ML20071C460

Supplemental Testimony of Dp McGuire Re Emergency Planning. Recent Developments in Preparing Emergency Plan Discussed. Related Correspondence

ML20071C460
Person / Time
Site:	Indian Point
Issue date:	02/22/1983
From:	Mcguire D ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY
To:
Shared Package
ML20071C458	List: ML20071C457 ML20071C460 ML20071C463 ML20071C468 ML20071C474 ML20071C478 ML20071C480 ML20071C483 ML20071C485 ML20071C487 ML20071C489
References
ISSUANCES-SP, NUDOCS 8303020096
Download: ML20071C460 (4)

Text

,.g BEMTpD CORRESPONDENCB UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 00g*EE3 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION c

L ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD

$3 gg,I A10:15 Before Administrative Judges:

James P. Gleason, Chairman Dr. Oscar H. Paris Frederick J. Shon.

i%

_a-

~ ~ &Q"$$NN In the-Matter of Docket No. 50-247-SP 50-286-SP CONSOLIDATED EDISON COMPANY

)

OF NEW YORK

-)

)

-(Indian Point, Unit No. 2)

)

)

POWER AUTHORITY OF THE STATE

)-

I OF NEW YORK

)

)

(Indian Point, Unit No. 3)

)

i l

SUPPLEMENTARY TESTIMONY ROCKLAND COUNTY l

NAME:

h DONALD P.McGUIRE i

Q. State'your name and position with the County.of Rockland.

A. My name is Donald P. McGuire.

I am Deputy Director of.the Office of Emergency Services for Rockland.

Q. Have you reviewed ~your testimony as previously submitted t'o the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

A. Yes, I have.

Q. Since the submission of your direct testimony, and your cross-examination during July.of 1982, have any facts arisen of which you wish to advise the Board now.

A. Yes.

At the time of my prior testimony, Rockland County, by Resolution-No. 320 of 1982 had disavowed the Radiological Emergency Response Plan prepared for Rockland County by Consolidated Edison and the Power Authority of~the State of New York, and directed the Office of Emergency Services to' develop a radiological response plan for Rockland County.

On passage of the County resolution to order the Office of' Emergency Services to develop the radiological response plan, it became quite apparent that this was almost an insurmountable task to have performed by December 31, 1982, which was the mandate.

Subsequent to the passage of the May 18th legislation which disavowed the plan prepared by Con Edison and PASNY and the contracts that they had let to provide the plan for the four counties, Rockland County established through Resolution 473 in July, 1982, which established a Citizens Advisory Committee to review Rockland County's nuclear evacuation and preparedness plan and general disaster preparedness plan.

This was perhaps the 8303020096 830222 PDR ADOCK 05006247 t -

T PDR

y l

I first otep in our davalopmsnt of tha plan.

The Offica of Emergancy Services took into consideration that there are a great number of emergencies that arise that must'have the same response or a very similar response as a radiological emergency.

EXAMPLE: a major flood, a major train derailment in or near the Village of Haverstraw, which could encompass a great number of people.

A transportation 1

accident also could be included as an example, whereas the releasing j

of gas or hazardous material would require an evacuation process of I

a good deal of people.

Trying to take into account all the factions of development of a plan where they would be similar, the generic portion of the plan which could be used for implementation of any 1

type of disaster or an emergency implementation was one of our first i

considerations.

We took a look at all the agencies in the County that would have to provide services to people who would be affected by any such disaster, and surmized that most of these agencies would be providing the same service during a radiological emergency as during come other type of major disaster that could possibly happen in the County.

With those thoughts in mind, we went ahead and developed our generic portion of the plan, and the response activities that would surround those actions that would have to be taken, t

During this time, the Citizens Advisory Committee was in the process of being, organized.

This whole process appeared to have taken approximately three-months from inception until the actual first meeting.

At the first meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee, Mrs. Judith Kessler was appointed Chairman, and Donald Hastings, the Director of Office of Emergency Services was appointed Vice Chairman. Once organized, the. committee basically broke up into sub-committees, addressing the primary concerns of the total. Committee, I was given the responsibility as a resource person and coordinator to meet with the different sub-committees, obtaining information or taking information they were gathering and incorporating it into the j

plan as we could see necessary.

Many of the items discussed did not J

have any validity and we did not incorporate them into our final draft that was presented by the 31st o'f December.

In those areas where we felt i

there was a valid suggestion made, we tried to weigh the suggestion l

as to how it would work or how it would not work based on previous knowledge and on previous experience with this plan.

The Office of Emergency Services was very cognizant of the fact that Rockland County did not have major highways criss-crossing the County and tried to take into consideration a proposal whereas we would utilize the Palisades Interstate Parkway and the New York State Thruway with the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey to work our l

evacuation portion of the plan.

t I

We took the suggestions that had been made, discussed them with traffic people, primarily.the State Police traffic people out of Troop F in Middletown, some of our local police agencies and State DOT as to the feasibility of that particular portion of the plan.

Currently, those suggestions are still in the process of review. Nothing has been formally accepted and as of this date.

One important aspect of the whole process was that we were finding that since we had been removed from the 4 county process, we were meeting with some minor problems in dealing with getting information from organizations that had been involved with the original process and the original plan and this means

~

that the Power Authority and Con Edison and we had been left out of some of the training programs that were currently being conducted in the review of the 120 day process of the NRC.

^ :,

'The Office of Emergency Services personnel attended two or.three of these sessions and it appeared that we were being criticized by some.of the citizens in Rockland County _because were were looked upon as being participants, although in each case, we stated that we were only there as observers.and went back to the County Legisla-ture and asked that two resolved clauses in the original legislation passed on May 18th'be changed.. These two-resolved clauses that pro-hibited us from seeking or prohibiting us from taking part in any of this process that;we felt we should be a part of was amended with resolution passed on~ December 7, 1982 3y-the county Legislature, changing those two resolved clauses that were mentioned just pre-viously. _After the passage of those two resolved clauses, it appeared that,: and we have to remember that this did not happen until December, we had a mandate to reach by the 31st of December to submit a plan.With a great deal of assistance from a person con-tracted by the State of New York, we were able to get much of the information out together and submitted to the Legislature by our i

deadline of December 31st.

There has been much activity. surrounding this response plan by the r

Citizens Advisory Committee. In review, although no formal conclusion or adoption of the plan has come forward'as of this time, we still feel tnat there is a-lot of progress being made.

Since May,J1982, there'has been continuous training being accomplished in regard to police agencies, although to say_that all police departments have been' represented is not a true statement.

We have been able to I

reach a good deal of police ~ officer's in at_least presenting some l

information on radiological incidents.

We anticipate that.since the income'of monies from the State of New York to the County has been processed, we are attempting to get the training accomplished to meet our mandates in those lines with ambulance corps, fire departments of the County, the entire County, and police departments in the entire Count training programs. y.

There presently is the need for County As with any other process, it is a lengthly processing in doing training, making sure thtt we get in contact with all these people, setting up training sessions, etc., and'the State Office of Disaster Preparedness has been very helpful in vist of the f act that we do -

not have a radiological officer on board at this time in the County to provide us with the assistance in the training areas that we have felt we require.

It is certain a valid point that I think should be made that the position that Rockland County took in May certainly was of a beneficial nature not only to the Office of Emergency Services in Rockland County, but to the various other counties considering that we set a precedent in this County by not accepting something that had been processed as the plan that we should go with.

In review of this, it has given us the opportunity to be able to draw up this plan, and really take a close look at what we had to deal with..

y

At tho prosent tims, wa, manning ths Office of Emergency Servicas, would have to say that we-are probably much better equipped, much better able to respond to any type of an emergency that we were at this time a year ago.

The awareness of any type of an emergency that'would threaten the lives and safety of the people of Rockland County certainly has been brought to light in view of all the. controversy surrounding Indian Point, and we must place emphasis that these emergencies.can develop in this County many times without any warning, any notice of whether it was with the radiological incident or whether it was with another serious type of accident or with a natural disaster.

In regard to the implementation of the draft of our plan, it is very difficult at this particular time to comment, inasmuch as there are many aspects that have not been fulfilled.

The training requirements are not complete and will be an ongoing process.

We have received equipment we thought we needed, and more equipment is on order.

But as far as the total amount of equipment which may be required to implement this plan, it appears at this time that we have to rely on other resources.

We have to have agreements with our police and fire agencies within the County, ambulance agencies operating within the County, plust letters of agreement with Bergen County to supplement us on many aspects of the plan.

One particular aspect in Bergen County's-relationship is that we have taken steps to meet with them. They have taken steps to proceed along the lines of providing a congregate care shelter for our people as required.

They have been put on our notification list for emergencies, so that they are made aware of an incident at the same time or within reasonable time of our own County notification.

One of the aspects of the testimony presented in July last year was in.the communication field.

We have taken the steps to try to correct some of the gaps that exist in the communi-cation lines.

We understand and fully recognize that this is not the ultimate, and our approach to completely meet all the require-ments that have been suggested and/or are to be put into place.

I previously stated that we did receive some money from the State of New York for various items.

It did take what seemed to us an unreasonable amount of time from which process of the State passing the money that had been collected from the utilities was funneled down to Rockland County, and it'did create a difficult position for the County.

We could not go out and start the process of acquiring any of the equipment we thought we needed until we were reasonably assured that the money was in hand.

Once that money was processed through our County, we took steps to acquire some of the equipment.

Rockland County has, t'o date, received approximately

$88,000, and has been promised an additional $30,000 for additional staff for assistance in development of our plan.

At this point, the process continues in respect to training and acquisition of equipment and in respect to planned development, I would not venture to' guess at which time this plan would be ready for formal acceptance due to the process that has to go through with the Citizens Advisory Committee from the Office of Emergency Service's aspect of reviewing the plan.

It is very difficult at this time to ascertain what will be the final direction recommended by the Citizens Advisory Committee.

At the time of an appearance before the hearing, additional testimony will be discussed..

...,