ML20002C067
| ML20002C067 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Vallecitos File:GEH Hitachi icon.png |
| Issue date: | 01/05/1981 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| ISSUANCES-SC, NUDOCS 8101090048 | |
| Download: ML20002C067 (89) | |
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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
_____x 4
In the matter of s s
5 GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY a
Docket ho. 50-70-SC 6
(Vallecitos Nuclear Center) 7 l
- ~-
8 1
Ceremonial Courtroom, 9
Federal Building, 450 Golden Gate Ave.,
I 10 San Francisco, Calif.
11 Monday, January 5, 1981 12 The prehea ring conf erence in the above-entitled 13 matter was convened, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m.
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14 BEFORE:
l 15 HERBERT GROSSMAN, Esq., Chairman, Atomic Safety and Licensing Eca rd OUSTAVE A. LINENBERGER, Member 17 HARRY FOREMAN, Member 18 Also present on behalf of the Boards 19 PAUL C. HAMILTON, 20 Board Technician 21 22 23 24 25 (h
(_J D
9 ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE S.W., WAbrilNGToN, D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2345
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1 APPEARANCES:
2 On behalf of the NRC Staff:
3 STEWART A. TREBY, Esq.
RICHARD BACHMANN, Esq.
4 CHRIS NELSON 5
Cn behalf of the Licensee, General Electric Company:
6 OEORGE EDGAR, Esq.
KEVIN GALLEN, Esq.
7 Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, 1800 3 Street, N.W.
s 8
Washington, D.C.
9 On behalf of Intervenors, Friends of the Earth and Barbara Shockleys i
10 ANDREW BALDWIN, Esq.
1 124 Spear Street San Francisco, Calif. 9u105 12 On behalf of Intervenors, Congressmen 13 Ron Dellums, Phillip Burton and John Burton:
14 A.
LEE HALTERMAN, Esq.
201 Thirteenth St., Room 105 15 Gakland, Calif. 94617 16 17 18 i
p,0 19
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21 22 23 24 25 O
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1 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs The prehearing conference will 2
now come to order.
This is the second prehearing conference 3
in the matter of the General Electric Company Vallecitos 4
Nuclear Center General Electric Test Beactor, Docket No.
S 50-70-SC, a show cause proceedinge.
6 This prehearing conference was noticed by orders 7
issued December 10th and December 15th, 1980, which I am not 8
sure everyone received.
As you are all a wa re, the NBC 9
hearings are generally before three administrative judges:
10 en attorney qualified to conduct administrative proceedings, it who acts as Chairman, and two scientists, one generally a 12 nuclear physicist and another an environmentalist.
13 On my richt is Judge Gustave Linenberger, who is 14 the nuclear physicist administrative judge.
He is a 15 full-time judge on the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 16 Panel.
On my left is Judge Harry Foreman, our 17 environmentalist, who is a part-time judge at the licensing 18 Board.
He is the f ull-time director of the Center for Lf 19 Population Studies at the University of Minnesota.
20 My name is Herbert GrossAan and I will act as 21 Chairman.
I would like for tha parties or their counsel to 22 23 introduce themselves now, starting on the left with the l
24 staff.
l 25 MR. TREBYs Yes.
My name is Stewart A.
- Treby, ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 1
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1 Assistant Chief Hearinc Counsel for the NBC staff.
Also 2
appearing for the NRC staff today is Mr. Richard Bachmann.
3 Also at the table with me, on my left, is the project 4
manager for the show cause proceeding, Mr. whris Nelson.
5 MR. BALDWINa My name is Andrew Baldwin.
I 6
represent Friends of the Earth.
7 MR. HALTERMAN My name is H.D. Halterman.
I 8
represent Congressmen Dellums, Burton and Burton.
9 MS. SHOCKLEY:
I am Barbara Shockley, Intervenor, 10 along with Friends of the Earth.
11 MR. EDGAR:
I am George Edgar.
I am a partner in 12 the Washington law firm of Morgan, Lewis and Bockius.
I 13 represent GE.
Seated to my far right is Mr. Edward A.
14 Firestone, GE Nuclear Energy Division, Legal Department.
To 15 my immediate right is Mr. Kevin Gallen, my colleague with my 16 law firm.
17 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs By the way, let me tell you, 18 the PA system is not functioning too well and you are going
/'t 19 to have to speak up in order for everyone to hear you, 1
20 including the court reporter.
21 MR. DARMITZEL:
My name is Bob Da rmitzel. I am 22 manager of the radiation processing operation, General 23 Electric Vallecitos Nuclear Cen ter.
And to my right is 24 Dwight Gilliland, manager of reactor radiation at 25 Vallecitos.
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1 THE REP 0FTER Could you spell th a t last name?
2 MB. DARhtTZEL:
G -i-1 1-1-a -n-d.
3 CHAIRMAN GROSS!ANs I think first that we ought to 4
briefly mention what the chronology has been of this 5
p ro ceeding and the General Electric Test Reactor, which I 6
believe began opera tions in the la te 1950's.
There was one 7
license renewal about 1956, and then there was a further 8
renewal application filed in 1976.
9 That application was examined by the staff and a 10 notice of opportunity for hearing was issued in September of 11 1977.
That is on the license renewal.
In October, on 12 October 24th, 1977, a show cause order was issued which 13 required that the reactor be shut down.
14 A notice of opportunity -- well, I believe as part 15 of the show cause there was provision for petitions for 16 hearing.
And on November 14th, Congressmen Dellums and 17 associated Congressmen and Friends of the Earth filed 18 petitions for hearing.
19 The first prehearing conference was conducted on
'*j 20 March 16th of 1978, in which a discovery schedule was 21 e stablished pernitting discovery to continue until the staff 22 had completed its safety evalua tion report, which was at 23 that time expected in approximately three months.
24 Discovery proceeded beyond that date because the 25 staff report was delayed and continued until December of ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 40s =iRGINtA AVE., S.W WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2346
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1 1978, at which time, because of the refusal of the 2
Intervenors to respond to an interrogatory by the General 3
Electric Company, the Board then cut off discovery on the
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part of tha Intervenors until the staff saf ety evaluation 5
report was to be completed.
6 The SER was not issued in one part.
There was a 7
partial SER that was issued in May of 1980, another partial 8
issued, I believe in November, and there is a final portion l
9 that is expected possibly this week.
Is -that correct, Mr.
10 Treby?
11 MR. TREBYs I believe we indicated it was going to 12 come out in early January, which could be either by the end
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13 of this week or perhaps early next week.
But certainly it 14 will come out before January 15th.
l i
15 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN Do I understand correctly that l
l 18 that portion will not be submitted again to the ACRS?
i 17 MR. TREBYa That is correct.
18 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
And so that will be the l
19 completion of the staff report?
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20 MR. TREBY That's true.
Now, when I indicate l
21 that it is not going to be submitted again to the ACRS, when l
l 22 the ACRS wrote their report, they indicated that the one i
remaining matter could be resolved to the satisfaction of l
23 24 the staff.
i 25
'Je do intend, as a courtesy to the ACRS, to f
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1 provide them with a copy of the final portion, which has 2
been designated Appendix 3.
But it is my understanding that 3
the ACES does not intend to hold any further hearings or 4
issue any further report.
5 While I am speaking, I would like to make one 6
comment on one of the things you indicatad in the course of 7
your chronology, and that was that you indicated that the 8
discovery was suspended until production by the staff of the
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9 safety evaluation.
The order that was issued by the Board 10 on January 15th,
'79, sttees that:
"The following sanctions 11 are hereby imposed," and I quotes 12 "Intervenor shall, from the time of service of 13 this order, have no further discovery of any kind of any 14 other party to this proceeding, such bar to continue until 15 such time as it may be removed."
Then in parentheseas 16 "Which shall not be sooner than production by the staf f of 17 its safety evaluation," close parentheses, "by further order 18 of this Board."
Unquote.
I I 19 So that I would think that discovery has been 20 suspended until f urther order f rom the Board.
21 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN.
Yes.
I am sorry if what I 22 said was subject to misinterpretation.
I did not intend to 23 suqqest that discovery would automatically be reinstituted, 24 but that the matter would be reconsidered a t the time that 25 the staff issued its SER.
And as of now, discovery O
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1 continues to be suspended on the part of Intervenors, and 2
perhaps resolving that problem might be the major portion of 3
this morning.
4 MR. LINENBEBCE?:
Pardon se, Mr. Treby.
In 5
commenting about, I believe you called it Appendix B to the 6
SER, being published by approximately January 15th.
7 HR. THEBYs By no later than January 15th.
I l
8 MB. LINENBERGER:
By no later than January 15th.
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9 I was curious about the form this will take.
Will you 10 publish at that time, whenever it occurs, a complete 11 document that includes all of the previous parts that have 12 been issued in draf t f orm, or will those just be deemed by 13 administrative act to be final, and Appendix B only 7_
14 published at that tine?
1 15 MR. TREBY:
At this time it was our contemplation 16 to do the latter, that we would just issue the Appendix B as 17 in boy, and that we would indicate that, I believe, it was 18 just our supplement of October 1980 that we indicated was a 19 draft, and that the earlier one dealing with the geology 20 business would issue as part one of the SER.
I don't 21 believe we designated that portion of the draft, but when we 22 issued the final portion of this SER, which is this Appendix 23 B, we would indicate on the cover letter to that document 24 that it constitutes the last portion, and that all three i
25 pieces would now constitute the final position of the O
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1 staff.
2 MR. LINENBEPGER:
Thank you.
3 MR. BALDWIN:
Mr. Chairman, before we go ahead 4
with tha hearing today, I would like to propose that, as far 5
as Friends of the Earth 1s concerned, I don't believe that 6
we can proceed today a t all.
I was informed, or I have been 7
inforead this morning, that an order was issued December 8
10'2 scheduling this hearing.
9 I had no knowledge of that order.
Neither did my
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10 client.
Nor did I or my client know or know of the December 11 15th order until this morning.
12 I also learned this morning that the December 10th 13 order invited the parties to respond as to what should be 14 discussed here this morning.
And of course, I had no 15 opportunity to do that.
And in fact, I have also learned 18 that General Electric and the NRC staff have responded and 17 that these responses have been available to the Licensing 18 B oa rd.
We ha~e had no opportunity to do that.
19 Mrs. Shockley, who I am informed also wants to 20 speak *about this problea, did not get either of these 21 notices, either, although she has been on the service list 22 for three years.
23 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Excuse me.
You received 24 neither the December 10th nor the De ce mbe r 15th?
25 MR. BALDWIN:
That is correct, neither one.
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1 in addition to that, as far as I kns'w and as far as NRC 2
staff counsel knows, this hearing was nut noticed in th e 3
Federal Register, either.
4 In light of all that, I am not. prepared to I
5 proceed.
I got a call from my client over the weekend.
My 6
client found out from the member of the Friends of the Earth l
7 who heard about it from a reporter who had read the press l
l 8
release.
And I, after getting a call from Friends of the l
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9 Earth, got another call from the reporter, and that is how I 10 found out about this hearing.
And I don't believe that a 11 credible case can be made that I or Friends of the Earth 12 fairly can proceed here today.
It simply can't be done.
13 And so I would suggest tha t, a t a minimum, this 14 prehearing conference should be postponed a t least until we 15 have the final safety evaluation report, because discovery l
18 as to that will be the focus of what we are going to talk
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17 about when we do finally have this conference.
18 MR. LINENBERGER:
Mr. Baldwin, just to help us 19 understand what kinds of things might have gone wrong here, 20 can you tell us for yourself and Mrs. Shockley, did either 21 of you receive copies of the Licensee's and the Applicant's l
l 22 responses to the Board's order?
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23 MR. BALDWIN:
Well, the Licensee's response is 24 dated December 29th, and I first saw a copy of this this 25 morning.
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1 HR. LINENBERGER:
Well, but that may have 2
something to do with your personal moving around.
Do you 3
know if it came into your office?
4 3R. BALDWIN4 Well, I was not informed 5
specifically that it had not come.
But then, see, I did not 6
even know that it was requcrted, No I did not ask.
And I 7
presume that I could go back and ask.
But --
8 CHAIRMAN GROSSHANs Mr. Halterman, did you receive 9
either notice?
10 NR. HALTERHAN We received the notice of the 11 10th, n'oting that a meeting would be held tomorrow.
And to 12 my knowledge I have not received a notice that was issued on 13 the 15th of December.
But then I have been on maternity 14 leave for the last half of December and my office has not 15 communicated to me that any documents have arrived.
sa Certainly I can go to my office this morning, which was not 17 available to me, since the mail was held inside the post 18 office building, and see if these documents are there.
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19 But I have not had an oportunity, except this 20 morning, to take a brief look at the response given by 21 counsel for General Electric and to the response given by 22 the staff attorneys.
23 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
But of course, with regard to 24 the Congressman's office, you did have notice of the subject 25 matter and the request to prepare, if you desired, a CJ ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY. INC.
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1 submission with regard to further scheduling.
2 MR. HALTERMAN:
That is correct.
As far ss our 3
offices are concerned, we could have met the 29th date for a 4
submittal.
But I have seen neither until this morninc of 5
those submittals prepared by General Electric or the staff 6
o f the NBC.
7 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Now, Mr. Edgar, if I 8
understand correctly, you never received th e December 15th 9
notice, either; is that correct?
10 MR. EDGAR:
That is correct.
But let me first 11 assure you, we made service on both Friends of the Earth and 12 Congressman Dellums, as indicated on the certificate of 13 service, our 29th filing.
Had they checked at the address 14 indic ated on the service list, which is the address of 15 record, they would have indeed received it.
I i
16 I did not receive the amended notice, if you will, l
17 of the prehearing conference.
And I learned of that fact l
18 throu.qh people at Vallecitos, that the date had been 5
19 changed.
20 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, of course, the responses l
21 of the staff and the Licensee are not critical with regard
' 22 to whether you received them or not.
Those were for the 23 Board 's inf ormation, and seeing them this morning l
24 suffices.
25 The big problem is your not having received --
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1 when I say "your," Mr. Baldwin not having received -- either 2
the December 10th or the December 15th notices which 3
requested that you prepare, in effect, your proposal as to 4
the further course of proceedings here.
5 Would the staff like to offer its suggestion as to 6
how we ought to proceed?
7 MR. BALDWIN:
Excuse me, M r. Chairman.
As I said 8
a moment ago, Mrs. Shockley has a ta le to tell also about 9
wha t happened to her.
And before we get to deciding what we 10 are going to do about this, perhaps you ought to hear from 11 her as well.
12 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN Well, my understanding is that 13 Mrs. Shockley is consolidated with you and that you are lead 14 counsel for the joint intervention.
Isn't that correct?
15 MR. BALDWIN:
Yes, that is correct.
I I
16 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN4 So it really depends on what 17 notice you received, either directly f rom us or from Mrs.
l 18 Shockley.
19 MB. BALDWIN:
May I have just one moment?
I would 20 just speak to her about that.
21 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN Yes.
22 (Pause.)
f 23 MR. BALDWIN:
Well, the one point that should be I
24 made in regard to Mrs. Shockley is that she did not receive 25 either of these two notices as did we.
She has informed me e
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I that the December 10th and the December 15th notices, 2
neither one of those arrived at her home.
And if you look 3
on the service list for this proceeding, she has been on it 4
since the inception of the proceeding.
5 CHAIBMAN GROSSEANs Well, all right.
It is clear 6
that you did not receive notice.
The question really is, 7
how much time do you need to discuss your position, so that 8
you can decide what you would like in the way of f urther 9
schedulina in the proceeding.
It doesn't appear to me as 10 though that would require more than a few hours of 11 discussion.
12 Could you tell me what the logistics are that 13 creates a greater problem than that?
14
- 33. BA1DWIN:
Well, there are a number of I have been 15 considerations.
First of all, I have simply 16 absolutely unaware of this entire situation until over the 17 weekend.
And I ha ve not looked at the file for some time.
18 And I'd have
~.o go through that file and review it.
I have 19
- o bring erself back into this case..
20 It is the first day after Christmas vacation, and 21 I found out about what was going on two days ago, and I need 22 time to do that.
In relation to that, it may be necessary 23
-- well, the principal or a principal consideration for all 24 of us is going to be the final report of the staff, the 25 SER.
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1 of the prehearing conference, is that report, that is the 2
time that this prehearing confe rence ought to be held.
3 That would give me time to go back and put all of 4
this, put this case back in my mind, because I am basically I basically walked in here this morning off of the 5
6 street.
And I cannot realistically represent the interests r
7 of my client in that situation.
I just can 't do it.
8 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
One of the matters that we are 9
prepared to discuss this morning is the reinstitution of 10 discovery.
I would assume that it would be to your benefit 11 to have as great a period of discovery as possible.
To 12 simply walk out of the courtroom this morning without l
13 discussing that matter or reinstituting some form of 14 discovery I think would in some sense be detrimental to your 15 interest in the case.
16 Now, by the way, in the pa st you and the l
l 17 Congressmen appear to have coordinated efforts in this 1
18 proceeding.
Are you no longer in communication with 19 Congressman Dellums' office?
I 20 MB. BA1DWIN Well, no.
We are not no longer in 21 communication with Congressman Dellums' office.
The l
22 communication, as it were, has been ad hoc.
And sometimes, 23 as I recall, we made joint filings in this caso and 24 sometimes we did not.
I have not spoken to Mr. Halterman 25 since the beginning of the Christmas vacation.
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1 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN And you spoke to him at the 2
beginning of the Christma s vaca tion?
3 MR. HALIERMAN I think the record should shov 4
tha t we haven 't spoken to each other for probably in excess 5
of nine months or something lik e that.
6 MB. BALDWIN's It has been quite a while.
7 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs Well, I would think that you 8
would certainly be prepared to tell us whether you would i
9 like discovery reopened at this point, rather than asking us
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10 to reconsider that question in a few weeks, when we are 11 getting closer to whatever hearing schedule that we are 12 going to see if we can provide for.
13 Now, I don 't see that that is such a complicated 14 problem that you need extensive preparation for.
15 MR. EALDWIN:
Well, there may, for example, be 16 discussion of the reason why discovery was cut off in the l
17 first place.
Now, as I recall, the papers in that 1
18 controversy were filed in the summer of 1978, and I have not 19 looked a t them since.
And it's simply impossible for me to 20 sit here and argue the questions of Irw that came up at that 21 time.
I just have no idea what is in those papers and I 22 have to go back and read them.
23 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs It seems to me as though the t
24 most reasonable course that we can take this morning is to 25 have our discussion with regard to what the parties would tO V
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1 like in further scheduling, not to issue any orders unless i
2 the parties are in full agreement, and if they are not to 3
provide you an opportunity, Mr. Baldwin, to submit something 4
further to the Board in writing in a few days, whatever time 5
limit we decide would be appropriate for the nature of the 8
question that you are not completely satisfied on.
7 Now, is there any objection to that course of 8
action?
9 MR. BALDWIN:
Well, yes, unfortunately there is.
10 And I am, of course, prepared to go ahead.
I'm not going to 11 get up and walk out.
But I simply believe that in the 12 interest of fairness I cannot be expected to hear about this 13 on Saturdsy from reporter on the radio and be ready to go 14 on Honday morning on any issue in this cause.
15 I simply canno t, under these circumstances, fully 18 represent the interests of my client.
17 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Your objection, of course, is 18 noted.
And whatever further document you submit with regard 19 to that will, of course, I'm sure, incorporate your 20 objection to the proceeding.
But I think we ought to at 21 least make an effort at this proceeding this morning.
22 And I first would like to find out where we are.
23 I 'm sorry.
Mr. Edga r, did you have something to say?
24 ER. EDGAas No, Mr. Chairman.
I will hold and 25 respond later.
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1 CHAIRMAN GROSSM AN :
I would first like to knov 2
where we are as f ar as plant operations' go.
It is my 3
shallow understanding from reading the materials that have 4
been prepared in the way of reports that the plant will, not 5
begin, in any event will not begin operations immediately 6
after the issuance of the SER, even if it agrees with the 7
Licensee's position, but that further modifications will be a
necessary to the plant structure.
Is that correct?
9 MR. EDGAR:
Yes.
The fact is that if you examine
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to the structure of the show cause order, it contemplates three 11 basic issues:
A, what are the appropriate criteria; B, will 12 the facility as modified meet those criteria ; and C, should 13 activities under the license be suspended pending resolution 14 of issues A and B.
15 Now, at the present time we expect on or about 16 January 15th to be a supplemental SER on the subject of soil 17 properties.
As the Board may be aware, on November 14th the 18 ACRS letter came out, which essentially indicated that
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19 restart should be authorized subject to resolution of the 20 soils issue.
21
- t such time as the soils issue is resolved, GE 22 would then have to perform certain modifications which are 23 enumerated in the structural reports and ready the facility 24 for operation.
25 It is our position that, having been shut down for ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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three years, we think it is imperative that the shcv cause 2
hearings be initiated and indeed completed; that looking at 3
the normal life expectancy of hearings, tha t GE could be 4
ready to operate approximately at the same time that the 5
hearings would be completed.
I 6
Obviously, under the third issue in the order, if 7
there were some urgency in the particula r case, further f
8 downstream GE might be coming in for further interim
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9 operating authority.
But at the present time your lo statement, or the sense of it, is correct, that GE could not 11 go immediately up because of the modifications.
1 12 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN4 I have a little trouble 13' fitting that time factor in with your reference to hearings, 14 since we haven't yet scheduled hearings.
Are you now 15 referring to your suggested hearing date of approximately 16 two months from now as when you would begin modifications?
17 Ex a ctly 18 MR. EDGAR:
I wasn't presumino that the Board 19 would necessarily accept our position.
Our position is in 20 fact that hearings should commence within 60 days.
We 21 strongly believe that that ought to occur and we see no 22 reason why it couldn't.
23 The issues are rather finite here.
The 24 information surrounding those issues has been available.for 25 some time.
Today, as I understand it, we are not talking p
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1 about substance.
We are talkin g about the simple matter of 2
schedulino.
3 On that point, we would like to have a firm 4
. schedule that would provide all of the parties with a 5
framework for getting ready to go to hearing and completing 6
those hearings.
7 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, I think your schedule is 8
somewhat ambitious, because it doesn 't take into accoun t 9
discovery on the plant, on tne staff SER that is being 10 issued now.
And to a certain extent, you would expect that, 11 considering especially the staff's change in position, that 12 the Intervenors would have some matter to discover from the 13 staff.
14
$R. EDGAR:
Well, that may or may not be, Mr.
15 Chairman.
The SER itself as it has come out in three 16 pieces, or ultimately it will_be in three pieces, the basic 17 SER and the criteria ha s been available since 'ay 23rd, 18 1980.
19 Secondly, the draft on structural and landsliding 20 has been available since Oc tobe r 27th, 1980.
The soils 21 property issue will be resolved in the January 15th SER.
22 Now, originally the Board in this proceeding 23 contemplated that post-SER discovery would be restricted to 24 new matters first addressed in the SER.
We are not talking 25 about broad-ranging discovery on the entire SER, but only n
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1 new matters.
2 Now, my point here is that if we have a firm 3
schedule, then we can get whatever linited discovery may be 4
required on those documents.
We find ourselves in the 5
position right now where, given the passage of time, we see 6
no reason why the parties could not have diligently examined 7
the information available.
8 The fact that Friends of the Earth and Congressman 9
Dellums were foreclosed from discovery was their own doing.
10 And we think it is imperative that we commence a sch adule 11 right now, that if there is a compelling need for certain 12 limited discovery focused only on new matters, so be it.
13 But the parties have to come forward on that.
14 CHAIRMAN GROSSHANs Well, I am not so sure how 15 limited the discovery would be in any case just on the SER, 16 in view of the drastic change in the position of the staff.
17 Would Mr. Treby like to off er something with regard to 18 that?
19 I notice that in your written submission to the 20 Board there was no proposed schedule of further 21 proceedings.
It was merely the indication that the staff 22 report would be completed shortly.
23 MR. THERY:
Yes, Judge Grossman.
Let me first 24 address the information in the SER.
As has been indicated, 25 ve have.already issued two portions of it, one in May and i
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1 one in October of this year.
This is the great bulk of the 2
staff information.
I suspect that this third piece that we 3
will be providing the staff and the parties within a week'or 4
so is not going to be much more than ten pages at most, and 5
relates to a narrow issue, and that is of soil properties 6
and wha t ef fect that might have on an issue that was raised 7
as to possible cantilevered stresses on the facility.
8 So that the great bulk of the staff's position is 9
out and has been out since October, at least.
10 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
But it has not been discovered 11 on.
12 ER. TREBY But it has not been discovered on, 13 although I would also note that there have been a number of 14 ACRS Subcommittee meetings and one full ACHS meeting, and in 15 particular there was a two-day ACBS Subcommittee meeting 16 that was held here in California at which there was 17 extensive discussion of the staff's information and the 18 basis for its positions, and also extensive discission of 19 the Licensee 's position and the basis of its information.
20 The Intervenors, number one, certainly had the 21 op p or tunity to attend that.
In effect, my information is 22 that they did attend that.
So that they have had the 23 benefit of some information as to what the staff's position 24 is and what the basis for that position is.
25 Secondly, while the staff back in '77 did issue a ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202) f 54 2345
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1 show cause order indicating tha t the plant should be shut 2
down until General Electric could show a reason why it 3
should start up again, and we indicated tha t the basis for 4
that order was that there was some new information regarding 5
the geology of the area, I am not sure that I could 6
characterize the fact that the staff has had a drastic 7
change in position.
8 At that time we indicated that we had some new 9
inf ormation that we needed to have further information to about, we wanted to look into it, and that we thought that 11 it would be prudent that the plant be shut down until we had 12 it, had better information about it.
Over the course of 13 time, we have been getting more information.
14 The record will indicate that the General Electric 15 Company has been doing a lot of field work in the form of 18 trenching and stuff to give, to develop the raw data on 17 which the staff could consider these matters, and that now 18 that the staff and its various consultants, including the 19 USGS, have had an opportunity to review all of these 20 materials, we are documenting it in the SER 's that we have 21 been issuing.
22 We have been evolving our position, but in the 23 interim we have been developing 'this information and giving 24 it to the Intervenors, and it certainly has been ivailable 25 in its written form since May and October, and they have had O
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1 the opportunity to attend the ACRS Subcommittee meetings, at 2
which time the staff was put to a rigorous review by the 3
ACRS, had to answer many questions as to what the basis what 4
f or their position ; and that in effect they have had the 5
opportunity to gather a lot of information that they would 6
normally have gotten through discovery.
7 So that while tiley -- and I believe also that they 8
also had the opportunity early in '78 to file a set of 9
interrogatories with the staff, and the staff did provide 10 certain information to the Intervenors at that time.
11 I vould also agree with what the counsel for 12 Licensee has indicated, and tha t is that at the original 13 prehearing conference it was the contemplation that any 14 further discovery after the staff issued its SER would be on 15 new matters.
And that discussion took place at pages 73 and 16 the two or three following pages of the t.ra ns crip t.
17 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well not how do you restrict 18 the area of new matters when it is the fundamental position 19 that has changed in the staff ?
I am not trying to 20 cha racterize it in any opprobrious manner, but when I refer 21 to a drastic change in position it may well be justified.
22 But nevertheless, the standards or the design basis required 23 under the new staff report diff ers markedly f rom what was 24 required in the originil.teJf-wosition.
as though that change covers 25 And it seem; t6,;
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1 the y3 terf ront.
Is there any way you can find a practical 2
limitation on what are new matters and what are the old 3
matters that were covered in the staff re po rts?
4 MR. EDGAR Mr. Chairman, if I might address 5
that.
I think you should recognize that the criteria which 6
the staff have agreed are considerably conservative, ther 7
have been available and have been presented in their SER's I
8 since May 23rd of 1980.
The remaining work, that is the 9
structural work, landslide and now soils, those analyses 10 followed from having set the criteria, one, then performed 11 the analysis to show compliance with the criteria.
12 Now, we have a unique situation here in that the 13 criteria were established on May 23rd, 1980.
'4h ether you 14 call it a drastic change or an evolution or what is not 15 really important here.
16 Now, the Intervenors have been barred from 17 discovery until at least the SER issuance date.
Now, it l
18 seems to me the suggestion is that they be allowed to have
(
19 unlimited discovery on the SER because of a drastic change
~
i 20 in position back in May of 1980.
It seems to me that allows 21 them to gain an additional benefit without recard for the 22 fact tha t their own refusal to answer interrogatories 23 foreclosed discovery.
24 Now, I think there can be a suggestion of what is 25 a new matter and what is not a new matter, and that is, was l
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1 the information available prior to issuance of the SER.
And 2
there is a workable test on tha t:
Was it available in a 3
report that was on the docket, or is it new information 4
first presented in the SER?
CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, I think we are confusing 6
two matters here.
One is whether there is something new in 7
the partial SER that has been issued in November and the one 8
that will be issued in January over what was disclosed in 9
the May portion of the SER.
And the second question is, 10 what was new in the total SER issued in May, November, and 11 possibly in the coming January, over what had been issued 12 before discovery was cut off.
13 Now, maybe Intervenors should have requested a 14 reconsideration of discovery in May of 1980 or perhaps the l
15 Board.should have scheduled this conference a little 16 earlier.
And it is unfortunate that we didn't.
But 17 nevertheless, we are here now and we have to do the best 18 that we can.
19 Now, I still haven't heard f rom Mr. Treby what he 20 would propose in the way of a further schedule in this 21 matter.
Do you have any suggestions for us?
22 MR. TRESY:
I guess in the absence of any showing 23 by the Intervenors that they have a need for further 24 discovery, we would rest on what we indicated back at the 25 time when the sanctions were initiated and imposed, and that b)
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is that we don't believe that there should be any further
(}
2 discovery in this proceeding.
3
~HAIRMAN GROSSMANs I see.
4 Judge Linenberger?
MR. LINENBERGER Mr. Treby, with respect to 6
scheduling there are other things to consider besides 7
discovery, or in addition to discovery.
Now, we have heard 8
from Mr. Edgar about as soon as the staff's final and 9
complete position regarding new problems are concerned, if 10 there is agreement between staff and the Licensee, the 11 Licensee vil then be in a position to undertake the proposed 12 modifications that presumably the staff will have blessed, 13 if you will, in the various pieces of the SER.
()
14 All right, that is a futuristic thing.
But comes 15 the time when those modifications are alleged to have been 16 complete, what is the staff 's position about the extent to 17 which it wishes to satisfy itself that the modifications 18 tha t have been made are indeed identical with and 19 satisfactory compared with the proposed modifications, and 20 does not that impact the schedule?
3R. TREBYs Well, my understanding is that the 21 22 staff will go out and inspect all modifications.
And in 23 fact, my further understanding is that there have been some 24 further modifications that have been undertaken already 25 based on the exchange of information between the staff and
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1 the Licensee.
For instance, in the facility there are some 2
supports, I believe, to protect a crane, and that is 3
essen tially completed and our Office of Inspection and 4
Enforcement has gone out an d inspected that to assure that 5
it meets all of the qualifications and requirements that the 6
staff had indicated that kind of a modifica tion would 7
Iequire.
8 There are other modifications that the staff 9
believes would be appropriate, and some of those I guess are 10 under way and some of those have not yet been undertaken.
11 My understanding is that the question of modifications was 12 discussed at the full ACRS Committee meeting, and that there 13 was a rough estima te of a pproximately nine months suggested
()
14 by the licensee for completion of all of the I
15 sodifications.
You would have to check with the Licensee 16 to confirm that date, but that is my recollection.
17 Now, as I understand the question, we of course 18 will inspect all of the modifications to make sure that they l
l 19 meet our requirements bef ore we would approve them, and we l
20 would think that all of that should be completed before the 21 plant should start up again.
22 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Now, there is also another 23 matter with discovery.
I am not satisfied that the parties l
24 have been updating their responses to discovery, as required l
25 by the rules.
Notwithstanding that there was a suspension C) i ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINTA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2345
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1 of Intervenors' discovery, it would appear as though the 2
parties still had some obliga tion to update their responses 3
with regard to expert testimony.
4 And I think discovery cuts both ways here, or 5
maybe three or four ways.
But I would assume that the 6
Licensee and the staff would be interested in the final 7
position of the Intervenors or in some position of the 8
Intervenors before we go into the proceeding.
I don't think 9
anyone is interested in having a trial by ambush here.
10 And if I recall, the responses by Intervenors to 11 the staff's interrogatories and to the Licensee's 12 interrogatories basically were temporizing responses 13 indicating that the fiaal positions had not been arrived 14 at.
15 Now, let me first throw out some suggestions that 16 the Board thought we might be heading for.
17 MR. BALDWIN:
Mr. Chairman.
18 CHAIRMAN GEOSSHAN:
Yes, Mr. Baldwin?
19 MR. BALDWIN:
I apologize for interrupting.
But 20 we were discussing the problem of what is or what is not to 21 be considered new matter.
And we heard Mr. Edgar and the j
22 NRC about that.
And I have a few comments of my own.
So if l
23 we are going to move on to another topic, in other words, I
24 what is our. final position going to be, then I do have 0 l
25 couple of comments about this problem of the new matter.
I I
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1 can either state them now or la ter, wha teve r.
2 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
That 's fine.
I just want to 3
bring up all of the elements before we arrive at any 4
decision.
But I would just as soon hear you now on wha t you 5
consider new matter.
6 MR. BALDWIN:
Well, it is hard with a straioht 7
face to call the staff's series of documents in this case an 8
evolutionary change.
They said -- and I would like to 9
review my files before making this argument, because I am 10 drawing on old memories -- but they said ra ther clearly that 11 tha t earthquake f ault was capable of an offset of something 12 like eight feet, and said in fact that they were shutting 13 down their review, that it was impossible for any structure 14 to withstand an eight-foot offset and that was the end of 15 it.
16 In fact, I believe most people thought at that 17 time that this case was over.
General Electric then --
18 well, let us just say that they brought more information to 19 the staff, and the result of that was that the staff decided 20 that it was suddenly -- three feet was okay.
Three feet was 21 all that we could expect off of that earthquake fault.
22 There wasn't any more trenching done in between 23 this change of position.
And even more significan tly, th ere 24 are a number of geologists at the U.S. Geological Survey who 25 first identified this fault who disagree with this staff j
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1 position in several significant respects.
They do not, if I 2
may characterize as best I can from a remote memory, they do 3
not believe tha t this fault has been adequately 4
characterized at all as to, for example, how long it is.
5 They don't know.
And,they disagree severely with the 6
conclusions of the staff in this, f ollowing the sudden 7
change of position.
8 So as far as we are concerned, everything they 9
have to say is new because everything they have to say is 10 different.
11 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, what is the nature of 12 the discovery that you have in mind now with regard to this 13 changed position?
14 HR. BALDWIN:
Well, that is a type of thing that I 15 need to think about.
That is the type of thing tha t I 16 cannot simply give you a list of topics that I would like to 17 go into.
Because like I said, I am coming in here on Monday 1g morning after Christmas vacation with no preparation l
19 whatsoever.
l l
20 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, let me throw out for 21 discussion what the Board thought might be a reasonable 22 schedule and see what objections there might be.
For one 23 thing, with regard to interrogatory number one that has 24 created that problem, whatever may have been the 25 juctification for requiring responses to that interrogatory ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE, S.W., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20024 (202) $64C46
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1 I think are no longer valid when we are approaching the time 2
of hearing.
3 We are primarily concerned with the witnesses that 4
are going to be presented at the hearing and I don 't think 5
that it would be profitable to linger on persons who may 6
have assisted in preparation or investigation or discussions 7
when we are on the eve of hearing.
We ought to be concerned 8
solely with the people who are going to be presented at the 9
hearing.
And so I don 't see any reason why we ought to be 10 concerned any longer with interrogatory number one.
11 And it is the Bonnd 's inclination at this point to 12 no longer require any response to interrogatory number one 13 of Licensee.
However, it appears to the Board that, in 14 addition to the other interrogatories propounded by 15 Licensee, there are also staff interrogatories that were not 18 really answered because of the posture of Intervenors' case 17 at the time the interrogatories were propounded.
18 But it is the Board's feeling that those 19 interrogatories required a disclosure of what the 20 Intervenors' case is all about, and that the answers ought 21 to be forthcoming some time before the hearing.
And I don't 22 sean two weeks before.
23 It would appear as though we ought to require all 24 of the parties to update their prior responces to the 25 discovery requests, including those staff interrogatories, I
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1 Licensee's interrogatories, except for interrogatory number 2
one, and probably the staff's responses to Intervenors' 3
interrogatories, in light of the evolving or drastic or 4
whatever the case may be, change in the position.
5 And so we would like to have everything updated, 6
possibly in five or six weeks-Is there any problem with 7
that?
Or perhaps a shorter time,,maybe a month.
That is a 8
prior discovery.
Is there any problem with that, Mr.
9 Edgar?
10 MR. EDGAR:
No, and I would think it could be done 11 within a substantially shorter period of time than that, if 12 indeed we are talking about updating as contemplated by the 13 rules of practice.
14 Do I understand that you are talking about your 15 duty to amend the prior response?
16
. CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Yes.
17 MR. EDGAR:
All right.
That should be i
18 substantially more prompt than that.
We are talking about a
~
19
-- even more specifically, if we are talking about naming of 20 witnesses, if you establish a hearing date you will get very 21 prompt naming of witnesses.
If you don't do tha t, then l
22 there is no motivation to get going on preparing testimony 23 and naming witnesses.
i 24 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, I don't think that we l
25 could take a much shorter time, because wha t we have in mind
(
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1 also is a cutoff of the affirma tive case -- that is, 2
witnesses and subject matter that are not disclosed -- by 3
whatever date we establish for the updating, unless of 4
course whichever party wants to of f er f urther ma tter, it 5
could of course move and submit a good cause motion why that 6
matter was not previously disclosed.
7 Do I make myself clear?
In other words, setting a 8
cutoff date for updating the responses and requiring that
(
l 9
the parties not be permitted to offer any subject matter or 10 witnesses or documents that are not disclosed where required 11 by the discovery request.
Does anyone have a comment on 12 that?
Mr. Baldwin?
13 MR. BALDWIN4 Yes, Mr. Chairman.
I believe again 14 that this has to be resolved once we see the final SEP,
15 which we have not seen.
If you ask a structural engineer to l
16 try and figure out what is going to happen when a three-foot l
17' f ault rupture comes underneath of the reactor, the first 1
18 question he is going to ask, the first one, is what type of 19 soil is it and how is that going to affect the foundation 20 when it slides into it.
21 And we don't know.
That part of the SER isn't 22 done yet, and I think we have to wait for it.
23 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, maybe we can put the 24 time requirement on the basis of service of the final 25 portion of the SER, and perhaps set the date on that basis.
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1 And of course, I want to give you my comple te sucqestion 2
here, and that also involves further discovery with regard 3
to the new matter contained in the SER.
l 4
And I would like to have -- well, let me ask Mr.
5 Edgar whether he would be satisfied to have an updating of l
6 the prior discovery without an opportunity now to discover 7
on those answers that will be updated?
Because I don't 8
really think that the staff or Licensee have had an l
9 opportunity to conduct discovery.
10 MR. EDGAR:
I think that you can state it se that 11 if you have a time period required f'or supplemen tation, you 12 can have a slightly longer time period in order for people 13 to file their discovery requests, so that there is a band in O
14 the second time interval th at falls outside the 15 supplementation.
16 CHAIBMAN GROSSMAN:
That is correct.
But then 17 again, we find ourselves moving to a position'where we 18 should not have any limitation on the subject matter of the i
l 19 new discovery, because I think that would prejudice all the l
20 parties, including Licensee and the staff, because n ei the r,
21 none of them would have the opportunity to discover on 22 satters tha t have not previously been disclosed in response 23 to old discovery.
24 And it seems to me as though we ought to have our 25 cutoff on updating, and we ought to have somethino like two O
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1 or three weeks for additional discovery unlimited, and then 2
we ought to be thinking in terms of a hearing approximately 3
six or seven weeks after that.
And we are inclined to 4
require prefiled testimony 25 days before the hearing.
5 And I want to make sure that no one confuses the 6
updating of discovery with the prefiled testimony.
We want 7
to have a limitation on the updating of the discovery 8
responses with a short interval in which the parties 9
presumably would be disclosing the substance of their cases, 10 but not the full testimony to be offered at the hearing ;
11 then a short period f urther in which discovery will 12 continue, unlimited discovery; and then a short -- and then 13 a requirement that the prefiled testimony be filed and the I
l 14 hearing be conducted.. days after that.
l 15 Has everyone been able to digest the suggestion l
16 now?
17 MR. HALTERMAN:
Mr. Chairman, if I might just ask f
18. what period of time you and the Board contemplated allowing 19 for the preparation of tectimony between that and filing 25 l
20 days before the hearing?
21 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, it would seem to me that 22 ve are talking in terms of a hearing possibly at the end of 23 April or the beginning of May.
That would mean that 25 days 24 before that would be at the beginning of April.
25 And I would like all of the parties to take their O)
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1 time, but I would like them all to hear what is being 2
discussed so that we don't have any problems with that, with 3
the scheduling.
Would Mr. Edgar like to say something with 4
regard to tha t ?
l 5
MR. EDGAR:
Well, I am still adding your 6
intervals, quite frankly.
But I just want to be sure I 7
understand that you -- that the kinds of intervals that you 8
are talking about are roughly f our weeks for updating, I 9
take it; that any discovery request be filed within the time 10 period of the updating deadline, plus two to three weeks.
11 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Yes.
i 12 MR. EDGAR:
Then hearings, evidentiary hearing 13 sessions, commence six to'seven'veeks after the updating O
14 deadline plus two to three weeks; am I correct?
15 CHAIRMAN GROSSHAd:
I'm sorry, I did not hear that 16 last one.
17 MR. EDGAR:
What I missed was, I am with you to 18 the point of an updating milestone, and then after the 19 updating milestone you said all discovery requests within 20 two to three weeks after the updating deadline.
l 21 CHAIRHAN GROSSHAN:
Right.
22 MB. EDGAR:
So call that the discovery deadline.
23 Then what was your time intersal measured af ter the 24 discovery deadline f or hearings?
l 25 CHAIRMAN GBCSSEAN:
Well, I would think we would
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1 need about another t4o or three weeks for the preparation of 2
the prefiled te stim o r.y.
And so, assuming that we require 3
that 25 days before the hearing, that would make and put the I
let us say two weeks after the discovery is cut off for 4
5 the prefiled testimony, and then 25 days later for the I
6 scheduled hearings.
(
7 MR. EDGAR:
I am with you now.
8 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Has everyone digested that 9
schedule now?
10 MR. THEBY:
Well, I think I understand it, but I 11 have some small problems with f.t.
12 CHAI3 MAN GROSSMAN:
Fine, as long as they are G
small.
)
I guess one of 14 ME. TREBY:
I guess I think that 15 my concerns is that, as I understand wha t is being proposed, 16 all sorts of new discovery will be sort of inflowing during 17 this period that we are updating, and it will continue to 18 flow in for another two weeks thereafter, so that there will 19 be like a six-week period sometime when we are having a l
i 20 number of interrogatories or whatever other forms of a
21 discovery may be used coming at the parties.
22 I did not hear any date upon which all of this new 23 information is going to be responded to, other than that we 24 were going to be filing testimony at some point thereafter.
25 It seems to me that we need a couple of things.
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We need -- I guess my suggestion would be that we have the
(}
2 four weeks for updating, and that after the parties have 3
gotten the updated answers to the discovery which has 4
previously been filed, that they have two weeks thereafter 5
to file whatever additional discovery they are coing to 6
file; that there then be a period set after that to respond 7
to that discovery; and that once we have that date set, th a t 8
there be another date set giving a reasonable period of time 9
for the written prefiled testimony to be prepared and filed 10 within; and that thereaf ter we would have -- and I agree 11 with the Board tha t I think tha t tha t prefiled testimony 12 should be filed at least 25 days in advance of the hearing, 13 given the mail service, et cetera.
It seems to me important
()
14 that the parties have that.
15 I guess that I would like to throw out one or two 16 f urther suggestions to the period af ter the prefiled 17 testimony and perhaps before the hearing begins.
And that 18 is that I have noted with interest the proceedings that are 19 currently going on in what is known as the TMI-1 restart.
20 And one of the items that the Board at that proceeding 21 suggested was that all of the parties file with the 22 Licensing Board -- and I believe it was something like five f
an outline of the 23 days before the hearing becan there l
l 24 cross-examination that the parties were indicating, or at 25 least their plan of cross-examination.
Not that_this was l
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1 going to be distributed anong the parties, but just so that 2
the Board would'have it, so tha t they would have some idea 3
of where the cross-examination was going.
4 And another technique that was used by that Board 5
was that they requested the parties, when they prefiled 6
their written testimony, that they indicated at the 7
beginning of that written testimony a brief outline of the 8
testimony and the purpose of the testimony, so that, again, 9
I suspect, the Board and the other parties would have some 10 idea of what the purpose of th e te stimony vas.
11 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, I scree with Mr. Treby 12 that we f ailed to take in to account the period for responses 13 to the discovery, and tha t we ought to incorporate something 14 like, unfortunately, a three or four weeks period for those 15 responses.
And that is a problem now.
16 With regard to the suggestion of outlini.nq 17 cross-examination, I really don't -- I think that zu a big i
18 burden on counsel and I don 't think tha t we would want to 19 req uire tha t in the case.
7 am always -- I think the Board 20 is amenable to motions made during the course of the hearing 21 for further hearing in ma tters in which any party is 22 surprised and matters in which the party has failed for good 23 reason to prepare adequately, and we vill be very liberal 24 with regard to tha t.
25 But I think it*is a tremendous burden on counsel l
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1 to require an outline of cross-examination, and especially 2
when some counsel may not be as well organized as others.
3 It is just a difficult matter and I don't think that ve 4
would require that.
5 Does anyone have comments on what has just been 6
said?
7 MR. EDGARs Yes.
Mr. Chairman, I think, having 8
had a chance to listen through one ear and go back over this
~
9 schedule with another, I think that we would be inclined to to support the type of scheduling that the Board has 11 established.
And certainly in principle it is logical and 12 probably reasonable.
I have just sketched it out in terms l
13 of intervals here, and would like to make several 14 suggestions, but addressed to each of the milestones that i
l 15 the Board has established.
16 In terms of the updating obligation, I would 17 suggest tha t that be done within four weeks.
18 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
That is four weeks from the
~
19 final SER; is that correct?
20 MR. EDGAR:
That is correct.
l 21 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
All right.
22 MR. EDGAR:
Then the close of discovery milestone 23 would be two weeks after the four, so that the total time 24 interval for discovery would be six weeks.
Then discovery 25 responses would be due three weeks af ter that.
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1 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Let me ask if anyone foresees 2
a problem with regard to changing the time limits as 3
established by the rules.
4 MR. EDGAR:
There's only one new change.
That is 5
on document production.
6 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Pardon?
7 MR. EDGARs The only one new change is the 8
document production.
All of the documents have been made 9
available and they have een available f or months and S
10 months.
So your interrogatories, you are actually 11 stretching that one somewhat -- no, you are right on target 12 with your interrogatories.
13 So I don't think it is a change.
It is just a
(
14 deadline to try to regularire the schedule.
The only 15 possible change would be in regard to document production.
i 16 And if we are talking about document production this far 17 into the process, we really shouldn't be in that stage afte 18 three years.
l 19 The interrogatories are 14 days.
So actually we 20 are -- that is a stretch-out on interrogatories.
l 21 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN Now we ought to -- that is 22 right, it is.
Now, we ought to have some accelerated 23 procedure, I would think, with regard to objections to 24 discovery.
I think that perhaps, if objections are made 25 within thosa in days also, I believe under the rules that l
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1 motions to compel cught to be filed five days af ter service 2
of the objections.
3 Would that be agreeable to the parties?
Mr.
4 B aldwin ?
5 MR. BALDWIN:
I would like to look and review the 6
rules as to the time limits with regard to production of 7
documents and the motions to compel, and also look at my i
l 8
files and try to figure out what kind of courses of 9
discovery we are talking about.
All of that took place more l
10, than two years ago, and it is just a homogeneous problem, my l
11 recollection at the mor.en t of it, and I need time to look at l
12 it before I can really respond.
13 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Mr. Edgar?
14 MR. EDGAR I think that if you establish this 15 three-week time interval for the responses to discovery and 16 Chairman Miller in the Clinch River document made the 17 par ties, if they wer e going to object to an interrogatory, 18 made them do it within five days, and if ther were going to 19 respond substantively it was set within 14 days.
And that 20 got things out in the open early.
21 I mean, there isn't much one has to do to register l
22 an objection.
So to accommodate that, I would suggest that 23 if there is an objection that it be done within the five t
f
(
24 days, and then a motion to compel five af ter.
Because you 25 could get cluttered if you assigned a three-week period for l
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1 responses to discovery.
You could end up with discovery 2
disputes controlling the entire time interal.
3 CHAIRMAN GROSSM AN:
Well, I think the staff would 4
have some problem considering the review that is necessary 5
to come up with objections in five days.
6 Mr. Treby, would you like to -- are you going to 7
be wearing two hats in this proceeding, as initiater and 8
also reviewer of everything?
9 EE. T3EBY:
No.
It is my hope to wear just one 10 hat, that is as reviewer.
And I guess I could assure you 11 tha t we would give prompt review to that business.
I guess 12 I would see no problem in responding within five days if we i
I 13 had any objections.
I think we could get that done in that O
14 period of time.
15 The one thing that I am concerned about, though, 16 tha t we have not discussed, and that is the mail.
It l
17 sometimes takes at least five days or so for papers to get 18 from one coast to the other coast.
And we may f.ind that we 19 have very fine schedules here, which just go out of kilter 20 because the papers aren't being, received by the people.
1 21 I guess we either have to set up some sort of an i
22 expedited mailing procedure whereby everybody agrees to use 23 whatever the best one is --
24 NR. EDGAR:
We are prepared to address that one.
25 In fact, we had addressed it before.
And t ha t is, if we l
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1 file anything, we will hand serve the Intervenors or-th e 2
West Coast.
Furthermore, if they file anything with us from 3
the West Coast, they can serve here in San Jose.
So that 4
will short-circuit anything on that side.
5 We will also agree that, where we can tailgate our 6
efforts, where we are going to make an air express shipment 7
out to the West Coast, we will get together with the staff 8
and try, if they have anything to file, we will do it the 9
same way and do the hand service for them.
10 CHA!RMAN GEOSSMANs Do I understand that you are 11 agreeable now to pick up from the Tatervenor's office 12 whatever is ready for servica, if they will notify you by 13 telephone?
14 HR. EDGAB We will accept service by mail from 15 the West Coast out here.
In other words, if they want to 16 file something and our GE legal department here will receive 17 it, and then that will sa ve a t least three days.
18 CHAIBHkN GROSSHANs Are you agreeable to that kind 19 of service, Mr. Baldwin and Congressman Dellums, that you 20 serve on whichever -- well, I suppose any way that they mail 21 it, you will be receiving it, so *re is no problem with it 22 that way.
23 MR. HALTERMANs We will certainly agree with 24 that.
First of all, I will just note that it often takes 25 five days to mail mail to San Francisco as well.
I don't O
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think we have totally solved the problem of mail.
But I 2
certainly think that that is a substantial step in the right 3
direction.
So we will be prepared to serve and accept 4
service from the local West Coast operation.
5 ER. EDGAR:
I am not so sure that we can quarantee 6
every delivery if the sta ff is making a filing.
But I think 7
that we will both be doing enough filings that we ought to 8
be able to get a cooperative effort together and make sure 9
that things reach the Intervenors promptly.
I know that our 10 stuff will.
11 CHAIRMAN GROSSEAN:
Well, I think that perhaps we 12 will let the time delays take care of themselves, and we i
i 13 will be somewha t flexible about within a.few days of i
14 enforcing th e schedule.
But it seems to me -- and I don't that the one that we have 15 care to repeat the schedule 18 juct discussed is probably the one that we ought to 17 establish, subject, of course, to written objection by the 18 Intervenors with regard to this schedule.
19 We will impose it, but we will be flexible in 20 deviating f rom the schedule in response to whatever you j
l l
21 sight care to sabmit after this conference, Mr. Baldwin.
22 MR. BALDWINs Ihank you, Mr. Chairman.
If I may 23 make one more point, that is that in order to comment on 24 this schedule and in order to participate in this discu.e 7n I
25 here this morning before this Board, it was in my opinion ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC.
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necessary for me to review the NRC regulations in regard to 2
discovery and to review the discovery that has taken place.
3 And I have not been able to do tha t.
4 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs Why don't we set as a time 5
limit for your submitting objections to this schedule a t a 6
week from today.
Would that be agreeable to you?
7 NR. BALDWIN:
Well, not exactly.
And I must 8
return to my original problem that I have with this entire 9
proceeding.
Now, I am put in the position of objecting to a 10 decision that has been made.
It has been made without the 11 benefit of the consideration of the file by Friends of the 12 Earth and its attorney.
That has been just completely 13 absent from the record because I haven't had a chance to O
14 look at the file.
15 And I don't believe that it is a supportable 18 procedure to make a decision like this and then tell 17 counsel, who has come in with no notice whatsoever, that he 18 has a right to object to it.
I presume I would have the -
19 right to object to it anyway.
But I simply don 't think that I
20 the process is going properly if I am now here with no 21 preparation and given, as my remedy for that, the right to 22 object later to a decision that is being made here after a 23 fairly detailed discussion of what is going to take place.-
24 And again, I would urge the Board to postpone 25 these discussions until we have the final report of the,
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1 staff, because that is what se are in the final analysis --
2 that is what this is all going to be about.
And we are 3
still talking about discovery against an unknown document 4
and the discussion is taking place with, in a sense, an 5
unknowing counsel.
I don't think that that is supportable.
8 CHAIBMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, perhaps we ought to 7
leave the discussion where it is right now without issuing 8
an order orally from the bench with regard to the schedule, 9
require that the parties review the transcri'pt, which I 10 assume they will receive within a day or two, and have the 11 parties then submit their proposed schedule by a certain 12 day, and have a conference call on or about the day after 13 the parties are presumed to have received the schedules.
O 14 And why don't we leave it that way, and I foresee 15 having tha t conference call perhaps in two weeks, probably 16 just as we either receive the final installment of the SER 17 or word tha t it will be delayed for some additional time.
18 And so why don't we s'e t the date for having the parties' let's see, today 19 proposed schedules filed and served by 20 is the 5th -- about the 14th.
Well, why don't we set it for 21 the 15th, and we can be almost certain, too, that all of the i
22 parties will have received it by the next Monday, and 23 perhaps schedule a conference call for January 20th.
24 MR.-THEBY Judge Grossman, the 20th is not a good 25 day because that is inauguration day.
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1 BR. EDGAR:
Mr. Chairman, could I suggest I
2 have heard Mr. Baldwin.
But honestly, this is nothing more 3
than each person filing a simple schedule for the conduct of 4
certain activities.
Any lawyer should be able to do that i
5 within a week.
There is just no reason why anyone could not 6
file a proposed schedule within a week and why, by the same 7
token, we could not have a prehearing conference call within 8
two weeks.
~
9 It is just beyond all comprehension to me that 10 that simple sort of activity could not be completed within 11 that time.
12 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Except that I want to give the 13 parties an opportunity to receive the transcript, and that 14 adds on two or three days.
And so we are basically in the 15 same place.
16 Mr. Baldwin?
17 MR. BAlDWIN:
Well, in response to your order of 18 December 10th, which Mr. Edgar did receive, he filed his 9
19 suggested schedule dated the 29 th.
That tsas 19 days later.
20 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
That is when we required it, 21 so there was really no way that they could do it any 22 sooner.
But it seems to me that we really will not be 23 extending any part of this schedule by having it done in 24 this form, because we are still keying everything to the SER 25 and presumably this is taking place simultaneously vi ch the (3
\\_/
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preparation of the SER, and it really isn't taking any extra 2
time.
3 So I think that that is what we want to establish 4
as a schedule right now, and that is that by January 15th 5
the parties should submit their proposed schedule; and tha t 6
by the 21st we have -- or on the 21st we set up a conference 7
call to discuss any disagreements with regard to the 8
schedules.
And I will encourage the parties t<
communicate 9
with each other before the conference call to attempt to 10 resolve any differences.
11 And as a satter of fact, we ought to make that a 12 directive right now that the parties confer before the 21st 13 to see if they can iron out differences and then have the O
14 conference call on the 21st.
We vill try to arrange that 15 conference call for the morning of the 21st, but --
16 BR. EDGAR Mr. Chairman, do I understand that 17 I guess what I have in mind here, I want to be sure that my 18 impression is correct -- that we file the proposed schedules, the parties would attempt to confer and reach a 19 20 resolution, in which esse we would have a rather short 21 conference call?
But assuming that we cannot agree on all 22 points, do I understand tha t the Board then would 23 essentially make a bench ruling, to be confirmed by a later 24 order?
25 CHAIEMAN GROSSHANs Yes, that is correct, in that n
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conference call.
2 MR. TREBY:
Judge Grossman, just so that I am l
3 clear, when we are filing by January 15th our proposed l
4 schedule, are the parties now free to propose any schedule?
5 Are we supposed to be calculating four weeks, two weeks, 6
whatever we have been discussing this past half hour or so 7
as far as scheduling?
8 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs What we have in mind is that I
9 you refer to the transcript and use that as a starting
~
i l
10 point.
But in Mr. Baldwin's case, he may not want to even i
11 start that, and I'm not precluding him from suggesting an 12 entirely different schedule based on some weighty reasons he l
l 13 has.
But it would seem as though the discussion we have had 4
14 this morning should be somewhat profitable to him in any 15 event and that he ought to refer to that in making his 16 proposals.
17 MR. TREBYa Well then, I have two suggestions.
My I
18 first suggestion is perhaps tha t at an appropriate time we 19 might take a brief recess, like 10 or 15 minutes, for the 20 parties here to get together and to sort of outline some 21 dates that we could comply wi th these things, so that we l
22 were all starting from the same starting point.
And Psidvin 23 would, of course, would indicate whether or not he has l
24 problems with those da-25 But at least, otherwise, on the 15th we are all l
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1 going to be arriving with different dates.
2 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN Talking with each other in the 3
dark?
4 MR. TREBYa That's righ t.
5 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN I will soggest that you confer 6
before the 15th.
But I would think that Mr. Baldwin would 7
be unwilling to meet with you now to agree on any starting 8
point until he has had a chance to review the files.
Is 9
that correct, Mr. Baldwin?
10 MR. B ALD'JIN 4 I would be happy to speak with them, 11 but I can't make any more representations as to what I know 12 out of that file than I have made so far.
13 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs I think that that is the case, O
14 and there is no reason why we ought to force anything 15 further on the parties now.
But certainly, I would see no 16 reason why individual counsel could not call each other up 17 to consolidate their efforts or to arrive at some agreement, l
18 and I don't see any reason why the parties vocid have to I
19 wait until the 15th or whatever date that we set in order to l
20 file any responses.
21 And if Mr. Edgar has his proposed schedule ready 22 on the 10th, he might certainly want to file that and serve 23 that earlier.
24 MR. TREBY:
I have a second matter.
I i
25 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN Yes?
i I
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MR. THE3Y Which I raise with some hesitation, 2
and that is the staf f has another problem.
And that is 3
there is a proceeding which is not the subject of thic 4
prehearing conference.
But one of the reasons that the 5
staff was unable to propose a suggestion as to a schedule 6
was that we have a problem with this other proceeding, which 7
is the renewal proceeding.
8 CH AIRM AN GROSSM AN s I was going to come to that in well, fine.
If that 9
a moment, and I think that we would 10 impacts on the scheduling here, we will do it right now.
11 MR. TRE3Ya There is a pending petition for leave 12 to intervene which has been orally granted, but there is no 13 vritten order.
And part of the written order would be an O
14 identification of the contentions or issues in that 15 proceeding.
16 It is very likely that one of the issues in that 17 proceeding is going to deal with the geology of the site, l
l 18 and if in fact that is true, that it deals with the geology
{
19 of the site, the staff would be in favor of consolidating 20 for the limited purpose of just discussing the geology of 21 the site the t.'o proceedinos, since we have a number of 22 consultants whos it would be a more efficient use of the 23 staff's resources to bring them out here at one time.
24 Now, one of the reasons we have been hesitant to 25 raise this, asife from the fact that we don 't know exactly ALDERSoN REPORTING CoWPANY. INC.
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what the issues in the other proceeding might be, is that we 2
were somewhat concerned about what the status of discovery 3
might be, since obviously the party in the renewal 4
proceeding is not engaged in any discovery yet.
And if 5
discovery in this proceeding had been completed, we might 6
well have wished to just complete this proceedino and worry 7
about the other proceeding at some other time.
8 As I understand the way we appear to be going, we 9
are updating the discovery that we previously had in this 10 proceeding and then we are somewhat throwing open the 11 discovery for all matters thereafter, in which case, if that 12 is in fact wLat is occurring, perhaps it would be a better 13 use of the staff's resources to to the extent possible bring O
14 into this time frame the party in the other proceeding, if i
15 they can get into this discovery and be able to consolidate 16 that one issue.
t 1
17 OHAIRMAN GROSSMANs Well, it doesn ' t appear that 18 the suggestion that you made in what was submitted to us 19 last weekend, what we hear this morning, is practical.
And' 20 let me ask, by the way, did Mr. Baldwin or Mr. Halterman 21 receive any copies of that particular document filed by the l
l 22 staff requesting that the portion of the renewal proceeding 23 that relates to this matter be consolidated?
24 Did either of you or both of you or neither of you 25 receive that?
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1 MR. TREBY Well, Judge Grossman, the staff has 2
not made the suggestion that they be consolidated.
We 3
indicated that we migh t consider making such a request for 4
consolidation, but we have never moved for consolidation yet 5
since we don 't know what the issues in the other proceeding 6
are.
7 And, number two, since neither Mr. Baldwin nor 8. Congressman Dellums are parties to the other proceeding, we
~
9 did not serve our December 24th motion on them.
So I would 10 be surprised if they did receive a copy of it.
11 CHAIBMAN GROSSMANs Is Mr. Somit here this 12 morning, by the way?
13 (No response.)
14 MB. EDGARs That is part of the problem.
Mr.
15 Somit has not made this request.
I mean, we are leaping one 16 step forward in speculation, I am afraid.
We have no 17 problem with supporting a staff motion that an order ought 18 to be issued in due course.
19 We do have a problem of consolida tion, as 20 suggested.
I think that we find it impractical, but again 21 it is speculative.
If Mr. Somit were pushing it, then it 22 sight be another matter.
We feel that we would be severely 23 prejudiced and we really don't think that the idea ought to 24 be seriously entertained.
25 But we will respond in due course, I suppose.
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1 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs Well, one thing, it would take I don't think that we could pass on the contentions 2
3 without scheduling another prehearing conference.
We would 4
have a very short period for discovery, and I think that 5
would prejudice the Intervenor in that case.
And thirdly, I 6
don't really think tha t having those issues heard again in 7
the renewal proceeding would burden that proceeding 8
unnecessarily, in view of the fact that the testimony is 9
prefiled in any event and basically all that would be done 10 in addition would be some cross-examination by the 11 Intervenor and additional witnesses by him, which would be 12 in addition to this proceeding in any event.
13 So I don't see why you would even want to 14 entertain that.
I don't see anything that is really 15 persuasive in having us take that course.
16 Does anyone want to add anything f urther to that ?
17 MR. BALDWIN:
I would.
I believe that this 18 proceeding is unnecessary if the license for General Electric Test Reactor, no w long since expired, is not 19 20 renewed.
And in addition to the earthquake problems, there 21 are a host of other severe problems which, in the opinion of 22 a lot of people, indica te without any question that that 23 reactor should never operate again.
24 And we believe that the best thing to do with this 25 show cause proceeding is to postpone it until we find out, s
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1 because the license to restart the reactor may be denied.
2 And if that happens, why bother, why spend the taxpayers' 3
money and the Licensee's money and Friends of the Earth's 4
vary limited funds to argue about something that is going to 5
be completely mooted if it later comes out that that license 8
is denied?
7 CHAIR 3AN GROSSMANs Well, I think that the i,
8 Licensee is entitled to have its plant in operation on the l
~
9 old license while its renewal is pending, in the absence of 10 having a valid show cause order; and that it would be a 11 viola tion of licensee' rights to use the pendency of the i
12 show cause proceeding to keep the plant in a shutdown r
13 condition on the basis of a show cause that may well be l
[h
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l 14 resolved by having a hearing that is tailored to the issues l
l 15 raised by the show cause.
l 18 I don't see that we could -- that we would be i
17 getting a due process by what you suggest, and I don't see 18 how we could possibly take that course of action.
19 Mr. Edgar?
20 MR. EDGABs No, I have nothing.
21 MB. THEBYs I tend to agree with you, Judge 1
22 Grossman, that th ey are separate proceedings, that the
(
23 renewal was timely filed, and tha t the plant, but for the 24 show cause, would be permitted to be operated; and so the 25 Licensee is entitled to have the show cause proceedino l
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concluded.
2 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs The point being, if I wasn't l
3 clear enough, that certain issues that require a shutdown of 4
the facility, and if those issues can be resolved I don't l
5 believe anyone is entitled to keep the reactor shut down 8
because it happened to have been shut down on the basis of 7
those issues; and that the license will then just continue, l
8 the operations continue under the old license while the 9
renewal application is pending.
That is just the way that 10 the system operates.
11 I think that we, if we are moving on to other 1
12 topics, we could take a break now for about ten minutes and 13 reconvene at 25 after 11:00.
14 15 16
(
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 i
(
24 l
25 O
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(_)T 1
CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
The conference is reconvened.
2 There are some items that perhaps we can discuss 3
this morning, notwithstanding that there was not notice 4
received by Intervenors who have not had a chance to re view 5
their files.
But we might as well start on these and 6
perhaps have a more extensive discussion at the final 7
prehearing conference.
8 And let me point out now that we never intended 9
that this would be considered the final prehearing to conference in any event and that sometime perhaps with the 11 approximately when the pretrial testimony is due, shortly 12 before or shortly after, we will have a final prehearing 13 conference.
But one of the issues that appears involves the 14 scope of the proceeding and is a matter tha t has come up in 15 discovery and undoubtedly will come up in the future is discovery as to what can be inquired into.
17 Now, we are -- that is, the Board is inclined 18 towards the position that accident mitigation and accident 19 consequences are not part of this show cause proceeding, but 20 that those matters will be a substantial part of the safety 21 and environmental reports involved in the license renewal 22 proceeding.
23
'4ould Mr. Treby like to comment on tha t?
24 MB. THEBY.
I agree with you.
I think that they 25 vill be addressed in the documents of this proceeding, and O
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I they are not within the scope of the issues set out in the 2
Commission's order of February 13, 1978 which amended the 3
show cause order.
4 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN Now, one problem that concerns 5
us along that line of thinking concerns the breaching of the 6
reactor containment.
I am not sure that I have fully 7
digested the staff reports or the Licensee's position, but 8
it seems from a cursory look at the materials that under 9
those positions, it is assumed tha t the containment will be breached at some point.
11 Is that correct?
12 MR. TREBYs That is my understanding.
Yes, I 13 think it is that we do postulate that that will occur if we 14 don 't give any credit to the containment.
15 CHAIRHAN GROSSHANs But nevertheless, is it also 16 so that both the staff and Licensee postulate that that is 17 not part of the safety system with regard to safe shutdown 18 in the case of earthquake and that therefore it is 19 unnecessary to speculate on what may occur because of that 20 breach of containment?
21 KR. EDGAR That is correct.
22 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
We are not taking any position 23 on that at this point, but we do want to just note some of 24 the troublesome areas and ones that will be subject to, I am 25 sure, dispute at the time of the hea ring, and possibly O
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during the later discovery.
2 Does either of th e In tervenors care to make any 3
comment?
4 ER. 3ALDWIN:
Well, again, Mr. Chairman, I do not 5
feel able adequately to argue this point since I have not 6
had a chance to review th e file, and my recollection is that 7
there was an exchange of papers on the question of whether 8
or not the consequences of the meltdown of the GE test reactor should be included in this proceeding or some other 9
to lesser consequences from a lesser accident, and I will do 11 the best tha t I can based on the notes that I have made here 12 this morning.
13 Our position is and has been that there is no O
14 question but that these -- that the possibility of thesa 15 consequences must be included in the hearing.
To my 16 knowledge, the NRC has never licensed a nuclear reactor 17 knowing that there might be surface rupture directly 18 underneath in an earthquake.
This is unprecedented in my in dealing with the NRC.
19 experience, anyway, 20 And so we have got to ask ourselves a question 21 since thera is going to be a parade of structural engineers 22 in the hearing who will say that no structure can be i
23 gua ranteed safe against surface rupture; the question is 24 going to come up what happens if we do have surf ace rupture, 25 and it does rupture the reactor and all of the wa ter drains l
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out.
That is a credible accident sequence at the General 2
Electric test reactor.
i 3
It is a very old reactor.
You ca n imagine the 4
technological complexity of an Edsel, say, built in the 5
1950s and compare that with a modern day automobile.
It is 6
two completely different types of engineering, two 7
completely different, almost quantitatively, almost 8'
qualitatively different types of machines.
And the General 9
Electric test reactor, compared -- if you compare that with 10 the safety requirements of a reactor, the modern genera tion, 11 you get the same kind of comparison as comparing a car from 12 the mid-1950s and its safety systems, no seat belts and so 13 on, with a care that is made today.
And everybody here O
14 knows this, that if the General Electric test reactor were l
15 required to meet the safety requirements imposed on reactors 16 after Three Mile Island, we could all go home.
I 17 And therefore it seems to me that in the situa tion 18 where there is an obvious deficiency of safety systems, that 19 the possibility of a more severe accident immediately arises l
20 because we presume the safety systems are there for a 21 reason, that all of the safety systems which have been 22 required since the General Electric test reactor was built, 23 regadless of its size, were put there for a reason co 24 prevent serious accidents.
25 Thirdly, the General Electric test reactor is less ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON D.C. 20024 (202) 554-2346
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1 than 20 miles from two major metropolitan areas.
It is 2
about 20 miles from downtown Oakland and about 19 miles from 3
downtown San Jose, and about 21 miles from downtown Palo 4
Alto, and within 50 miles of th e GE test reactor there are 5
several million people, and my recollection is 5 million or 6
so, maybe a little less.
And if you looked across the 7
United S tates for a reactor with more people within 50 miles l
8 than the GE test reactor, you would find a fews Zion 9
perhaps, Indian Point, perhaps, but you could probably count 10 them on the fingers of one hand.
And the potential for a 11 major accident is therefore multiplied.
If there is a 12 meltdown at the reactor being built 50 miles away from 13 nowhere, out in the middle of the.hich niains, that is one 14 thing.
You may lose a few hundred thousand acres of crops 15 or something like that.
But if there is a meltdown 20 mile 16 from downtown San Jose or downtown Oakland, then that is an l
17 entirely different matter.
1 18 In addition to that, this reactor, we have been 19 told throughout the proceeding, is small.
But no study has 20 ever been done.
The potential release f rom this so-called 21 small reactor, it is perhaps analogous to a small dragon.
i l
22 How much damage will a small dragon do if it gets out of its 1
23 little steel box?
Well, we don't know because no study has 24 ever been done.
25 We, as a matter of fact, Friends of the Earth, ALDER $oN REPORTING COMPANY. INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2346
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1 have done a little bit of work in this area to try to 2
predict what is the possibility if the General Electric test 3
reactor does have a meltdown with a breach of containment, l
4 and our preliminary conclusions were that you are talking
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5 about possibly thousands of casualties in this genera tion 8
and in the future generations, people with all different 7
kinds of cancer, people born now and for hundreds of years 8
from now with various kinds of birth defects and also l
I l
9 susceptible to cancer.
10 It is not supportable in our view, and again, I do 11 not feel that I can properly argue this this morning bacause 12 of my lack of preparation -- it is not supportable in our 13 view to exclude the question from this hearings what should 14 be the consequences of a major accident, because the 15 question asked in the shutdown order is what should the 18 geologic parameters be ?
And you can 't decide what the 17 geologic parameters should be unless you know what you are 18 trying to prevent against.
(
19 Now, we just simply don't know that and we have to l
20 find tha t out.
l
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l 21 CHAIBMAN GROSSMAN:
You understand that no one is I
l 22 questioning at this point whether the concerns are weighty 23 enough to be heard.
The question is what is the appropriate i
l 24 proceeding in order to consider accident consequences and i
25 accident mitigation, and it is really a question of whether
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1 the show cause proceeding is one in which we can go into 2
these matters, or whether they must await the renewal 3
proceeding or possibly a petition under 2.206.
And that is 4
the sole concern that the Board will have as to whether 5
these matters are heard or not in this proceeding, not j
l 6
whether the concerns are weighty enough to be heard.
7 MB. BALDWIN The U.S. Geological Survey is very j
8 auch at odds with the position of the staff on the 9
potential, destructive potential of the Verona Fault.
In 10 addition to that, the NRC staff at one time -- and we 11 presume they did this -- well, maybe we can't presume it, 12 but the NRC staff at one time came out with a report which l
13 said flatly that this reactor cannot withstand the maximum i
l 14 earthquake that could appear in the Ve ro na Fa ult.
They have
\\
l 15 said that.
16 And if you follow the discussion since that time, I
17 rou will see from time to time a hint that yes, maybe you 18 could get eight feet, but it is kind of improbable.
And 19 that is in the back of everybody's mind.
20 And so then the question arisess what if you do 21 get eight feet?
The staff says that the reactor can't take l
22 it, the reactor will be destroyed, and they refuse even to 23 analyze the reactor for any eight foot offset.
24 And so the question arises, what is going to 25 happen?
This possibility has been acknowledged.
U.S.G.S.
O l
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doesn't agree that the fault is benign.
The staff has said 2
a year or so ago that the f ault is capable of destroying the 3
reactor, and now it is not supportable in our view to come 4
in and say there is absolutely no possibility of an accident 5
severe enough to release any radiation f rom tais reactor, 6
and therefore, we should decide in the complete absence of 7
any data on the consequences.
8 OHAIRMAN GROSSMANs By the way, let me ask, Mr.
9 Treby, whether there are experts that the staff had intended 10 to use that it was not now intended to use that do disagree 11 with the changed position of the staff, and if there are 12 such experts, will they be available at the time of hearing, 13 notwithstanding that the staff may not want to call them as (2) 14 its own experts?
15 MR. TREBY:
I am not aware of the fact that we l
16 have changed witnesses that we would presen t.
We do intend l
17 to have a representative of the U.S.G.S.
as part of the 18 staff witnesses, and I might indicate that the U.S.G.S..has 19 been a consultant for the staff throughout the proceeding, 20 and in fact, there is as one of the attachments to our SCS, 21 a letter from the U.S.G.S.
setting forth what their official l
l 22 view is.
l 23 Now, it is possible that there may be one or two 24 individuals within the U.S.G.S.
that do not agree or who l
25 have some differences with that official view.
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1 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Is it yours --
2 MR. TREBY:
The question is whether or not we 3
intend to present them.
I guess that may depend on whether 4
the Ecard wishes to hear them or not.
It is not our usual 5
prsctice to bring everybody from the.U.S.G.S. to hearings.
6 We tend to bring to the two hour hearings the spokesman, if 7
you would, for the U.S.G.S.
That is the person who is in 8
charge of regulatory affairs within the U.S.G.S. and who is 9
their liaison with us who sets forth the position of what 10 the U.S.G.S. is.
11 If you have some desire to have some identified 12 individuals, we will attempt to make them available.
13 MR. LINENBERGER:
Well, Mr. Treby, going just a O
l 14 little further along the line of Judge Grossman's question 15 to you, I am very intimately in mind of another proceeding 16 in which a panel of U.S.G.S. witnesses produced a consensus 17 position that agreed with the staff with respect to a 18 certain site evaluation, and one of the members of the panel i
19 stood up and said, well, gentlemen, it must be recognized 20 that this member of the panel does not support that 21 consensus.
22 Well, okay, there is all the room for disagreement 23 amongst reasonable minded people, but the interesting thing 24 there was that this individual's lack of support of the 25 consensus opene up a line of inquiry that ultimately O
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1 resulted in the f acility being 'ocated to a nother site.
2 All we are getting at ere is the Board would not 3
like to be presented with consensus where there is an 4
opportunity that it might dis;uise the fact there are some 5
disagreements.
So we would be very appreciative of the 6
opportunity to make ourselves aware of these disagreements 7
if ther exist.
8 NR. THEBYs The staff apprecia tes that concern and 9
the staff is very sensitive to the question of the 10 dissenting opinions, and we have attempted, I believe, to --
11 and very candidly, in the SEP to set out the fact that i
12 there were some dif f ering views within the U.S.G.S.,
and 13 then presented what the consensus view was.
14 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, it is our inclination 15 that the witnesses who disagree, or I'm sorry, the experts 16 who have disagreed be available at the time of the hearing 17 so that th e y might be questioned alse.
i l
18 3R. BALDWIN:
Mr. Chairman, I sense something l
19 coming up here, and I am very troubled, and if I have 20 anticipated something that is not going to happen, I 1
21 apologire, but I would hope that no reasonable person would 22 consider running this hearing without hearing the full 23 testimony of the three U.S.G.S. geologists who have been out 24 to Vallecitos ands done the work out there.
And I am 25 referring to Darrell Herd, Robert Morris and Earl Brabb.
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1 All of these gentlemen are closely familiar with the site 2
geology at Vallecitos.
All of them are manifestly qualified 3
to inform the Board on the site geology at the Vallecitos, 4
and all of them -- and here I am going to rake a 5
representation -- all of them are going to say that the 8
staff doesn't now what they are talking about when they put 7
these parameters on the f ault.
8 And if there is going to be presented to this 9
board a carefully combed U.S.G.S., politically astute to higher-up to represent th e work of Herd, Morris and Brabb, 11 ve would register outrage at that suggestion before it is 12 even made, assuming that it has been hinted at.
Those 13 gentlemen know more about that site than anyone, and they
[
()
14 are going to be -- and their opinion is going to be the 15 central issue in this proceeding.
18 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs Well, Mr. Baldwin, I would 17 suggest that you take it on yourself to make sure that those 18 persons are available.
19 MR. BALDWIN:
Well, in other proceedings, l
l 20 Intervenors have had some difficulty in freeing up l
21 individual members of the U.S.G.S.
to testify in nuclear 22 cases at times.
It is at times the inclination of the i
23 agency to send one of these gentlemen from Washington and I 24 guess we will get to that when we get to that.
I hope we 25 don't.
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1 CHAIRMAN GROSSHAN:
Well, I think that the staff 2
is put on notice right now that we would expect that those 3
individuals would be available at the time of hearing, and 4
that they prevail upon, a ttempt to prevail upon U.S.G.S. to 5
make them available for us, notwithstanding that they may 6
not be the witnesses presented in support of the staf f's 7
case.
8 MB. TREBI:
Well, the staff first of all is 9
somewhat disturbed that there should be any hint that we 10 wouldn't or sould attempt to not provide the Board with all 11 of the information that the Board desires.
The sum, or all 12 of the people that have been named have been presented to 13 the ACRS and have set f orth their views, and there has never 14 been any attempt by the staff to hide the views of these 15 gentlement throughout this proceeding.
There certainly 16 would not be any attempt to do so in any hearing before this 17 Board.
18 The staff will make every effort to have
~
19 appropriate people here from the U.S.G.S.,
but we cannot 20 gua rantee that they will be able to provide each and every 21 person that someone may ask unless there is some subpCena or 22 some other reason for that particular witness to be at this 23 proceeding.
24 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Well, let me say it is my 25 understanding --
_/
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1 MR. TREBY:
We will make sure that all views are 2
brought before this Board, and tha t may be able to be 3
accom plish ed with one or two people and not with a parade of 4
ten different people from the U.S.G.S. offices.
5 CHAIRHAN GROSSM AN :
Well, let me say that it is my 6
understanding from reading the record that there hasn't been 7
any attempt at disguising any positions or not disclosing 8
those positions, and that I just wanted to put the staff on 9
notice that notwithstanding that there is no requirement 10 that they require in preparing and putting forth their case, 11 there is no requirement that they have experts available who 12 they do not intend to use in support of their case, that we 13 nevertheless want these witnesses, and tha t is the only 14 reason that we mentioned it now, not in order to cast any l
r 15 aspersions on any past actions which we don't see as having 16 or being culpable in any way.
17 Does anyone have anything further alono those 18 lines?
(No response) 19 20 CHAIBHAN GROSSNAN:
We have had some discussion in 21 the past as to burdens of proof and references from reading l
22 the pretrial, prehearing conference transcript of March 16, 1
23 1979.
We are not going to enter into an involved discussion 24 as to who has the burden of coming f orward with evidence 25 here, but we do want to indicate that we would like some ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, 400 VIRGINIA AVE., S.W., WASHINGTON. D.C. 20024 (202) 554 2346
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1 understanding of the parties' positions as to the order that 2
the testimony will be taken at the hearing.
3 Would Mr. Edgar like to start that off?
4 MR. EDGARs There are two things, Mr. Chairman, 5
that I would like to call to your attention that have 6
changed since that discussion.
7 The first thing is that th ere was reference made 8
to a proposed rulemaking, NRC rulemaking, and that 9
rulemaking notice has been withdrawn.
I don't have the cite 10 for you, but I can supply that.
11 The second thing is that in fact it appears that 12 by the tima the SER issues, the last piece, the soil piece, 13 there will be no difference in view as between the staff and 14 the Licensee.
15 The so-called proponent of the show cause order i
18 which was originally the NRC staff will not be in a position 17 adverse to that of GE.
In particular, there was a dispute 18 as between GE and the staff as to whether a fault existad.
~
19 But at the present time, GE does not regard that as a 20 contested issue, if you will.
They are willing to postulate 21 the f ault for the purpose of analysis and then consider l
22 whether the facility will meet the criteria selected.
1 23 Further, the question of whether there is a fault 24 or not is not a serious matter in terms of the show cause l
25 order at this point;but merely a natter of historical I
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1 interest and background.
It is fairly difficult to l
l 2
understand how the case got to where it is without i
3 understanding that background.
4 But I do not believe that GE will be adverse to 5
the staff on that point.
l 6
So then the question is what is practical to do.
1 7
We would argue, of course, as a legal matter, that under the 8
Environmental Defense Fund, which is an EPA case, that the 9
only theoretically possible proponent of the show cause to order in its original form would be the Intervenor, and tha t 11 he would have the burden of going forward.
12 In terms of practicalities, however, I am 13 relatively well convinced that it is in the interest of all i
14 parties for the Licensee and the staff, or rather, the 15 Licensee to put its case on first, provide the evidence 16 which is more or less a baseline f or the Board 's examination 17 of the issues.
That doesn't change the legal l
18 responsibilities of the parties, but that is a matter which l
19 can be treated as conclusions of law and as a practical-20 matter doesn't have to enter into the defense direction of 21 the hearing muca l=na.
22 CHAIRMAN GROSSHAN:
I was really concerned more 23 with the order of proof and the fact that there might be 24 some disagreement which I believe there won 't be now in view 25 of the fact that you have indicated that the licensee would
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I have no objection in going first in presenting the proof.
2 As to the burden of proof, I think it is basically 3
an academic question that I don't think we ought to concern 4
ourselves, and I certainly don't want to represent that I 5
understand wha t th e wi thd ra wal of th a t particular proposed 6
regulation means in view of what was said in the preamble to 7
it.
8 But, fortunately we don 't have to wrestle with 9
that problem here, and I assume then the staff would be 10 going on right after the licensee.
I don't want to get an 11 absolute commitment of what doesn't appear to you, Mr.
12 Treby, but that is basically how the hearing shapes up at 13 this point.
14 NR. TREBY No.
15 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs No.
16 Well, I want to be aware of --
17 MR. THEBYa I agree that it would be appropriate I
18 for the Applicant to go first.
However, I think that it is t
l 19 also appropriate for the staff, as it has traditionally 20 done, to go last.
The staf f is -- it is an advoca te, of 21 course, of the position of the staff, but it is in a sense 22 neutral as to whether or not the facility should operate or 23 not operate, and it has traditionally taken the position of l
24 being the last to present evidence.
Therefore, we would cropose that the appropriate 25 (a~1 l
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1 order ought to be the Applicant first, the Intervenors 2
second, and the staff last.
3 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAS:
I' think this is a matter that 4
Mr. Baldwin probably would not be prepared to, or Mr.
5 Halterman, to offer an opinion on at this point.
If they 6
care to, feel free, but it is not a matter that is going to 7
be resolved at this point.
8 MB. HALTEBMANs I would just like to offer my 9
initial sense of that, 3r. Chairman, if I might, and would 10 like to have the opportunity to think f urther on it, but if 11 it is true that the position of the Licensee and the staff 12 are going to be synonymous or at least very close to each i
13 other, then it makes sense to se that those positins ought 14 to be articulated side by side or one right after the other i
15 with the Intervenors who may end up having to be the 18 adversary parties to this proceeding coming on behind them.
l 17 Typically, it would be my understanding that the l
l 18 staff would be in an adversary relationship to the Licensee l
l 19 in a proceeding such as this, and it would, under those l
l 20 circumstances, make sense for them to have the opportunity 21 to wrap up and present their case after the other l
22 inf ormation has been presented.
l 23 But under these circumstances, or the 24 circumstances as we might find them at the time this comes 25 to hearing, it seems to me that Intervenors -- and I would i
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1 point out that there are two, and it is not necessarily the 2
case that we vill be presenting the same case -- should have 3
the opportunity to finish up.
4 I would also like to just go back, if I may have 5
the ability to do for a second, and indicate that we support 8
tr. Baldwin's position on the issue of consequences.
I 7
would just like to put that in, too.
8 CHAIRMAN GROSSHANs Mr. Baldwin, do you have
)
9 anything that you want to offer at this point on that?
10 3R. BALDWINs Again, I don't feel prepared.
I 11 will say that my sense is that this staff has apparently 12 chanced sides in this case, and the parties who are in favor 13 of opening the reactor have a case to make.
Representation 14 has been made that there is no essential difference b3 tween l
15 the views of these two parties, and the parties have a case 18 to make that it should not be opened.
And show cause means 17 show cause, and if those pa rties want to show cause that it 18 should be reopened, then I think they ought to make their 19 case and then we should be given the opportunity after that i
20 to make ours.
21 And I don't think it is reasonable to have a party l
l 22 sake its case, then for us to make our case, and then 23 another party who we hear has an almost identical case to e
24 make to make it as the second piece of bread.
That doesn't 25 seem to me to be a fair way to proceed.
So I would split it
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up, Licensee, staff, Intervenor No. 1 and Intervenor No. 2.
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2 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN I see we have succeeded in 3
pinpointing what will be possibly a problem that the final 4
prehearing conference -- well, Mr. Edgar, would you lik e to 5
6 MR. EDGARs I would jusdt like to -- I hate to get 7
a long discussion gof.nq on this subject, but two points.
8 First of all, we are dealing with written testimony here.
9 It is not as though we are dealing with an ambush piece of 10 testimony so that Mr. Baldwin would be prejudiced if he 11 weren't last or snything like that.
12 Secondly, I think there ought to be some 13 recognition given to the status of the staff, irrespective
()
14 of the relationship between the staff and the Licensee I
15 vis-a-vis the issues.
The staff does have a status 16 traditionally in NRC licensing cases for being guardian of 17 the record, if you will, and there is a sound reason for 18 having the staff go last in testimony.
19 With written testimony, I don't see, quite 20 frankly, a particle of difference, although I believe the l
l 21 Licensee should go first to get the basic facts on the l
22 record, if there is no big problem.
If the Intervenors go 23 second and then payin? come recognition to the special role 24 of the staff, it is logical for them to go last.
25 CHAIRMAN G30SSMANs I think that we have --
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1 MR. BALDWIN:
Well, one more brief comment.
2 If there is a party in this case whose position 3
deserves the greatest scrutiny, it is the position of the i
4 staff.
Actually, as f ar as I as concerned, it makes a,ot 5
of sense for them to go first and explain to you why it is i
e that they said that the reactor was susceptible of an eight 7
foot offset and could not withstand and then don't say that 8
anymore.
The defense of that, it seems to me, is going to 9
he central to the proceeding, and it ought not to be put on i
)
10 after the Intervenors have already made their case.
11 It seems to me to be not the best way to proceed.
12 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
I think all of the parties can 13 be assured that they will have a full opportunity,
()
14 regardless of which order the testimony is presented, and to 15 rebut whichever case they are prepared to.
So that really 16 los not going to be a significant problem, but I just want 17 to pinpoint what the problems might be at the final 18 prehearing conference and give you all an opportunity to 19 prepare your discussions.
20 Now, I did not notice in reading th rough the 21 record that there had been any notice of hearing issued.
22 Does anyone recall that a notice was issue, or 23 does anyone have an opinion ar. to whether one ought to be 24 issued at this point?
25 Mr. Treby?
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MR. TREBY:
We are talking about a notice of
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2 hearing for the show cause proceeding?
3 CH4ISMAN GROSSMANs Yes.
4 3R. TREBY4 Well, to the best of my recollection, 5
without taking that individual point, there was an order 6
issued in the show cause proceeding following the conference 7
by your predecessor Board Chairman on March 28, 1978, in 8
which he indicated that one of the points in that order was 9
that the evidentiary hearing, the show cause proceeding to would be set by order of this Board at a la ter date.
11 I guess there was a recognition of who the parties 12 were and that an evidentiary hearing would take place.
I am 13 not sure whether or not that was ever published in the
()
14 Federal Register or whether that would substitute in any way 15 for a formal notice of hearing.
16 And I guess that exhausts my knowledge.
In answer 17 to your question as to whether one was issued, I really 18 don 't know beyond the fact tha t this order was issued.
As 19 to whether one needs to be issued, I guess there would be --
20 CHAIRMAN GROSSMANs So I guess your answer is that I
21 wha tever was issued was in that March 28, 1978 order 22 following the first prehearing conference.
23 MR. TREBY:
Yes, sir.
24 CHAI3 MAN GROSSMANs And that the Board then ought 25 to review that order and see whether that suffices as a O
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1 notice of hearing.
2 And the second question was whether we need a 3
notice of hearing in this type of proceeding, and perhaps 4
Mr. Edgar will 5
MR. EDGAR Yes, to my knowledge, Mr. Chairman, 6
the notice of hearing in a show cause proceeding has never 7
been a requirement.
If you look at 2703(a), it talks about 8
in a proceeding in which the terms of the notice of the i
9 h ea ring are not otherwise prescribed by this part, it then s
10 defines what a notice of proceeding will contain.
11 We believe it is otherwise prescribed.
If you go a
12 to 2 -- well, Subpart (b), which is your enforcement 13 section, there is not con templa ted that a notice of hearing
(
14 is required to initiate a proceeding.
In fact, the 15 proceeding is initiated by issuance of the show cause 16 order.
The notice that is running here under the 17 Administrative Procedures Act is required to go to the 18 Licensee because of his right.
The mere fact that there is I
19 otherwise an opportunity for a hearing doesn't bring into 20 play Subpart (g), and the traditional notice of hearing.
21 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN Well, the problem -- there are 22 a few problems.
One is tha t as you point out, there isn't 23 any separate notice of hearing or notice of opportunity for 24 hearing published in conjunction with a show cause order.
25 And that is part of the order itself.
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1 However, it appears to me that what is part of the 2
show cause order is basically what a notice of opportunity 3
for hearing is rather than a notice of hearing, and that the 4
show cause order does both.
And so, it would seem that it 5
aight be appropriate for the Board to issue a notice of 6
hearing.
7 Now, we recognize that the show cause regulation s
8 perhaps was not written with the idea in mind of having a 9
request for a hearing by someone other than the Licensee, 10 and that is possibly why it is deficient in providing for 11 matters such as this.
But in any event, I guess what we 12 ought to do is review the pertinent sections and decide 13 whether we ought to issue a notice of hearing in any event.
O
%_/
14 Does Mr. Treby have anything f urther on that?
15 HR. TREBY:
No, but I do know that there is 16 another proceeding which involves a show cause order, and I
17 that is the LaSalle proceeding.
Although I am not l
(
l 18 don't recall right now whether or not an order, a notice of 19 hearing was issued in that proceeding or not, but that sight 20 serve as a precedent.
s
- well, 21 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
One thing, by the way 22 Mr. Edgar, do you have an ything further on that?
23 MR. EDGAR:
No.
24 CHAIEMAN GRCSSMAN4 By the way, I would like to 25 request that in responding to discovery, we would prefer GU ALDERSoN REPORTING COMPANY,INC, I
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1 that in answering interrogatories, that the parties do what 2
the staff, the practice that the staff has of first setting 3
forth the question and then answering the interrogatory.
4 It is s great convenience not to have to compare 5
two documents.
6 MR. LINENBERGER:
Forgive the interruption here, 7
but there has been a considerable amount of material filed 8
in this proceeding over the last few years, and a number of 9
items ended up on -- and in essence I observed that certain 10 things were being investigated and would be reported on 11 later, certain things raised questions that would have to be 12 looked into, and at least this Board member is not sure, and 13 I am not sure that I have seen the final wrap-up on all of
()
14 these things.
15 Let me just cite a for instance.
Back in the 18 spring of 1978, Region 5 of the Inspection and Enforcement 17 part of the organization received a copy of an unsigned 18 letter commenting on some alleged deficiencies with respect 19 to the facility.
There was an investigation by Inspection 20 and Enforcement of this, and an Inspection Report filed, and 21 therein, indeed, several things seemed to be laid to rest, 22 several things were left in the posture that, well, they 23 needed to be investigated further or analyzed further or 24 something that was not fully resolved.
I don 't recall ever 25 seeing a documentation of the ultimate resolution.
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1 How, the only point of this comment is to say to 2
the staff and Applicant as we approach the hearing time, the 3
Board is going to be scrutinizing very carefully the 4
existence of unresolved loose ends.
So, in order that the 5
Board might not be in the posture of first pulling any of 6
these on you as surprises, let us say that we strongly 7
encourage you people to look th rough the reco rd and assure 3
8 yourselves that there are or are not any loose ends lef t, 5
9 and if there are, be prepared on your own initiative to say 10 something about them.
Otherwise the Board will be asking 11 you about them.
12 We do have a pretty fine-toothed comb on some of 13 these things, and there is no point in arguing them first or
()
14 first raising them if it is not necessary.
15 MR. EDGAR:
Mr. Linenberger, may I ask one 16 question then to get some clarification ?
17 There is part of your example that I understand, l
18 and then I suppose I am uncler on another part.
I reviewed 1
19 that inspection report recently, and there is a part of that 20 inspection report that deals with a seismograph, for example.
21 Now, I could see -- let us just assume that there 22 were an open ites there and it wasn't closed out and there 23 would be a concern about that as an unresolved loose end, so 24 to speak.
25 What I am a little concerned abou t' is are we d
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I talking about loose ends or other things in that inspection 2
report that have nothing to do with the show cause order?
I 3
mean, it is subject matter that is quite apart from it, and 4
it doesn 't bear on seismic criteria or modifications.
5 Now, just in terms of management of the hearing 6
end effort, I think we are dealing with a specific scope 7
here, and if we can go back through and try to identify the 8
loose ends that have a direct bearing on the issues, but 9
every loose end in my view has to rest with NRC's normal ICE 10 function.
11 MR. LINENBERGER:
Right.
In the first place, 12 talking only about those mattes that do impact the three j
13 issues in the order to show cause, and getting back to the
()
14 same example that I was talking about, it was observed in 15 the Inspection Repot tha t there would be a necessity or an 16 attempt, I forget which, at a later date to determine the l
17 condition of concrete in the corner part of some pool or l
l 18 building or foundation or basement, and I don't recall ever 19 seeing that one cleared up.
l 20
' dell, now, if concrete strength has gone to pot in 21 some part or in some structure, it may very well impact on 22 the show cause.
It is the kind of thing, the class of thing 1
l 23 that show cause --
24 ER. EDGAR:
Understood.
Now I understand.
25 CHAIRMAN GROSSM AN :
Does anyone have any further f
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1 business for us to discuss this scrning?
2 Mr. Treby?
3 MR. TREBY:
Yes, I have two hopef ully short 4
matters which came up earlier in the prehearing conference.
5 One was that you indicated that it is your desire to have 6
this conference call early or in the morning of January 21.
7 Giving account for the time zone differences, maybe we could S
8 ten tatively set a time for that, because it seems to me that 9
morning out here is close to afternoon in Washington, that l
10 we are probably talking in terms of nothing much earlier 11 t h a't, let's say, 11:30 or so Eastern Standard Time, and I 12 thought perhaps while we had all of the parties here, we 13 could discuss it.
()
14 MR. FOREMAN:
That arose because of the constraint l
l 15 that I have, and I am free on *dednesday af ter 10:00 or 10:30 18 in the morning, Central Time, that is, until around 12:00 or 1
17 12:30, and so for my convenience, if that could be arranged.
18 MR. TREBY:
11:30 Eastern Time, in that time zone, 19 if that is a convenient time f or the people on the west l
l 20 coast.
I guess that would be around 8:30 their time.
21 MR. FOREMAN:
Say around 9:30, something like tha t.
22 MR. THEBY I thought we could discuss this since 23 we had all of the parties here.
24 MR HALTERMAN:
For my part, it is Just simply a 25 matter of providing th e right phone for the person who is O
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arranging the conference.
If it is 8:30 it is going to be U
2 my home number, and if it is later in the morning it will be 3
sy office number.
4 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
I think that the point is then 5
that it will be best to have it about that time as far as we 6
can see now, and so the appropriate arrangements should be 7
made for that.
8 And the second point?
9 3R. TREBYs The second point was that based on the 10 discussion that we have had this afternoon, it seems to me 11 that it might be appropriate in devising the schedule of 12 events leadine up to the hearing that perha ps we would have 13 our final prehearing conference before we file the testimony
()
14 rather than af ter we file the testimony, which would be 15 after discovery was concluded but before we file the 16 testimony for a number of purposes.
At that point we should l
17 have a fair idea of what the parties' case is going to be l
l 18 based upon their answer to the discovery questions.
And 19 secondly, perhaps at that point the Board also will have, 20 having had an opportunity to see some of this discovery, 21 have an idea of what each party's case will be, and if they 22 had any more questions they could let us know at that time, 23 so that when each of the parties filed their testimony, 24 written testimony, they will be able to address wha teve r 25 Board questions or concerns that they had.
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And I guess all I am doing is throwing that out as 2
my observation.
That is something that I intend to build 3
into my schedule that I am going to submit by Ja nua ry 15.
4 MR. EDGAR:
We will address it.
5 CHASIRMAN GROSSMAN:
Fine.
8 Anything further, Mr. Ireby?
7 MB. TREBY Nothing.
8 CHAIMAN GROSSMAN:
Mr. Baldwin?
9 MR. BALDWINs There is one other thing which I 10 think perha ps we can settle with the staff, if we could have 11 five minutes to talk it over with them.
Maybe we would not 12 have to discuss it at all.
I 13 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
That is fine.
14 Why don't we take a five minute recess.
{}
l 15 Off the record.
l
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16 (Discussion off the record.)
17 CHAIBMAN GROSSHAN:
Back on the record.
18 It appears as though there are not going to be any 19 further ma tters raised.
20 Is that correct?
21 (No response.)
22 CHAIRMAN GROSSMAN:
I see everyone agrees to that, 1
23 and the Board would like to thank you for your preparation.
24 We have had an opportunity for your participation in the 25 conference notwithstanding that you may not have received O
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notice of the holding of this hearing, and we vill just 2
adjourn now.
t 3
Thank you.
4 (Whereupon, at 12:35 o' clock p.m.,
the prehea ring i
5 conference adjourned.)
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MUCLEAR REGULATORY CO!" MISSION This is to certify tha: the attached proceecings 'cefore One in the ca :er O f: General Electric Company (Vallecitos Nuclear Center)
Ca e Of ?roceecing:
January 5, 1981 Docke llu= b e r :
50-70-SC
? lace of ?roceeding:
San Francisco, Calif were held as herein appears, and tha: this is the Original transcrip:
therecf for the file of the Cc==1ssion.
yin Hicains Cfficial Reporter (Typed)
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