ML20138J058
| ML20138J058 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Big Rock Point File:Consumers Energy icon.png |
| Issue date: | 03/04/1997 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20138J053 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9705080004 | |
| Download: ML20138J058 (125) | |
Text
.
ENCLOSURE _ .
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12 CHARLEVO!X, MICHIGAN i 1
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14 The meeting took place in the Charlevoix 15 Tcwnship Hall, 12491 Waller Rcad, Phil Johnson, Moderator, 16 presiding.
17 l
18 Orrn.ge I
19 PHIL JOHNSON
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JIM RANG l
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I 21 l PAUL HARRIS i
22 BRUCE BURGESS 23 a,
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N, 7 'i c. iven the c.o.cor: unit"i 20 moderate this meeting for the
/,: e i 9 decermissioning of Big Reck. Nuclear Plant. And ~ wish .O i
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ei nanx all :nese pecple for ccc ng here tonight.
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- I had last time.
- 's a pub'.
- .c meeting to allow the public
- .2 the opportunity to elicit, number one, the licensee's 13 decommissioning plans and the NRC's regulatory oversight
_4 role.
I 15 This meeting is :o foster an exchange of 16 information cut is not a legal hearing. There is an 17 agenda in the back of the room. Was everyone given an
- S agenda? If you didn't, if you'd raise your hands, we 13 '
1 could cet you one.
t 2^ .I i First O speak tonight will be Jim Rang of Bic ~
2; :
Rcck Point who will discuss the decommissioning of the 22 facility. We will then have questions and answer period 23 regarding their plans. Then we may take a short break.
24 Then Paul Harris of the NRC will -- project r, . ., :
25 manager fcr the Big RcckA decommissioning will present some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W l2C2) 234-4433 WA3MINGTON O C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 ;
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iOpresen:attenismadesothat we d n't disrupt the i
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.e 4 I M asse raise your hand and wait for the I
? Iq current sceaker to recca.nize v.ou.
A.d speak clearly as we f.
r 1?' are recording this, so that she can pick everything up.
11 l Since it's being transcribed, be sure to state your name i
12 and spell it before you ask a question or make a comment.
13 Anyone desiring to make a comment on Big Rock 14 Point decctmissioning should sign the sheet in the back of 15 the recm. The time for ecmments and statements will be 15 limited so that we will all have a chance to speak. And
~7 if it gets too lengthy on one person, we may cut it off so 18 tha: the rest of them will have an opportunity to speak.
^ :' ;!The NRC will accept written statements or other written I.
21 i.? material on the subject if people have more material than 21 , :ime allows. If there is any person who desires to 22 receive the transcript of this meeting, please provide 23 your name and address en the second sign-up sheet in the 24 back.
25 We' encourage saving trees, so we have a public NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE 'SLAND AVE . N W.
, f2:'2) 234-4433 WASHINGTON DC 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 ,
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?:d:: amen: room where all d:cumen:s will be placed, and tha i 1 ti l
- w;11 ne at Ncrth Central v.:higan College in Petcskey.
4 f :he overhead si:. des feu see tonight will be
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- f ycu have 11: era:ure or material that you fdwould_iketoplaceinthetranscript, please give 1
7 .M r . Paul Harris, the NRC project manager, during the --
a calk to him during the break after the meeting -- or after
-s L-3 the meeting. s It is limited to a few pages, and : am sure
_0 he will include it. If it is more than a few pages, he
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will probably ask you to summarize your thoughts on a it single page.
13 When everything is done, Paul will review the 14 transcripts before it's released to anyone. He will also 15 make minor changes to correct obvious errors in what was 16 said. This will be done by pen and ink so the words as 17 criginally transcribed will be preserved. Since this is
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_ an informational meeting and not part of a formal
- ? . preceeding, speakers will not get the opportunity to 1
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2: ,rev.se or correct their statements before it is released ti
- h: the public.
22 This is principally in the interest of getting 23 a transcription to the public as soon as practical. And I 24 would encourage anyone to talk to a Consumerf Power 25 reprcsentative and the NRC staff at the break or after the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOOE ISLAND AVE., N W
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f 1 :l' meeting.
a And for the Tedia, f fou have -- wculd Itke to il
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^ " * -- "-terviews, we would do it outside the hall, maybe
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4 And first of all, I would like to introduce E the steakers for the night. We have Jim Rang. He's the
.I 6lmanagerfordecommissicning. Would you like tc introduce
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your staff?
9 MR. RANG: Yes. First of all, we have Bob 9 Fenech. Ecb Fenech is our senior vice president in
- C nuclear, fossil and hydro. Bob, do you want to stand up?
- He's back there. Ken Powers -- Ken is our plant general I 12 manager. Bob Addy, he's our plant manager. And myself, 1
l 1
13 I'm the manager of decommissioning. Let's see. Bob 14 English here is our radiological specialist who serves 1
15 with me on the decommissioning team. And, of course, we 16 have Tim Petrosky manning the video camera; Greg Withrow, 17 our safety and licensing administrator.
1 18 And I don't know if I aissed anybody of our 19 Consumers' people? I guess we'11 catch you as we go 1
20 h th rough and introduce ourselves with the public.
,\
i 21 p Paul, do you want to introduce the NRC folks?
I 22 MR. HARRIS: Yeah. Hi, my name is Paul 23 Harris. I'm the decommissioning project manager for Big 24 Rock Point. And with me today I have Mr. Sy Weiss. He's 25 director of non-power reactors in the decommissioning NEAL R. GROSS I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W l (2C2) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
l i-1 section; Mr. Dick Dudley, he's the PJoject manager who had "
2 el this site or this licensee before : came here; Roy Leemon,
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.i s One sen:..or res, cent tnspector at Big Rock Point; and 4 l ol Mr . Eruce Burgess, he's from Regicn 3. He's a branch 5
chief 1.9 charge Of the inspection program at Big Rock 6 Point right now.
7 To my right, is Etcy Hyl on. She's our 8 licensing assistant. ms And behind her is Eise Angela 9
Dauginas, and she's a Region 3 Public Affairs -- she's 10 from the Region 3 Public Affairs office. As And we have Mise
~1 Linh Tran, she's the project manager for the operating 12 side of the house, Ws and M.i-es Ann Hodgdon, she's a senior 13 C>ra .: A L e A L ~ ., A a t t orney f rom t he 1:aar-ci v g ic , and Mr. Ronald Paul, he's a 14 senior radiation health specialist from Region 3.
15 MODERATOR JCHNSCN:
e Before we start, I'd like 16 if everyone would stand and just state their name before 17 we start.
Could we start with you, ma'am, and we'll just 18 go around the room?
19 MRS. SCHALLER: Me?
20 l MODERATOR JOHNSCN: Yes, ma'am.
21 MRS. SCHALLER: Doris Schaller, SCHALLE 22 R.
23 MR. WYNN: Jim Wynn, WYNN, from Petoskey.
24 MR. PRICE: Carl Price, PRI C E.
25 MR. WINNELL: Mike Winnell, Don't Waste NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE IS!.AND AVE , N W
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2 MRS. SANCERSON: Char Sanderson, Don't Waste
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l 5 VR. SleDERS2N: Bruse Sanderson, Don': Waste j 6 Michigan.
i 7 MR. CRAWFCRD: J.C. Crawford, no first name.
S MR. WIELAND: Tom Wieland, Charlevoix.
9 MR. SIEGEL: Tom Siegel, local resident of ;
10 Charlevoix.
VR. ANDERSON: Dale Anderson, local resident 12 Of Charlevoix. ,
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13 FEMALE SPEAKER: (Inaudible) l 14 MR. STRONG: Herb Strong, Horton Bay.
15 MR. RANKIN: Steve Rankin, State Police 15 Emergency Management Division. .
17 MS. SIMMONS: Kathleen Simmons, Charlevoix-18 Cheboygan-Emmet Emergency Management.
19 MR. WHALE: Rich Whale, MPSC.
t 2C, MR. HAHN: Dennis Hahn, Department of
,D' 21 Environmental Quality.
22 MR. CENTER: Chuck Center, Charlevoix.
23 MR. HAGGARD: John Haggard, Charlevoix 24 Tcwnship.
25 MS. STEVENS: Tamara Stevens, Petoskey News-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRlBERS 1323 RMODE ISLAND AVE . N W Z21234 4433 WASH;NGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
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1 Review.
2 MR. CHASE: HFrold Chase, United States '
2 5+:. At :r Carl Levin's Of fice .
4 MR. SINDERMAN: Roger Sinderman, S : NDERM 5 A N, 2:nsumers Energy, il' VR. WILL:S: Rt_ Willis, California.
7 MR. DONNELLY: Pat Donnelly of Charlevoix.
8 MR. McDONOUGH: Coleman McDonough of Chicago 9 tinaudible) 10 MR. SLADE: Gerry Slade of BNFL.
11 MR. KROUPA: Clarence Kroupa of Traverse City.
12 MODERATOR JOHNSON: Okay. I think now we'11 13 sthrt with Jim Rang, and he can get the ball rolling.
i 14 MR. RANG: Okay. What I'd like to do is brief 15 you over the period of time since we last had an l 16 opportunity to introduce our decommissioning plan and 17 allow for comments. We filed our plan with the NRC, the i' 13 Nuclear Regulatory Commission, on February 27th, 1995.
1 19 And I may -- as ! happen to think about it -- sometimes l
t 2; i I'll slip in to the -- in to some of the nuclear jargon.
21; And if I do that, I'll try to catch myself. But if I do i
1 22 that, raise your hand, and that will help me to come back i
23 and explain what some of these words are and not to l 24 shorten them.
25 We filed our decommissioning plan about two NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRlBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE N W
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5 same as they were previously. Even though the ccst of 7 decommissioning was increasing, we felt we could cover the 8 shortfall with'the investment -- with the earnings on the 3 investment.
10 We then had ;ur public meeting at which some 11 of you were in attendance at that time.back on Ma lith of 12 1995. We received comments from those of you and other 13 members of the public. Those comments were submitted to 14 the NRC. We met several times with the NRC -- with the 15 Nuclear Reguiatory Commission and discussed the plan, 16 incorporated comments, and went forward with that review 17 process.
19 About mid 1995 or into the third and fourth 19 , c.uarter of '95 the NRC issued a new criteria for 2: . decommissioning. It was out for comment and comments came l 21 lhack in. And we, Consumers, also participated in I l
i 22 comr.enting on the new decommissioning rule. And it 23 appeared to us tnat the new rule would be -- was ready for i
i 24 implementation before our decommissioning plan would be i 1
1 25 approved.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPvRTERS AND TRANSCR!BERS 1323 RHODE !SLAND AVE . N W (202) 234-4433 NoHMGTON D C 20005 3701 s202) 234 4433
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11 And so as a result -- and :' gcing to skip b !
2 l':l dtwn past the MPSC crder en surcharge here.
As a result,
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requested the NRC to hold Our decommissioning plan, 1
4 .__d One review in abeyance.
- .snd we did that 7 February 1996 and asked II
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lornem to consicer our cecommissioning p_an as the post-7 shutdown decommissioning activities report. The acronym 8 is PSDAR. You'll be hearing me say PSDAR just because 9 jost-shutdown decommissioning activities report is a lot 10 of words to say. We asked the ecmmission for that il consideration after the rule became effective. The rule 12 became effective on August 29th, and on September 5th, 13 1996, then we asked the NRC to convert the decommissioning 14 plan to the PSDAR. An:' part of that conversion process is 15 again to make the document available for public comment. l 16 This (indicating) is the decommissioning plan 17 and the environmental report that was submitted back on 1
19 February 27th, 1995. It's still the same today. This is 1
19 now the PSDAR that we're asking the NRC to review and to i l
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21 It may be appropriate at this time if 22 anybody -- before I put out another slide to get into the 23 decommissioning process, it'd be appropriate to open up if 24 anybody has any questions about the last two years and 1
25 some of the thinas that - we've accomP l ished since then. 1 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHODE lSLAND AVE , N W.
l l202; 2344433 WASWNGTON D: 20005 3701 (202) 234 4 433 1
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-0 VR, RANG: What the fin.il rule says is that 7 there's really four things tha- are required; the scope, 9 cost, schedule for decommicsioning and then an assessment 9 on the environmental report. We have all four of those i
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"ncluded in our decommissioning plan. And rather than go
.~.t through and extract all cf those things out, we elected to 12 leave it whole and just to consider the D-Plan as the 13 PSDAR since all of those ingredients are included in our
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. plan.
15 MR. HARRIS: Jim, for the sake of the court 16 reporter, that comment was made by Mr. Mike Winnell?
17 MR. WINNELL: Yes.
'S
. MR. 'IARRIS :
Thank you.
l 19 l, MR. RIWG: Let me say a little something about l
2 '. ldec:mmissioning. First of all, at Big Rock we are not 2; l going to -- we will not be :he first to decommission a 22 nuclear plant. There are some 20-plus plants that have 23 either already have gone through decommissioning, are t
24 partway through; they may be in a safe storage condition; 25 they may have completed their dismantlement. So there is i
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE. N W l (202) 2344433 WAS%NGICN D t 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
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_ ja _t: Of expertise and experience out there. And since i
2 'lil??3 When We started -- When : Started putting the
- a-- missicning plan together, :'ve been able to draw on 4
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....at experienOe and expertise, and We continue to do so 5 fr:r several facilities, sij !
And we bring : hat experience in and it's 7 helped us to put our plan together. And we'll continue to B do so as we move closer to shutting Big Rock down and
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moving into decommissioning.
1: In our plan that we put together, we started 11 in 1993. And :'m going to be keying on the first block 12 (indicating), and that's where we are today. We started 13 in October '93 in putting the plan together and then 14 submitted it with the preparation activities. We are 15 still in that process of formulating plans and procedures, 16 manuals and things that wil_ allow us to move in to the 17 dec:mmissioning mode of operations.
18 At that time back in 1995 when we submitted I
-"e plan, there was no low-level waste repository 2: javailabletous. And so as a result we've decided that i
21 the a.c.oroPriate alternative was to commit to the safe l
l 22 storage mode of operation for decommissioning Big Rock.
23 One of the requirements of decommissioning is to be able 24 to remove the low-level waste materials to ship them to-25 low-level waste burial site. At that time there was none NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C 2000S-370; (202) 234-4433
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1 javailacle to us, and so we chcse the safe storage mode _f 2 ! ceration.
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2 As we move toward plant shutdown, we will 4
.jf n;s? up our procedures ar.d be ready to move into the
!-- ansitioning stage of deccmmissioning. And the i
- t. ..
e transitioning stage of this -- what we call the pre-safe 7 storage, that's where all of the procedures, the work 8 packages, that we've put tcgether to start putting the 9 plan into SAFSTOR conditien -- we will start implementing 10 those in cettin~w ready to move into the safe storage mode 11 of operations.
12 We anticipate that that will take about a year 13 to accomplish, so the time frame that we're looking at 14 is -- about mid-year 2001 we should be able to enter into 15 the safe storage period. And let's see. I have some 16 handouts. Let me get those handouts, and you'll have 17 them. That will make it easier. If you wish to write on 18 these handouts, it may help you jotting some notes down as 19 we go forward.
20 '
o The first -chase of the safe storage is what we a
i 21 i listed as dormancy-wet. We have two parts; dormancy-wet 22 and dormancy-dry. And what that refers to is the storage 23 of the spent fuel. Dormancy-wet is -- our spent fuel is 24 still located in the spent fuel pool. But during this 25 five-year period, we will be -- we will start putting the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W l (202) 234-4433 WASH:NGTON OC 20005 3701 (202) 2344433
1
. fuel into dry, transportacle canistera. These are casks 4
2 Hand tanisters that are licensed to both transoort as well 3 as :::re the fuel.
4 , We anticipate that within about five years we 1
5 0wi_. be able to have all of the fuel removed from the 6 spent fuel pool and into these canisters. Then we proceed 7 into the dry-dormancy period and then move into the 8 mobilization for dismantlement.
9 Now, for Big Rock, since there was no 10 repository available to us. we took a survey of all of the 11 waste compacts that were out there that were starting to 12 form and looked at how long we thought it would take to 13 have a compact built, designed and licensed within the 14 State of-Michigan.
15 And the average of those turned out to be 16 about a 27-year period. There would be a high probability 17 of 27 years for one of those storage facilities to be 18 licensed in the State of Michigan.
19 So that was the framework for our 27-year 1
20 1: SA.STOR period. And as we get our near the year 2025 and 21 2026, we begin a pre-dismantlement mobilization and bring i 22 the additional people in to start the dismantlement 23 process and then move in to the -- starting to remove the i 1
24 components and shipptng them to the low-level waste j l
25 repository.
l NEAL R. GROSS l tOURT REPORTERS ANO TRANStR!BERS l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 :202) 234-4433
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_i Now, a_so accut tha : me or reginning i
2 .d:s an:lement is when we +xpect 20 have the last of the
- :.r. sh.pped to he Department of Energy in accordance 4 x_:. :ne schedules that we had received, so that all of 5 - ". e fue' would 'e c gone by cha: period of time. Ie.d then i
6 we would be able to dismantle those remains that are left 7 as well. We would move into about the -- about three 9 ears of dismantlement period and then also inte site 9 restoration.
10 That's a th r quick summary of the 11 decommissioning process for us at Big Rock. I will say in 12 the dismantlement stage -- let me digress a minute - - - we
_ 3 would start to remove some of the large piping components, 14 the reactor vessel, pumps and valve casings and so forth; 15 first, those with a high curie content and then move into 16 the other nonnuclear system components in the secondary 17 s:de and clean those materials, decontaminate them and try 18 to free-release the materials as we can. Within 27 to 30
'9 years there is a -- the decay period, and so there are a 20 l number of materials that can be prereleased. Those that 21 can't be would then be all shipped to the low-level waste 22 burial site. ,
23 We would also restore the site. We have 1 identified for Big Rock that we would return the site to 25 what's called the green field condition. This means NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
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return ng it CO the condition it was prior to the plant I
2hbeingbuilt. And we would do that by year 2030.
i Now, we also included in the de Ommissioning 4 i!p ar the cption that if a 10w-level waste depository were n
- cec:me available CO us, that we would take that option 6 and begin dismantlement as scon as one of those facilities 7
became available. And one of those facilities is now open 8
and operational; the Barnwell, South Carolina, facility.
9 So tb potential exists that we could begin dismantling 10 Eig Rcck shortly after plant shutdown May 31st, 2000. And 11 if that were the case, then we could have the plant '
l 12 dismantled by the 2026, 2027 time frame -- excuse me --
l 1
13 2006, 2007 time frame. I i
14 In summary, we plan to take the plant through i
15 the decommissioning process in a safe storage mode. We
\
l 16 anticipate a 27-year period to do that. However, should 17 the Barnwell site remain open throughout the period, we 13 cculd cpt r the early dismantlement -- the early 19 dismantlement option.
20 l And I think at this point in time I'll open it i
21 l up to any questions that anybody might have.
22 MR. SIEGEL: Tom Siegel, local resident.
23 MODERATOR JOHNSCN: Could you spell your last 24 name for her, please?
25 MR. SIEGEL: S-I-E-G-E-L.
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- - .~.h. e s .h.v : .3,ank you.
i 2h MR. 5:EGE': : mtved here three years ago.
3 .~ . n .: really,
.:y basis for a question is simply to try and 4 if;n_ some level of what's acinc on. Okay? : toured your 4
at_ ant a c c r o x t m a t e _ "r 13 months a9c.
I I
6 At that time : walked away with the perception 7 that your close-down plan included wet storage of all the B spent fuel, and that you had in the design stages an 9 expansion of that wet storage based on geometry as opposed 10 to physical expansion 11 Now what I'm hearing is that there is no 12 physical expansion, and that you're talking about storage 13 of spent fuel within the reactor itself as opposed to into 14 a wet arrangement. I guess I'm trying to understand.
15 Further, I'm trying to undarstand, it's a high 16 cost generator. You face write-off costs when you shut 17 down. The papers recently indicate outages -- frequent 13 outages. I'm trying to get a grasp on why not now as 19 opposed to years down the road. I'm just not clear what 20 i the intentions -- what grounds the intentions -- I guess 21 if : go beyond that, my last point on intention would be, 22 If Barnwell is successful, would it really be in your 23 interest to transport to Barnwell as opposed to store on 24 site?
25 MR. FJ3G: Okay. There's probably two or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE N W (202) 234-4433 LS%NGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234 4433
.o -l a
l,
- ' -"--a questions in there.
The first one -- and le: me -
2 clarify something. : wasn't very clear when I described 3 : ^. e snut-down process. :n order for us to go -- to move 4 ;f;; plan: operaticn into decommissioning, I have to do 5 ::wc things that
,t have to submi: to the NRC. : have to 6 submit a certification that once I shut the plant down, 7 i that ! am no longer going to operate the plant, and that I B have fuel removed from the reactor vessel. And only afler 3 those two can then I begin decommissioning, dismantling.
13 : have to do those to allow access to the decommissioning 11 trust fund to allow plant dismantlement.
12 Now, how : will accomplish that is, we plan to 13 have dry-cask transportable canisters available by the 14 time we shut the plan- down. What I will do is move fuel 15 from the fuel pool, a sufficien: amount, into the dry 16 transportable cask. Tnat will allow me to offload the 17 reactor vessel into the fuel pool. And then I can begin 19 dismantling the plant.
13 In answer to, I think, your second question t
2C abou: shipping to Barnwell versus commercial storing, we i
l 2; ! think it makes sense to -- rather than having multiple 22 sites with radioactive material stored, to remove all that 23 material and ship it to one central location, both the low 24 level waste going to Barnwell and then the high level 25 waste the Department of Energy to take title to and ship NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE , N W CO2) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
., _s!
I-l 1 Out 50 -- and we bel;.sve at 2..sumers it ma.ce s sense to do 1
2l that, as Opposed to having -- a"d ^"-a" ----- es :.n l
'! )
- ':_r._gan -- as cpposed :: '.aving several sites within the 4 ,;5:a:e Of Michigan.where we would have that mjaterial stored
, .i:P 1:w level and high level waste.
6 MODERATOR JOHNSON: He also asked why you i
' didn' just shut down rather :han wait until the year l
9 2000.
l l 9 MR. RANG: Our license expires May 31st, 2000.
10 We weald like to continue operating until that license 1
11 expires. We think the plant is still going well. It's 12 been a good performer. Big Rock has been a good neighbor 13 in the community. It has generated energy for the system 14 for close to 35 years.
15 And we think that it's appropriate for us to I 16 decommission the plant. Instead of leaving the plant to 1
1 17 rust away at the site, we think it's apprcpriate to do 19 that. And we think it's appropriate to do that when its l
l i 19l time has come. And its time will come May 31st, 2000 -
i l l Bob? i 2: l' l 2 ; ,l MR. FENECH- In the way of -- to answer your r
.I 22 question about shutting down, we need to clarify that 23 we're evaluating that all the time. We're talking to the 24 Public Service Commission. And if it becomes the prudent 25 thing to do, we could potentially shut down before 2000.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOCE ISLAND AVE . N W (202) 234-4433 WASHfNGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234 4433
m go l
,\
~<:'
- We'_e .o
- committed to the date Of 2000 Just because i .
I I 2 tha 's the end of cur l_ cense. We have to make a business
- ;+::s;:n as well.
4 MR. HARRIS: Fcr the court recorder, that was Ecb Fenech.
i 6i MR. ANDERSON: Dale Anderson, Charlevoix.
I I
7 First of all, I think' Big Rock has been a good neighbor.
8 And : think by the time I'm done here I'll be more upset a with the Petoskey Review than I am with Big Rock. The 10 Eetcskey Review stated that you will store the fuel in the
- reactcr, and it was against Federal regulations. Well, 12 that's in tonight's paper. That's one of the main reasons 13 I've come.
14 MR. RANG: Yeah. Okay. If that's in the 15 paper, that will have to be corrected because we --
16 MR. ANDERSON: Maybe Tamara can address that 17 because it borders on yellow journalistic (sic), that's 18 true because it starts right off by saying:
i 1.3
[d " Big Rock Point Nuclear Power Plant plans to i
1: j' store spent nuclear fuel in ics reactor after
' *he plant stops producing energy even though 22 Federal regulations prevent storage in 23 reactors."
24 That's what your paper reports. l 25 MR. HARRIS: Excuse me, Jim. Hi, my name is ;
i l
NEUAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS !
j 1323 RHODE ISt.AND AVE . N W WASHINGTON. D C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433 l (202) 2344433 1 1
l
I i
.a".'_ u.a.-is.
- could maybe answer v. cur c.uestion a little 2 b :. ::'s not against regula:icns to store reactive fuel e
- _. ne reactor vessel. Okay? ::'s fully safe, and we do
- o _
- , . _ _ :he time for refueling just to store fuel. The ll 5 9c:n;ex: of : hat statemen was with regard to 6 deccmmissioning. If a licensee wants to enter into 7 decommissioning, the regulations require all the fuel to 5 he moved out of the reactor vessel and placed into the 9 spent fuel pool or the :SFSI.
10 MR. ANDERSON: understand what you're l
l l' saying. On the second page it goes on further to explain 12 that, but that's not how the article starts -- states it.
'3
_ If I was Consumers . cower, :'d be pretty upset at it.
14 M R' . HARRIS: Thank you. Mike?
15 MR. WINNELL: Mike Winnell, W-I-N-N-E-L-L. As 16 you know, we filed an analysis of the report, but we've 17 never heard boo about it. But in -- it appears to me if 19 Sarnwell is open, which it is, and if you're going to l
l 19 begin dismantling and shipping components in June of 2000 l
l 2: ; ;ha: fou switched from SAFSTOR to DECON. Is that tra3?
l l .
l 21 The other cuestion is, are you shifting to 22 CECON because it's economically more feasible and valuable 1 1
23 for Consumers? But is it bad for the community? Is it i 24 bad for the workers and the public because, at least in 25 Resnikoff's analysis, the workers would get, like, three 1
NEAL R. GROSS -
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W
- 202) 234 4433 WASNlNGTON. O C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433 l
l
=; .
- u; i
- j times as much radiation as -hey wou'.d if you we
- .:e to wait .
I 2!
h several -- I don't know '.ow many years it was, but several
-i 3
c= =. r s -- you know, humerous years in the SAFSTOR mode.
4 !!liAnd ne in fact encourages fou to wait for maybe up to 50 u
5jyearstolet this stuff decay down, not only reducing your I
6 volume of waste but reducing the personal -- that the 7
people would incur, not only workers, which would get the 9
most of it, but the public as you drive by them taking it 9 Out of there.
10 So :'m concerned that you're -- it seems like 11 there's -- there is likely a shift, because if you can go 4
12 from SAFSTOR to DECON tomorrow and it's not stated in that i 13 graph -- I mean, how do you dismantle this plant without 14 taking the high-level fuel almost out of here -- I mean 15 there aren't any casks right now unless you use that NACSD 1 i
l 16 thing. I don't know what that is, and I've asked about i 17 that before. Nobody seems to have -- so I'll leave that i
18 up to you.
19 , MR. RANG: Okay. In order for us to decide to '
20 ,l'd dismantle the plant after plant shutdown, I need to have a l
l 21 Olcost estimate -- we need to have a cost estimate telling l 22 what those costs are, as opposed to the SAFSTOR. We plan 23 on doing that. We are required to file an update -- cost )
24 update with the Public Service Commission about a year 25 from now; March of '99. And along with looking at the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE N W.
(202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
6d
. ; ccs: of SAFSTOR again :o see tf there are any changes, I 2; will also look at the cost Of irmediate dismantlement,
- "L rediate dismantlement" being, starting to dismantle 4 'af ar May 31st, 2000, i
a 5 :f : looks as thcugh that we would have 6 enough money to dismantle the plant immediately -- and 7 part of looking at that is to look at the exposure -- the B additional exposure that would be picked up. We assessed 9 what the exposure would be on a five-year dismantling --
10 the dismantling was in five years, within ten years, 11 within fifteen years and so on, all the way on out -- one 12 of the questions that we responded to the NRC. And that 13 is something that we need to look at, evaluate and then
~
14 determine if that's appropriate.
15 But most likely a driver is that, if
- 6 sufficient funds are available, we would follow the --
l 17 going to the immediate dismantlement option. Is there any '
le comment --
1 19 MR. HARRIS: Before we go on, Mike, the l 1
2: hResnikoff report, do you happen to know the title of that 1 0
21 so that we can get it in the record?
22 MR. WINNELL: It's decommissioning of Big Rock j 23 Point. l l
1 24 MR. HARRIS: Okay. And Resnikoff's name is -- j 25 MR. WINNELL: Marvin.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS I 1323 RHOCE ISLAND AVE N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234 4433
1 es l
1 MR. HARRIS: -- Marvin Resnikoff.
1 2 i MR. WINNELL: It's Radioactive Waste
- ; .Agement --
4 MR. HARRIS: Yes, a comment back there?
E; MR. HA33 ARC: Jchn Haggard, H A-G-3-A-R-D.
6 Cne comment you just made was on the spent fuel dry 7 canisters that weren't licensed, we kind of heard, in the j 1
8 State of Michigan. The State of Michigan doesn't license; '
9 it's the NRC's business. You know, I think you mentioned l
10 it would take 26 years for the NRC to license a dry j 1
11 canister?
12 MR. RANG: No. Let me -- let me clarify that.
13 The Department of Energy eventually takes title to the 14 fuel. They have us update a schedule on an annual basis.
15 And that schecule for taking fuel from each reactor, in 16 looking at that schedule, we concluded that it would be i 17 year 2026 before they would take the last of the fuel.
18 Now, they could take it sooner than that, but that's the 19 schedule that is filed with the Department of Energy for l'
2: .!when they would take the fuel.
H l
21 l Now, that fuel is -- now, if I said the State 22 of Michigan, I apologize. I didn't mean to. The casks l 23 are licensed with the NRC both to transport and to store 24 the fuel. But then once Department of Energy can take 25 title to the fuel, then they will come out to the site, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR!BERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
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.s . :.:. . . .u.a s ti 6 cnsumers ccnducted Or plan to conduct a financial impact 7 I.studyforthelocalar'ea? If "yes," what were the 9 results? :f "no," do the"z plan on doinc a one?
9 i MR. FENECH: To the best of my knowledge, we I
i haven't done one, and we don't have any future plans to do l
t
.- one at this point. We cculd discuss it after the meeting.
12 But as of this time, :'m not aware of any.
13 MR. RAN3: ! do know that from a --
14 MR '. FENECH: Excuse me -- Bob Fenech, F-E-N-E-
_e. . .. =..
16 MR. RANG: I do know that probably the basic 17 question is from a tax standpoint -- property tax 15 standpoint.
9 When a plant shuts down, the facility HI 2 ?negct_ates with the agencies a drop-off -- a reduction of i
H
'I o
2-_ li.:he . orc.oerty taxes for use in schools and so forth.
And 22 : hat will certainly be done. I don't think that we've 23 looked at what that is yet, but that would be something 24 that we would sit down with the various agencies and 25 authorities and then arrive at an agreement that mak es NEAL R. GROSS COURT RE*ORTERS AND TRANSCA:BERS 1323 RHoDE ISt.AND AVE . N W
- 202) 234 4433 'SH!NGTON O C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
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4 ,2;c.sumers has in payrolls every week in this communit"1o E : but it's substantial. And : don't think anycne's looked 6 seriously at the impact in three years that it will have 7 on this community.
8 And I think that's an issue that needs to be 9 addressed, and that's why the conversion program if it 1 :. were to happen, would at least soften the blow so that we
- could have 50 or 60 empicyees. We wouldn't have the 200 12 that you have now, but it certainly would be better than 13 shutting the plant down completely.
14 MR '. RANG: Chuck, one way to address that --
15 the employees at Big Rock we're all concerned with too.
1 16 We'd like to continue working on forever. As we move into i 17 the process, the decommissioning process, if we were to --
18 I can give you some rough numbers. And we've discussed 19 this with our plant people as well. We currently have 20 some 200 to 215 people en the payroll including security i
21 ! at the site.
22 As we go into the pre-safe storage condition, 23 that number would drop to about half. And then we go into 24 the safe storage condition, and that number drops down to 25 about 35 to 40 people on unt 1 we start dismantling. And NEAl. R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RwCDE ISLAND AVE . N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON O C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I
,,.e.
t
- ; ther it goes back up to arouni 13: Oc 140 people. And 0 -"=- we would, fcr dismantling, bring in probably an n
- i 3 i.=.idn i:nal 40 to 50 contract pecple as well.
4 If there is .c safe s:crace ceriod, we H
i if 5 ; essentially 20 into immediate dismantlement. We would
'l 6 drcp down to about that 130-some n.:mber then plus the 40
-r 7 to 50 contract people. O we would have at the site 5 roughly 180 people for the six to seven years during the 3 plant dismantlement, whether that occurs up front through 10 2006, 2007, or at the back end.
11 Now, that's not to say that all of our 12 employees -- that we can retain all of our employees but 13 certainly a large number of our emplovees that we plan on 14 utilizing to help in decommissioning Big Rock. What it 15 does do is -- it does allow an additional number of years 16 to continue working in the area.
17 MR. WEISS: Let me follow up en that. I'm Sy 18 Weiss from the NRC. While we're not really involved in 4
1 9 j. this area directly from a regulatory standpoint, we've had l
20 ' the experience of getting calls from local people who have i
21 I asked what the timing of decommissioning might be. We try 22 to provide the names of officials at other towns and 23 cities where reactors are decommissioned so they can get 24 some firsthand experience as to what impact there might 25 be.
HEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSORIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234.4433 WASHINGTcN D 0 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
l :=
I 1
1 At Haddam Neck plant, which is the one that .
2 announced it was shutting down and decommissioning most -
d 3 .ricently, we met with the Depar: ment of Energy, with the 4 jd:a:e government, 1ccal government and with the senators a
'l 5 j:: discuss what the deccmT.iscicning process is going to 6 involve and the ccmmunity be given an idea of what the 7 impact might be. So to the extent we can, we will be 5 providing information.
9 MR. WINNELL: Mike Winnell. Did TLG 10 Engineer -- were they the people that calculated your 1
11 worker exposures?
12 MR. RANG: TLG Engineering was a contract 13 facility who did our cost estimating. And included in 14 there was the estimate of the exposure --
15 MR. WINNELL: Did they calculate --
16 MR. RANG: -- during the entire process. They 1
17 have a very credible organization. They've done a lot of 13 decommissioning work, and they have typically come in
- I- under the costs and the exposure that they've identified.
I 2 l'When
! a plant is decommissioned and dismantled, the r.esults il 21 l'are tycically less than what was anticipated.
22 MR. WINNELL: I guess the reason I ask is 1
23 because if Resnikoff comes up with 1300 person-rems for 24 OECON, and they came up with 425 for Big Rock, has there 25 been any track record to knew whether what they're saying NEAL R. GROSS !
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W I (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
,a
- ;l .s true or .Ot? : mean, has the NRC evaluated their data f
i 2 ! cr :ne way they do it er the assumptions they make? How 3 i: :. kncu that your people won't get 1300 or 2300 --
4 MR. PANG: I ar famtliar with what Mr.
5 j Resni.-:cf f care up with in the tankee case. And : can tell 6 "tou how he came up with the numbers and was in error.
7 There was -- approximately a third of the work that was 8 done was roughly that 80 to 90 percent of the curie 9 content had been shipped out.
10 He extrapolated the amount of exposure 11 shic.cina cut that third and Tultiplied by three and came 12 up with his 1300 number. There is not enough radioactive 13 material at the Yankee site for the kind of exposure that 14 he anticipated. Yankee's exposure that they are 15 anticipating to finish their unit is somewhere around 500 16 peracn-rem. And they expect a that they're going to hit 17 that target.
15 Co you know if there's anything additional, I
15 ; Paul or Sy?
h 20 ' MR. HARRIS: I'm not familiar with the Yankee 21 ,p lant.
22 MODERATOR JOHNSON: Do you want to take a j 23 break or go on? ;
24 MR. RANG: Yes, Mike?
25 MR. WINNELL: Is your cost estimate still NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANStRIBERS 1323 RHoCE ISLAND AVE N W l (202) 234-4433 WASH NGTON.OC 20005-3701 :202) 234-4433 l
- . m
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2l MR. PANG: Yes, the cost estimate that's been l
- f_.+ is still 290, . We're going to evaluate that.
4 ,~.st's ;n ~.994 dollars. And we'll evaluate that next E .;.'.a r c h 6 MR. WINNELL: What will happen if deregulation 7 goes through? How will that affect your anticipated a revenue and all that? Is that going to --
9 MR. PANG: We anticipate that from a 10 decommissicning standpoint that the -- that that part is 11 going to stay in a regulated environment through the state 12 utilities in talking with the Public Service Commission.
13 And that's our recommendation, and we think that is going 14 to go forward'so that monies that are collected -- they 15 will continue to be collected even if in between new and 16 2000 -- even if we do go into a deregulated environment, 1
17 that money will be -- the collection, until the year 2000 1 1
18 for Big Rock, certainly will stay under the regulatory '
is envtronment, and it will be there in that fund.
n 20 MR. WINNELL: Did TLG use the contingency
\
l
- 2. ;j factor of 15 percent? And don't they typically use 25 j 22 percent? At least that's what our report indicated. And i 1
1 23 if that's the case, are your costs off by that much or 1 24 not?
1 1
25 3 MR. RANG: When TLG does an estimate if they NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHfNGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
1 1
1
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'r nct do a site-specific ccs estima:e, if they do not --
II 2 if there is not a characte:.ization study to understand the
- _an
- _:y of the radioact;vity, how much Taterial is going
-;::: .a/e to be removed, a ccs: estimate includes a higher E ;;:n:.ngency fac cr because there are greater risks tha 6 the costs may be higher. So the typical number is 25 7 percent contingency if it's just a general cost study 5 that's done.
s in our case at Big Rock we did a site-specific 10 cost study And a lot of the work that went into the 11 decommissioning plan -- we did a take-off on a lot of the 12 material.
13 So we had -- we knew what the materials were, 14 we knew how much -- what the quantities were. We did core 15 samples in the plant. We did -- throughout the plant. We 16 did the entire characterization study. That allowed us to 17 reduce down the contingency because we have the known 12 quantities that we were dealing with.
19 Now, the average was roughly 13 and one-half 2: Iipercent contingency, so roughly 40 million of the 290 21 million. But each line item varied. Some line items 22 might be le percent. Some might be 10 percent, depending 23 upon the known quantities and the risks that the costs may 24 he higher.
25 But the average for Big Rock is lower. And as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHCDE ISLAND AVE., N W.
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1 ii
- . . v. t u .c. e : closer and to do those studies, v.ou would ex.cect -
2l the :entingency te drop. :f you're looking way cut into o
3 := future and you don't de that take-off, the contingency
, ;ugnt tt be higher, and 25 percent is the number. But for
= - -
~ase 13 anc ne-na_: -=--=-- s tne accrcoriate l
l h nuI. er.
7 MR. SIEGEL: Me again. Could you expand just 1
9 a little bit on the dry cask storage? Is it within the j l
9 ground containment center? Is it outside, above ground?
10 When is it used appropriately? Only after the material l
l 11 has decayed to a certain degree and you take.it out of wet 1
12 W
storage and put into this device? Or is4 appropriate to 1
13 take it right out of the reactor w and put it into j 14 this device and go from there? I guess basically, what 1 1
15 percentage of your storage _s going to rely on this l
16 pronouncement of a dry cask arrangement?
17 MODERATOR JCHNSON: Excuse me. Could you la state your name again for the --
l l
^3
_ MR. SIEGEL: Siegel, S-I-E-G-E-L. i i
i 2: ll MODERATOR JOHNSON: Thank you.
Il
.I 2'_; MR. RANG: The dry transportable canister 22 system we are looking at. We are still evaluating i 23 vendors. We don't have a location site yet. We will do 24 that probably in late 1998. And then we build this l l
25 storage complex at that time. The monies for the dry l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON DC 20005 3701 (202) 234 4433
't 1 3i, t
. 1 transportable Canister syster " ave been included in the 2 deccmmissioning cost in Our decommissioning collections.
il ,
3 ~_ + : ' s see. Ycu had One T.cre cuestion.
4q MS. CAUGINAS: How icng decaying before it U.
5 p' i gces into --
6 MR. RANG: les. Thank you. The length of 7 period of time is nominally five years of cool-down in the a wet storage before it goes into the cask. But that may be 9 varied to some extent depending on the heat cut of the 10 fuel, the size of the f.el. But it's nominally five years 1; in wet storage before it can go into the cask.
12 So in our case the fuel that comes cut of the 13 reactor vessel will go into fuel pool, and then it will be 14 some time befo're that fuel can then go into the dry 15 transportable canister.
16 MR. SIEGEL: :f the dry cask system were not 7 approved or it was not accepted for whatever reason, 18 costs, how much time you got left in your wet pool?
19 MR. RANG: We can run until the end -- until 20 1 Xay 31st, 2000. And options that we have would be to 21 license an additional stcrage rack. And we would only do 22 that at the time we shut the plant down to then move that 23 fuel into this rack. We would have to change our license 24 to accommodate -- to allow us to do that. But there is i i
1 25 sufficient - the fuel poci itself capacity is sufficient 1 i
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSORiBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. C C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
l l
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1 to scuse suff;cient fuel because cur licenstng right new -
1 2' ts _imited to 441 bundles, I i
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4 t .e r -- you've get one mcre questien
? 'G . W:NNELL: ':cw we're at the spent fuel, il i,
l 6 'which :'ve ask about before. And this is an NRC question 7 as well as Big Rock question. Has there even been, since 9 way back when, an analysis done to know whether or not u .c.m'-G o 9 this pool can take more erstmb1;.ges in the weight er in 10 this kind of heat from additional bundles? : don't know 11 when you're going to reach -- when you can't offload --
12 well, you can officad the whole core right now, but I 13 think you still have room in there. But at some point you 14 reach that point.
15 MR. RIJ:3 : We have sufficient cooling capacity 1 *5 in our heat exchangers to hold 500 fuel bundles in the --
17 or more in spent fuel.
13 MR. WINNELL: But what about this proverbial 19 weak hole -- or weak spct that has been talked about for a 20 . lona time? Can it hold the weicht? Has anybody ever i
21 l investigated that?
t 22 MR. RANG: Ch, sure, yes. It is not a 23 prc51em.
24 MR. WINNELL: :t is not a problem?
25 MR. RAN3: Mike, a fuel bundle weighs 500 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C- 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
i e
2:
i
".ea. And tha -- the fuel pool
_]l counds.
1 - :t is .0: very
.: .s.. <3
- (
2 .was des;gned fOr Over 5:: e. mh ! a ger, . And we have
^
- f'. ;en Cooling Capacity
., MR. W:NNELL: Eu: then why is it tnly licensed 2 d '. _ 441, and i: "ad . O de --
i MR. RAN3: Ocod cues:: n. The reason we 7 licensed at 441 was -- the DeSartment of Energy was going 9 to come and start taking rur fuel in 1998. And if they 3 came -- arrived on site and started taking the fuel, we u sw .e :,
_ : wculd not have needed anything beycnd the 441 ass mblagc-s
- to -- you know, to store.
12 And that's how i: was arrived at. You know, 13 had there been -- had that criteria not been established,
- 4 we would have ~ licensed the entire 500 assemblies in that 15 p001.
16 MR. WINNELL: :s that the total number you'11 17 have when you're all dOne?
18 MR. RANG: About 485, 486 bundles. Is there a 19,,lcuestion way in back?
il 2: l MR. STRAUVEL: :n general how safe is the c .. ;i ,p., ant --
22 MOEERATOR JOHNSON: Could you stand up, 23 please, and say your name and spell the last name, please?
24 MR. STRAUVEL: Strauvel, S-T-R-A-U-V-E-L.
25 Just a general question. I don't know that much about it.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(2021 234 4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
I,
- 6l I
- i !.,.i.cw safe is your p.. ant as far as a;r and water as far 3 .
i 21,the 3 rand Traverse Bav? - .'cw safe has the record been?
And, v.oc kncw, if ./cu're stcrtne this stuff there, what's the chante tf that leaking cut in the
~
ray' And as far as -- fcu get a strcng north wind --
e I
f acing up towards Traverse City as far as -- are we 9ettinc.
7 radiation from the plant? Likewise, are people in S Petoskey getting radiation?
9 MR. RANG: We are licensed to operate the 13 p_ ant under very strict Federal regulations, and we abide 11 by those regulations. And we typically in each year 12 cperate at a fraction of those release limits. And it's 13 all under -- and we file reports each year. It's not --
14 it's not an o'perational issue.
15 MR. STRAUVEL: So you're saying it's been a 16 sale record of a plant?
17 MR. RANG: Yes, sir 19 MR. BURGESS: My name is Bruce Burgess. I'm 19 the individual from the NRC with responsibility for I
i 2C l inspection of Big Rock Point. And we periodically 21 ' evaluate just that questicn, is the Big Rock Point 22 cperating safely. We do it en an annual basis. It's 23 called the SALP report, the Systematic Assessment of 24 Licensee Performance. Our SALP reports have indicated 25 over the past -- ever the history of the big Rock Point i
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-443')
l
p.an; i: is opera:Ing safely Sc 1.- answer :: four
_ , l l
2l cuestion, yes, the plan: is safe.
- - MR. S TRAL ~v'EL : How do you determine that? Do 4
s-
- . . :ake readincs of the air and stuff like that downwind?
' .:w dc ycu determine that?
6 MR. BURGESS: We monitor the plant's 7 performance over a number of different areas. We monitor 8 the ability of the plant c cperate. We menitor the 9 cperation's organization. We monitor tae rad protection 1: organization, their emergency planning organization, which
- in part gets to the issue cf whether or not they're 12 releasing effluents to the environment.
13 MR. STRAUVEL: Thank rou .
14 MN. BURGESS: You're welcome.
15 MR. WINNELL: Eu: the point is that they can't 16 operate without releasing effluents to the environment.
17 And how do you know if you know that. I mean, that's the 18 cnly way the plant Operates.
1 9 lt MR. BURGESS: That's true.
l i '
I 2: ij MR. WINNELL: But you say you didn't that.
i*
2 1 ii A n d i t has varied over the history of the plant several 22 hundred thousand curies per year in the stack to now in 23 the 5- to 10,000 curies.
24 MR. PAUL: Oc you want me to address that? i 1
25 I'm Ron Paul, radiation specialist from Region 3. We 1cok l 1
l 1
NEAL R. GROSS I COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W l202) 204 4433 AASHINGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
1 l '*\
1' at, during cur inspection each year, the quantity Of both
- 2 passes, articulates and ic.s, and activity into the lake
.I
- - :- : the year. All of those -- all of : hose acttvtties n
4 are a fraction of the regulatory amounts, i
E MR. WINNELL: Yeah, if you diluted it enough, 6 ycu ccu_d release the whole core.
7 MR. PAUL: Dtlution is pert of the process.
8 MR. WINNL'LL : ~ know. Do you know what gas 9 they release the mort of?
10 MR. PAUL: Xer.On. I believe it's 133 --
- l MR. WINNELL
- 138?
12 RECORDER: I can't hear you because you two I3 are --
1 l
14 MR. PAUL: 131 -- I mean, 133, 138. I 15 MR. WINNELL: In fact the most they used to
\
16 release -- I haven't looked in the last three or four l 1
i l' years -- is xenon 135 and xenon 138.
le l MR. PAUL: Bob, maybe you better answer --
l 19 MR. ENGLISH: Bob English, Consumers. We have l l 20 !a 30-minute delay line basically that reduces the shorter 21 half-life to -- passes the short-life. In addition they l 22 have difficulty -- for example, going across Traverse Bay 23 would have difficulty not decaying.
24 So most of dose as far ar public dose, comes 25 from xenen 133 and has, like, a five-and-a-half day or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
~:
- l .
- ,e. -
O,s .u_. ,X;S_3 --,,,,,s,
_jsomething _ike ..nat na_t - -~a- -
-~e -~~5" 1
. u. ,- .; gag__v...
- , a _~_~ ., a -.
- o 1
G .: . . u. ,-
2_. .a y ,.
.s .
ann.,
-y . . ~ -
3 ...de em;ssicns per year are On the order Of One-tenth n
4 ._ _ dss cf 4m:11; rem compared with .atural exte rnal 5 rad;st;;n of abcut _: : m;__irems.
~ So it's a facter of 6 1,000 belcw natural rad;ation levels. Sc it's not very 7 big.
8 MODERATOR J2HNSON: Thank you. I think we'11 1
1 9 take about a 10-minute breck. If you have any cuestions 13 you'd like to ask any of these people during the break, 11 feel free to do it. They'll be glad to take for you. ,
1 l
12 (Cff the record) 13 MR. HARRIS: Okay. My name is Paul Harris, I I
~
14 and like I said before, I'm the project manager for Big 15 Rock Fo;nt deccmmission;ng. And I'm actually very happy 16 that a number of you showed up including some faces that i
17 we recognized from our previous meeting back in May of
,9
,a.
.. o
'9 : would also like to extend appreciation to n
2: Mr. Phil Johnson for chairing tonight's meeting. I think i
21 he's going a good job. And to Mr. Bob Fenech, senior vice 22 president Consumers Power for allowing his staff to 23 present their decommissioning plans here tonight.
24 I'd like to give a little background on the 25 NRC decommissioning process to explain to you a few of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
i l
l 40 1 requirements that we require the licenses to perform -
- ;;durtngedecommissioning and tc allow another member of our I I
hkN 1 1
.7 _~ 3 'r. Bruce Burgess, to explain the ins,rection process 1
4 xc.e r : 'm finished wi P my presentation.
. .he NRC was formed in '.975, and we succeeded ;
1i 1 6 lthe Atcmic Energy Act of the Energy Commission. And we 7 succeeded them. And we're a relatively small l l
l 6 organization. We only have about 2,- to 3,000 people in 1 9 the NRC. And we are funded by the fees we impose on 10 nuclear utilities and nuclear material users.
11 our purpose is to regulate the uses of nuclear 12 material in the United States and to protect public health ,
i 13 and safety. We establish a number of standards and 14 regulations f'r o licensees to follow. We also issue I 15 licer.ses to nese individuals who use nuclear material.
16 And we inspect to ensure compliance.
17 Decommissioning, it's very important that we 18 go over the term decommissioning because it's to remove a 19 facility safely from service and to reduce residual 20 g.hw.
7re :trei. .y/ if so needed en the site to levels that permit i
21 ; release of the site and termination of the license. Okay.
22 That's an important definition. Because it says something 23 and it doesn't say something else.
24 One, it says that the NRC is responsible to 25 ensuring that the public health and safety and the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W.
(202) 234-44 2 WASHINGTON. D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
ji e _I i
environment are protec:ed Chrough rules and regula:icns.
, 1 2 Wha: it doesn't say is ha: i:'s the licensee's p . ...
,rascensic _ ty :o manage and Operate and decommission 4 qi. :c.+ r facility in accordance wi:h our regulations. Okay.
'l il 5 i;ur fccus like : said before is promulga:ing these 6 standards and regulations, conducting inspections. And we 7 evaluate the licensee's final radiological survey to a ensure that there are no radiological hazards left en the 9 site.
10 At the enc J this process, we recommend to
- the NRC commission whether or not to terminate Big Rock c tLv- 3 Ac 12 Pcint's licene At the -h
- -t to of th; clidc, Big Rock 13 Point, thcugh, is responsible for removing those 14 radiologic haz'ards. And we're going to talk a little bit 15 about that. They perform the final radiological survey.
16 They request license termination when they feel as though 17 their plant is ready. And they determine what to do with 18 the facility after those radiological hazards are removed.
19 Mr. Jim Rang talked about the experiences of i
20 l deccmmissioning the pcwer reactors in the United States.
2; The NRC also has similar experiences. There's been 22 approximately 15 power reactors who have been at 23 decommissioned or,in the state of decommissioning. We put 24 a few of these decommissionings on the slide here. The 25 first one is Saxton. They're located in central NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W 202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
421
- Fennsylvania. (
They've been shut down for 21 years. ' ~
i 2l ,
T".e','ee been in long-term safe stcrage for that long of a t
3 " Fir :d. They recent?, tame tc the NR2 requesting er 4 sind:rmina_ us that they. . clan to .cursue dismantlement of the A q
, .w - u . .< ~ . ,
.-.:crene/_+ n '
f i f E
And that's gcing cn right now. The other l 7
plant that I'd like to mentien that's not on the slide 8
here is the plant that Or. Sy Weiss mentioned earlier, 9 which is Haddam Neck. Haddam Neck just recently shut down 10 prior to the end of their Operating license period. Okay.
11 And they currently are reviewing their decommissioning 12 strategy. When they finish their review of how they want N. p A
- 3 to decommission that e steg,, they will give us that 14 information and' we wil'. evaluate it.
15 One plant : have up here is Shoreham plants.
16 Their license is terminated. We gained some good 17 experience from that plant. We learned a little bit about le site termination surveys, and we learned a little bit from 19 that. And Trojan Nuclear Pcwer Plants and the Yankee Rowe 23 Nuclear Power Plant -- let's see -- I don't see Yankee 1
il Rowe there -- here it is. Trojan and Yankee Rowe, they're 22 currently undergoing actt/e component removal or dismantle 23 and decontamination. We provide inspection and oversight 24 of those facilities.
o 25 And Mr. Michael Winnell mentioned, there are i
l NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234 4433 WASM!NGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
1
, . -: l j
l l
_, good lesscns _ earned frcr th;s S . And independent studies I i
2 hby Mr. Marvin Resnikoff -- we 50 take a look at those 1
I
.- , ;sc:rts and there's some gccd ideas that come cut of there l
4 And nfferent perspectives.
- ~ u E
Let's talk about th;c deccmmissioning options.
6j mentioned it was the licensee's_ responsibility to manage
. :._ a- ,
7 and decommission the facility,they'want. The regulations B allcw that. They can pursue dismantlement and 3 decontamination er something called dacon. They can also 10 go into long term safe stcrage. Another plant en the west 11 coast called Humboldt Bay has been in safe storage for a
- 2 long period of time.
13 The licensee can also go through a combination j 1
14 of decen and safe storage. Mr. Jim Rang mentioned that as l 15 a Big Rock Point option. That option is fully within the 1
1 16 regulations. And Jim Rang and Consumers Power will inform 17 us of that decision. Their post-shutdown decommissionings l 15 activities report which they put on the docket which 19 neretofore is called -- well, the post-shutdown 2 0 ; decommissionings activities report what was prior called o
21 !:he decommissioning plan, cutlines that schedule. And :
22 there's words in there that as-r articulates what Mr. Jim 23 Rang was talking about, that this option is open to them.
24 We don't have a preference on what option they 25 choose. It wculd be inappropriate for us to dictate to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ;SLAND AVE . N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l,
1
. 1 l
! --a -a see what optien to cheese. ~ie can make that 1
" I-- 'usion for two reasons. One, back n 1996, we did a i
3 :ene::: envtrenmental impact statement. We did a study of 4 ,ce::rmtssioning. We tcck a icek at the decommissioning cyttens. We tcck a 1cck at sectceconcmical problems l
6 resulting from decommtsstentng. We ecok a look at some 7 technical aspects also.
9 And based upon that review we did back in 9 1998, we determined that, as long as a licensee follows
- D the NRC regulations, deccmmissioning can be conducted 11 safety. Okay. The second item is that decommissioning of 12 reactor power plants involves significantly less risk than 13 an operating facility, because the plant is not operating.
14 At Big Rock Point, the fuel is currently 19 stored in spent fuel hele and, as Mr. Jim Rang said, 16 they're evaluating whether ur not they want to put their 17 fue' in dry canister systems. We have regulations that is the licensee needs to follow if they want to pursue that 13 cption. From our perspective, the storage in the spent i
- -l fuel pool and the storage tn dry cask storage systems I.
2;frepresentsthesameamount of risk or non-risk, you might 22 want to say, to the public.
23 Decommissioning regulations. I'll try not to 24 be boring here. Let's first talk about money regulations.
l 25 A few questions on money; what kind of impact is this on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W ll (202) 234-4433 WASHfNGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234 4433
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,_l s:
1
_l the 1_tensee or on the rate paycrs? Sack in 1999, we 2 qprcru; gated rule making. And in that rule making, we said f:_ ?. _ _ decc missioning _icensees tc provide us with a 4 ::_: missicn funding plan. Okay.
5 '
- n that plan, they're required to tell us how 6 they plan to fund decommissioning and how they plan to 7 manage that fund until they decommission to provide (Cn a 8 assurance that they have enough money. That $4est was 9 required to be periodically updated. And it also goes 1C into labor and adjusts for energy costs and rad waste 11 burial charges. It's a living document. It's supposed to 12 be a living document. Okay.
13 There's also a requirement that the licenses 14 inform us via report how they plan on managing the costs 15 associated with the disposal of the radiative fuel. It 16 doesn't talk about where the fuel is stored. It doesn't 17 say if it's in a spent fuel pool, it doesn't say if it's 18 in dry casks.
19 It says, " Licensee, tell us how you plan on 2 managing the costs associated with disposal of radiative i
21 fuel." That regulation stays in effect tntil the 22 2epartment of Energy or the Secretary of Energy takes 23 title to the fuel. It's unfertunate that, as you all 24 know, the DOE has not -- does not have a location for the 25 spent fuel or the radiated fuel yet. And in that case, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
i 46 1
the fuel will remain on site er :: wi.1 he dispositioned
- 2 when that time comes.
I, 3y Another regulation with regards to money is P
e 4
ijwnat's called a preliminary deccmmissioning cost estimate.
N h
5 L :?.ay 50 this is a third one. Five years prier to 6
shutdown, the licensee needs :: give us a preliminary 7 decommissioning cost estimate. That cstimate was provided S
in the original decommisstoning plan submittal which is .
fcs> A she-9 now the, activities report.4 c ~ a s . . . .).
'0 And they give us the cest estimate en where 11 they stand and where they need to go. That's five years 12 prior to shutdown. Big Rock Point did that. That's good.
13 :: makes us look at it, and it makes the licensee look at 14 it. It gives us a little time to think about where the 15 money is coming from -- cr pardon me -- it gives the 16 licensee a little bit of time to think about where the 17 money is coming from and gives us time to evaluate what 18 they are doing.
19 The last regulatien is post-shutdown 20 decommissioning activities report. And as Mr. Jim Rang 21 previously said, that is another test or another 22 regulation that requires an estimate of decommissioning 23 costs. So as you can see, there's a number of things that 24 happen throughout the plant lifetime which provides some 25 regulatory assurance that decommissioning funding will be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTCN D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 '
l
)
47 i
_;ava:lable when the site -- ary site shuts dcwn I
I!
2 !! There's other safety regulaticns that a
=nsee must follow for decommissioning. Okay. The 4 ,,t;s -shutdown decommissioning activities report -- not to g get :nto any detail on this, and : w;11 on the next slide.
i 6 Okay. As I previously said, it was their decommissioning 7 plan. Then we have some certifications that I'm going to 8 just mention real briefly, some required evaluations and 9 license termination plan.
10 The post-shutdown decommissioning activities 11 report or the PSDAR must contain a description of 12 activities, a schedule of those activities, an estimate of 13 expected costs and the reasons for concluding that the 6 --J u 14 environmental impacts are Ee msed by previously issued 15 envircnment impact statements. As I said, in 1988, we did 16 a generic environmental impact statement that looked at 1
17 these options and the environmental impacts that they l 1
18 present. If Big Rock Point has determined that those 1
19 activities are within those environmental reviews that we !
20 l dic, then everything is okay.
I 21 The post-shutdown decommissioning activities i
22 report must be noticed in the cublic and we must hold a l
1 23 public meeting. The post-shutdown decommissioning 24 activities report is up at the local public docket room.
25 And tonight we're holding the public meeting.
i NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
F 49 1
Ancther regulation is that major '
2 decermissientng acttvities are not allcwed until 90 days 3
it after submittal of this report. That 90 days was never 1
4 'On+re in previous regulations.
'l It's sort of unique. What 5 that dtes is gives us a lot tf time. It gives us three 6 months te evaluate the licensee's planned activities. It 7 gives us time to hold a public meeting. It gives us time r r.w 9 to resolve public comments. We enewld -r talk about 9 resolution of public comments here shortly.
10 Big Rock Point may then commence w s>
11 decommissioning ence we object. That holds true for any 7
12 uttlity. They give us their plan, they wait their 90 13 days, then they can commence decommissioning. For 14 specifically to Big Rock Point now, since they already 15 submitted their post-shutdown decommissioning activities 16 report and we're holding the public meeting way prior to 17 intended shutdown, they will not have to wait the 90 days
)
1B when they shut down May 31st the year 2000.
19 The little highlight there doesn't come out i
20 too good. It's licensee certifications. Mr. Jim Rang i
21 talked about this a little bit. This is another rule
{
22 which is totally different from previous rules. It says 23 the shutdown licensee, the power licensee, will tell us in 24 a letter certifying that all fuel is out of the reactor 25 vessel and safely stored in the spent fuel pool. The NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISBND AVE . N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
1 l
1
,. -3 f
t li
- j _icensee's responsibility
- : dc : hat. They cou;d also t
. .,s!:re
- :n :ne Ory cas:( s Orace sV. stem _t, e I
- :hev. wanted to.
w 4 't The Concern .ere :s that we een': wan: :o 5 ienter decommissioning w :h fuel n the reactor vessel. We E want to take advantage of those engineered features 7 ' associated with Spent fuel pool and dry cask storage e systems. It gives us a level of assurance there.
9 The second one -- or parden me. I scr of did 10 that in reverse. The first one that they do is they i
'-ar-ify that they shut down and that it is a final 12 shutdown and that they're not going to return power.
13 Okay. So when they shut down, they transfer the fuel.
1, ::'s very important. :t's an unparalleled assurance that
.~-
15 the licensee ist a condit::n safely shut down and ready to 16 decommission. It's unparalleled -- it's a good assurance. ,
l 17 We talked a _ittle bit about the 90-day wait 18 period. We're going to talk a little bit about the 19 required evaluations, which is the next slide.
20 ; Core evaluations. Just because Big Rock Point t,
i 21 i is shutting down a number of years from now doesn't mean 22 that all these regulations go away. In fact, from power 7
4.a 23 cperations, their security pi-mw still needs to be 24 implemented, their emergency preparedness plan, I notice 25 that there's a number of individuals representing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REP:RTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS l 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W i (202) 234-4433 W*:H!NGTON. D C. 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433 l
I. :: ,
, .o i ru~t
- l emergency preparedness f:lks. . h modifications, they'll
- I 7 I i.
aad to be evaluated, reviews still need to be dene.
- 'O.:ere's other required evaluattons also. Now, that's not 4 .:: say : hat these plans are going to be equivalent as the i
5 l__censee progresses chr:ugr decc=missioning. O k a v. . The 6 licensee will change those plans based upon the 7 configuration of the facility and the risks that are 8 presented.
9 In addition, a deccmmissioning licensee is 10 prchibited frcm doing any activity that, one, forecloses 11 the release of the site for possible unrestricted use, 12 Okay. The second one is that they can't do 13 any activity that results in a significant environmental 14 impact. Okay. As I previously said, if their 15 environmental impacts are within those that we have 16 already evaluated, there's really no concern. If there is 17 significant environmental impacts that we haven't looked is at, then it would be a concern 19 Results -- and the third one is results of 20 there no icnger being a reasonable assurance that adequate 21 funds will be available. Okay. So let's just give an 22 example. We're 15 years into long-term safe storage --
l 23 okay -- and they want to do something. Okay. They -- by 24 regulation, they need to assure that their finances will 25 support decomussioning. Okay.
NEAL R. GROSS l COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS i 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W
! (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON O C 20005-3701 '202) 234-4433 l
1 t
J _
i.
i i _. . . .
.nts is a .. _ ;. n e .
.-l :ust recap what
. :. t t e _ -
l 2l ,
Mr. Jim ?.ang said. This is what we expect. Big Rock o,
~ -
<ay/ June time frame 20nducted crderly and safe 4 ,4nu:d wn. There's no reason to believe that they would h -
E '.::. Transfer and rac:- M fuel .co the spent fuel pool ll :.....
6 and/or ISFSIs is the independent spent fuel storage 7 installation, which is the dry cask system, submit the 8 required certifications fcr shutdown and stcrage and 9
i conduct the initial deccmmissioning activities that Mr.
i
']
_ Jim Rang talked about on his slide and then turn into 11 long-term storage or dismantle it. And that's to be 12 finalized. We're very early in the process here. We're 13 very early.
14 One of the last bullets down there, submittal 15 of the license termination plan and final site surveys.
16 License termination plan, let's give a scenario here. The 17 bar chart that Mr. Jim Rang showed that they're going to 18 be in long-term safe storage for a number of years, 25, 27
_9 years, whatever the chart shewed. Sometime during that 22 : end of the period, they're going to start talking about i
21 license termination.
22 They're getting pretty close. They want to 1
- 23 close up the site. Okay. Two years prior to that date, 24 the licensee has to give us this report. It's required by 25 regulatten. That plan has to describe a site NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W.
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- i l.
_ characterization. We're m ssing a word en here. It 2 sh:uld be the site radiological characterization. Because 1
2
- .e:r surveys are supposed to tell us what kind of 4 lI 1Ad ;arttve concentrations are on their property.
J 5 l: dent:ficatien of remaining dismantling activities. Nice 6 to know where they stand and where they're going. Plans 7 for site remediation.
8 Something might come up where they have to l 9
remediate the site or have discussions with us which l
10 regard some particular use. Detailed plans for the final 11 radiation survey. These plans are required -- or not 4 l
12 required to be detailed or comprehensive -- okay -- but if l 1
13 they're not, our staff will ask questions about it.
l 14 Description of the end use of the site if restrictions are 15 imposed and an update to the site specific cost estimate l
l 16 of related costs. '
17 Again, the licensee is required to take a look 18 at costs for decommissicning. And a supplement to their
_3 environmental report describing any new information or 20 l significant environmental changes. Okay.
21 License termination activities. Similar to 22 what we're doing tonight and similar to what Big Rock 23 Point has already done with regards to the post-shutdown 24 decommissioning activities report, we will notice their 25 termination plan in the federal register to announce that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
- a 1
- 1 we have received the plans. O k a', We will again hold 2 another public meeting.
3 On that sl:.de : say a oppcrtun:.ty for hearing 4 . : .- c'.e plan Unlike this stage we're at right now, the h
51:pportunityforahearingwillbemadeavailabletothe l
l 6 public. Okay. The plan will be approved by the issuance 7 of a license amendment. Okay.
8 So it's a licensing action to get this plan 9 approved. The licensee will continue activities. You're 10 allowed to do that, including a termination radiation i 11 survey, wh:.ch is a final site survey.
l 12 And when they're doing that survey, our staff ;
13 will have the opportunity to perform a confirmatory 14 survey. We will take a look at the licensee's final j 1
15 raciation survey measurement equipment, their site plans, !
1 16 their grid maps, take a look at that and decide if we want 17 to do an independent confirmatory survey. And what we do j l
18 out there is we basical:y verify the validity of their 19 conclusions and independently ascertain their conclusions
.- n r i a.,. ~- .
i 21 ' If the license termination plan is followed 22 and the documentation associated with the survey 23 demonstrates that the facility and site are suitable for 24 release, we could recommend that their license be 25 terminated. And we1 make a recommendation to the NRC NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE- N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005-3701 (202) 2344433
- =
1j ccmmission that their license be terrinated.
2 The last regulation is the One dcwn at the hl f 3 r:.::- :s that all decommissioning has te be completed 4
. ; t n : .- 60 years. B g Rock .roinr's plan right new is well o
5 "w;thi.- 6 years, and tney Teet that regulatzen without any 6 prtclem.
7 That actually concludes my presentation. I S hope : wasn't too quick. I'll answer any questions that L'. A.
9 you have. There's some people up there, Ms. Jee~t Tran, I 13 menticned before. She's for the cperating side of the 11 hcuse, and Mr. Bruce Burgess.
12 Bruce?
13 MR. BURGESS: Before I get started, I was 14 asked to provide an additional answer regarding the 15 question on effluents. And I would like to put that into 16 perspect;ve. This is not my area of expertise. But if I 17 falter, I'll turn it over to Our Region 3 expert in this 18 area.
19 The question was, what's the exposure to the i
2C l general populaticn from Big Rock Point? And the answer 21 is, to the best of our recollection, that we have observed 22 them releasing about 5 to 15 millirem per year to the i
23 general public.
24 And to put that into proper perspective, you 25 receive about 40 to 80 millirem in general from an x-ray NEAL R. GROSS CoVRT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS f 1323 RHoDE ISLAND AVE , N W. l (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 3701 (202) 234 4433 ,
i
,J 20 ti
- [
- hat you would rece:ve ful; bcdy dese. Sc the point here i
2l 1.s that the amount Of rad:Etion released from the 3 =tfl.ents is not a public health and safe:y threat at Big E vR. PAUL: :'d :ust add to that, Bruce, it's 6 nct that we've cbserved that they're meeting nu limit.
7 They're less than the'5 to 20 millirem per year. They're B considerably below that.
9 MR. EURGESS: Thank you. Does that answer the 10 question? Thank you.
11 MR. WINNELL: :s that per person?
12 MR. PAUL: That's the dose that --
13 MR. WINNELL: For everybody?
14 MR. PAUL: Right. For anyone in a whole year.
15 What he's referring to are the limits. The pending sites 16 are 20 for liquid and gasecus releases. Those are the 17 limits. The utility -- are living considerably below 18 this -- the effluents.
19 [ MR. BURGESS: Any additional questions 20 I regarding effluents?
i I
21 My name is Bruce Burgess, and I am the chief 22 of the operational program section, branch 6, in the b a.-
23 'avision of roactive rojects, Region 3. And I've been 24 asked to say a few words about the decommissioning 25 inspection plan.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOCE ISLAND AVE.. N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
=.,.
i i
want to make a few points very quickly here. '
2 Sumber ene, as you car tell based cn the licensee's i
.nissentation and our presentation as well, -"e . exact 4 t a e .T.;e n ce of events has net yet been determined, so our a
il E inspection plan is nct final. Once the licensee tells us l
6' what these sequence of events will be with regard to their 7 decommissioning plan, then we will structure our i e inspection program around it.
9 And the second point I want to make at the 1
10 start is that the inspection program that we will l 11 implement for decommissioning facility.is exactly the same 12 in terms of the inspection plans that we use as an 13 cperating power plant. So many of the procedures that are 14 currently in use from an NRC perspective at Big Rock will 1
- 5 also be used to evaluate the licensee's programs as they l 16 move into the deccmmissioning arena. ;
1 1
17 With regard to our inspection plan, the i 1
18 objectives of our inspection are to obtain sufficient >
1
" #crmation by observation and verification to determine l l
2: i that, one, decommissioning and related activities are 21 safe, two, that the spent fuel is stored safely. And this 22 would include any systems that are relied upon to maintain 23 that fuel in a safe condition. Three, that activities are 24 performed in accordance with the decommissioning plan and 25 are consistent with commitments made between Censumers ;
1 NEAL R. GROSS '
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W. ,
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433 l l
- ~ l ;"wer and the NRC.
a l
2J,i When an inspecti;r ts conducted, the
..5p9:0 ton Will assess, one, management and the .
1 4 1:rg.c.t:ation. And by that, - mean that we will evaluate
- \ \
(trganizational effecttveness in terms of whether or not I
i 6 lthe organization has the resources and the expertise to ),
7 accomplish the activities dictated in the post-shutdown 1
B decommissioning activities report. 1 i
9 We will also evaluate how well Consumers Power I 1
1 13 performs self-assessments, audits and corrective actions. !
11 Are their self-assessments critical? Does their audit 12 program identify problems? And does their corrective 13 action program address appropriately those problems 14 identified through the self-assessment and audit process.
15 We will also evaluate their design control 16 process. Is the plant designed and maintained by an
'7
_ engineering organizaticn consistent with the post-shutdown 18 decommissioning activities plan? And I still can't 19 believe I have to say that in one phrase. Is the 20 !matntenance and surveillance program operating 21 effectively? We will evaluate the licensee's systems in l
22 the maintenance for systems in a manner that determines i
23 whether or not those systems remain operational. And we !
24 will evaluate their routine testing program, their 25 surveillance program to determine the systems that are NEAL R. GROSS i I
COURT REFORTERS AND TRANSCR:BERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W j (202) 234-4433 k.mSHINGTCN D C 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
{
( 'l 1 e .
l l
1 required are matntatned. "
l l 2 We will aise evaluate their radiolegics'
- - ~~n:rtis program. We w;_1 evaluate the radioicgic AL-4 : : n:rtis program from the standpoint assuring that
? ;' mater:als shipping and handling acttvities are 6 apprcpriately controlled and that radiation protection 7 activities en site are focused on keeping radiation dose 8 as low as possible.
9 And again, back to effluents. We will i 10 evaluate the licensee's effluent release program to assure l l
11 that releases are well within regulatory limits.
12 Again, our inspecttons are performed to 13 specifically determine that the licensee has maintained 14 the required standardo and if the performance is ded ining 15 in any particular area. Cur inspection program wi. also 1
16 verify that he corrective action programs, as I mentioned 17 earlier, are identifying problems and weaknesses. )
16 I want to point out that the two manual l
13 chapter procedures that are listed in here are in draft 23 form. They have not yet been finalized. Our inspection
/
21 pr gram will also allocatep NRC inspection resources based l
22 on the activity level and the licensee's plans. To do 23 this, we will use the two specialiced procedures you see 24 on the slide. The first procedure will be used in the 25 interval between permanent plant shutdown and NRC tacit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCR!BERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 3701 (202) 234 4433
I l 1 approval of the pos:-shund:xn deccmmissioning ac::vities 2lplar And then the serend pr:cedure will be used cnce the
..._=_-___...yo..g-~__~__.,.
,. , c - .u ., u. a- - _u , , . _ _- g..g .en__.
_ , , ,a _a_-... -.u.g 4 >c+g;;r to NMSS and the regicr will move between a i .; system -- o cui headquar:ers office in conduct;ng U
6Iinspection activities.
7 That completes my shcr presentation on the B inspecticn process. Are there any questions?
J 9 MR. HARR:S: Two last items. One, I forgot m ~-
'O who it was but somebcdy men:icned,these comments and i
11 questicns and concerns will be transcribed -- or are 12 transcribed and will go in:0 public docket. Mr. Mike l
l 13 Winnell mentioned what about all cur previous comments 14 based upon the original submittal of the decommissioning 1 '
1
.-.: p_.an cack in -- when was that? --
^6
_ MR. RANG: 1995 February.
t 1
! 17 MR. HARRIS: -- February of 1995. Those 1
'9
_ ccmments and questions are g:ing to resolved. They will
'9 ,be documented and they will be docketed on the Big Rock i
i i
I l 2: .,Foint docket.
l '
21 ; In conclusion, what we wanted to do was give 22 you a snapshot of the decommissioning process. We wanted 23 to explain to you some of the regulations that have been l
l 24 in existence and some of these that are in existence now.
1 1
25 And that's to provide some assurance, some c fidence that NEAL R. GROSS l CcVRT REPCRTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 2344433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433 1
i o
dec:Tmissicn:ng will be ccnducted safely. It's actually i i I l 2
/ + r '. apprcpriate and :t's very cpportune that Consumers
- 1 c+'.
casically agreed with doing this public T.eeting !
l
, : . .._ ;ht . .
.t gets the information out to the puc.lic. A I
. mc e tf things are going to happen in the next few years l 6
t Lu t... ... u i Lwhich are going to impact the community aM financiclezhe l 7 and work-related' M i
su l 2
But we fully expect to happen over these next I 3
few years is that Big Rock Point will continue to sharpen 10 their pencil. A good _icensee would do that. They'll
^'
continue to take a look at their evaluations. They'LL.
12 continue to take a look at how they want to deccmmission (L a f w v 13 th: 71cnc. We would not expect any major significant 14 changes from what they have given us tonight. If there 15 are significant changes, we will evaluate those when they 16 occur.
17 Jim, do you have anything you want to say?
la MR. RANG: No.
13 MR. HARRIS: Sorry? Thank you very much.
I 2 ,I We're cpen to questions. Sir?
l O'
VR. ANDERSON: Dale Anderson, with an "O."
22 :'d like to hear something about security. Is it going to 23 be the same level it is now? Is it going to de-emphasize 24 as far as maintaining security level at the facility.
25 MR. HARRIS: Dick, did you hear the question NEAL R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSORIBERS 1323 RHoDE island AVE , N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
I l I
_ cn securityr ,
2 MR. DUCLEY: Jim prchably could tell us.
2 MR. RI-J;G : leah We've included that the cost 4 h: seturity for the deccmmissicning activity And I can't o,
- :e__ ecu wnat One numrers are cecause that's a prcprietary I
I mport, any of the securtty previsions that we have. But 7 they are substantial. They don't diminish very much once a they move into the decommissicning. They do diminish near 9 the end as we move into more of a industrial site. There 10 will be substantial numoers cf security personnel during 11 the decommissioning stage.
12 MR. HARRIS: What we can say is the security 13 plan is required by regulation. As Jim said, the risk and 14 the threat changes through decommissioning. During plant 15 operaticns, there is a risk now or a threat now for plant 16 cparations. When decommissioning -- when they 17 decommission, that threat will be a little bit different.
1S ! So it will more than likely be focused on spent fuel pool 19 ; storage or dry canister storage, i
.i 2] !! Yes. Mr. Mike Winnell?
!l 5W.c.
2 1 i; MR. WINNELL: Mike Winnell. On your-srds that li
?
22 had to do with money concerns -- it had to do with your 23 radiated fuel management, are those costs already in the 1
24 290 million? That's one. Two is, why is 60 years the I 25 limit?
i NEAL R. GROSS 4 COURT REPCRTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
.:-~ :
l
_!l MR. HARRIS: S0rry. I drn': want : lauch.
- n!i 2O MR. RANG: Yes, for number one.
1 3 .
MR. HARRIS: Tnank you.
4 MR. WINNELL: Ckay. And I forgot what the 3 _!_as ne was.
6 MR. HARRIS: Sorry. Ckay. Well, let me give {
1 7 you the 60-year one. 60 years -- we want to ensure that B the licensee completes decommissioning. It is reasonable 9 we found that decommissioning can be conducted within 60
_C years. We don't want dectrmissioning to linger. So what 11 number do you want to choose? Most licensees have come up I 12 with the SAFSTOR plan. Let's say they go SAFSTCR, 13 long-term storage, 30 years. Put a little contingency in
- 4 there and it extends it double to 60. There's really no '
3 15 rechnical reason for only 60 years.
16 MR. WINNELL: Okay. I thought of the other 17 one. What happens if there's not - high level site for 13 the waste?
19 MR. HARRIS: Okay. I'm not expert in dry cask 2 ; I' storage. Ann? I believe that the commission has
,1 21lfstated--Icouldget ycu the information. The commission 22 has stated on record that storage in a spent fuel pool 23 condition could extend for 30 years after the life of a sbar~ #
24 normal operating plant. And that's a mi.5take by the 25 commission. As far as the dry cask storage system, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
I 1, I A
. 1 regulations don't allcWapermanen dry cask system. If yOU 2
reaa the regulations, 1: :a ks about interim storage, I
i 3 eantng there's a finite period amount of time. To go any 4 .far ner than that would be speculat:.ve.
.I
- ' VR i
WINNEL_: And it seems like that would
- "e your cost estimates nuts. I mean, you have to 7 change casks and dispose of the other ones.
8 MR. RANG: I've included the costs in the 9 change for disposing, for fabrication, design, licensing
- 0 and disposal of casks but only cne time.
vR. FENECH: That's wh we can use your 12 support to help get through legislation to get the DOE to
- 3 accept through the Nuclear Naste policy Act.
14 MR. RANG: This is a paid political 15 announcement.
16 MR. FENECH: Get them to take the fuel, that 17 they're obligated to that. You' re not supposed to laugh 13 when I ask a question.
19 MR. HARRIS: Sir?
i l
l 20 g MR. MILLER: Yeah. Corey Miller. You'11 have 21 to excuse me. I'm not a scientist or a public speaker 4
22 but -- as you'll tell by my notes. I'm a citizen of 23 Michigan. And I --
24 MR. HA..RIS P : Excuse me. We're going to have a 25 comment period after questions, if this a comment.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W
- 202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D t 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 1
l .
-i j l , Os. i l l v.x . y.....,
i . . . m .c.x : ,kay.
i 1 l
l 2 i
MR. HARRIS: Yeah. If there's cc=ments, we'll 3 .:id these after the questions. But let's try to get the
-; ~ ques _:ns answered first . 20 you have any questions?
3 ,
6*
4R. v!*LER: Yeah. I'll get to these.
lI 6l MR. HAHN: Dennis Hahn, Department of l 7 Environmental Quality. I'd like to read -- a question l 2 that Mr. Winnell raised with regard to the difference 1
9 between long-term storage and doing DECON right up front. l t
I 10 Because they -- dispose of currently. A number of years 11 ago the NRC introduced the concept of as low as reasonably 12 achievable.
l 13 And I'm wondering :.f this principle, the ALARA 14 principle, wduld be applied to the evaluation of the 15 , decor.issioning plan and, if so, I'd like to hear some t
16 discussion from the NRC as to what is involved in defining 17 what is reasonable if indeed storing for 30 years would 19 reduce population dose as well as worker dose. How would 19 the NRC look under the ALARA principle at determining 20 il,whether DECON rather than safe storage is still l'
' I.
21 ' acceptable?
22 MR. HARRIS: Ckay. Let me -- Dennis, let me 23 try to rephrase your question. The first question was, 24 AL EA - - you mentioned the term ALARA. That means as low 25 as reasonably achievable. And that's in a regulation NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
i i
I
. 1 I
1
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- Sy, would y:u 'ike to take -E-he- question a t-2 m:
1
)
4 VR. WE:SS: The ALARA principle applies to the
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6 iclant, whether it be decommissioning or operation such 7 that when you go into this process, you've analyzed 5 beforehand whether you are doing this process to the minimum exposure of the vorkers or the public. So it's I
- :, il very process spec:.::.c.
H
!io
- F Now, the terms cf a choice of a
'2
- deccrmissioning option, the staff looked at the various
~3
_ o c. t i o n s , the potential exposure to the public, what the 14 environmental impact was, and we published this generic
- ' =""ironmental impact statement. What was '88?
16 MR. HARRIS: 1988.
17 MR. WEISS: Which we call the Guides to 18 Generic Environmental Statement. And basically we felt
'9 ,,that using either SAFSTOR or DECON and lookinc at a
'i
(
- 1 sampling of facilities at different parts of the county a
n 0.and tv.oes of reactors was acce-table.
. e The ALARA principle 22 would then go into if Big Rock chooses one of these 23 options that they follow through with this option 24 minimizing any exposure to workers or the public.
25 MR. FENECH: Then could I paraphrase what you ,
i NEAL R. GROSS I COURT AFPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 AHODE ISLAND AVE . N W l (202) 234-4433 WASW!NGTON D t 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
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1 2 l SA.rSTOR or DECON both f all within the range of reasonable
[. ..we w Ds MR. WEISS: Yes.
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5i vR. HARRIS: Any more questions? What I'd 1
like to do is, we have a little list here of comments, 1
7 5 people who would like to stand up and make comments.
9 Corey, if you'd like to go first.
I
' i 1: MR. WEISS: About hcw much time or how many '
- . . . . . , e . . e .,. s .>
12 MR. HARRIS: Well, I'm not sure everyone wants 13 to make comments. There's a comment sheet here. So
. ten people here want to make comments.
1
.s enere's acout 15 MR. WEISS: Shall we give them five minutes 16 aciece.
17 MR. HARRIS: Corey, why don't you go first.
". 5 MR. MILLER: Corey M:.ller. As I said before, l
~9 I have a few statements to make. Please keep an open t
a 2: lmind. '
I believe the real problem is this is all fine.
l l
1 2; 43ut the real oroblem is the radioactive waste, when we put 11 l 22 l it in the ground. What about when we bury it? How safe 23 then? What about earthquakes, taking on Mother Nature?
24 Just in the past couple years that should tell you that we 25 w4 'ose if we take on V.other Nature. I be'ieve the only NEAL R. GROSS
, COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005-3701 (2C2) 234 4433
o1 4
1 jsafe s:crage is .eutralich:; - And th:s s where a open
!l 1
- um:nd :mes in. j i .
3 Over 25 years ago, a Bulgarian-born irtenter, !
i l
-; . . . _ _ Brown, discovered through his research inte _he I
pr:perties of water a substance known as Brown's gas.
6 ,.:rofesscr Brown discovered a new f rm cf electrolysis that i
7 broke down water into its ccn'tituent elements, hydrogen S anc oxygen.
9l ,
And then he did it in such a way that the
- 0 'resulting hydrogen and oxygen can be kept together in a 11 non-explosive mixture. Normally oxygen and hydrogen are 12 very explosive when put 0gether, but Brown's gas is not.
13 In fact, when it is ignited, it implodes. That feature 14 alone has raised eyebrows of scientists across the planet 15 for the past 25 years.
16 But what.is amazing and even miraculous about 17 the flame produced by burning Brown's gas is that it has la nearly 30 potential industrial applications at last count 15 lcne of which the ability to reduce radioactivity, alpha i l 2: ,ce:a anc gamma, all radicact;ve forms of radioactive 21 l: materials by nearly 100 percent and in some cases as much 22 as 100 percent in fact.
23 And this is not some theory. It is fact. It 24 is a fact which has been demonstrated many times around 25 :he planet today. And even one demonstratior was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
I 1
I 65li 1 1
1 witnessed by five U.S. Cepartment of Energy sctentists .
l 2 with their geiger counters in hand. As they witnessed the 1
l u
a
- a . - a---
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coa t Orcppea from a 1,000 reac..ing on
- 1 1
4
,ltn= r Feiger ccunters to .;;.
I 1
5, In the People's Republic of China where the 6
government builds Brown's gas machines today and have a l 7 team of scientists working under Professor Brown's 5
direction for years, they performed an experiment with 9
Americium -- I'm not a scientist -- which was produced by
- D decaying plutonium.
1 l
_he experiment yleidea. a oefore geiger counter
. . . 1
-- 2 l
l 12 reading of 16,000 curies per minute of radiation and an 13 after reading of 100, about the same as the background 14 radiation reading in the laboratory where the experiment l
- 5 was takinc place. ~ For years Professor Brown gave '
l 16 demonstrations in southern 2alifornia of this marvelous 17 process that modern day nuclear theory cannot explain.
- B Sut the facts are there and have been for a number of 13 years now.
i 2? o Ex-U.S. Congressman Berkeley Bedell witnessed I
.I 21 the demonstration of Brown's gas neutralizing radioactive 22 material, and it was his request that the Department of 23 Energy watch one of the demonstrations. In the now 24 infamous demonstration attended by the doe, the DOE 25 actually called the health department immediately after NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
t !
i I,
i
. 1 the demonstration and ::1d them there Were danger:Us
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1 4 n.scredited and even ridiculcus theories to try explaining 2 .s a , ..s. .a. a_ _ . . ._ m_ _a-a__'~e
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- 6. .r.ea_:n cepartment .fu,1 3rown was dispe-sing radioactive 7 material into the air. The health department came to 8 Brown's laboratory that very day and the demonstration was 9 c. u t on again for the health inscectors, while they
~_ C measured the air for radicactivity given off by the
_ _, ,_ x.
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. __a _.a- a..y .
12 There was complete silence by the DOE for
~3 three months after witnessing with their own eyes and 14 geiger counters the demonstration. When their report was
_: :.ssued they came up with two c .s.er tneories as to wny they 16 could disre9ard what their ceic.er counters so .clain1Y told
~. 7 them.
~S
_ One was the theory t it the demonstration had encapsu_ated the radioactive material thereby hiding it i
2: q frcr the geiger counters. The theory was also totally ll 2; jdiscredited by the fact that the remaining material from n
1 22 ' the experiment was subsecuently ground into dust and the 23 geiger counter reading remained the same at 40.
24 The third theory by the DOE observers was a 25 little strange by scientific standards. They theorized NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON. D C 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433
'i l
o ..l 1 i':ha; the demcnstration screhcw chang =d the shape cf the -
2 :imaterial and somehow after hid it from the geiger
".1 9 r s .
2 That theory :s se b123rre that nobody but the 4
- .I :: servers themselves can make any sense of it.
5 The response cf he DCE was se strange tha 6 ".S. Ccngressman Dan iialey remember New York himself 7 investigated the DCE r'esponse and not only verified B everything that I am sw .' q ct;nling nere but he got it published 9 in the newsletter of the Flanetary Association of Clean
- 0 Energy, called PACE, in
- ..e July 6th, 1993, issue.
11 The time for theorizing to explain away 12 scientific data is over. The data has been produced many l l
l 13 times now, en at least three panels. We have no faitn in !
~ l 14 the United States government, the Department of Energy or I 15 big industry to give this undeniable data the fair 16 hearing. We scheduled a safe public demonstration in 17 Philadelphia on September 23rd of 1996 attended by 5,000 18 ; people and the DCE and NRC would not give us the i
13 permission to do it.
I 2: j The lives of Americans and all the people on p,
Il 2; Ethe .clanet and everY future -ceneration that we can 22 perceive are threatened by the nuclear insanity. And tne 23 abrogat;cn of the duty to the public interest by the 24 exposed guardians of the public interest including or 25 maybe especially the media who wouldn't utter a word about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE SLAND AVE , N W (202) 234-4433 WASHlNGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
1
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full-page ads that we ran across the country l
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ll 5 ,I i ae co nc: want :o ta.x accut neutralizing i
7 radicactive material. We do not want to theorize about e neutralizing materia . . n. ey nave a,. ready neutralized . .
9 nuclear material and they are going to continue 10 neutralizing nuclear material. And some day soon they i
11 wl.1 have to rewrite the physics books. There are 12 theories today that try to explain what is going on, but 13 they aren't important when compared to the facts.
14 I"ve seen this machine. I've held onto it, 15 how it produces the gas. : have stood there and watched i
16 them do the radioactive waste. I can't explain it, but 17 I've seen it. This just goes en to sa some more things is about how you'll just " ave to see it. . They are going to
'9 pu: on a demonstration within this year. It'll probably i
20 qce in South Carolina. : have information numbers. I h
21 can't bring everything -- cut people to contact, to talk 22 to, every interesting stuff. : just takes an open mind.
.o . hank you.
24 MR. HARRIS: The next person I have on the .
1 25 list is Doris Schaller, Don't ~4aste Michigan.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433 a
q 7e-u i
vs, 3cgA;,gg: vy name is Ocris Schaller. !
2l represent the Northern Chapter cf Don't Waste Michigan.
1 I
3 .:'- , 50 a board member of the State Don't Waste Michigan.
4 A part of decermissioning has to do with what
- ,;nappens to One nign eve _ waste. We understand in NRC has i
I 6 spent over 52 m.illion researching Yucca Mountain for a 7 repository for this waste. The feasibility of being a el 8 safe permanent storage site is still questions-by LA 9
authorities /as cientific American.
13 Thankfully you are still in the paperwork 11 stage. We recornend that you solve the problem of the 12 defective casks that are storing high level nuclear waste 13 in 13 casks on the shores other Lake Michigan at Palisades 14 before you continue more with the repository. The press 15 release that : have here was in a local paper on the 24th, 16 I believe. It was page 5. The Nuclear Regulatory 17 Commission ignores a senator's requests and citizens' call 18 for a congressional i.-vestigation of placing high level 19 nuclear waste on the shores of Lake Michigan in defective i
2 0 l casks. No, I'm not going to read this long paper. I will 21 1, leave it for you. But I will continue to tell you what I 22 kncw.
A <-
23 l There was two incidents, one at Palisades site 24 and the other -- in Michigan and the other at Point Beach 25 Nuclear Plant. And both of these on are the Great Lakes.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIE,ERS 1323 RHCDE ;SLAND AVE . N W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
4
. ~_: i l
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'And h incidents, which : tells in this press release, 2 remains unsolved regarding the VSC-24 casks. You have 3 a3:=. ed that vou do not ". ave the expertise for the i
4 q
regu..a: cry judgments necessary to solve this problem, yet i
5 ,f u nsfertheless resis the assistance Of curside groups 6 such as the National Association of Corrosion Engineers 7 that do have specific expertise in the problem that can e affect the storage of high level waste on all of our 9 freshwater supplies in the United States.
I i
1: Citizens ha.e petitioned you to no avail as 11 has Senator Carl Levin to conduct a third-party review of l
l 12 these casks, which las for 20 years, while the contents 13 remains radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years.
14 Without responding in any credible way to these petitions, 15 you have allowed loading of the VSC-24 casks recently in 1
1 16 Arkansas. And we have :: ask why.
17 This press release is given on -- signed by l l
16 Mary Sinclair, Don't Waste Michigan co-chair. And the 19 comment on the bottom, the main issue here is that, while .
l l l 2 the NRC admits it does not have the expertise for the we i 21 regulatory judgment it is routinely m=e& .
,h, this agency l e;;$r 1
22 nevertheless resists the assistance of the National 23 Association of Corrosion Engineers. And I'll leave this 24 on the table that you can take it up and see the documents 25 about it.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W
,202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
, ~:s
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_ tnank you.
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6 '< R . HARR:S: \
Mr. Mike Winnell, fou're next. j 1
7 MR. WINNELL: Two comments. i B
The first One is : want to restate the '
(
3 conclusions that were del _ved by Marvin Resnikoff in the v,- -s . 3 i ana.ys.;o c .c
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11 to be called. I recommend that SAFSTOR.be the preferred 1
12 option and that the term of SAFSTCR be e>: ended from 27 to l
,3.. around 50 years.
14 Number two, with no form of immediate 15 dismantlement or decon reut:11 zed thereby reducing worker 1
1 16 and public raliation exposure and reducing the waste l 1
. . , I
_< volume.
- t. _, N,u m c.er tnree, tnat a l _, runcing to cecommission is j 1 0_ Rock Point .cresently estimated to be $290 million be 1 i
2: g in '.and as of May 200C. l d And four, maybe Mr. Jim Rang answered this 2'.j 22 ene, the contingency f actor ut:.lized by TLG Engineering to 23 estimate uncertainties and decommissioning costs be 24 increased to 25 percent, the number used by NRC, DOE and 25 previously TLG Engineering. And 2 would like -- maybe NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOCE ISLAND AVE . N W (202) 234-4433 WASH 6NGTCN O C 20005 3701 (202) 234 4433
'1 y-3 .v . . . . g.4
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i id Number five, the dismantlement logistics need
^
. 5. ze scrrected and placed .: sync with the rea'ity of .
- I 5 high level waste pr gram.
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, , , 7 3,, aa l e f j critically evaluate increasing the spent fuel pool i
7 capacity from 441 to 500 or so fusi assemblages thereby .
1 1
S assuring the public welfare that there are no unresolved E.59 9 safety issued under 10 CFR-$~~rse l 1
.,i,
.. and seven, that -.cw . eve., ana nign _, eve _,
l 1
i
- radioactive waste should remain on site until long term ;
12 re.cositor'/ sites are established. I cot one more thin 9 13 and I'll sit down.
14 I ~have and I think some of us on this side of 15 the table have a philosophical difference with the 16 producers of the waste. And I've told this to Tim 17 Petrosky in meetings, I told this to all you all -- you 13 Sig Rock folks have been when I've been arouna before.
I i
.9 g And that's that I anyway am willing to work with you on a
4 2: uwha: to do with the waste, but you all have to voluntarily I
quit producing it. Because until it stops being produced, 21l t 22 ' cur problem is -- amounts, it's getting taller. And I 23 don': like the fact that we have to deal with it now. But 24 I don't need a bigger mountain to bear. So, you know, 25 that's a real philosophical difference.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE , N W (202) 234-4433 WASHtNGTON O C 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
i
, ..j :
- ! Ana, you .<now,
- ' ve sata en:.s cercre, you all 1 -
1 i
I 2 have produced it for profit for your industry and
- - ; - _. c s e ' f e s .
Sun now we're a: the other end of the cycle
-; .2 .ccu want the federal government; that is, all us E taxpayers; to take your pile of waste and take care of it f
6 for the rest of our children's, children's, children's, 7 children's -- won't evbr be able to deal with it.
3 So, you know, philosophically we live on 9 different planets. Sut somehow we got to communicate.
_: Secause without that and without stopping the pile from
- getting higher, we're fighting a losing battle. I mean,
- 2 just a little.cf it has to get out and we've got a
- 3 significant problem here in northern Michigan let alone 14 what happens in the rest of the world if it gets out from
- 5 cther places simultaneously. And Chernobyl was the bell 16 wez.ther experience of what happened. And that really 17 wasn't that big.
13 MR. HARRIS: Mike, if you'd like to get those 9 questiens to me. The next person is Mr. Robert Addy.
2: .
MR. ADDY: I dor't have anything.
ti 2; I MR. HARRIS: Tamara.
l l
22 MS. STEVENS: 'm Tamara Stevens from the -- l l
l l
23 MR. HARRIS: Sorry. I couldn't read the last l
l 24 name. .
I 25 MS. STEVENS: Tamara Stevens from the Petoskev NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHOCE ISLAND AVE.. N W.
(202) 2344433 WASHINGTON, D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 l
l 9M I /
I
~ I N'ews-Review. YOu keep saying that after fou evaluate all j
i 2
o fthe different stages of the decommissioning that you would 2 ~Ar make a recommendation to terminate the license or 4
o
.:: .lha: would happen if you determine that your
- r
_ t . . .
- rare:Ormen=ation wou_ .. ce to no: terminate ne . cense?
6 I've never heard anybody talk abou: that. Wha: would Big 7 Rock be then?
8 MR. HARRIS: Well, Sy, you want to help me out 9 here?
10 MR. WEISS: :f the license is not terminated, 1 11 then the licensee is still responsible for continuing to 12 clean up the site until such site that the contamination l
l 13 levels, the radiation levels, whatever is causing the l l
14 problem, is removed. '
l
.: A. S . e t ch.-,.-,3 :
. n, a n x. you. l 1
16 MR. HARRIS: Patrick? I 17 PATRICK No comments.
18 MR. HARRIS: Chuck Center again?
19 l MR. HAGGARD: Chuck left.
1 4
2 MR. HARRIS: Okay. John Haggard? !
i 21 l i MR. HAGGARD: Thank you. John Haggard, H-A-G- 1 i
t 22 C- - A - R - D , Charlevoix.
l I
23 And I've been kind of maybe a thorn in the 24 side of some of the Consumers Power people over the years 25 since I've been involved in it in 1992 knowing that NEAL R. GROSS i
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE !SLAND AVE., N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234 4433 1
t
~
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- jdectr~.;ssioningwasgoing00 star C .- May 20th of the year'
~
l 2 ,20:: Basically I' strcng supper:er of alternate fuel
- wh+:ner it's coal, gas, water and/cr nuclear. Censumers 4 .a.s ceen a very gced friend of ncrthern Michigan, has done 1
wha: _s needed :o be done in order to produce power for 6 the growing northwest Michigan.
7 I have heard tonight fror the NRC staff that 8 the power plant here in Charlevoix, the Big Rock plant, is 9 operated safely, is a safe plant and it is operating under i
10 the rules of the NRC and _perates very efficiently.
i 11 So therefore I'm glad Senator Levin's staff is 12 here tonight. Maybe with the help of his staff, the NRC 13 and Consumers to -- what the reporter just asked -- extend 1
1 14 the license of the plant for the t me tnat it was being I l
15 constructeo, which is, I believe, about three years, and l 16 then possibly extend beyond in order to provide the 1
17 necessary power to the ncrthwest Michigan -- or 18 ncrthwestern part of the State of Michigan into the 21st 1 3 ;1 Century.
i 2: lle Therefore, : request that the staff recommend 21 i:0 the NRC that the decommissioning be denied because the 22 plant usefulness still exists. Thank you.
23 MR. HARRIS: Thank you, . John, for the comment.
24 Mr. Dale Anderson?
25 MR. ANDERSON: Yeah. Again it's Dale NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
- ~3!
'l:,
1 Anderson, with an "C." I made ,y tcrment. And I fust 1
2[want to reaffirm that there wtli be no fuel stored in the ,
1
- ce=.ntr after the last day it's stopped running.
i I'- having trouble reading )
4 MR. HARRIS: Okay. 1 5 ,th;s tne. Ereman is the last name maybe.
n ;
J 6! MS. EEEMId;: Is it Joann Beeman?
1 7 MR. HARRIS: Yes. Joann.
8 MS. BEEMAN: I have a slightly undisciplined 9 signature.
'. 0 MR. HARRIS: - "appen to like it, by the way,
_ because I can't read it.
12 MS. BEEMAN: My name is Joann Beeman. I am a
^3 . Christian Environmentalist. And the thing about that kind 14 of a handle is, if it doesn't make you run away that I'm a 15 Christian, you'll certatr r want to run away -- that I'm 16 an environmentalist.
17 And so it puts everything on equal ground.
1
.s 'I Bast: ally -- a lot of times people within the church when
_3 they hear the word " environmentalist" as a crystal 2: l, worshiper and an environmentalist hear the word i
l 21 " Christian" and t. link that we have been hypocritical in 22 our duties. We've probably had a little bit of both.
23 But at any rate, I've known the Big Rock 24 people for some time. We intervened a long, long time ago 25 in the spent fuel pool expansion. Over the years, I think NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE . N W (202) 234-4433 WASH NGTON DC 20005 3701 (202) 234-4433
g .. .
t t es!
I we've learned to respect each other somewhat. And that's 2 .gten. There's still lots of differences between us, 1
- cecer.
- Eu when my little daughter started thinking at the sen of one of the nuclear engineers was really ill c_ .<tnc c
- . cute, what real.,y hit me was that very possibly in .
l l /
the next 100,000 years, we will share grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren that the children who inherit the sins 9 or the leftovers of our itves are going to be all of our 10 children. It's interesting at this time of life -- at il such an exciting time of life what we're seeing especially 12 today is how interrelated the questicns of morality and 13 science have become. We were really hit in the head with 14 this cloning thing.
15 0:.e of the things that has happened over a 16 period of years is that our scientific abilities has 17 sometimes outrun our abilities to handle those 18 technologies in any kind of a sane or a responsible way.
19 When I think of how much it costs to put a dresser in 20 istorage for one year, a dresser that isn't volatile or li l'
?~ d"sn't hot or doesn't take a concrete canister, it's 22 astronomical how much it costs to store a dresser. For me 23 to expect my children and their children's children in 24 20,000 generations to store that dresser is an 25 astronomical cost.
l I
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON. O C 20005 3701 (202) 234 4433
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6 /ery, very sobering things to me that I really know deep 7 in my soul is that maybe we can keep those oil rigs out of 1
the Jordan if we're really lucky and keep that valley l
8 9 pristine.
~C
~
But the real question is, can we be 11 responsible enough to keep acid rain from destroying the 12 core so that we are guarding a barren river? Cur real --
. what A. believe is we,re told over and over that tnis is ,. .
14 the information generation and the information decade and 15 we're going into the information century. But what we're 16 really asked to do is define who we are as human beings, 17 what kind of decisions are we going to make, how can we
'3
_ live our lives in respcnsible ways so that our children
'3 and their children and the:r children's children don't i
. , , i
- e. . nave to pay for our stupidity and our sins.
I e_ 1 guess my shor -term concern is that you guys 22 will win your suit and the federal government will take 23 charge of the waste at Big Rock. The federal government 24 does not have a good track record of taking care of 25 nuclear waste. The military sites are a mess, the NEAL R. GROSS COURT RED *ATERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE. N W (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005 3701 (202) 2344433
i l
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^xterimental sites are a .ess. : cculd see down the road ;
1 2 Ow :n :ne nuc. ear waste on s :e One reos w:. n :ne:.r cockets l
J
- - ': saying, "I'd like :c help feu but I can':."
1
- wouAo rea2.y
,. . i ove to see Consumers Power i
- _.: car" nc: crcc"-a -^*= waste. Lcve you guys, love to 3 l 1 i I
6 'l,keec you cn site, willing to pay you, just don't produce l 7 more waste. It's going to cost more guarding that waste 9 for 100,000 years than it would be to keep you guys 9 employed to the end of the lifetime of the plant. You 10 have to remember the last glacier came down over Michigan ;
1 11 1^,000 years ago. It's kind of like ban the -- this is my ;
12 last Christian rap, but it's kind of interesting to me 1
4 13 this power of battle story : always wondered when I was !
l 14 kid because I wanted to be a nuclear physicist what God 15 had against building tall things and going up high and, l 16 you know, big structures and stuff. I really like that 17 kind of thing. l 19 But I think that part of what our mythology ,
1 1
19 and my:hologies and other things have told us is that we ;
2: ,lare creatures of the earth and we are interrelated that.
ilq 21 when we touch a flower, we touch a star, that those kind 22 cf interrelations for these things, we are responsible, )
23 and that the vanity of intellect must be guarded and be 24 channeled and must be directed by a morality that is in !
1 25 each and every One of us, not just Christian, doesn't have 1
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE.. N W (202) 234 4433 WASHINGTON D C 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 1
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3 i_pht and what is wrong, wnat we earn and what we owe.
4 1.;'. l 2 think that nuclear pcWer has been a sad mistake.
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7 together to find a solution. But : think that what we 8
have to do is refocus on who we are and what we can be. ,
1 9 Thank you. j l
- 0 MR. HARRIS
- Thank you, Ms. Beeman. Mr.
. 1 Thomas Siecel? /
l 1
- v. x s I .me,oz.a : g,
.4o comment. 4 j
_a .y .o . -:nne . -
...-.d: _.s there anyone e.,se who wou,c. .
'4 like to make a' comment for the record or a question?
.: y- --.-,
7,a , .
t w :.r.ntvR u.de....--,,:
... e w O x, a y . . m .1x,e to on 16 behalf of the NRC and Big Rock thank everybody for coming 17 tonight. If you have any more questions you'd like to ask
- S these people, :'m sure they would s e end a few minutes with
- ? you. Thank you al' for coming.
2 0 ll ,
Meeting concluded at approximately 9:35 p.m.)
..l
-. l ll ll 44 9-64 R a es 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPCRTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE IS'JND AVE . N W.
'202) 234-4433 NASHlNGTON O C 20005 3701 (202) 234 4433
1 2
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CERTIFICATE ,/. ,,/ / ^
This is to certify that the attach,e/ d 5fi,f
)
proceedings before the United States Nuclear 7 -
/
Regulatory Commission in the matter f,t I
/
/
i Name of Proceeding: DECOMMISSJONING OF BIG ROCK NUCLEAR l POWER PLANT l
/ i Docket Number: df/N 5';- PIs i
/ &c l Place of Proceeding:/ CHARLEVOIX, MAR were held as herein a./ppears, and that this is the original !
i transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear
/ b Regulatory Comnf'ission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to -
//by me or under the direction of the court t typewriting / ;
reporting ' company, and that the transcript is a true and l l
accurate / record of the foregoing proceedings. ;
/ 7 / l
' Jun 0~ , hw
/ TERESA A." SOTUYO *
/ Official Reporter j
/ Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc. !'
/
/ !
I i
/ !
1 i
i
/
I NEAL R. GROSS -
COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE IS!.AND AVENUE,NW (202)2344433 WASHINGTON.DC. 20005 (202)234 4433
l 3-13-1997 4:29Pt4 FROta P. 2 -
g2cf\ . -e \
t I
e CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of: '
Name of Proceeding: PUB ~IC MEETING ON BIG ROCK POINT !
PDSAR Docket Number: 50-155 Place of Proceeding: CHARLEVOIX, MICHIGAN i
were held as herein appears, and that this is the original !
transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript ir. A true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
Btsu zile--
/TERESA A7 8dITUY6 official Reporter Neal R. Gross and Co., Inc.
e NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RNoDE ISLAND AVENUE.hv (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON,D.C 20005 (202)234 443)
l-
)
i Big Rock Point PSDAR Public Meeting i
l March 4,1997 1
I sV D-Plan Filed with NRC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 27, M9 i is u
. Surcharge Adjustment Filing 'with MPSC . . . . . . . M a rc h 1, t99
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- NRC Public Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M a y 1 1, M9 i nsu Request to Hold D-Plan Review in Abeyance . . February 14,199
)
-l l'11 b MPSC Order on Surcharge Request ........... April 10, t99 iss t NRC Final Decommissioning Rule Effective . . . August 28, t99
, mu Request to Convert D-Plan to PSDAR . . . . . . . September 5, M9 h97
.JRC Public Meeting on PSDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M a rc h 4, t99
n'g Rock Point Nucteer Rant Decommissioning fian Revision: 0 SAFSTOR DECOMMISSIONING ALTERNATIVE SHUTDOWN MAJOR PERIODS 10/1993 5/2000 V g U2001 3 FUEL SHIPMENT TO D-PLAN & DOE COMPLETE PRE." FOR or202e SHUTDOWN T7 ttw REPOSITORY AVAtLABLE V sr2027
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,,,, {1I Nuclear Regulatory Commission ,,,,,,,,,,
PUBLIC MEETING ON BIG ROCK POINT NUCLEAR PLANT i DECOMMlSSIONING .
i March 4,1997 -
Paul W. Harris Project Manager l l
Non-Power Reactor;and Decommissioning Project Directorate -
Division of Reactor Program Management Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
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i NRC PARTICIPANTS Seymour Weiss, Director, Non-Power Reactors and Decommissioning Project Directorate (PDND),
I Division of reactor Program Management (DRPM), Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR)
- Ann Hodgdon, Senior Attorney, Office of the General Counsel
- Richard Dudley, Senior Project Manager, NRR/DRPM/PDND
- Linh Tran, Project Manager, Division of Reactor Projects,. Project Directorate IV-2
- Etoy Hylton, Licensing Assistant, l NRR/DRPM/PDND
- Bruce Burgess, Chief, Division of Reactor Projects (DRP), RGIII
- Ronald Paul, Ssnior Radiation Specialist, Division ,
of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, RGIII l
- Carey Brown, NRC Resident Inspector BRP, DRP, RGIII
- Angela Dauginas, Office of Public Affairs, RGIII
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PURPOSE Provide general information 'on decommissioning reactors Share experience in decommissioning ,
Explain decommissioning regulations ;
Discuss decommissioning of the Big Rock Point facility i
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{ < United States
\., ,,,fA,1 , ~ Nuclear Regulatory Commission
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' THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION ,
Regulates uses of nuclear material in the U.S. to protect public health and safety and the environment by:
- establishing standards and regulations
- issuing hcenses
- inspecting to ensure compliance i
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\, , <fi Nuclear Regulatory Commission un <. ,m DECOMMISSIONING IN GENERAL Decommissioning - To remove a facility safely from service and to reduce residual radioactivity at the facility and site to a level that '
permits the release of the site and termination of the license
- NRC staff focus, in part, is to assure the safe removal of radiological hazards by:
promulgating standards and regulations, conducting inspections, l cvaluating the licensee's final survey, and '
recommending license termination to the Commission
- BRP is responsible, in part, for:
removing the radiological hazards safely, performing the final survey, requesting license termination, and determining what to do with the facility after the radiological hazards are removed
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United States lk ?I Nuclear Regulatory Commission u,, <. ,m STATUS OF SELECTED DECOMMISSIONINGS REACTOR LOCATION SHUT DOWN STATUS Saxton Saxton 5/1/72 Dismantlement 35 MW PWR Pennsylvania Requested Shippingport Shippingport 1982 Dismantling 236 MW PWR Pennsylvania Complete 1939 Indian Point 1 Buchanan 10/31/74 Long-term Storage 615 MW PWR New York (SAFSTOR)
Dresden 1 Morris 10/31/7P Long-term Storage 700 MW BWR Illinois (SAFSTOR)
Pathfinder Sioux Falls 9/16/67 Decon and Dismantle 190 MW BWR South Dakota Complete Yankee Rowe Franklin Co. 10/1/91 Decon and Dismantle 600 MW PWR Massachusetts Almost Complete Fort St. Vrain Platteville 8/18/89 Decomissioning 842 MW HTGR Colorado Complete '
Shoreham Suffolk Co. 6/28/89 License Terminated 2436 MW BWR New York April 1995 Trojan Rainier 11/9/92 Decon and Dismantle 3411 MW PWR Oregon Almost Complete
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\.,;,,,fi Nuclear Regulatory Commission u,, ,. , m DECOMMISSIONING OPTIONS It's the licensee decision to chose ho7v to decommission Dismantlement and decontamination (DECON) .
- Long-term safe storage (SAFSTOR)
Combination of DECON and SAFSTOR NRC does not have a preference as long as the regulations are followed Decommissioning does not have the significant potential to impact public health and safety as does power operations At BRP, fuel is currently stored in the spent fuel pool, however, ,
Consumers Power is evaluating whether to construct a dry cask -
fuel storage system l
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I DECOMMISSIONING REGULATIONS G
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DECOMMISSIONING REGULATIONS Money Regulations License application must detail a decommissioning funding plan (50.33(k))
Periodically epdated Adjusted for labor, energy, and radwaste waste burial charges
- Report for the management of all irradiated fuel (50.54(bb))
- Active until Department of Energy takes title to the fuel
- Preliminary decommissioning cost estimate (50.75(f)) .
- Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report (50.82(a)(4)) i
- Requires an estimate of decommissioning costs
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%., ,,,,,/ Nuclear Regulatory Commission ,,,,,,,,,,
t DECOMMISSIONING REGULATIONS Other Safety Regulations
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POST-SIIUTDOMW DECOMMISSIONING ACTIVITIES REPORT s'PSDAR)
- The BRP Decommissioning Plan (Feb 27,1995) t
- Required licensee certifications (shutdown and fuel location) .
- Required evaluations
- Submittal of license termination plan and final site surveys
- Completion of decommissioning within 60 years
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l DECOMMISSIONING REGULATIONS Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report The PSDAR must contain a description of:
Planned decommissioning activities Activities schedule l
- Estimate of expected costs .
- Reasons for concluding that environmental impacts are bounded i by previously issued impact statements The PSDAR must be noticed and a public meeting held i Major decommissioning activities are not allowed until 90 days after submission of the PSDAR j
- BRP may then conduct decommissioning, unless we object
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DECOMMISSIONING REGULATIONS 9
Other Safety Regulations Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Regiort (PSDAR)
- The BRP Decommissioning Plan (Feb 27,1995)
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LICENSEE CERTIFICATIONS (SHUTDOWN AND FUEL LOCATION)
+ 90 DAY WAIT PERIOD
+ REQUIRED EVALUATIONS Submittal of license termination plan and final site surveys Completion of decommissioning within 60 years
_ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _________.____.____.______m . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ . .
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DECOMMISSIONING REGULATIONS Required Evaluations
- From Power Operation: -
- Security Plan
- Emergency Preparedness Plan 1
Plant modifications Others In addition, a decommissioning licensee is prohibited from doing any activity that:
1 forecloses the release of the site for possible unrestricted use; or results in significant environmental impacts; or results in there no longer being reasonable assurance that adequate funds will be available for decommissiomng
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DECOMMISSIONING REGULATIONS BRP in May/ June 2000
- Conduct a Safe and Orderly Shutdown Transfer reactor fuel to the spent fuel pool (and/or ISFSI)
Submit their required certifications for shutdown and fuel storage
- Conduct initial decommissioning activities Enter into long-term storage or dismantlement (to be finalized) l
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\., ,,, ,f.i Nuclear Regulatory Commission un <. :m
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DECOMMISSIONING REGULATIONS Other Safety Regulations Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report (PSDAR)
The BRP Deconunissioning Plan (Feb 27,1995)
Required licensee certifications (shutdown and fuel location) ,
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- 90 day wait period
- Required evaluations
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SUBMITTAL OF LICENSE TERMINATION PLAN AND FINAL SITE SURVEYS i Completion of decommissioning within 60 years
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DECOMMISSIONING REGULATORY PROCESS License Termination: Contents The plan contains: -
- A site, characterization raag.A Identification of remaining dismantlement activities Plans for site remediation t Detailed plans for the final radiation survey l
Description of the end use of the site, if restrictions are imposed Updated site-specific cost estimate of remaining costs Supplement to the environmental report describing any new information or significant environmental change
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\.,[,,h. Nuclear Regulatory Commission wa. nm DECOMMISSIONING REGULATORY PROCESS License Termination Activities
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- Plan receipt will be noticed in the FEDERAL REGISTER and the Pl an will be made available for public comment j Opportunity for a hearing on the plan and a Public Meeting
- The plan will be approved by i.ssuance of a license amendment Licensee continues activities including a terminal radiation survey t i
NRC may perform a confirmatory survey i
- License terminated if the plan was followed and the termination survey and associated documentation demonstrates that the facility and site are suitable for release. !
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- s,, ,,,,,/ Nuclear Regulatory Commission u,, a. ,m i DECOMMISSIONING REGULATIONS Other Safety Regulations
- Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report (PSDAR)
- The BRP Decommissioning Plan (Feb 27,1995)
- Required licensee certifications (shutdown and fuel location)
- 90 day wait period
- Required evaluations
- Submittal of license termination plan and final site surveys
+ C0hfPLETION OF DEC0hihilSSIONING WITHIN 60 YEARS
ADDRESSES and NRC POINTS OF CONTACT Local Public Document Room Nodh Central hiichigan College 1515 Howard Street Petoskey, MI 49770 Decommissionine Project Manaeer Project hianager. Plant Operations h!r. Paul II. Harris, Project Manager Ms. Linh N. Tran, Project Manager U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Mall Stop O-11-D20 Mall Stop O-14-E13 -
Washington, DC 20555-0001 Washington DC 20555-0001 ,
i Office phone 301-415-1169 Office phone 301-415-1361 L M ail: PWHi@NRC. gov LMail: LNT@NRC. gov Reeional Inspection Activities At BRP Mr. Bruce Burgess, Division of Reactor Projects U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 801 Warrenville Road i Lisle, Illinois 60532 l l
Office phone 630-829-9629 Email BLE@NRC. gov I
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P.O. Box 1406, McAfee, NewJersey 07428 .
Phone: (2011827-9901, Fax: (201)827-0494 -
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03/04/1957 13: 06 2012030?33 %T PAGE 02
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i Neutralization of Nuclear Material f
Over twenty five years ago, Bulgarian-bom inventer Yu!! Brown discovered, through his research into the properties of water, a substance today I krxwn as Brown's Gas. Professor Brown discovered a new foin of cicetrolysis that broke water down into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxyoen. And he did it in a way such that the resutting hydrogen and oxygen can be kept a together in a non-explosive mixture. Normally c:<ygen and hydrogen art. ' cry explosrve when put together, but Brown's Gas is not. In fact, when it id ignited, it implodes. That feature abne has raised the eyebrows of scientists across the planet for the last twenty-five years. ,
- But what is amazing, and even miraculous, about the flame produced by
- buming Brown's gas, is that it has nearly thirty potential inductrial applications at last count, one of which is the ability to reduce the radioactivity (Alpha, Beta, and Gamma, all radioactive forms.) of radioactive matenals by nearly 100%, and in some cases so far, by as much as 100% in fact. And this is not some theory, it is
- fact. It is a fact which has been demonstrated many times around the planet today, and even one demonstration was witnessed by five U.S. DepaNment of Energy scientists, with their Geiger counters in hand, as they witnessed the l radioactivity of Ccbalt 60 drop from a 1,000 reading on their Geiger counters to 40.
I In the People's Republic cf China, where the govemment builds Brown's Gas machines today and had a team of scientists working under Professor Brown's direction for years, they performed an experiment with Americium, which was produced by decaying Plutonium. The experiment yielded a before Geiger counter reading of 16,000 curies per minute of radiation, and an after reading of ,
100, about the same as the background radiation reading in the laboratory where the experiment was taking place. For years Prcfessor Brown gave demonstrations in Southem Califomia of this marvelous process that modem day nucicar theory cannot exp!ain. But the facts are there, and have been for a number cf years now.
Ex-U S. Congressman Berkeley Bedell wMnessed the demonstration of Brown's Gas neutrafizing radioactive material, and it was his request that the Department of Energy watch one of the demonstratsns. In the now infamous demonstration attended by the DOE, the DOE actually called the Health DepsNment immediately a'ter the demonstration, and told them there were dangerous demonstrations going on at Professor Brown's laboratory. The DOE observers then made the first of three discred:ted, and even ridiculous, theories to try explaining away what their Geiger countes told them. They told the health department that Yull Brown was dispersing radioactive material into the air. The beslth department came to Brown's laboratory that very day, and the demonstration was put on again for the health inspectors, while they measured the air for radioactivity being given off by the experiment. They didn't find any.
There was complete silence by the DOE for three months after witnessing w!:h their own eyes (and Geiger counters) tne demonstration. When their report was issued, they came up with two other thecries as to why they cou!d disregard i
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what their Geiger counters so plainly told them. One was the theory that the demonstration had encapsulated the radioactive material, thereby hiding it from the Geiger counters. That theory was also totally discredited by the fact that the remaining material from the experiment was subsequently ground into dust, and the Geiger counter reading remained the same, at 40.
The third theory by the DOE observers was a little strange by scientific standards. They theorized that the demonstration somehow changed the shape i of the material, and somehow, again, hid it from their Geiger counters. That theory is so bizarre that nobody but the OOE observers themselves can make .
1 any sense of it.
The response of the DOE was so strange that U.S. Congressman Dan Haley from New York himselfinvestigated the DOE response, and not only verified everything that I am stating here, but he got it published in the newsletter of the Planetary Association of Clean Ener y, called PACE, in the July 6",1993 issue.
The time for theorizing to explain away scientific data is over. The date has been reproduced many times now on at least three continents. We have no faith in the United States govemment, the Department of Energy, or big industry to give this undeniable data a fair hearing. We scheduled a safe, public demonstration in Philadelphia on September 23 of 1996, attended by five l l
thousand people, and the DOE and NRC would not give us permission to do it.
The lives of all Americans, and all the people on the planet, and every future generation that we can foresee, are threatened by this nuclear insanity, and the abrogation of the duty to the public interest by the supposed guardians of the public interest, including, or maybe especially, the media, who wouldn't utter a word about a public meeting in Philadelphia where the neutralization of nuclear
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materiafs was going to be performed. The or.ly publicity we could get were the full-page ads that we ran across the country ourselves.
We do not want to ta!k about neutralizing radioactive material. We do not want to theorize about neutralizing material. They have already neutralized nuclear reaterial, and they are going to continue to neutralize nuciear material.
And someday soon the ivory towers of America can come up with their theories about how it is getting done. They are going to have to rewrite their physics books. There are theories today that try explaining what is going on, but they aren't important when compared to the facts.
In 1906 the prevailing scientific theories regarding heavier-than-air flight said it was impossible, and the Scientific American even attacked the Wright Brothers for being hoaxers in 1906, three years after they first flew, and had been flying for years in front of thousands of witnesses. For almost five years not one of the invited members of the govemment, scientific and media establishments could be bothered to travel to the field where Wright Brothers were flying in front of startled witnesses, a number of the invitees even having photographs in their hands of the Wright Brothers' plane in flight. In fact the local newspaper, The Dayton Daily News, actually complained in print about all the letters iney were receiving from startled witnesses, asking people to stop sending them letters. '
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And still they couldn't bother to have a reporter literally walk over to the field and watch what so many people were writing letters to the paper about.
It wasn't until 1908 that Teddy Roosevelt finally arranged for the Wright Brothers to come to Fort Myers, and they flew over a town for a week, and then it couldn1 be daniadmlymera. That kind of reception by the governmental, scientific and media e6b%hmentus. alive and well today, and in many ways worse than it was at the beginning of4hiscentwy.
Thomas-Edison's-announcement of the perfection ofincandescentlighting was greeted similarly, andthe entire 1 scientific establishment called Edison's fight bulb a fraud, and refusedio come watch him light up Menlo Park at night with his fraudulent light bulbs. But the public came and watched the night get fit up. They didn1 have any theories that told them it couldn't be done. They came to see it done.
Better Worid Technology and Professor Yuti Brown are planning to invite the American and world public to a live demonstration of the neutralization of radioactive material, and weare challanging the American govemment and industry to come with as many lostruments as they want, so they can verify the facts for themselves, and they can leave their theories at home. And then we are going to ask them to get out of the way, so the people of this planet can tid themselves of one of the greatest threats to continued life on aarth, with no thanks to the guardians of the public interest.
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DUiii W6 & MILHIGAN P.O. BOX 130593 '
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN -
Presse Release D, ate: Jan. 16,1997 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ignores a Senator's Request-Citizens Call for a Congressional investigation of Placing High Level Nuclear Waste on the Shore of Lake Michi,gan in Defective Casks. l l The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ignored the request of Senator Carl l Levin to respond to petitions of fachigan citizens who have asked f0r a halt in the j l
load;ng of VSC-24 casks with high level nuclear waste pend:ng the resolution of l numerous safety issues in its design.
- i in rescense. Ocn't Waste M.chican has asked Senator Lev;n to call for g I Conoressionalinvestication of the load'no cf hich level nuctear waste H defective l casks on the shore of Lake Michican. ,
. "This is another example of the arrogance and ignorance that has character- ;
i Ized the handling of nuclear issues on the part of Dovemment agencies since the ;
f beginning of the nuclear age
- said Mary Sine' air, co chair of Don't Waste l Michigan.
- Protecting our fresh water supp'ies from the self serving maneuvers of this agency (NRC) without regard to public hea th and safety is a major national l
securityissue that Congress must Investigate," she added. ,
l Senator Carl Levin responded to the requests of many Michigan citizens in l Oct.,1996, who asked that the NRC answer their petitions asking for the ha!! to further. loading of VSC-24 casks. Thirtean of these types of casks are loaded with
. l high level nuclear waste on the shore of Lake Michigan at Palisades. j
,On of the petitions is dated Sect. 18.1995 which documents all the questions about unloading procedures that were still unresolved a year after Consumers Powers Co. had announced in August, '94, that it would unload a cask with a defective weld at the Palisades site and then was unable to do so. The untoadina crocedures for this cask remain unresolved. The bich tevel waste within them will rematn toxic for thousands of vears far bevond the Useab!e Ufet'me of these casks which are licensed by the NRC for 20 vears, The other cetition is dated October 18.1996.!! coints out that the ernlosion that occurred in a VSC-24 cask loaded wi'h hiah level nucleer waste on Mav 28.
1J96f at the Point Beach nuclear olant in Wisconsin also en Lake Michioan. was a covete surorise to the vendor of the ensk. Sierra Nuctear Corocration the utees and the NRC. This indrcates the cask was nct adecuateiv reviewed before it was cert:fied. .
The Concerns in the Oct.18, '98 pet. tion document the corrcsion prob! ems of these casks. These issues were evaluated for this petitien by a highly qualified consu!! ant. Dr. Rudolf Hausler, who was retained in the past by the Electric Power Research Institute to resolve a significant cortesion prob!em affecting the entire nuclear industry.
Senator Levin also requested the NRC to contract with the National Ascociation of Corrosion Engineers (NACE) to conduct a third party independent review of the design of this cask. NACE has stated to Don't Waste Michigan tnat it offers this type of sen/ ice to govemment agencies or society as part of the mis-sion nf their organization, and is ready to do so on this prob!em.
The NRC has ignored this request by Michigan's Senatcr Levin and a!! owed the loading of a VSC-24 cask in Arkansas without responding to the issues raised in the c!!!zens' petitions in any cred b'e way. Dr. HauCee has crovided a fu'ther nna'vsis of NRC's sh_pt'ow and inaccurate ren!v. cart of which he ca!!s "stunninolv ionerant * '
For further information cal! Mary Sinclair-517-835-1303.
l Comment (on press release Jan. 16,1997)
THE MAIN ISSUE HERE IS THAT WHILE THE NRC ADMITS IT l DOES NOT HAVE THE EXPERTISE FOR THE REGULATORY JUDG-l MENTS IT IS ROUTINELY MAKING. rHIS AGENCY 16 NEVERTHE-LESS RESISTING THE ASSISTANCE OF ANY OUTSIDE GROUP SUCH AS National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE)
THAT DOES HAVE SPECIFIC EXPERTISE IN A PROBLEM OF GREAT IMPORTANCE THAT CAN AFFECT THE STORAGE OF HIGH LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE ON ALL OUR FRESH WATER SUPPLIES IN THE COUNTRY.
Doris Schafer, Member Don't Waste Mthyan, Northern Chapter
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