry experts have presented at NDCAP meetings on an ongoing -- on an as-needed basis.

Representatives from the Vermont Congressional Delegation routinely present updates on decommissioning-related bills introduced in Congress.

In the coming months the panels will deliberate upon what if any changes should be suggested to the legislature regarding the panel's purpose, structure and operation. When NDCAP was formed it was assumed that VY would be in SAFSTOR storage for decades to come. Decommissioning is now underway per the provisions of an order of the Public Utility Commission and the federal and state regulations.

And so we've kind of really entered a different phase in the life cycle of the plant. And so we need to look at for instance, you know, the composition of the panel, the purpose, how we operate.

The Public Utility Commission has been the lead agency, but now this is more of an industrial demolition. Should it now move to Department of -- to DEC? So there are just lots of questions and I'm not pretending to present the answers, but those are going to be the discussions that we're going to have.

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46 this overview and I'll share with you these comments and also the report that was drafted just basically summarizing a lot of what I gave you here. And thanks to Tony Leshinskie for drafting this summary.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

By my clock it's 7:00 right now, so we have now 12 individuals who'd like to speak. I still think we can keep it at eight minutes. That gives us a little bit of buffer at the end. That way in case if someone else who didn't register to speak gets inspired to, we have time for that. And also in case people run over a little bit.

So with that said, I'm going to start just in order since everyone's going to get a chance to speak tonight who registered to speak. Let's just go down the list. So we will start with No. 1. So --

(Laughter.)

MR. KLUKAN: So members of the public are going to use the middle microphone.

MR. CAMPANY: Okay.

MR. KLUKAN: This way we know that you're a completely separate person.

MR. CAMPANY: So now I'm not standing as chair. I'm just speaking as the -- representing the Windham Regional Commission.

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47 So again, my name is Chris Campany, C-A-M-P-A-N-Y. I represent the Windham Regional Commission on the Vermont Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel. In the absence of county government, the regional planning commission serves as an essential link between local, state and federal government in Vermont. The Windham Region includes 27 towns in Southeastern Vermont and it includes the town of Vernon where Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station is located.

I've served on the panel since it first met on September 25th, 2014, and I want to share with you my perspective as the representative of the Windham Regional Commission on the panel.

An overview of NDCAP and its history was shared with you earlier, so I won't go over that again here. NDCAP has provided a very important vehicle for agency, community and public engagement as Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station has transitioned from an operating plant to a closed plant placed in SAFSTOR to a plant that's currently being decommissioned and whose site is to be restored.

From my perspective NDCAP has served the following important functions and has really done it quite well: It's been a means by which the public has NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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48 kept -- has been kept up to date with operational, regulatory and the physical status of the plant, a means by which the plant owners and regulating agencies could communicate to the public what they feel should be known about the plant and its status.

While stage agencies certainly have direct communication with the plant owners, NDCAP has also been a conduit through which the agencies and plant owners interact with one another in a very public venue, and there's value in the public seeing this interaction.

A means by which panelists and those they represent can communicate specific issues or concerns to the plant owners and state agencies. It's a venue for educating panelists and the public about a myriad of policy, procedural and technical aspects of decommissioning and site restoration.

It's been a venue for orderly and civil debate of issues related to the decommissioning and site restoration among both the panelists and between the panelists and the public. It's been a means by which the broad array of stakeholders represented on the panel can arrive at consensus on messages and recommendations to be communicated to the public at large, federal agencies including the Nuclear NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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49 Regulatory Commission and U.S. Department of Energy, fellow nuclear host communities and elected officials.

From a best practices perspective I offer the following observations and recommendations:

Ideally a citizens advisory board would be formed long before a plant announces its intention to close. All plants will cease operation and decommission at some point.

Because the socioeconomic and environmental risks and benefits associated with nuclear plants are so substantial and have the potential to greatly affect the host community, especially in rural areas, a best practice would be to form an advisory board to have discussions about the role of the plant in the community and what it will mean when the plant ceases operation as a matter of general practice. The community should know the impacts of an operating and closed plant and what the nature of the eventual closure, meaning DECON versus SAFSTOR, will mean for the local community. Ideally the plant will understand the impacts and factor that into its closure and decommissioning planning to mitigate especially the socioeconomic impacts.

Next the legislation informing NDCAP was drafted and enacted quickly at the end of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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50 legislative session. This meant there was little to no opportunity for the public to weigh in on what the community would like to see from a citizens advisory board regarding its purpose, function and composition.

So ideally a community would take the time, or a state or a plant would take the time to have that conversation.

The focus of NDCAP was specifically on decommissioning and site restoration and specifically excludes engagement around the socioeconomic impacts of the plant closure. This purposeful exclusion may have been related to the settlement agreement between the state and Entergy, then the plant owner, which included funds intended to help mitigate the impacts of the closure. The community should consider whether or not there is any reason to bifurcate engagement around decommissioning and site restoration and socioeconomic impact planning and mitigation.

This closure also impacted communities and two adjoining states where many plant workers lived.

While New Hampshire and Massachusetts have seats on the panel, it's unclear to me how effective the panel has been for those impacted communities. Because NDCAP focuses solely on decommissioning and site restoration to the exclusion of deliberation upon the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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51 socioeconomic impacts of the closure; and I would include in that also the budgetary impacts to the towns impacted, the importance of cross-border engagement may be reduced. However, if the citizens advisory boards take into account socioeconomic impacts, full inclusion of all impacted communities is essential.

What we've learned through this closure is how integrated our local economies are across state lines. The local economy should not be defined by state lines, county lines or town lines, but must include where pay checks are earned and where the earners go home at the end of the day.

The purpose of NDCAP is to advise the governor, state agencies and the legislature. It does not have as an explicit goal the role of providing a citizen advisory function to the plant owner. While the panel does have the ability to communicate community concerns to the plant owner through the engagement of the panel member, other communities should consider whether or not the plant owners should be included among those entities to be advised.

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52 for or against what they're to be advised about. This is a fundamental flaw in the structure of NDCAP from a process perspective and seems rather undemocratic, a little bit un-American to me.

The panel had to teach itself and by extension the public a lot about the regulatory procedure and technical aspects of decommissioning and site restoration during a compressed period of time.

As I mentioned previously, a best practice would be to establish an advisory board and have it up and running long before the plant closure is announced. If that's not possible, have it up and running well before the regulatory procedures related to decommissioning get underway such as the filing of the post-shutdown decommissioning activity report.

So I appreciate this opportunity to comment. The Windham Regional Commission is happy to continue this conversation. I'll likely add to these comments and submit these in writing at a later date, but we're happy to share what we've learned with the NRC as well as other nuclear host communities throughout the nation. We've been consulted by a number of communities. We believe it's essential for nuclear host communities to engage with one another, to inform the national conversation about nuclear NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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53 decommissioning.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

Next we'll have ticket No. 2, Mr.

Turnbull.

MR. TURNBULL: I was just informed that that clock is going to be set to eight minutes.

MR. KLUKAN: Eight minutes.

MR. TURNBULL: Oh, my gosh. I hope I don't go anywhere close to that.

MR. KLUKAN: Well --

MR. TURNBULL: Eight minutes.

MR. KLUKAN: -- it's up to you, but this is -- I mean --

(Simultaneous speaking.)

MR. KLUKAN: I actually make it ding, and it's really loud, but I'm doing -- not having it make noises tonight. But anyway, whenever you're ready.

MR. TURNBULL: Okay. Thank you. My name is Clay Turnbull. I am a resident of Townsend, Vermont, 20 miles north of here and I'm also a staff person and trustee at New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, which is a 48-year-old 501(c)(3) here in Brattleboro. We advocate for safety and clean-up standards.

At a time when Americans are questioning NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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54 our ability to have a constructive conversation between groups with differing political or social viewpoints, an unlikely pair has teamed to bring civil discourse to the hot topic of nuclear power plant decommissioning.

NorthStar Decommissioning, currently dismantling the recently purchased Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, and NEC are announcing today a new process for public engagement in the decommissioning of nuclear power stations. This is very different and outside the CAP that the NRC is taking comment on, but I think it is -- as a contrast it's important to let you know what we're up to here in Vermont.

It is a work in progress, but we know we're headed toward a stakeholder advisory group that is hosted by NorthStar; that's key, one that will closely follow the decommissioning while lending community and stakeholder perspectives and yet remaining highly independent.

As was said earlier Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic candidate for president, says communities impacted by decommissioning deserve a role in shaping decommissioning plans as they bear the brunt of the safety, environmental and economic NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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55 impacts of plant closure. That's why it's so important to be participating in this process.

Anti-nuclear activists and nuclear operating companies across the nation remain skeptical of the New England Coalition approach that we advocated for in the MOU that was part of the sale of VY. How can trust them activists say and how can anything advisors say or the company agrees to be enforced?

We start with trust. It inherently requires both sides to be more careful about what they say, promise and do. Trust is more fragile than distrust, more easily broken and harder to restore.

Now there is no mechanism for enforcement as nuclear operations, including decommissioning, are generally shielded from state or public action by federal preemption. Even the NRC can only offer guidance and not meaningful regulation regarding community advisory panels.

I will submit a report that was written on Maine Yankee's decommissioning by -- and I'm going to draw a mental blank because I'm standing at a microphone in front of a group -- Mike Meisner. He was the former -- I think it's president or CEO of Maine Yankee. He was the top person there. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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56 essentially his report lays out that having citizen involvement at Maine Yankee's decommissioning was very beneficial. It helped to achieve public trust in the process, it helped to avoid calls to come back at some point down the line. Hey, come back. We want you to retest this.

Well, his -- the conference paper by Mike Meisner says that the last thing a company in decommissioning wants is to be called back years after the job is completed to have to do it over. And one way to ensure against that remote possibility is to answer the community's questions and satisfy its concerns as they are raised throughout the decommissioning process.

It's a big plus for a decommissioning company to be able to tell perspective clients that a site was cleaned up to federal standards on time and on budget, but even more so that the decommissioning company is as good as gold if it can also say that it met community and stakeholder expectations, especially with respect to environmental protections.

So under discussion now is the format and frequency of advisory group meetings, the establishment of an advisory group, access Internet cloud account for decommissioning documents, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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57 designation of an advisory group contact person or persons at Vermont Yankee, routine site access and a number of housekeeping details. Failure to come to terms in any of these particulars is not a deal breaker, but we are determined -- because we are determined to make this work and we're convinced that it will.

And I thank you for taking our comments.

And I'll get that paper from Mike Meisner to you.

MR. WATSON: Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

Next we'll turn to ticket No. 3, Deb Katz.

MS. KATZ: So I'm Deb Katz, K-A-T-Z. I'm the Executive Director of the Citizens Awareness Network. We're a grass roots regional group with over 2,000 members. I started bringing my children to decommissioning meetings. Now I'm bringing my fourth grandchild. So that's a statement of how long this has gone on. And I can't necessarily say it's been the most pleasant experience.

So I have papers I want to submit to you on decommissioning panels. What I want to say is that this was created by Citizens Awareness Network and the Childhood Cancer Research Institute. We did this. I submitted it to the NRC in 1996 at an NRC meeting back NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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58 then in Washington, D.C., and it didn't go very far.

What I can say is that CAN has sat on the CAB for Yankee Rowe, Connecticut Yankee. We worked with the Public Service Department in Vermont to establish the CAP, and in fact set the parameters that they used. They were limited in ways, but we felt that it was essential that the board in fact be independent of the corporation, that one of the faults we experienced in Rowe and Connecticut Yankee that the

-- well, in that case it was utilities, that they were driven by the needs of the utility, not by the needs of the public to know.

One of the most frustrating -- I mean, what it says is public participation in democracy.

And of course that's really ironic because the boards are far from democratic. And this is one of the hardest things for communities to understand when they start getting involved in the process is they have no power.

I mean once the NRC eviscerated the decommissioning rule in 1996 making it very hard for states as well as the public to actually have a say, to actually question what's going on and be able in an adversarial role -- maybe unfortunately, but the only role they had, that has ended. And so the issue --

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59 one of the hardest things for the board to understand even for a state, because you were sued in Vermont, you were sued in Massachusetts now over the issues of the state being helpless even though it's rate payer money that's paying for the clean-up -- even though the citizens in the community are the ones affected, they have no power.

And what we felt, at least in terms of setting up the boards, was a situation creating as much transparency as possible so at least people could understand the processes that were going on and potentially through a process of working together actually relate to each other outside of an adversarial role, which I feel is essential in -- it sort of goes back to New England Coalition's notion of it. I hope for that. I don't know if that's really possible, but I think it's essential in terms of meeting not just the needs of the corporation, but of these communities. But it is a faulted process at best. And in fact the NRC has abdicated its responsibility.

Since I'm saying I submitted this to you in 1996 and the NRC has done nothing until now when there's a second round of many decommissionings with a lot of people very concerned about their communities NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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60 and very concerned about how clean-up is going to go, and very disappointed to find out that they have no power in this, that in fact the regulations are so driven that even the NRC at this point doesn't have a lot of power in controlling what the corporation on site does. There's some oversight, but it's really driven by the corporation. And this is really painful for communities.

So the NRC's job in a certain way, if it would go by its mandate, which is to protect the public health and safety, would in fact not be to support the industry in this, but to actually try to negotiate a role for both states and the public that's meaningful, because that's the only way we'll get to trust you. Because as you can see tonight this is what it's dwindled down to, and it's dwindled down because it's so painful for people to bang their heads against the wall again and again and again and not feel they're being heard, not feel they can protect their community.

You know, when we sued the NRC and won a lawsuit against you over the illegal decommissioning of Yankee Rowe, the district court judge said the NRC's actions were like Charles Dickens' Bleak House, the Office of Circumlocution, and that he was really NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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61 concerned that the NRC, if it used these tactics in reactor communities facing closure across the country, it would be really disturbing.

So in this resurrected moment of nuclear collapse I am asking you to do the right thing and actually negotiate a way for people to engage and be involved that has meaning and that engages the democracy. Thank you.

(Applause.)

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

MS. KATZ: Don't lose it this time.

PARTICIPANT: I won't.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.

Next we will have -- and again thank all of you have gone before for your comments as well.

Next we will have ticket No. 4, Mr.

Montgomery.

MR. MONTGOMERY: Thank you very much. My name is Bruce Montgomery with the Nuclear Energy Institute. We represent 300-plus members across the United States and internationally, both companies involved in the nuclear enterprise as well as national laboratories and universities.

I'd like to thank the NRC for the opportunity to speak tonight. I've been following you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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62 on these meetings from Michigan to Northern California to Southern California to here and I'll be at Pilgrim tomorrow.

I think that the process that you're following is an excellent one. I think you're doing a good job of executing your responsibilities under the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act. I think in the end you're going to come up with a good list of lessons learned. I think as these meetings progress they seem to be improving on quality and I think tonight is an excellent example of how these meetings can be conducted. You're getting some good input.

I noticed a couple of folks say, well, gee, one size doesn't fit all. I think that's been a theme as we've gone through these meetings.

Bruce, I noticed on a couple of your slides during your introduction piece you made pretty good use of the words typical and mostly, and I think that's very apropos because as we've gone through these meetings we've seen a lot of variability in the kinds of things that work for different communities.

For example, some like to have a lot of local officials on board; others don't think that that's appropriate. Some believe there should be strong NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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63 involvement by the company doing the decommissioning; others think not so much. And I think that's a very healthy attitude to take and for you to take in.

I think what you're seeing is a list of things that will serve well in a compendium of lessons learned and best practices. And I've said this before: It's best to understand why those things work in different locales and why they might not work somewhere else.

So what that also says is there's probably no good way to write a template and a regulatory framework that says here's how it should be done. I'm not thinking you're headed in that direction, but I think in the end your report will reflect the -- just

-- you know, it's the American way. We all have different ways of doing things depending on just the nature of the community and the relationship with the state and the company that's doing the work.

I would say that from a company perspective the folks doing this work, all of them have basically three things in mind: Conducting the work safely for their workers, protecting the public health and safety, number one. And number two, being good stewards of the environment, returning the site to unrestricted use for whatever the community wants NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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64 to use it for. And number three is to be, as we're talking today, heavily engaged with the public to make sure the public is well-informed and the public has an opportunity to provide feedback on the process that is taken.

I think one thing I've heard that's common across the board is the earlier you set these boards up, the better you are. So I think these boards can be very effective if there's a good lead time to get organized and get educated, because everywhere I've been I've heard the story we need time to come to speed so we understand the issues. The decommissioning process is not something that's well understood outside in the general public, so I think we can all, both the NRC and the industry, do a good -

- a better job of informing the public of what this decommissioning enterprise is all about.

And I think that -- some comments around the Decommissioning Trust Fund. I think so far records have been good, is that we can get these things done on schedule and on budget. I believe that as we go through the process NEI is taking a lead role in making sure that we're collecting practical lessons learned and making sure that those are disseminated to the folks in the business of decommissioning. We're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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65 in a position now where we can actually accelerate these decommissioning projects to get them done faster and better.

So I think that as we go forward we continue to learn. And I think in the area of public outreach it's just as important as anything else.

Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Next we will have ticket No. 5, which is Mr. Shaffer.

MR. SHAFFER: Good evening. Thank you for having this meeting and allowing me to speak. My name is Howard Shaffer; that's S-H-A-F-F-E-R, from Enfield, New Hampshire, retired nuclear engineer, submarine officer, customer of the radiation safety profession, startup engineer at Vermont Yankee and back in retirement in New Hampshire advocating for its continued operation.

During this advocacy and all along there's been a question about radiation safety, and it's been continual, and it really underlies most of the things that happen. And reflecting on it prior to this meeting and for a long time, we've been talking past each other because we have two sides with different NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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66 beliefs.

One side wants to believe -- the operating side, the scientific side, as science does when there's not total knowledge, believing in a preponderance of the evidence. The other side; and to take a page out of the legal profession, wants proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the higher standard in court when you're going to send somebody to jail for a felony, whereas a preponderance of evidence is a lower standard for civil suits. But we've been going on that way. And we've had good dialog and been courteous to each other all these years. Science moves on.

Now we have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt on how radiation safety works and that low-level radiation is safe because DNA is repaired. It's repaired when it's damaged by physical process, chemical process, biological process or radiation.

Now that we know how it works, we know why the preponderance of evidence is correct. So we can go forward confidently with that, that the standard --

radiation standards that have been set and applied not only operation, but to decommissioning, to hospitals and everything else, are good and very much on the safe side. So we can have that confidence. I wanted NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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67 to get that information into the record. I've provided you a copy of my information.

But looking back, in the early days of resetting standards after weapons become available, the first international conference on radiation standards was in 1928 when there had been mistakes made in the early days of use of X-rays during World War I and since the end of the 19th Century. After weapons became available the standards were reviewed and there was knowledge of genetics becoming available. So early conservative decisions were made that we better regulate as if any amount of radiation is dangerous and we ought to assume that any DNA damage might lead to cancer. And that information has been coloring the debate as the evidence has built up.

But now that we have the scientific finding; and it shows in the picture I brought on the poster, that DNA is repaired, those no longer apply.

Of course at high level of anything: physical, chemical, biological or radiation, you will have damage beyond repair and you can get a lot of damage and be fatal.

Thank you for letting me contribute this.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

Next we will have ticket No. 6, Ms.

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68 Weinmann.

MS. WEINMANN: Hello. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank everybody for coming out who remains interested in this very important matter to our community. My name is Lissa Weinmann, W-E-I-N-M-A double N. I'm a business owner in Brattleboro and I also have raised my family here with the original 10-mile emergency evacuation zone, so Vermont Yankee is something I've been looking at for a long time. And I'm honored to be serving on the Vermont NDCAP panel currently as vice chair. I am planning to submit written testimony before November 15th, but I felt it was important to be here tonight and to share some initial impressions.

I'd like to say that I've really enjoyed being on the panel. I think it performs an essential function in the community, mostly with information sharing. It's been great, as Chris Campany pointed out, to see all the different state agencies on a regular basis and have them come together and share knowledge about what's going on. Commissioner Tierney has been an excellent leader, particularly when she's had to step in as chair when some of the volunteer chairs have stepped down.

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69 which reiterates what Commissioner Tierney had said, in that to expect citizens to participate on a panel like this without some form of compensation is really asking a lot. I know that when I started I had a lot more free time to be reading all the things that I needed to be to keep up with the issue. And my work has taken me away from that at times, and so it's been difficult to stay on top of the matter.

And unlike Corey Daniels, who's also been a wonderful NDCAP mate; thank you, Corey, who gets paid to be there by now NorthStar Corporation, and again glad to see Scott State here; thank you for coming, everyone else is getting paid to be there.

But when you have citizen representatives there's no compensation. And also I really don't understand as a taxpayer in Vermont why I need to be funding people's travel and their time that it takes.

So in short I really feel that it -- we need to have resources available in order to do the job of the community on a panel like this. We need some significant resources. We pay for the venue, we pay for the BCTV coverage. I see we as a state. And that really shouldn't be. That should fall to the plant owner actually. So I would really ask you to consider that and consider that if you really want to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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70 involve stakeholders and people who really have the time to devote to this, we need to be compensated to do so.

I also want to just express some chagrin initially with the panel that it didn't include some really important people who devoted their life to looking at this issue, people like Ray Shadis, people like Arnie Gundersen who worked with the state and runs Fairwinds Associates. People like Deb Katz even had been excluded initially, and I never really understood that since they really put their time and energy consistently on this issue and they know quite a bit. And it would have been really helpful to be able to have them in the mix. And I don't really understand why they weren't included except for that there might have been some issues initially with the composition of the panel and the presence of Entergy Corporation and the company itself, which is another point I'd like to make.

It's great to share energy and have the camaraderie with Corey and others from the company.

Entergy was good and NorthStar maybe will be better in terms of the communication aspect of things. However, and to Deb Katz' point, we're just an advisory group and sometimes the camaraderie and the feel good NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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71 feeling that we're all sharing information, in my estimation, might get in the way of us actually taking a harder closer look at things.

And I mean particularly I'd like to mention this, the aspect of what happens to the waste after the spent fuel pool is emptied and it's sitting there and everybody's saying we're waiting for it to go. And I think there's a role in these panels for citizens to be engaged in that question of, okay, we've created this high-level nuclear waste that's going to be with us forever. Is it going to be sitting there forever? Is it going to go? And there wasn't really much expertise on our panel about the concept of interim consolidated storage, which is now being pushed by many, including NorthStar, who has a real financial stake in that happening. Nevertheless, it is a violation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. I mean, we've always as a nation been waiting for the one consolidated nuclear waste site.

So to promise a community, to promise Vernon and Brattleboro, which is really the larger community, that there's going to be some redevelopment at that site any time soon was really disingenuous, because the fact is is that even if there was interim consolidated storage the waste isn't going to be going NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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72 anywhere for a very, very, very long time.

So I would say that in terms of the panel I would like to see more focus on this issue of waste generation and waste storage. I do believe that interim consolidated storage is not a great idea. I'm on the side of the Union of Concerned Scientists on this one. Why would you want to move it twice? Have there been any economic impact studies about the movement of waste?

I mean everybody wants it out of their backyard, but we generated it. We benefitted from it.

What about if we had some financial incentives from the federal government since we are storing it? I mean the company is allowed to sue the federal government, to pay for its stewardship of it. Why not the community? We're the ones that have it here and are prevented from developing our property as a result of it.

So I think that there's a greater role to play for these decommissioning panels to examine this issue of waste, to weigh in. I think our panel actually took a position unwittingly on interim consolidated storage. There was a vote -- there was no vote. There was a letter signed by the chair and there had never been a discussion about that. That's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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73 a very important issue now.

And also with the presence of the corporation on the panel it makes it impossible really for us to have a vote and to really make a meaningful decision about things like that because there's different financial incentives at play and conflicts of interest. So I'd say on this issue of these panels, yes, it's good to have the corporate presence, however, I don't think that they should have a role in terms of voting on things. And I think that we should have more power as a community to weigh in on these matters that relate to decommissioning that -- and the compensation that will allow our state government to participate fully, to do testing, to do things independently that we're currently spending money on now and we really shouldn't be.

Finally, I have a lot more I would like to say, but I would just like to end by saying, you know, the NRC's role all along is problematic. You are there to promote and protect. And I've always felt that those were two missions that were fundamentally at odds. You can't promote and also protect. It's hard. So I've always felt that's a difficult role for you to play.

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74 decommissioning panels in solidarity with other communities that are going through the same thing politically like the Pilgrim Plant right now. And your license transfer against the wishes of the Massachusetts Attorney General and others really flies in the face of what you're supposedly trying to achieve with community participation.

Spent fuel pools. We expedited the emptying of ours. Thank God it's done. It's in dry casks. So many other Mark I reactors out there with spent fuel pools. You know it's not as safe as that stuff being in dry casks, folks. We should really be honest about that. And every community should be expediting the emptying of those pools as quickly as possible and do like Germany did and shut down all those Mark I reactors immediately.

Thank you for your time.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

(Applause.)

MR. KLUKAN: Okay. All right. Next we have ticket No. 7. Your name isn't on the back of the ticket or I would announce it. I apologize.

MR. MULLIGAN: Hi, I'm Mike Mulligan. I was in the Navy on submarines, on nuclear submarines running reactors. I worked at Vermont Yankee for 13 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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75 years. I've been -- was instrumental in shutting down Vermont Yankee. Well, I wouldn't say that. I set the stage for that and I participated in helping people understand what was going on there. I was instrumental in shutting down the Pilgrim Plant. I've been involved in many industry events that cost hundreds of millions of dollars. As far as -- and I'm seeing things other peoples can't see and didn't complain about it and then, you know, getting things done.

So anyways, it -- our community is still traumatized by what happened at Vermont Yankee. It's amazingly traumatized. It -- we just -- everybody just wants to close their eyes and disappear for 10 years and look at Vermont Yankee and -- well, what's

-- the grass land or whatever it is. We really don't want to -- nobody wants to pay attention to it. We're exhausted and that type of thing.

So, you know, some of the things I'd be interested in is how's the electric system supplying the plant? You know, you -- to be a -- on a decommissioning panel you have to be on the ground level. You have to see things independently. You just can't let people, you know, more or less, you know, give an explanation of what happened. That NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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76 might be part of it, but you have to independently walk around, talk to people, get your own information and -- you know, and follow your conscience and stuff.

So that's what I think about, a lot of the things with the nuclear industry.

So first of all, the electric system has

-- the electric -- the electricity going into the facility has -- you know, because really you don't want to listen to people giving you the happy tunes.

You want to listen to -- you want to find problems and it's better if you find it before say NorthStar finds it and -- because that gives them -- oh, that -- you know, that gives them a zap and it wakens them up and stuff. So you want to find problems. That's what I would think about a decommissioning panel.

So the electricity going to Vermont Yankee, has there been any problems with electricity going into Vermont Yankee? Has there been any problems with the emergency diesel generators starting up? Any maintenance problems with the diesel generators? That's what I'd be looking at.

And the second thing of course what I'd be looking at would be how do they -- they still got the ventilation system in the reactor and turbine building? Is it -- they got the same thing that they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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77 used to have in the old days where, you know, they draw air into the building and they don't go out the stack? And you'd measure radiation. You know, you --

the general radiation and stuff like that? Has there been any radiation events at Vermont Yankee, unexpected -- it doesn't matter if it's small or not.

It's just uncontrolled. That's what you want to --

that's what you're looking at is uncontrolled events going on and stuff. So those would be kind of the things I'd be looking at.

I'd like to know the sensitivity of the --

and how do they rate -- how do they measure environmental -- well, atmospheric radiation? That would be mostly what I would -- building -- you know, the air radiation because that's what's going to zap the public, or not zap the public, but -- so those would be the things.

How is the equipment? Is it reliable?

Are they having problems with the radiation equipment?

So I mean those are the things I'd be looking around and asking people about and trying to keep everybody on their toes. And like I said, I've been involved in some big stuff and, you know, big engineers, Ph.D.s, you know, some of these plants -- and I mean really amazing things, but sometimes people coalesce together NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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78 and they all get thinking one way and the next thing you know you catch them. You open your mouth and you see something and you bring it to people's attention and the next thing you know you got a big NRC inspection and 100 -- you know, the company has spend

$100 million to fix all the equipment that's broken and stuff.

As far as, you know, the vulnerabilities or the shortcomings in our community is our -- you know, well, how do we get information out to the public? Our newspapers are the walking dead. They're very low circulations. They -- unfortunately they --

most of the times nowadays they really don't have the people with the right skills being reporters. And nuclear power is very difficult and stuff. And so I mean that -- I mean so here we are. We're in the cocoon again and we don't know what's going on at Vermont Yankee really on a day-to-day basis. And again, how you could trust is, you know, verify and --

you know, and how you --

And I'm also on the NorthStar CAP, or the decommissioning panel and, you know, I have -- you know, again I'm a whistleblower. I raise questions and stuff like that. I engage people, make people think. And the question is, well, where you been?

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79 You know, I -- Ray Shadis notified me six months ago that, you know, do you want to be on it? And you know, they're still off the game.

You know, you would think that, you know, if that was a priority for NorthStar, public transparency and stuff like that and know how to get information out to the -- you know, the community and stuff like that, you know, you would think they would have, you know, had a big spurt in the beginning as far as organizing everybody. And like you said, you know, you've got to be brought up to speed and stuff like that and it takes a while. And, you know, they've been really poor at notifying me on, you know, what's going on. They called me once and asked me some questions and stuff, but that's it. But right off the bat, you know, I'm sensing that public transparency for NorthStar is not a priority as high as it should be.

And I'd tell you the truth, from where it stands right now the -- on your -- I don't know about the state CAP, decommissioning panel, but I know about the NorthStar CAP. I would say that's a failure. I would say that is an object failure as it sits right now and it's just for show. And they don't make it a priority. I know they're busy as hell over there and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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80 stuff like that, but they really don't. And, you know, if you start off on the wrong foot, you're going to go through the whole thing on the wrong foot.

That's what I've seen all my life. And so that's what I worry about the NorthStar CAP thing.

There's -- you know, they -- you would think that they would say -- ah, just a couple more minutes. You would think that they would say something like -- think something, well, the state's got a CAP. We're going to make it -- we're going to make our CAP twice as better than the state CAP.

We're going to show how to be transparent, right?

This whole thing with Vermont Yankee is --

you know, there's -- the chances are there's going to be 20 or 30 plants in the next 10 years that are going to be decommissioned. This is just the beginning and stuff and you would think that -- you know, we're setting the stage for, you know, 20, 30, 40 plants in the next decades being decommissioned and stuff like that. And so this process is really important in the beginning and, you know, it's in -- it's really important we get it right in the beginning and we keep banging at it. You know, oh, it's not right? Well, this is what I see. This is how we should fix it.

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81 right. And you just keep banging until finally, you know, you say to yourself, well, we got a pretty good system going here and stuff.

And so I would just say that I'm really disappointed in the NorthStar and how they're setting this up and I wouldn't -- as far as any other decommissioning -- so far I would say it's not the way to go. Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much for your comments.

Okay. Next we have ticket No. 8, which is Mr. Gordon.

MR. JORDAN: Hi, my name is Derrik Jordan.

I am a citizen member of the NDCAP, and I want to first say thank you for making this trip up here allowing the public to give you their comments. It's really, really important. And I'm going to be extremely brief because I have no prepared statements or anything to read.

But I'd just first like to say that I'd like to just echo the sentiments of Lissa Weinmann and DPS Commissioner June Tierney in that there needs to be some kind of funding built into this to at least pay administrative costs for the people who are doing the lion's share of the work on the committee. So NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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82 think it's very, very important. There's just a ton of work that these people have done voluntarily, without complaining, I should say. We've had a wonderful series of chairmen and people involved in the committee.

The other point I would like to make, which I think has been -- which is important in terms of the committee -- I've been serving on NDCAP since it started so I've been there from the beginning, is that we need more time in the meetings for public comment. What's happening in the meetings is a lot of material is being presented from experts that we've called in, other people, and usually mostly the public comment period is delayed until the end of the meeting.

So the public -- - the few who do come --

have to wait a long time to get their comments in. I think there should be time allocated earlier in the meetings for a comment period and then maybe at the end as well, but certainly so some people don't have to wait all that time. Because I think it's so important. People go out of their way to come and participate in this very difficult topic and it'scomplicated, as we all know. But people need to be able to relate in a timely manner so they can then NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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83 go on their lives, right? Okay. So really that's all I wanted to say. But I think the panel has generally been good. It's a good mix of people. A lot of stakeholders are represented. I think it's great, but I want more public input. That's really key. Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

Next we have Gould, ticket No. 9.

MR. GOULD: Thanks for coming here tonight. My name is Schuyler Gould. That's S-C-H-U-Y-L-E-R, Gould, G-O-U-L-D. I'm a former president of New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution and I currently reside in Brattleboro.

I just want to speak to one issue which has come up several times before. It should come as no surprise that many stakeholders, both at Vermont Yankee and elsewhere, are concerned about the tension inherent in the decommissioning process vis-á-vis safety versus profit. There is only one way to allay those concerns: Independent testing of the various samples taken to provide data on the contamination disturbed during decommissioning activities and that left behind after decommissioning. This testing takes money, money which is not the responsibility of the various stakeholders outside of the decommissioning NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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84 process to provide.

The NRC has made it clear that it has no funds for such oversight, but it does have the authority I believe either through its new rulemaking process -- it does have the authority as the guarantor of safety of these decommissionings to require decommissioning entities to provide the funds necessary to assure the public that the work has not been comprised by that tension between safety and profit.

It seems that the citizens advisory panel is the ideal vehicle to administer such an independent testing regimen to prove, as Don pointed out, that you've got nothing to hide. I don't want to come to the table mistrusting the activities of decommissioning or any company that's involved in those activities, but it is important to assure the public that everything is above the board.

Where will those monies come from? It seems the obvious place is from the decommissioning entity. If the cost of decommissioning Vermont Yankee is roughly $500 million, very round terms, is it unreasonable to expect NorthStar in this case or other companies elsewhere to contribute one-five-hundredth; that's one dollar out of 500, of its budget or roughly NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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85

$1 million to -- for such independent testing and oversight? And such monies could be used for education of the panel and stipends for the panel members as well. Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

Next we'll go to ticket No. 10, which is Mr. -- I apologize if I'm mispronouncing it --

Shankman?

PARTICIPANT: He left.

MR. KLUKAN: Oh, excuse me. I'm -- you're right, Tison. You did send me a text and then I promptly forgot about it.

All right. Next we move onto ticket No.

11, Ms. Cartwright.

MS. CARTWRIGHT: Good evening. Thank you for making the trip to Vermont and giving the public an opportunity to speak about these critical matters.

I didn't realize that there was the opportunity to submit written comments. Does me speaking for a moment publicly preclude me from the ability to write in a comment?

MR. KLUKAN: No, not at all.

MS. CARTWRIGHT: Okay. Well, I will just --

(Microphone fell.)

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86 MS. CARTWRIGHT: I'll just drop the microphone --

(Laughter.)

MS. CARTWRIGHT: -- wait for someone to fix it. Thank you.

I will just use my right to submit a written public comment, but the only thing I want to say in response to something that was said a little bit earlier about our DNA repairing -- I hope that none of us have reproduced before our DNA has been repaired, if that is even possible after being exposed to radiation. Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.

And again, just for clarification's sake, the question was posed is whether speaking tonight precludes you from submitting written comments and the answer is no, you can submit multiple written comments, as many as you please, to the sites up there. So just to clarify for the record.

All right. Next we have ticket No. 12, which is Mr. Sachs.

MR. SACHS: I'm not as strong as I looked before I had cancer. I got cancer after the reactor shut down.

PARTICIPANT: Is that true?

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87 MR. SACHS: That's true. Lymphoma, Stage 3.

PARTICIPANT: I'm sorry.

MR. SACHS: I'm alive and clear. I'm very grateful to be alive.

I have one thing -- I'm Gary Sachs. I live in Brattleboro. GARY, SA-- S as in Sam, A as in apple, C-H, S as in Sam.

Chris, you said something wrong. Mr.

Campany mentioned that VSNAP started when Entergy bought the reactor. No, sir. Christine Solumbiay, the head of the Department of Public Service was the head of VSNAP far before Entergy bought the reactor, sir, just to let you know.

I haven't been up for a while and I don't like it. I want to speak to Joe Nuke, or the NEI guy.

I don't agree with you. Anything regarding the Nuclear Information and Modernization Act I am totally against. Pays the taxes for all the nukes every year ad infinitum. No, totally against NEIMA. Look at that act and do everything you can to stop it if possible.

Okay. Let's talk about what you said about how great it is that those reactors were closed:

Maine Yankee, Connecticut Yankee, Rowe, et cetera.

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88 Are any of the -- were any of those sites; I don't know this answer -- were they closed based on we're going to clean this up to industrial use only? The reason the town of Vernon chose to use industrial use only -- which I don't know if the public knows, but the members of NDCAP do and -- it's odd to me that the information doesn't get out for Entergy, or excuse me, NorthStar to choose to decommission only to the point of industrial reuse.

If Maine was redone to that extent or if Rowe was redone to that extent or any of the others are redone to that extent, when I look at them today, they're 100 yards of -- nobody can go there. It's walled off. It's sealed off. The ISFSI is still there. Nobody can go near it. This is not reused industrial land. So the fact that NorthStar gets to decommission it to a lesser -- to a less-fine point of radiation clarity I find disturbing. Is that -- I don't know if that was clear or not.

Oh, I certainly disagree with Mr. Shaffer.

Low-level radiation I do not believe is safe. I don't like chemotherapy either. If the doctor wants a bone marrow, ask for some of your doctors first.

Let's say the waste stays in Vermont Yankee casks for 30 years. Let's make believe we're NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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89 in Maine, right? It's about 30 years the casks have been there. How long do those sealed casks take before the degrade, the ones that you can't look at inside these concrete casks besides -- that are not the casks -- or thick-walled casks? How long do these inner casks --

Okay. Let's take it a different line.

Here we are in Vermont Yankee. In a couple of weeks/months they're going to take down the spent fuel pool. Where the blank are you guys going to go to put them in water to change out the inner casks in 30 years, in 40 years, in 50 years? You guys haven't thought of this. That's why you're coming to us. And I think that's wrong personally.

It shouldn't be my job as an independent person, non-associated with any organization to think of this crap. You know, there's no dry cask for 30 years from now when those casks are no good. What are you going to do? How can the NRC, you NRC, approve Holtec who -- Holtec came and spoke to NDCAP locally two years ago, three years ago, whatever, and said we know nothing about decommissioning.

Okay. Here we are 2019. Three weeks ago, four weeks ago, hey, it's sold. Pilgrim; you'll be there tomorrow night, sold to Holtec. Great job, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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90 guys. What are we doing here at Vermont Yankee? Yes, we sold to NorthStar. No previous experience. And where is Mr. State? I believe he's in New Mexico most of the time. Just kidding. Maybe Eddy Lea County.

But, hey, who am I to say? It's a bigger fish to fry, that one.

Boy, I get started, don't I?

So you're looking here for feedback for us. Doesn't make sense. I don't think you guys know what you're doing. I think you're doing the best you can. I'm grateful and glad you're here, but I don't think you know what you're doing and I'm scared and upset. But these CAPs will last longer than the 12 years we get for greenhouse gases. Oh, wait, can we mention that here? He's still the president. Climate change. Can we say that? Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

Okay. Our last ticketed speaker -- though we clearly have plenty of time, so we'll get to that in a second, but let's finish up with our last ticket

-- is Mr. Unruh.

MR. UNRUH: My name is Josh Unruh. The last name is spelled U-N-R-U-H. I am a recently-governor-appointed member of NDCAP. I'm also the select board chair in the town of Vernon. So this is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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91 my NDCAP, in my opinion. We are the major stakeholder in this game.

The problem that we've seen throughout the NDCAP process is the community involvement. The community involvement is a double-edged sword. It really, really is. We've seen it tonight where people can't stay on topic to what we're talking about and we go off on different tangents and nothing gets accomplished. Nothing, through some of these meetings. And that's unfortunate because there are some people in the community that can stay on topic, that can form thoughts that are relevant to the situation that we're going through.

The other unfortunate part about community involvement is everyone thinks they're a stakeholder.

We have professional stakeholders. We've heard from several tonight that now live in our community that have lived in the Maine Yankee community, that have lived in the Rowe community and make their living going to these meetings and pretending to be stakeholders when in fact they are not. The real stakeholder is Vernon, Vermont.

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92 through the NDCAP process. Never once was the town of Vernon consulted in any way, shape or form.

You heard Mr. Campany who is the current chair of NDCAP list off the different individual members of the NDCAP. You heard one Vernon resident out of 19 people. You heard 12 people out of 19 that are assigned by the State of Vermont. And you also heard that New Hampshire and Massachusetts have one representative on the NDCAP. For me and my town it's my opinion that any town should have at least three seats at that table.

It's our town. We've seen the damage.

We've seen the loss in tax revenue. We've seen all the bad things that happen when a nuclear power plant closes firsthand. Yes, it has affected the region economically; I won't deny that, but we got hit the hardest. We're a town of 2,200 people that lost millions of dollars in tax revenue. Take your calculator out and divide 2,200 by millions and figure out how we pay our taxes now.

But we are the last ones consulted. We are the last ones brought to the table and I fight my ass off on a regular basis to make sure that we have a seat. For me to have to go through the process of getting governor-appointed as the chair of the host NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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93 community is absolutely asinine. We should have had a seat there to begin with. That's all I have to say.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

So we've exhausted our list of ticketed speakers. Are there any in the audience who have not yet spoken who would like an opportunity to speak this evening?

(No audible response.)

MR. KLUKAN: And in this moment while you're contemplating I would like thank all of you who have already spoken for your comments. We've heard a lot of -- as I'm sure Bruce will you, a lot of interesting suggestions and really well thought-out critiques of the process and how it can be made better.

So anyone who has not spoken who like to speak?

(No audible response.)

MR. KLUKAN: Anyone who has spoken who would like some additional time to speak some more?

Okay. Well, then -- sure.

MR. MULLIGAN: Don't you miss the good old days when, you know, the state police were out in the front here and the police officers were -- they were nice guys. You got to know them. I mean, you know, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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94 you came in there. You talked to them and they were decent guys. Of course they were decent guys. And I'd just like to thank the police officers for putting up with our antics and not reacting to some of the crazy stuff. So, you know, I wanted to say that the police officers and state police officers and such deserve a lot of credit and -- a real lot of credit.

Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

And then -- please come to the microphone, sir. And then I would like in this moment to also thank Brattleboro Middle School for hosting us this evening. They've been a wonderful host in helping us get prepared for the meeting. So please thank them.

(Applause.)

MR. GOULD: Hi. Again I'm Schuyler Gould.

If one addresses these issues, they can be difficult to access. One might have come across a group called the Nuclear Decommissioning Collaborative. I'm curious if any of the three of you are familiar with the Nuclear Decommissioning Collaborative. It's coming out of the Department of Commerce and the Economic Development Authority. Jim Hamilton is its executive Director. Chris Campany is actually a recognized expert in there and also Jim Stromstand, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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95 another local development person here.

They're developing, with difficulty I understand because they have no budget, a means for public stakeholder participation and advisement in this process. I think it's curious that none of these three representatives here have heard of this government organization. But one of their tasks, which it's doubtful frankly with a half-time paid person that any such thing is actually going to take place -- but a website which would like -- it's said that it would like to contain a one-stop shopping for information about decommissioning.

It's very hard to understand these issues, needless to say, but it's very important that people have access to information. And you can soak up a little bit of information at a meeting like this, but it seems critical that anybody, whether you're pro or con or a homeowner or just concerned about these issues -- that there be a place online where you can go and find information and divergent points of view.

And I think that I just want to inform you that this organization is out there.

They're totally under-funded, but that such a goal is an admirable one, one which from my perspective on these issues we would love to do, but NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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96 it's a big job. And I would encourage the NRC to encourage this, the development of this website and to also encourage all stakeholders across the board who have something to contribute to these issues to be included in the process of developing it and whose information should also be provided on that website.

Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. Thank you very much for that.

MS. TIERNEY: June Tierney again. It's unlike me to take a second bite at the apple, but I've been listening to the remarks that you've heard tonight and I've also been reflecting on the 18-plus years that I've now spent regulating this issue in the State of Vermont. And I've been reflecting on that with the mindset I bring to the table of a lawyer and a litigator and it seems to me that a best practice the NRC might consider is making the citizen advisory capacity more interactive, whether it be a charge to your citizen advisory panel or it be a website portal in which you post questions that are subject matter-specific and that you're seeking comment on, because that is the definition of advising, that you're asking how would you advise us to do XYZ?

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97 to channel public input and to be task-specific so that you actually get counsel from the public on questions that should be informed by their sensibilities and that regulators don't have a good bead on because they're so encapsulated in the process that they administer. So that would be my observation having listened to the urgency with which the public wishes to be involved and to be heard. And it would be a productive I think and organized way of getting counsel that will help the regulating body make the judgments that it needs to make.

And I would especially urge you, if you do this, to clarify the subject matter jurisdiction that your agency has so that the public understands that the NRC is the place where they can discuss their health concerns and safety concerns and radiation concerns, because those issues need an outlet. And in this day and age with social media and our much-expanded capacity for bilateral communication through technology there's really no good reason to limit public input in a targeted way to just a commission or a panel that has been appointed by somebody. Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much for that.

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98 comments this evening?

MS. WEINMANN: I, too -- Lissa Weinmann, Brattleboro resident. I, too, usually don't speak twice, but I will say that I think Josh Unruh brings up a good issue, which is there's a town that the reactors are located in and then there's everybody that's impacted by that reactor in a geographic area around that reactor. And I think that it might be important for you to think about how that gets reflected in these decommissioning panels. I mean we've made choices here based on geographic representation including what's the community that has the first responders that are going to rush in if anything happens? I mean Vernon doesn't have a police force, it doesn't have a fire department. That's Brattleboro's job.

And likewise, as their -- as the --

there's consideration of different bills in Congress that might give compensation to communities for taking on the role of the caretaking of the waste. I think that that -- those are very important considerations, because it is a much larger geographic area and whereas a town like Vernon for 40 years got, you know, millions upon millions of dollars in tax breaks and incentives from having the plant located there.

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99 Of course they're reeling now that the plant has closed. It has been a much larger circle around that plant that 40 years has paid the price in terms of depressed real estate values as a result of being in an emergency evacuation zone and other considerations that call upon the commitment of a much larger community than just the small town where the reactor itself is located.

That said, there's every reason why Vernon needs representation on the panel. I mean nobody's disputing that, but I would take issue with, you know, the fact that we are all stakeholders in this. And, you know, Vernon has a special case, but it is certainly not alone in bearing the brunt of this closure. Thank you.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.

Anyone else?

(No audible response.)

MR. KLUKAN: All right. Before I turn it back over to Bruce to close it out since we have enough time I'd like to personally thank you for coming to tonight. I'm always enheartened to see the public go above and beyond to participate in this.

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100 tonight and participate in this process. I personally thank you.

So with that, I'll turn it over to Bruce to close the meeting.

MR. WATSON: Well, first of all, as Brett said, thank you for coming out tonight. We heard a lot of information and we'll be digesting it all along with the other 10 sites we're going to visit and get feedback on.

A couple things that I did hear tonight:

that the CABs should be formed earlier before the plant is shut down to allow some learning of the process to help the understanding of the decommissioning process and the issues that will be presented by the plant shutting down. The use of a CAB or an NDCAP can help establish a trust between the public and the licensee. CABs could be more independent, vested with resources, funding and compensated for the membership's work on the committee. CABs should be more diverse, have a diverse membership, but have more local representation.

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101 those such as safety, health and other issues that come up. And we could do that most likely through our website.

That just kind of summarizes a couple high-level things that I heard. I heard a lot of different views on different issues.

I want to say a special thanks to Chris Campany for helping us organize the meeting and with the help here locally. And Tony also. I want to thank Don Hudson for traveling over from Vermont and Eric for your comments on Connecticut Yankee and Yankee Rowe.

And I want to thank the school for allowing us to use this facility again. We've used it in the past.

And we're looking forward to a continued safe decommissioning activities at Vermont Yankee by NorthStar. Our inspectors are here very frequently.

For the record I did want to mention that we do use an independent laboratory and contractor for analyzing samples that are taken by our inspectors and also surveyors form the Oak Ridge Associated Universities who do surveys and collect samples and are analyzed by a world-class lab that both DOE and the NRC fund. So we do have an independent check on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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102 the licensee on a variety of different radiological issues to ensure that our clean-up standards are met.

With that, I'll call the meeting adjourned and thank you again for coming.

MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for being here.

(Applause.)

(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 8:19 p.m.)

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103 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433