ML20141F852
| ML20141F852 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Issue date: | 05/15/1997 |
| From: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| To: | |
| References | |
| REF-10CFR9.7 NUDOCS 9705220068 | |
| Download: ML20141F852 (116) | |
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l UNITED STATES OF AMERICA l l
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
BRIEFING ON STATUS OF IILW PROGRAM -
PUBLIC MEETING Location: Rockville, Maryland i
Date: Thursday, May 15,1997 Pages: 1 - 102 '
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- 4 DISCLAIMER >
This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of i
?
the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held on
'May 15, 1997 in the Commission's office at One l
White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland. The meeting was l Lopen to public attendance and observation. This transcript ,
has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may
- contain inaccuracies.
l The transcript is intended solely for general .
informational purposes. As provided by 10 CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal or informal record of decision of the f matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this !
i transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or !
beliefs. No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to,.any statement or argument contained herein, except as i
\
the Commission may authorize.
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. 1 i 1' UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR: REGULATORY COMMISSION l
-3 ***
- 4. BRIEFING ON STATUS OF HLW PROGRAM 5 *** j
- 6. PUBLIC MEETING f
7 ***
8' Nuclear Regulatory Commission 9 Commission Hearing Room ;
10 11555 Rockville Pike ,
i 11 Rockville, Maryland .!
12 13 Thursday, May 15, 1997 14 !
i 15' The Commission met in open session, pursuant to ;
16 notice, at 9:35 a.m., the Honorable SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, l 17 Chairman of the Conmission, presiding. ,
18 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: :
19 SHIRLEY A. JACKSON, Chairman of.the Commission 20 KENNETH C. ROGERS, Member of the Commission 21 GRETA J. DICUS, Member of the Commission 22 EDWARD McGAFFIGAN, JR., Member of the Commission 23 NILS J. JIAZ, Member of the Commission i
24 25 ,
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9' .k 1- STAFF AND PRESENTERS SEATED AT COMMISSION TABLE: ,
.2- .ANNETTE-VIFTTI COOK, Assistant Secretary ,
i- l
- 3 KAREN D. CYR,-General Counsel ,
4 ' LAKE H. BARRETT, DOE '
5' WILLIAM BOYLE
-6 STEPHAN.'BROCOUM 7 STEVE FRISHMAN, State of Nevada 8 ROBERT LOUX, State of Nevada ;
9 NICK STELLAVATO,.Nye County -
10 DENNIS BECHTEL, Clark County Nuclear Waste I-
'll Division 12 ROBERT HOLDEN, National Congress of American i
13 Indians !
. 14 RICHARD ARNOLD, Las Vegas Indian Center 15 MAURICE EBEN, Pyramid Lake Paiute 16 17
. 18 f 19 20 t
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1 PROCEEDINGS 2 [9:35 a.m.). ,
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3 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Good morning,.. ladies and ;
2 4 gentlemen. .i 5 This morning, the Commission will be briefed by
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6 Mr. Lake <Barrett and his staff from the U.S. Department of 7' Energy on the status.of the Civilian Radioactive Waste 8 Management Program. In addition, the Commission welcomes 9 representatives from the State of Nevada, Nye and Clark 10 Counties, and. Native American representatives who will be 11 afforded.the opportunity to address the Commission after the 12 DOE, Department of Energy. ;
13
.The last time the Commission was briefed by the ,
14 DOE on its program was September 4, 1996. The last time the .
- 15 Commission heard from the others who are participating in !
.16 today's briefing was in September, 1994.
- 17 With the exception of Commissioner Rogers, none of 18 the other commissioners here today were on the Commission at ,
19 the last Commission briefing when state and local 20 governments and Native American tribes addressed the 21 Commission. So the Commission has been looking forward to I
, 22- this briefing and I would ask you to bear that in mind as 23 .you present whatever your material is that you cannot make 24 assumptions as to what people know and do not know.
4 25 The Department of Energy's briefing is a 4
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- 1 continuation of~a series of annual briefings by_ DOE for the t,.
2 Commission regarding the status of'its high-level waste 3 ' program. Since last September, much has happened in the >
4 high-level. radioactive waste program and we can expect more l 5 change in the future. ,
i 6 Legislation that could affect this country's high-7 level waste program is being considered by the Congress as I Mr. Barrett and I both know. :In fact, just two weeks ago, 8 j 3
9 on April 29, the Commission and the Department of Energy as
-10 well as congressional representatives from the State of 11 ' Nevada testified before the House Commerce Committee's 12 Subcommittee on Energy and Power on its views on the bill, 13 H.R. 1270. Both the DOE and the NRC are coping with reduced a
14 budgets for their respective high-level waste programs 15 although I would say we. feel, of course, we are hurting the l-16 most. And each agency has taken a hard look at its program.
17 Briefings such as today's can prove to be very 18 beneficial in times of change and diminishing resources.
19 The-free exchange of information in a public forum between 20 the two agencies and the affected parties can help to 21 optimize the utilization of resources and to effectively and 22 efficiently carry out our responsibility for this country's 23 high-level radioactive waste management program.
24 Mr. Barrett, the Commission looks forward to 25- hearing from you today on the status of DOE's high-level 1
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1: waste. program and unless the commissioners have anything to ,
2 add, I wouldLask you to begin. ,
3 MR. BARRETT: Thank you very much,' Madam Chairman. ;
s 4- As is customary, I' thought I would start the ,
5 briefing off with four or five visual representations of 6- some of the work that has happened at Yucca Mountain since ,
7 the last briefing.
8 If we could start with the first slide, please?
9 .Probably the most significant thing we have done 10 is daylighted the tunnel boring machine on April 25. What I 11 would like to do is show you -- the view that you have in 7
12 front of you is the south portal where the machine is going 13 to come out and we have about a 30-second video of the 14 machine coming out of the south portal wall.
f 15 If you could run the video, please?
16 [ Video shown.]
17 MR. BARRETT: That was very dramatic. But the '
18 real key to the work we are doing at Yucca Mountain as the 19 science and the engineering and the tunnel boring machine ,
20 was just a delivery mechanism to get into the core of the 21 program, which is the science and the engineering inside the 22 mountain in the laboratory and I would like to show you how 23 we are doing that science in the mountain, if we could have 24 the next slide, please. ;
25- This.is the schematic of the five-mile loop that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 we'did complete and I would call: attention to the. lower
- f 2 left-hand corner.is the thermal testing facility.
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3 liext slide, please.
! 4 In the' thermal testing facility, we have' started ,
4 .!.
5 some of the thermal tests which we believe are very l
6 important to the program and most constituents that follow l l 7 this program believe'that also. And there are.two main j 8 tests we are going to be doing here.
4 5f In.the upper left-hand corner is the smaller 10' thermal mechanical test and in the lower right-hand side ;
i 11 will be the larger drift scale test. And in the next 12 slides, I will show you what is going on in those two, those j
.13 two alcoves. I 14 Next slide, please.
15 This is the 30-meter thermo-mechanical test block
[ 16 where we characterize the rock very carefully. It is i
17 probably the most characterized piece of rock in the world.
18 Next slide, please.
19 We placed sensors and heaters in the very center 20 Lof that, sort of in front of the man's helmet is the four 21 kilowatt heater that is placed in the center. We have over l 22J 330 thermal sensing points as well as to check the rock 23' expansion and the temperature and the water movement.
24 Next slide, please.
4 l
25 We started this experiment on schedule last j i
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1 August. We are now gathering data.
2 Next. slide, please, i 3 And we'are nearing the-end of the data gathering 4 of the initial heat-up phase. We are'actually gathering f
i 5 thermal profiles through the rock. We can use this to !
6 calibrate 6ur models as we go forward.
7 Next slide, p] ease.
^
8 This is the predictions, so we can calibrate real 9 data in the mountain at the repository horizon versus what i 10 our models tell'us we will find in the models as we move i
11 forward in this area. !
12 Next slide, please.
13 That was the small.thermo-mechanical test. We are .
14 :u1 the process of preparing for the large drift scale test, ,
15 which will be a simulation of an actual size of an 16 emplacement drift where we will put heat in the center. We t 17 have finished the excavation of the thermal drift. We have 18 drilled over a mile of instrumented bore holes around it so .
19 we can follow temperature profiles and see the thermo- l l
20 mechanical, hydrological effects of the experiment. This is 21 the form being placed in the drift to allow for the concrete 22 liners that we expect to have in the repository.
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- 23 I'believe that is the end of the -- excuse me, the 24 large block test. Next slide, please. ,
25- We also have on the surface another experiment E
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j 1D called the large block test-that we finished and that was ;
2 :
2 ' started up this last February after we went through the l I
. 3' - budget changes last year. This test, we.will heat this .j
'4 block of roEc that is about 15 feet high.and 10 feet and, !
5 Chairman, you saw that when you were there at your trip in l 1 6 - the heat there last August.
7 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: And that was the real heat 1 8 block test.
l 9 MR BARRETT: And so that has started up. 1 i
10 Next slide, please. l 11 This is a picture of the heaters on the top and we !
12 will heat the block up. It is heating up now. And then we t
13 .
w ill disassemble the block to look very carefully at the ;
f 14- thermal,. chemical, hydrologic interactions inside the block
- 15 of the tuff. So these'are just photos of recent activities 16 that we have had in the science area.
17 When Dan Dreyfus spoke to you last September, the 18 Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program was in its 19 early stages of implementing the revised program plan, which l l
20 would be published in June of 1996. Congress endorsed that !
21 plan in the '97 appropriations act and the President's 1998 22 . budget request for the program supports its continued 23 implementation.
{
24 With adequate funding, we will complete the Yucca 25- . Mountain site viability assessment next year and maintain I '
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- 1 momentum toward the geologic disposal as set forth in the 1
2 Nuclear Waste' Policy Act. As you have mentioned, the Senate I
3 has passed a bill addressing interim storage and the House i 4 is presently considering a similar bill. The Administration 5 . opposes both of the bills and the President has indicated he ;
6 would veto either bill if presented in its current form.
7 Despite its opposition to the current legislation, 8 the Administration remains committed to resolving the 9 complex and important issue of nuclear waste management.
f I'
4 10 . Secretary Pena has stated his willingness to work' l e
11' cooperatively with the Congress on nuclear waste disposal !
12 issues. !
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13 Whatever the outcome, the federal government's i
14 longstanding commitment to permanent geologic disposal ;
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- 15 should remain the centerpiece of the nation's high-level i 16 radioactive waste management policy. l t
17 Over the last several years, the Yucca Mountain )
l j 18 project has been focusing on the major unresolved technical i 19 issues. This will permit us, by late 1998, to provide the l
~four components of the viability assessment required by the
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20 21 -'97 appropriations act. The viability assessment will give 22 policymakers key information regarding geologic disposal of 23 Yucca Mountain. The Administration has stated that this 24 assessment should be available to inform any decision 25 concerning the site for an interim storage facility.
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10 1 The viability assessment is not expected to be 2 sufficient for repository site recommendation and licensing.
3 Indeed, the viability assessment will include a p:an for l 4 additional site investigations and design work necessary for 5 preparing a complete license application. It is important 6 that, in this context, we remain clear that in considering 7 the adequacy and sufficiency of the viability assessment.
8 If expectations incorrectly elevate the viability assessment 9 to a final go or no-go decision on the repository or as an 10 agency action needed for site recommendation, then a 11 decision will be premature and not meet the requirements of 12 the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, 13 I seek the assistance of the Commission and other 14 knowledgeable groups in maintaining the distinction between 15 the viability assessment and the site recommendation.
16 Our revised program plan recognizes the need to 17 update the regulatory framework for the repository to 18 reflect policy changes since the enactment of the Nuclear 19 Waste Policy Act, the realities of budget constraints on the 20 program and, in particular, the understanding gained in more 21 than a decade of site investigations at Yucca Mountain.
22 We have considered these factors in the proposed 5
23 amendments to our siting guidelines. It is similarly 24 important that these factors be considered by the 25 Environmental Protection Agency and the Commission I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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4 11 i 1 respective 1yLin developing radiation protection standards 'i 2 and revising the licensing criteria from a repository at j
- 3 -Yucca Mountain. The Department believes that the resulting !
i 4 regulations and licensing process should focus on the issues !
5 ' central to protecting public health and safety and the
- , 6 ' environment and not require a degree of proef that is beyond i
7l 'what science ~and engineering can reascnably provide. ,
8 It is important that the revised regulations
- 9 consider the inherent limitations of performance assessment- i 1
10 and the uncertainties associated with the analyses of (
b '11- repository performance. Although these analyses provide ;
12 meaningful insights to the potential performance of the .j 13 repository system and consequences of disruptive events, the j 2
14 results should not be viewed as predictions of actual l i
15 repository performance. Used as a tool to organize and .i 16 evaluate technical information obtained during site ;
17 characterization, performance assessment can help all !
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- 18 . parties understand the potential benefits and consequences i 19 of geologic disposal. !
20 In December of 1996, we issued a notice of 21 proposed rulemaking to revise our repository siting [
22 . guidelines as they would be applied to evaluating l 23 suitability of the Yucca Mountain site. The approach we 2 41 . proposed focuses on the overall cystem performance as the i
'25.. basis for' decisions about site suitability and repository ,
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- 1 development. The suitability decision need not and should 2 not depend on individual attributes of the site outside the 3 context of an assessment of the performance of the proposed 4 engineered repository. We continue to follow with interest 5 discussions by your staff regarding potential changes to the 6 Commission's licensing. requirements. Changes that would 7 result in a simple risk-based rule are particularly 8 appropriate. Reconsideration of defense in depth and 9 subsystem performance criteria in the context of an overall 10 strategy for revisions to Part 60 is also appropriate.
11 We understand the staff intends to provide the 12 Commission with options for possible revisions to Part 60 13 later this year. We support the staff's position that the 14 Commission's consideration of possible revisions to its 15 licensing requirements should not be on the critical path of 16 the Department's revision of its citing guidelines or any 17 assessment of the viability of the Yucca Mountain site.
18 To support preparations for a license application, 19 however, it is important that the key requirements of Part 20 60 be clear by the time we initiate the final phase of 21 license application design, which is currently scheduled for 22 July of 1999. Along with the Commission, we are awaiting 23 the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed radiation 24 protection standard for a repository at Yucca Mountain. We 25' remain concerned that the agency could promulgate standards ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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. *. 13 1 for geologic disposal that would contain both' individual 2 protection and groundwater protection criteria that are 3 inconsistent with the realities of geologic disposal. t
- 4 We specifically agree with the view expressed 5 recently by the Chairman that-incorporation of separate 6 groundwater criteria would not enhance public safety.
- 7 I am pleased to report we made considerable ,
8 progress since we last reported to the Commission in 9 September. We are implementing a credible plan that 10 maintains _the progress toward a national decision on
~ 11 geologic disposal. ;
12 -
As you have.just seen, we completed the excavation !
13 of the five-mile exploratory loop on April 25. From this 14 point forward, the work will focus primarily on the thermal i
15 and hydrologic testing, confirming our understanding of the 16 rock where the repository would be constructed. In August 4
17 of 1996, we completed the initial construction in the 18 northern Ghost Dance Fault alcove. This alcove is the first i
19 of two that provide access to the Ghost. Dance Fault, a major 20 geologic feature in the repository setting. Testing in 21 these alcoves are helping to determine the flow properties 22 and the chemistry of the water in the fault zone. i R
23 We intend to construct an. additional small-24 diameter exploratory drift into the potential emplacement i 25 area to the west of the main tunnel in 1998. This will help ;
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1 to improve our understanding of the rock ~ characteristics and 2 .the hydrologic processes that are important to design, 3 construction and performance of a repository at Yucca 4 Mountain.
5 As reported to you last September, levels of ;
6 chlorine 36 well above the expected natural background :
I 7 levels were detected at five locations within the ESF. A 8 total of 189. samples covering more than four miles of the 9 exploratory tunnel have now been analyzed for chlorine 36 10 and other isotopes. Elevated levels of chlorine 36 were !
11 found in eight locations, including the five previously 12 identified. These levels are sufficiently above natural r 13 background to suggest that some water has rapidly moved from i 14 the surface to the repository horizon in the last 50 years.
15 The new data are consistent with the earlier 16 results. Rapid penetration of surface water to the 17 repository depth generally correlates with known faults in 18 the bedded tuff overlying the repository host rock.
19 We worked in critical elements of the repository )
20 in waste package design obtaining information needed as 21 input to the design process. Repository design activities i 22 addressed thermal management, performance confirmation !
23 design, waste handling emplacement and retrieval, i 24 development of system struccures and components important to -
25 safety that have little or no regulatory precedent and i
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15 l 1- design basis analysis.
2 The waste package design activities address
- 3. criticality. analysis methodology development, preliminary-4 thermal, structural and shielding analyses, containment 5 barrier fabrication,_ closure-feasibility analyses, 6 conceptual invert design and material selection. These 7 ~ efforts will support designs for components of an engineered ,
i 8 barrier system that contributes to isolation and retardation 9' of radio nuclides. [
10 We are also reviewing suggested changes to the 11 licensee support system regulation regarding working with 12 your staff to resolve'any comments that we may have. In >
13 light of the significant advances in computer technology and 14 connectivity that have occurred since these requirements 15 were last revised in 1991, the proposed change in the i i I t 16 Commission's rule appears to be most appropriate.
17 Our waste acceptance storage and transportation 18 project is focused on planning and long lead time activities l 19 that must precede the removal of spent nuclear fuel from 20 reactor sites once a federal receiving facility becomes 21 available. These activities are consistent with the 22 Administration's policy on siting an interim storage 23 facility.
24 During'the past year, we developed a market-driven 25 approach that will rely on-the maximum use of private ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- i 1 industry capabilities, expertise and experience to provide 2 the necessary services and equipment required to accept and 3 transport commercial nuclear fuel to a federal facility. We 4 are presently working to establish a competitive procurement 5 process to award fixed-price, multi-year, performance-based 6 contracts to the industry.
7 To address long lead time requirements related to 8 centralized storage, we completed a non site-specific design 9 for a centralized interim storage facility and submitted a 10 topical safety analysis report for ' nis design through your 11 staff on May 1, 1997. We believe that the staff's 12 acceptance and successful review of this report will reduce 13 the time required for subsequent preparation and staff 14 review of a license application.
15 We are working closely with the Office of 16 Environmental Management within DOE to ensure that near-17 term decisions related to the stabilization and storage of 18 department-owned spent fuel are compatible with the 19 configurations required for disposal as we know them at this 20 time. We believe that we can safety dispose of the 21 Department's inventory of spent fuel along with the 22 commercial fuel and high-level waste. We intend to enhance 23 interactions with your staff on our plans for the management 24 of this inventory and to identify potential technical and 25 licensing issues associated with disposal that may require ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 early resolution. ;
J 2 Though implementation of our revised plan has
- focused on the program key issues and maintaining momentum i ~
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! 4 of the repository program, within'the next 18 months we will i I 5 complete the viability. assessment that will serve as a 6 significant benchmark for the program. The products 7 associated with the viability assessment will provide all
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8 parties, i.icluding the Commission, a better understanding of 4
geologic disposal at Yucca Mountain and the significance of 9
10 the data available. It will also help inform ongoing 11 revisions to.the regulatory framework and guide completion ,
I 4
12 of the site characterization work.
i l 13 We intend to keep you and your staff advised of i 14 our progress and look forward to a constructive dialogue as 15 Ewe carry out our mutual responsibilities. !
16 Thank you for the opportunity to brief the i
17 Commission and I will answer any questions that you may ,
,' 18 have.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you, Mr. Barrett.
20 I should have announced this before. Because we ,
21 have quite a few presenters today, I think we are going to l
22 try and have a more structured set of Q's and A's than we i 23 would normally have. Of course, I am going to take l 24 advantage of that and start. But then we will go down the 25 line and try to have everyone comprehensively address his or f
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1 her questions to you so that we can finish in a reasonable 2 time.
3 Let me ask you, this is relative to your actual 4 submitted statement. On page 1, you talked about a schedule 5 for implementing the process with contract holders to 6 determine what actions under the standard contract would be 7 appropriate to address the anticipated delay in DOE 8 accepting spent fuel. Do you have a schedule for 9 implementing that process?
10 MR. BARRETT: We have to file a brief before the 11 Court at the end of the month. In the brief before the 12 Court, we will describe the actions that we were taking 13 under the remand from the Court to the Department. That is 14 currently being worked with in the Department and in this 15 setting I would prefer not to comment.
16 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, so perhaps I won't ask 17 you, then.
18 MR. BARRETT: After the brief is submitted then it 19 might be more appropriate to have that discussion.
20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: More appropriate to do that.
21 All right.
22 Can you talk a little bit more about the schedule 23 for submitting the license application plan? Are you l 24 coordinating this plan with the NRC staff? l I
25 MR. BARRETT: Yes, we discussed at the last l
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19 1 management meeting and within the last few weeks we did 2 discuss and present our work on that to the staff. The 3 actual date for that, Dr. Brocoum, would you -- do we have a 4 schedule as to when that would be submitted to the staff?
5 This is Dr. Steve Brocoum, who is the manager, j 6 assistant manager for licensing at the Yucca Mountain a
7 project.
8 . MR. BROCOUM: I think we have a draft LA plan _this :
- 9 fall. Then we will finalize it during fiscal year '98.
- 10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON
- Can you elaborate on your
- 11 concerns with the NRC staff's prioritization of the key ,
12 technical issues? ;
13 MR. BARRETT: This is a judgmental issue. One of f 14 the things that we believe are quite important in the ;
! 15 overall repository context is the design of the engineered ,
16 barriers and_its interaction with the natural setting.
17 In the KTIs of the Commission, design was one of 18 the ones that were ranked at a lower priority than others ,
19 when you had to deal with your budget situation as we have '
20 had to deal with ours. That is an area we think is fairly ;
21 important and I know your staff is working in that area as j 22 _best they_can under.the budget constraints.
i 23 CRAIRMAN JACKSON: This afternoon, the Commission l 24 is going to be briefed by the NRC staff on its performance 25 . assessment efforts and you alluded to this in.your comments, s
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1 20 I 4 1 Can you' flesh out a little bit more how the performance i 2 assessments.of DOE compare to the ones being developed by i 3 the NRC staff? ,
- f. 54 - MR. BARRETT: I think Dr. Brocoum or Dr. Boyle ,
5 might be better able to give you a complete answer to that.
i-6 From my perspective, they do reinforce each other, I -7 different answers, different approaches. .But nonetheless, ;
8 there is nothing there that is a surprise to me from the :
1 9 briefings that I have received.
[
! .10 Steve?
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11 MR. BROCOUM: I think we have had a lot of 12 interaction with the staff on performance assessment. We f
13 have one, I think, planned for July. My recollection is we !
, 14 ~have a two-day technical exchange.
15 I think in the last year or so there has been some ,
j' 16 convergence in the fund. Generally, the staff has had l 17 higher releases sooner. Ours had lesser releases later. I ,
think we have kind of converged in the last year as we have 18 !
f 19 taken a higher percolation flux into account.
20
{ CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Let me talk to you, and since ,
t 21 you are up there, perhaps you can stay. Maybe you could sit ;
22 down. Since I am questioning you, I will let you rest your ,
23 . legs.
- :24 ' On page~9 of Mr. Barrett's statement, you state
. . 25 'that the average percolation flux is in the range of 2 to 15 ;
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11 _ millimeters per year. Your earlier estimates of percolation 2 flux were_less than 1 millimeter per year. And you also ,
P 3 -state that accumulating evidence is that water percolates
'4 - down through the proposed repository host rock predominantly i
5 through the fractures in the rock.
6 These seem to be somewhat significant departures ,
j 7 from your earlier resulte and I guess the real 8 question -- there are two questions. One is, do you think i
9 that this new information could significantly affect-your 10 : schedules for completing the viability assessment and the 11 license application. That's question one. And, second, how 12 has it changed your testing program? '
13 MR. BROCOUM: First question, as you know, the 14 viability assessment is a point in time and it is a status l l
15 of where we are at that point in time so I don't see that it i
- _ 16 would change our viability assessment schedule.
17 With regard to license applications, we have 18 'several years of testing to go and analysis and so at the i
19 moment we don't see it changing our schedule for license ,
20 application. ;
21 And what are we doing? There are two things. One 22 is we are doing a risk mitigation -- what we call a risk 23 mitigation. We are doing several activities to the tune of 1 24 about-$14-1/2 million of enhanced site characterization 25 including constructing some niches in the ESF, some where ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- 1. therelis higher chlorine 36, one of them, and the other 2 where the chlorine'36 was not higher. Then we are going to j 1
3 . seal- up' and instrument those niches and see how the water 4 . percolates in each one and we are also going to introduce i 5: some traces'above it. ,
6 The second thing which I think is in the testimony
, 7. is, of course, we are considering east-west drift and that
-8 will-give us some more information across the block with 9 regard to the percolation of water through the repository. ;
10 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay, and one last question. f
.' 11 On pages 7 through 12, and this is a follow-on to this, you 12' talk about the various testing programs that you are 13 initiating since the tunnel has been completed. Can you 141 talk a little bit more about how you are actually l i
15 integrating the results of the various programs into one 16 overall test program?
17 MR. BROCOUM: Well, the project was reorganized 18 last November and so that under my management we have the 19 engineering, the science, the performance assessment and the 20 regulatory systems all under my responsibility. We have ,
i-21 also worked very hard to integrate doing these workshops, j 22 what.we call abstraction workshops, between the PA, the 23: engineering and the science. These are ongoing right now 1
l 24 and:the key models, different models, are key to the i 1
25 . performance assessNants.
1 i
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l l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l L Court Reporters i L .1250 I' Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 l i
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23 1 I think we have made a lot of progress in 2 integrating the project.
3 Is that reaponsive to your question?
4 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
5 Commissioner Rogers.
6 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, just right on that 7 general subject, the drift scale heater test, what is the ;
. 8 duration of that test? How long will that go?
9 MR. BROCOUM: I defer to Dr. Boyle.
10 MR. BARRETT: Dr. William Boyle is a team leader
. 11 that works for me in the area of performance confirmation.
~
12 MR. BOYLE: At least two years of heating but it 13 is not completely determined as of this point yet. We are 14 still doing some analyses. It may be as many as four years i
15 of heating and then a subsequent cool down period of 16 approximately equal length as the heat-up time. .
17 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Thank you.
18 I wonder if you could give me a little bit more 19 about your thinking on this question of bounding values on 20 page 5 of your testimony? I didn't quite understand why you 21 felt that the selection of a set of bounding values 22 necessarily introduces an excessive amount of r
23 conservativism. Doesn't that depend on what those bounding 24 values are rather than whether you actually set them? ;
25 MR. BROCOUM: Of course it depends on what they ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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24 1 are. But if you tend to, for each parameter, pick the most j i
2 conservative value, you may be in a position that you either 3 cannot design the repository or, if you can design it, you 4 cannot afford it. It is that kind of an issue. It is a i
5 tradeoff between cost, time and performance. l l
6 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, it is just that the I 7 statement here really says the simultaneous selection of j 8 bounding values for many of the key parameters could, you 9 know, compounding of conservativism could cause the analysis 10 to lose its useful insight. It seems to me that the notion 11 of bounding values is very important and, you know, you 12 don't want to abandon bounding values. It is a question of 13 how they are set.
14 So the emphasis that you just made on their being 15 very conservative at the outset is of proper concern but I 16 am just a little troubled that you might be suggesting that 17 we don't use bounding values. They have to be there.
18 MR. BROCOUM: Well, we tend to have probability ;
19 distribution functions for many of these parameters. And in 20 that way, you pick the bound as also a matter of judgment.
21 COMMISSIONER POGERS: Yes. That's all I have.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you. 1 23 Commissioner Dicus?
24 COMMISSIONER DICUS: Yes, you address 25 transportation in your written testimony and your activities ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters '
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25 1 with the transportation industry and in that you may have l
1 2 answered the question that I have and, if you did, I ;
I 3 apologize for that. But the question is, I would like to
]
4 know what the status of the topical safety analysis report 5 on transportation, what the status of that is?
6 MR. BARRETT: We don't have a specific topical 7 safety analysis report for transportation. We have a l 8 topical -- we have four topical safety analysis reports 9 presently before the Commission. Probably the most 10 significant one is the generic centralized storage facility 11 that we just submitted on May 1.
12 Prior to that, we submitted a topical safety 13 analysis report for a transfer of facility to allow the 14 utility to either be used at reactors to move from a small 15 canister to a large canister with crane limitations. Also, 16 we have incorporated that into our central storage facility.
17 If there was ever an off-normal condition that you had to 18 change, take fuel out of canisters for an off normal event.
19 So we would use it, potentially reactor licensees, 50 20 licensees could use it or we could use it.
21 We have also submitted a topical safety analysis 22 for burn-up credit which can be used for transportation 23 certifications under Part 71. Some of the technology could 24 also be used for our criticality safety analyses for the 25 repository criticality safety aspects. This is a concept ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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26 *~ j So. !
- 1. .that-is. currently used.in'the European nations as well.
i 2 we-have.been working with your staff on that for several ;
- 3 . years. i 4 In transportation, I think those'are the -
5 transportation-related ones, unless'there~is something else -
9 6 that --
l 7' COMMISSIONER DICUS: Well, given the work that you 1
8 are going to be doing with private industry on <
9 transportation, is there going to be some sort of a' report. =
10 or analysis that is going to address some of the issues that 11 will. surface with transportation? ~
e 12' MR. BARRETT: The most comprehensive part of that i 13 would be in the Yucca Mountain environmental impact l i
14 statement, which we have under way with the draft statement !
15- due in '99. That will address the entire environmental 16 aspects of the Yucca Mountain project, including i 17 transportation. So that is where it will lead into what the
{
18 transportation impacts are across the country that would be l i
19 most explicitly gone through in the draft and final l 20 environmental impact statement for Yucca Mountain. l i
21 If we ever had an interim storage facility in this .
22' country,. depending on what the structure is and the statute 23 for that,.we would also address there the transportation.
j 24 -Or if that comes after the repository, we could reference
' 25 .the repository environmental impact statement.
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1 COMMISSIONER DICUS: Okay, thank you'.
5 2 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
3 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Yes. Are there any major,.
i '
4 long-term testing that might impact on the site selection 5 and license submittal by the year 2001, 2002?
6 MR. BARRETT: For the repository?
7 COMMISSIONER-DIAZ: For the repository.
8 MR. BROCOUM: Well, the large-scale drift test 9 will probably be in the cool down phase at that point in
. 10 time, depending on how we do. We will also be doing the --
11 10 CFR 60 requires us to have a performance confirmation 12 program and as we wind down characterization activities, .
13 they will be replaced by performance confirmation activities l
14 which are designed to show you that the parameters that you I
- 15. are using for your model and performance assessments are, in ;
1 16 reality, are within those bounds or distributions. I 17 So basically we will have a performance 1
18 confirmation period. That goes on for all the time that the 19 repository is operational.
t 20 COMMISSIONER DIAZ: Yes, I know. But any of those 1 21 issues, could they potentially delay site selection if you ,
1 1
22 have a major test that is ongoing and it is not 23 substantially completed? ,
I 24 MR. BARRETT: What we have is we don't know now of 25 'any test, any specific test, that is on the' critical path ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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28 1 for -- when you say site selection, site suitability, 2' recommendations of the Secretary to the President, that 3 would be in the 2001 time frame.
4 We don't know any particular test that is on that 5 critical path. But we are doing much testing, we are doing 6 saturated zone testing, unsaturated zone testing, laboratory 7 testing, fuel testing.
8 As we learn from these tests, as we have learned, 9 for example, on the chlorine 36, we will learn things. We 10 keep a dynamic program that is flexible and adjusts on what 111 we learn. .
- 12 If we find something requires more time, we will 13 take more time. We are not going to meet the schedule, 14 regardless of what we find. But, right now, based on the 15 work we have done so far, we have not seen anything that is f 16 going to knock those schedules back.
17 Tomorrow or this afternoon I might get a call from ;
18 the project that there is something they found that could. i 19 So I don't want to say we are just not on the schedule, no 20 matter what, but there is not any one particular test that 21 is the critical path to that. It is a combination of a lot l
22 of-things as we are testing. We have schedules that have l l
23 over 4000 nodal points that take us out to license-24 application and those are dynamically controlled in a j 25 management system and sometimes it takes longer and l
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1 .sometimes you do them' shorter but, overall,'when you look at l l
.2- it and we status ~this every week in Steve's office, that we
'3 are on track atLthis point. But that doesn't mean it can't
.4 ' change. :
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Cormissioner McGaffigan. l
! 6 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I noted in your 7 statement and your formal statement as well' the co':cern that I L
8 we not become a critical path item, that we get our Part 60 }
l 9 revision complete by July of '99. You are well aware that j
- 30 that depends on EPA and we are a dependent rather than an 1 i i
11 independent variable in that.
12- What is your sense as to EPA's timing? Do you .,;
- 13. have any sense of that at the moment?
l 14 MR. BARRETT: I really don't. I know that EPA is 15 actively working on it and the status I really -- l 16 - COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I also noted your 17 comment that you Gupported the Chairman's testimony for the ,
18 Commission at the hearing with regard to what an appropriate 19 standard might look like, particularly with regard to 1 20 . groundwater. i a .
21 If it weren't for the interim storage place of j 22- this legislation that is before the Congress, if the
- 23_ legislation were -- if it is possible you were to partition )
'24 it to those parts that.are focused on Yucca Mountain and j l
25' trying to clarify Congress's intentions with regard to q
- i. 1 l
l 1
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1 permanent disposal, are those parts of the legislation, as I 2 say, put aside interim storage and forcing interim storage 3 to a.certain site and certain timing, there is another part 4 of the legislation in S. 104 and in 1270, H.R. 1270, that 5 sort of looks at Yucca Mountain and sets a standard 6 different in the two bills and lays out various provisions 7 -that are intended to deal with Yucca Mountain, not with 8 interim storage.
9 Has the Administration done any thinking about 10 those parts of the bill?
11 MR. BARRETT: As you are well aware, sir, the ;
12 Administration is an amalgamation of many different agencies 13 and groups. There was a lot of discussion early on in some i
14 'of the early versions of the bills, which those did evolve ,
15 and become more acceptable, let me say. The early versions, 3 16 that was basically a show-stopper. Those did evolve in the -
17 Senate to something that was more to the Administration's 18 view. ,
19 To my knowledge, there has not been in the 20 Administration isolating that one item and saying would that 21 be totally unacceptable or not on its own. So the answer 22 is, I don't know and I don't think it has evolved to that 23 because the interim storage issues have been overriding..
I 24 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: The licensing support i
.25 system, I noticed your testimony there as well. It is our ;
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1 responsibility to change the rule and I guess we have an 2 advanced notice of proposed rulemaking out on the Internet.
3 We are using the Internet to do our rulemaking. l i
4 If we can ge to the point where we are using the '
5 Internet rather than obsolete, massively expensive systems, 6 whose responsibility will it be to enter all of the pata 7 into the system? Is this primarily a budget item for you 8 'the way you see LSS moving forward?
9 MR. BROCOUM: I think for all Department of Energy
'10 data, it will be our responsibility to enter that and we are 11 now scanning our data, all our data, and by the end of 1999 .
12 Lall our backlog will be now in an electronic forum, both in 1
13 the retrievable and searchable text format and in the image 14 form. So we will have the ability to go whatever direction 15 we decide to go using electronic data recovery systems.
16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: That looks like it is 17 proceeding well? That is what you are saying to us.
18 The last are multipurpose canisters --
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: He was about to make a comment. -
20 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Oh, I'm sorry.
21 MR. BROCOUM: I think, from our perspective, both 22 sides, both the NRC staff and ou2 staff are feeling pretty 23 comfortable with the direction everything is moving. -
24 MR. BARRETT: I would add one thing to that. I 25 think an important point will be in our viability assessment i
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- 1. we have as a goal, not as a commitment but an internal goal 2 to have the entire viability assessment suite of documents 3 which will be a million pages, probably, when you add it all
- 4 up, available on, you know, electronic media, that we can 5 ' kind of' experiment with that, so that whole package can be ;
I 6 available to all the constituencies to' analyze, look at, l 7 'come to their own conclusions and evaluate the data that is 8 there.
.9 So there will be a test case coming up very 10 shortly as to huge amount of information in electronic media 11 that it would be user friendly to all people who might wish ,
l 12 to use it. So we are working toward that and that is part 13 of where I. personally watched as a test as to how well this 3
14 is going to work. ,
15 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: The last question is on 16 the multipurpose canister program which was terminated. But 17 what is the -- clearly, we would be better off if we could 18 get spent fuel into canisters that could be transported as i
19 well as used for storage. There are private sector efforts 20 to do that. 1 21 But what is the ongoing involvement of the
- 22 Department in any fostering of license applications to us 23 for multipurpose canisters? Can you explain that?
24 MR. BAFRETT: For dual purpose, which will be
' 25 storage and transportation, we do not. The only thing we I
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- 33 1 are'considering doing is taking that to the third stage, 2- which we call multipurpose although it should be really tri-3 ' purpose would be probably a better jargon for that, where it 4 would be storage, transportation and would be able to be 5 used in the disposal context as basically the inner 6 structure to the-final waste disposal package.
7 That is the only thing we are considering doing 8 and we are negotiating with Westinghouse, who was the chosen 9 company, to see if there was some appropriate arrangement in 10 the context of the market-driven approach that we presently 11 now have.
12 We believe that the dual purpose technology is in l 13 the marketplace and there is no need for any government 1
14 involvement to develop that at this point. I l
15 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: On the multipurpose 1 16 side, how will that get into the marketplace? The previous ;
] 17 program you had with Westinghouse, does that technology j l 18 belong to the government and can be basically licensed to l l
- 19 anyone or does Westinghouse have primary access to it? How
]
20 did that particular contract work?
21 MR. BARRETT: The contract, okay, was a fixed-22 price contract and we would pay for it. Therefore, the 23 design is wholly publicly owned, let me say. If it was 24 government money that did it, it would be publicly owned.
25 So the design was delivered.by Westinghouse-last ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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34 1 . year and that. exists and that is publicly available and we
]
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2 have made that available to any vendor, anybody that wishes !
3- it.
l
'4 Westinghouse is proposing to go on to certify that 5 and go through the Part 71 certification process, which is a i
6 very important test on the viability of such'a concept. Our- l 7 original approach was that we would pay for that fully and i 8 then it would be government owned and anyone could fabricate i 9 it at that point. Now, the way we are going to integrate 10 that in with the market-driven approach is we would not 11 dictate or mandate that the regional service contractors, j 12 that would be the market-driven contractors, what canisters l 13 'they will use. But the way we did it to provide the j 14 multipurpose canister, which will probably cost hopefully a ;
15 little bit more but more than a dual purpose because it j i
16 could do more, to allow that to work in the market while we r
-17 would say any offsetting costs to the Department of Energy 18 in the disposal' program would be returned to the vendor. ,
19 Now, generally, the canister internals in a waste [
20 package aro around $200,000 to a quarter of a million }
?
21 dollars, so there is a lot of money involved there. This ,
22 could be returned back in the future. But the uncertainty I l
23 would be from a Wall Street investor point of view, how much !
24 more does it cost me to cr t c a multipurpose canister and i 25 what is the likelihood of my return on investment because !
, ?
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35 1 you really don't know if it is going to work until we go 2 through the licensing process with you on the waste package 3 internals and dealing with things, long-term criticality and 4 those matters that we do not know the ultimate answers yet 6
5 until we go through that process.
6 So we were trying to work it that way and let the 7 market decide on the risk whether to go with a multipurpose 8 canister or not. That is how we are trying to integrate it 9 in. Those are the discussions we are having with ;
10 Westinghouse within the confines of the existing contract, 11 that we could work out a structure that would be 12 appropriate. ,
13 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Thank you.
14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you, Mr. Barrett. Thank 15 you and your colleagues'for a very informative discussion. )
16 MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Madam Chairman, i
17 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: We will move on and invite the j 18 representatives from the State of Nevada, Mr. Loux, 19 Mr. Frishman, also Mr. Stellavato from Nye County and 20 Mr. Bechtel from Clark County. If you could all come 21 forward, we will begin with the discussion from Mr. Loux.
22 MR. LOUX: Dr. Jackson, members of the Commission, 23 I am Robert Loux and I am the director of the Nevada Agency 24 for Nuclear Projects. The agency was established by the 25 Nevada legislature in 1985 to carry out the state's duties ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- 1 and responsibilities'under.the NWPA and I have been the 2- agency's' director since it was established and previously 3' ran the' program from the. governor's. office prior to -- or 4- since the passage of the Act.
'5 We certainly appreciate the opportunity to meet 6 with the Commission at the same time.that the OCRW and
'7 management.is providing you with an update of its program.
8 It is our hope this will broaden the perspective from which 9 the Commission considers some of the issues-which will come 10 before it in the near term.
11 As you correctly pointed out,.Our last 12 presentation was in September '94, shortly after the OCRWM
.13 program,. proposed program approach had been outlined with 14 the Commission. In.1994 in our presentation, we discussed 15 the topic of OCRWM's licensing approach relative to the 16- proposed program approach. With the issuance of the 1996 17 revised program plan, the issue remains the same. It 18 appears to us that the OCRWM intends to submit less than a 19 complete license application to receive repository 20 construction authorization.
21 The Yucca Mountain project. managers have begun to l 22 speak of the license application as "the initial license I
23 -application" for construction authorization with two 24 additional update license applications to follow, one to 25 receive and possess and one for repository closure. OCRWM's ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES,'LTD.
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1 statutory and regulatory basis for this approach was !
2 recently outlined to the NRC staf f and is attached to ngr l
3 written statement in annotated form. And Steve Frishman of li 4 rn t staff will discuss that with you.at the conclusion:of my l 5 presentation since we think it is rather significant. !
i 6 OCRWM's phased approach to licensing as contained' l
7 in-the revised program plan is in conflict, in our view,
{
8' - with the regulatory approach of Part 60 and this should be ;
i i
. 9 studied very carefully. In Part 60,.it is clear that the 4
10 Commission's disposal decision is to be made with the !
, 11 issuance of construction authorization. Conversely, the 12 OCRWM licensing approach would have the Commission taking 1
13 incremental steps toward a disposal decision which would j l
14 occur after its review of the license amendment for
- 15 repository closure.
I 16 If this were to take. place, the Commission's
+
r/. determination of reasonable assurance of compliance with the 18 EPA standard would not be made until after as much as 100 4
19 years of repository operation and all the waste had been 20 emplaced. And let me just indicate from a public
]. 21 perspective, I don't think there is a greater issue that
- . 22 could_ impact public confidence in any sort of licensing 23 process than the program plan. Generally the view of the 24 public is that this is tantamount-to essentially an 25 unlicensed repository during the first 100 years of ANN RILEY
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38 1 operation and they believe further this essentially excludes 2 them from the final disposal decision in the licensing 3 process and makes generally the licensing decision somewhat 4 of a moot issue in the sense that, after 100 years of 5 operation, their view is it is very unlikely this mat.erial 6 would then be somehow dug up and moved somewhere else if it 7 was found not to be in compliance with the EPA standard.
8 Since the passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act 9 nearly 15 years ago, the Commission has repeatedly reminded 10 the OCRWM that it must submit a complete and high-quality 11 license application in order for it to be reviewed in the 12 short time mandated in the Act. The Commission should 13 inform the program of its meaning of a " complete and high-14 quality application" in accord with Part 60 as written.
15 The program also will be issuing a Yucca Mountain 16 viability assessment, as we heard about earlier, in 17 September of 1998. In our view, the Commission really has 18 no role in assessing the viability of the site since the 19 intent of the exercise is to inform an investment decision 20 regarding whether or not to pursue a repository development 21 at Yucca Mountain. Also, according to OCRWM, the viability 22 assessment is completely independent of regulation.
23 The Commission's sole responsibility regarding 24 viability assessment should be to decide the extent to which 25 it wants to review and comment on the design or performance ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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39 1 assessment reports as it does with all of the prelicensing 2 documents when participation is not required by law.
3 If the Commission uses the viability assessment as 4 an opportunity to make an early statement regarding the 5 sufficiency of information for a license application, it 6 will only serve to reinforce the widespread 7 misinterpretation that viability assessment is somehow a 8 statement of the suitability of Yucca Mountain for a 9 repository development.
10 Regarding OCRWM's siting guideline amendment, as 11 you are aware, in order for the guidelines or any subsequent 12 amendment to be finally promulgated, the Commission's 13 concurrence is required by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and 14 as a condition of the Commission's original concurrence. At 15 the time the Commission asked for its concurrence, which 16 according to the current schedules would be sometime prior 17 to February 1998, it is likely that there will not be a 18 final new EPA standard and there surely will not be a final 19 revision to Part 60 in place. In our view, the Commission 20 should withhold its concurrence in the guidelines until 21 these final rules are in place since unless the currenc Part 22 60 is used for a basis for concurrence, there is no basis 23 for the Commission's action and if the current Part 60 is 24 used, the decision will have to be reevaluated after Part 60 25 is amended to conform to the new EPA standard.
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40 1 My final point today is that, given changes over 2 the last two decades in highway and rail conditions and 3 cechnologies and the ability of terrorists to willfully 4 disrupt transportation of spent nuclear fuel, the Commission 5 should consider opening a broad-based public review and 6 dialogue regarding spent fuel transportation risk both for 7 normal and non-normal conditions and events.
8 The existing cask certification standards and 9 criteria and safeguard regulations should be reviewed and 10 revised as necessary in the context of the outcome of a 11 public dialogue. Such a review is timely in that the large 12 numbers of spent fuel shipments could begin in the near 13 future, as indicated, if pending new legislation for interim 14 storage is adopted.
15 I thank you for the opportunity to present some of 16 our thoughts and observations to you today. After Steve 17 discusses quickly the attachment to my written presentation, 18 we of course would be glad to answer questions.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
20 Mr. Frishman.
21 MR. FRISHMAN: I am Steve Frishman.
22 I wanted to bring this to the Commission's 23 attention since this is very recent information from the 24 April 30 NRC and DOE management meeting. Those are meetings 25 that are held periodically at a level above technical ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. -
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I 41 j 1 exchanges so-that management can get at sort of technical j 2~ policy issues on a very regular basis, which we believe.is a- ,
1F good idea. It also becomes revealing sometimes when we see 4 handouts.like this as part of the management discussion !
5 'between the potential license applicant and the regulator. ;
i 6 I wanted to annotate some of this primarily to 7 show that as we began to point out back in 1994, the !
8 Department's view of the important steps in a licensing 9 decision' appears to be very different from how we interpret 10 10 CFR 60 and apparently how the Commission has used its own 11 interpretation in such other rulings as waste confidence.
12 It has to do with when the disposal decision is made and ;
13 whether it is an incremental decision leading up or .
14 incremental set of decisions leading up to something or !
15 whether the decision at the time of construction 16 authorization is really the decision that must be supported i 17 by reasonable assurance that whatever standard you set for 18 reasonable assurance. ,
19 What we see developing is that the standard of 20 reasonable assurance is expected by the Department to change 21 through time. That you start out with a lower level of 22 expectation and move up. This doesn't seem to be consistent l 23 with the way 10 CFR 60 is written and I think was intended ,
24 to be written and has been used by the Commission in other '
25, ways. :
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42
- 1 .
-I. guess to get the example of how the Department
- 2- describes-its' strategy, if you look at page 14 on'how much 3 is enough, you see their description of the three levels, 4 what they call sufficiency, and levels of sufficiency is'not l4 5 an issue in 10 CFR 60. .You see, they call the initial >
- 6- license application for construction authorization while i
7 Part-60.31 speaks to a license application for construction 8 authorization.
?
4 9 Then if you go to the updated license application !
i
'10 for receive and possess, Part 60.33, doesn't speak to an 11- updated license application. It speaks to an amendment of .
12 the construccion authorization which was the original l 13 decision of.the Commission.
14 Then if you go further, you'see the updated 15 license application for closure, once again in 60.51. It is
-16 referred to as an amendment for closure, f
17 If we move on to page 16, using the language of'
'18 -Section 114, you see that in Section 114 it speaks to site ,
t 19 characterization information and preliminary engineering and 20 the rest of the phrase out of the act is engineering
. t 21 specifications for the facility. Engineering specifications ;
22 denotes, to me anyway, something more than just a conceptual 23 rendition of a. repository. !
24 If you look down at the bottom of the page, you l 25 see in the Department's thinking, engineering specification !
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43 1 has become preliminary design and that takes it even farther 2 away from what I would view as engineering specifications. '
3 It is clear that the Department intends the design to be 1
4 evolutionary. They have already made it very clear that the 1 1
5 design at the time of viability assessment will likely not l 6 be the design for a license application. And the design for 7 a license application, according to their own strategy, is 8 not going to be complete. If I recall the last discussion 9 that I heard, they were putting some level of percentage of 10 completeness on it for license application.
11 If we go to page 17, again, Part 60.24, the 12 Department is trying to sort of convince itself and others 13 of the case for the information that is available for a 14 license application will be whatever they have available.
15 Well, your Part 60 says information not available but 16 information that is reasonably available.
17 The significance of this is that if it is 18 -information available, that would be DOE's judgment of what 19 should be available. If it is information that is 20 reasonably available, that 's your judgment. So I think it 21 is important that this distinction be kept in mind because 22 you, as a regulator, should have the judgment on what is 23 reasonably available as opposed to what is presented in a 24 license application.
25 And in the second part of that, for 60.101, the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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44
]
1 Commission did much more in 60.101.than just say that it
- 2 contemplates there will be uncertainties and gaps in 3 knowledge.- This is an area discussing what it takes for the
- 4 amendment to receive and possess. And if you look at all.of :
5 the language of that particular part, you are speaking that.
~
6 the Commission may take uncertainties and gaps of knowledge ;
7 4 into' account, provided the Commission can make the specified 8 finding of reasonable assurance as specified in paragraph A. ;
9 Well, that was the reasonable assurance for a construction 10 authorization. t 4
11 So finally we have what I think is maybe the most i 12 interesting and the one that should probably draw your f 13 attention most and that has to do with Part 60.21. If you 1
14 look at the text of Part 60.21, rather than the word !
- - 15 " study," it contains the words "research and development" l 16 and if you apply this to a topic such as determining the 17 thermal design or the thermal loading design, there is a big ,
t 18 difference between study, because the drift scale testing 19 that si going on now really is an experiment and it is 20 intended to be a scientific and an engineering experiment; 21 it is not research and' development.
22 So I think clarification on the part of DOE as to 23 your intent regarding the difference between study and 24 research and development in 60.21 is probably pretty 25 important because, ultimately, it may lead to a level of ANN RILEY & ASSOCTATES, LTD.
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45 j' 1- information and also sort of'a philosophical' approach to 1
2 license. application that will be very much at variance 'l i
3 between you and the Department. And.I think the last time 1
4 we brought this up, the general and sort.of informal 5 response to.our concerns about DOE's view of phased or >
6 incremental licensing decisions as opposed to what we read 7 in Part 60, the response informally was we don't really see ,
8 enough in DOE's written material to understand that that is 9 what they are trying to do.
10 Well, from our perspective, we think we saw enough 11-~ then. We have seen more and more and when I saw this 12 handout on April 30, I figured that this is probably maybe l 13 the most important thing that we can show to you at this -!
14 point in terms of the possibility of a disparity between 15 your whole approach to the significance of decisions at 16 various steps throughout the repository development process 17 and the Department's idea of what those steps should be.
18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you.
19 MR. FRISHMAN: Thank you.
20 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers.
21 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: Well, I am just a little 22 puzzled at your distinction between study and research and 23 development but I am not sure quite what the issue is there.
24 MR. FRISHMAN: The issue is that " study" implies, 25 in the context of this program, implies that you are still ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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46 1 in a site characterization mode. The purpose of site- i 2 characterization is to provide information for a license 3 application. .Research and development is trying -- you know 4 you have a problem, trying to figure out how to, through 4 5 design and other types of experimentation, resolve a problem 6 rather than finding out what the situation is that you are l 7 in in the first place.
e 8 We know and you have heard today that the thermal l 9 testing information is certainly not going to be complete by 10 the time of license application. The intent is that it will i i
11 go on for more. And that is still in the realm of site 12 characterization.
13 If you are going to use the thermal output of the j 14 fuel as part of a repository design, that is site j 15 characterization. You should know what you intend to do on 16 the way into a license application as opposed to picking 17 some number and later, after a construction authorization is r
18 granted in the context of the way we read 10 CFR 60, later 19 come in with numbers that may indicate you have a different 20 situation on your hands and maybe indicate that using the 21 thermal output is maybe detrimental to waste isolation as 22 -opposed to positive to it in the long term.
23 So the distinction is that studies in the scheme 24 of the repository program, studies are site characterization I 25 and it makes that one use of the word makes it clear to me i
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- 47 .,
1 that the Department intends to continue what is really site l t
2 characterization under both the Waste. Policy Act and Part 60-1 3 through the licensing process so that you don't have the. .
4 ability to make reasonable assurance decisions based on the- .
- 5. level of data that is necessary for those decisions. ;
6 I know it sounds esoteric. We have been talking 7 'about this for a long time. But we also understand that the
- 8 Department is in a situation where it knows that it is not 9 going to be able to complete under other circumstances what 4
.10 would have been called site characterization.
! 11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
t 12 COMMISSIONER DICUS: No questions. (
i
, 13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz? l 14 COMMISSIONER DICUS: No questions.
15 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner McGaffigan?
16' COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: I am trying to 17 understand the significance of, in reading Part 60 as you 18 went along here, of your concern with regard to the
'o .
19 incremental approach. Because reading Part 60, it looks ;
20 like different words rather than initial license ,
i !
21 application, updated license application, they use the words l 22 '" amendments" but it is clear that Part 60 as it currently !
23 exists that there will be amendments at the point of receive 4
24 and possess and the point of closure.
j 25 So what point of significance are you laying on
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48
- 1- .the' fact that.they are not. calling it amendments, they are
'2 calling _them updated license applications? -Could you 'l 1
3 . explain that again?
4 MR. FRISHMAN: I guess it is back to incremental
{
l 5 in' terms of levels of information that would be available.
q 6' What they are suggesting is that when the sequence from I 7 construction authorization to licensee receive and possess l i
8 amendment for closure that there would be a building base of l 9 information, not necessarily a building base of ccnfidence, 10 as the rule.seems to imply. It is that the standard of ,
11 reasonable assurance in the Department's thinking, what this f 12 implies, would at each step be a result of new information 13 as opposed to confirmatory information.
- 14 So at the beginning, let's just put maybe f 15 ' percentage numbers as an illustration. At the beginning,
) !
16' reasonable assurance is 65 percent with the construction I 17 authorization. Well, with new information, if you get to a ;
18 license to receive and possess, well, maybe it is 75 to 80 i
19 percent. Maybe with the amendment for closure it is up to l i
20 what I think the perception is, and this is not to put any l 21 number on it because it is a whole qualitative thing, I am l 22 .just trying to show you a scale. By the time you get to an 23 amendment for closure, it might be at 90 percent. Whereas, .
t 24' we view 10 CFR 60 as nT-ding that 90 percent to start with 25 and additional informa n is confirmatory to give higher t
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- 49 1- confidence _in that 90 percent, as opposed to an incremental ~ .;
i
. 2- growth in what is an acceptable level of reasonable _g 3 assurance.
4 I don't think it is that subtle. We have been -
.5 discussing this for a long. time.
- 6 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: The words probably can 7 be interpreted in several ways. But at each point in the -
. t 8 process, again looking at Part 60 as it currently exists,
~9 there is the condition-that the Commission may include such .!
~
10 conditions as it finds necessary to protect public health F
11 and safety, common defense and security, environmental 12 values. It sounds a little bit like you are arguing what 13 .the license conditions should be and I am sure we will have, 14 if this moves forward, there will be a massive discussion at 15 each phase of the process as to what the license conditions
. 16 would be but what do you envision if this goes forward? Do ;
17 you envision greater license conditions early or greater 18 license conditions late in the process? That is built into !
19 every license.
20- MR. FRISHMAN: Right, and we understand that. I 21 _think'from the outset what we are trying to do is make the '
22 Commission's expectation for the license application, which
- 23 is the first-license application not an amended one for the 12 4 license application, we want that to be -- the expectation 25 to be that that will~be a thorough and as complete as ANN.RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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_1 50
- l l
11 possible license application,' meaning.that it requires few
-2: conditions, meaning that the requirements of the rule are-
-3 met as near as possible. So it mitigates the need for the ,
2 i ;
-4 Commission'to try to make up conditions to say, okay, well, 5 you are deficient here so therefore we expect at the next ;
16 step that you will have done more work to bring it up to our
- 7 expectation. -i
-8 Well, the condition is only because they didn't 9 meet the expectation in the first place. Or there is
) c10 uncertainty that it will meet the expectation. l
} 11 MR. LOUX: It assumes responsibility, the ;
12 Commission's or DOE's, to describe what those ought to be.
I 13 And under DOE's scheme, they believe it ought to be them. l
- 14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON
- But I see three things that ,
- e 4
15 seem to be nested-in what you are saying. One is you are 16 saying to us you would like us to lay out more explicitly j f 1 17 what we mean by complete and high-quality applications and 18 -what constitutes an application versus license amendments, !
. 19 application fut license versus license amendments. And that 20 we need to exercise care in terms of what is performance 21 confirmation versus continued site characterization.
22 Is that a summary of what your fundamental points 23 are?
i
.29 MR. FRISHMAN: Yes, that is a summaq/.
25 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Okay. Okay.
i i
^
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o 51 1 Well, I thank you very much. I think we will hear 2 from other representatives at the county level.
3 Mr. Stellavato.
4 MR. STELLAVATO: Thank you, Chairman Jackson and 5 Commission members. Last time we saw you, you had a hard 6 hat on going in the tunnel on the train and that's a 7 different environment than here.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: You never saw me again.
9 [ Laughter.]
10 MR. STELLAVATO: That was the only time I've seen 11 you was in the tunnel.
12 So we submitted a written statement but the 13 commissioners want to thank you, my county commissioners, 14 for the opportunity to make a presentation and I am not 15 going to read the written statement.
16 Since I am the on-site rep, I am going to try to 17 cover a little bit of our technical program and the first 18 overhead is up there and our technical program is designed 19 with this in mind, is it safe. And everything we do is to 20 try to develop information for the residents of Nye County 21 when they ask me questions about what the DOE is doing.
22 We addressed key issues that can affect repository 23 design and performance. We try to identify areas that we 24 feel additional work ought to be done in. We are evaluating 25 DOE's scientific program and then we are obtaining our own I
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52 1 scientific data to do an independent analysis of Yucca 2 . Mountain.
~3 Next slide. t 4 The present program that we are working on is we
- 5. are going to continue our~ pressure, temperature and relative 6 humidity monitoring in the tunnel. We initiated a gas ,
7 nampling program last year in a hole called ONC-1 that Nye 8 County' drilled in 1994 and this is one of the sources of our 9 data sets. And at DOE hole NRG-4 we instrument.
10 We have been monitoring the tunnel and the ESF and 11 a lot of the information I will present today is based on 12 the ESF-data set for relative humidity, temperature and 13 . pressure because it has a big impact on repository design 14- and the mountain performance and so I -- we have been 15 recording that data set since 1995.
16 Next slide.
17 Just a little background on Nye County's program.
18: We negotiated with DOE on-site protocols similar to the NRC 19 protocols with the DOE for on-site reps and we developed the 20 Nye County QA plan, since we are gathering data and if we 21 ever w'nt a to use it in a licensing hearing following NQA-1 22' criteria and.for efficient data distribution we decided in 23 1995 to put all our data on a web site and I have the 24 address on there. All of our data is on there. Every month 25- we post a new data set. Anybody is free to come in, get the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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53 1 data and do with it whatever you want.
2 We drilled, like I said, the ONC-1 hole in 3 December '94. That was a deep hole into the saturated zone.
4 Then we instrumented that hole and a DOE hole right along 5 the north ramp tunnel alignment. NRG-4 is about 50 foot off 6 the tunnel alignment. ONC-1, I have a map that later I will 7 show you, is located just off the south portal. So it was 8 down gradient and so we had two data points to look at 9 effects of the tunnel on the unsaturated zone at Yucca 10 Mountain.
11 Besides, ONC-1 has two probes that we monitor for 12 pressure and temperature in the saturated zone, packed off 13 so we can monitor effects of some of the pump tests the DOE 14 have done in the Seawell complex just southeast of the 15 track. And then the TBM data set is an important data set 16 and we were the first ones to monitor pressure, temperature 17 and relative humidity constantly. Every 15 minutes, we take 18 a reading since 1995 so we've got a complete record of the 19 mining and the ESF. This is an important data set because 20 it led us to some of these early interpretations that we 21 have gotten.
22 Next slide.
23 This is just a map of Yucca Mountain with the two 24 upper and lower repository blocks. But the main thing is 25 the tunnel alignment which is in red and now they have ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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54 1 finished it on the south ramp. You can see ONC-1 is just 2 northeast of the south portal and right along the Bow Ridge 3 fault and then NRG-4 is just 50 foot north of the north 4 ramp; It was a very important data set that helped us 5 calculate and-look at the-permeability of the mountain, 6 large block permeabilities and by pressure responses in the 7 unsaturated zone.
8 Next.
9 Then from the data we collected, relative humidity
' 10. data and temperature and pressure data in the ESF, we were 11 able to calculate and get some idea on moisture loss out of
- 12 the mountain due to the ventilation system in the mine. We 13: simulated long-term repository ventilation effects from 14 thermal and vapor concentration gradients across the tunnel 15 as the TBM moved down the mining the tunnel. Let me go 16 . back . - The instruments were on the TBM itself so as the TBM 17 moved, our instrument package moved right along with it so 18 we got a record from the beginning all the way around the 19 tunnel, which is important.
20 As you can see here, this is the tail end trailing
^
21 gear of the TBM and we have three instruments located on 22 that trailing gear. You can look through and you can see 23 The TBM is behind the the tunnel at the end of the TBM.
24 person who took the picture.
l 25 Then from the pneumatic data that we collected in b
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o 55 1 our two wells, that is that air pressure data in the two 2 wells, we could identify and see a rapid pressure response 3 in the subsurface as the TBM moved around the tunnel and in
- 4. ONC-1 we saw a pressure response two kilometers away as they 5 started down the main repository horizon. So this slide is 6 just a slide of ONC-1 and it is just a typical pressure wave 7 data set that we collected.
8 If you go to the next one, it is much more - .as 9 you can see here, not to go through a lot of discussion but 10 this is NRG-4 and a lot of discussion as the early barrier, 11 everybody thought the barrier of the Paint Brush tuff non-12 welded unit was a barrier and we even pressed the NRC back 13 two, three years ago, the NRC staff on pneumatic pathways 14 issues and we had a workshop in Nye County and in Las Vegas 15 that we sponsored for the pneumatic pathways workshop for 16 the State of Nevada and Clark County, because we thought it 17 was a big issue.
18 As you can see here, the mountain does breathe and 19 as you are coming down to the lower probes at the top of the 20 slide, they are very subdued and very little response. As 21 it went through the Paint Brush tuff non-welded unit, you 22 can see what happened to -- that is a vertical bar -- you 23 can see what happened to the pressure response to our lower ;
24 probes in NRG-4. They started to respond instantaneously 25 with this surface pressure response. The surface wave is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 56
<1- the bottom' blue wave-there and so through this we can- ,
2 calculate some bulk permeabilities'of the mountain based on
'3 how-fast we respond and the amplitude of that response. .
- 4. So this is some of the data that went in with our l 5 'ESF data to come up with some ideas.and some proposals. So _,
- 6. .from the. findings, we basically confirmed what I think 7 everybody knew back in the mid '80s, that the mountain is 8 ,more permeable than they had anticipated. Any work in a 9 fractured system like this, it is very permeable and the 10 PTN, although it does dampen the pressure response and 11 probably does deflect some flow coming down to the t 12 repository horizon, wherever it has faulted or fractured, it j 13 is going to permit migration of percolation inte the 14 repository horizon, as the chlorine 36 data has shown quite 15 ~ dramatically.
. 16 Then the flux rates are higher than they had P
17 predicted and .1 or 1 millimeter a year flux seemed
- j. 18 extremely low in the mid '80s and as you see now in Lake's 19 presentation, we are.looking at 5 to 15 and possibly higher '
20 with focused flow in the fractures. So that has a big 21 impact on the model calculations and the transport 22 calculations. l l
23 Then.the faults and fractures do act as conduits '
l 24 for flow and we saw that because our hole ONC-1 was the l 25 -first hole drilled through a fault, one of the main faults, !
l i
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57 l t
1, the Bow Ridge fault.
We do see pressure responses in the l 1
2' subsurface coming through some fracture set running from !
- l
,3 Lacross the TBM, the tunnel alignment, into the subsurface ,
i 4 and our lower pressure probes have shown our responses. .
5 Next slide, i 6 In all the indications we are looking at more i a
- 7 reliability, relying more on engineered barriers and !
i .I 8 -possibly less on geologic repository isolation and due to ,
9 higher flux rates,-faster fluxes and a fractured system that
.10 -breathes and we knew it breathed in '82 and '83 from some of 11 the early wells, USGS 6 and 6S that were drilled back then ;
12 and the USGS talked about those wells.would blow and they 13 -still blow and suck depending upon barome.tric pressure.
14 So our data-confirms that and we are looking now ,
i
! 15 from the. amount of moisture we saw drying out and how open ,
4 16 the' repository is, we have been looking at an open. !
17 repository concept that I think somebody needs to look at ;
18 and do some detailed engineering on because some of our l
, t 19 calculations have shown if you leave that repository open i
20 and let.it breathe naturally with the heat load that you are j 21 putting in there, you are going to keep the repository dry, 22 you are essentially drying the mountain out from its own 23 thermal drive and you keep the canisters dry and the f
24 temperatures are maintained low, just above or right around l 25 ambient for a long period of time. l
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58 r
~
1 Just a couple.more slides here on this natural 2; . ventilation. That slide needs'to be turned another way. .
3- .The tuff cylinder is.the repository. All right.
l4 This is just aEconceptualization of what we are 5 looking at. You are basically putting a heat source in the 6' tunnel and you'have an exhaust shaft. Many old mines have :
7 used this type of natural phenomenon for their own ;
8 ventilation. In some. places, they would start a fire at the :
4 9 bottom of a shaft to get the ventilation circuit going and a
- 10 then you would maintain the natural ventilation. You are L 11 basically doing the same thing, putting a heat source in the 12 mountain and it looks like right now it will drive its own >
f 13 . thermal and suck the ventilation circuit will be complete if i 14 you just manifold it and get the air out.
15 So these are just a' couple more slides on some of 16 our early runs and these are preliminary model runs that we e i 17 have~done and we are in the process of writing some much 18 more detailed, three-dimensional model runs. But this one, 19 the saturation, and you see we started at 75 to 85 or better 1
20 saturations and with the open repository we can maintain 21 saturations below natural. And as you move away from the i 22 tunnel alignment, where the canisters are in place, you are 23 basically driving the saturation form of the moisture out of 24 the mountain continually. )
1 25 This is just the temperature curve. Again, you 1
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59 1 start out above this degree C and, as time progresses, you 2 are dissipating the heat with the natural ventilation.
3 So in summary, if the DOE are going to rely more 4 on engineered barriers, we feel that we would like to see 5 someone do some more detailed engineering than our staff can 6 do to just analyze or evaluate the phenomenon of open-7 repository concept. It will also maintain -- the canisters 8 will remain dry and you can get back in any time and do 9 something with the canisters if you nE ed to.
10 But we realize that present law is to close the '
11- repository sometime. I don'? know how you handle that but 1
12 engineering wise we would like to see this concept at least 13 looked at an analyzed because I think it has some merit if, 14 you know, you are worried about repository performance.
i 15 CHAIRMAP JACKSON: You have propagated these ideas 16 to the DOE and to the Congress?
17 MR. STELLAVATO: Yes, we have talked to the DOE i
18 'about these ideas and the NWTRB, we have talked to them 19 about these ideas and we have not addressed the ideas of 20 anything, policy, but just technical analysis based on the 21 data we are getting.
22 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Rogers?
23 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No.
24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus, ,
25 Commissioner Diaz, Commissioner McGaffigan?
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c i 60 i
1 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: No question, really. He. ;
i l 2 answered it at the end, CurrentLlaw does seem our
- 3L regulations clearlyccontemplate closure. ,
i 4 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: That's why his committee talked ;
1 5 .to the Congress l, [
I
, 6 MR. STELLAVATO: Yes, I am not proposing this.
i i
What I am saying is someone needs to look at the engineering
~
~
7 ,
.9 aspects of this. This is not the policy right now. ;
9 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: As Commissioner McGaffigan
~ 10 said, I think in an earlier and different context, we are 11 creatures of the existing law. ,
12 Mr Bechtel. ;
13 MR. BECHTEL: Madam Chair, members of the ;
i 14 Commission, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you ;
' 15 today and the Clark County Commission appreciates the 16 opportunity to provide input to your very important work l 17 here.
18 What I would like to do, for the record, my name 19 is. Dennis Bechtel and I am a planning manager for Clark 20 County Department of Comprehensive Planning, Nuclear Waste ,
l 21 Division. What I would like to do today, and I realize you 22 don't have a lot of time -- unfortunately, my presentation 23 didn't make it.
. 24 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: We noticed.
. 25 MR. BECHTEL: I-did, though. So what I would like ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 to do is maybe submit some formal comments when they arrive j 2 to Secretary Hoyle.
3 What I would;like to do is discuss briefly four I I
4 points. Since there are new members here, what I would like :
S to do is discuss briefly Clark County's interest in the i 6 activities associated with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and l t
7 our. involvement, describe particular concerns that Clark- l 8 County has regarding the Department of Energy's approach to 9 site characterization and viability assessment, to discuss 10 briefly the revisions that have been proposed to Title 10, 11 Part 2, Subpart J of the licensing support system, work that 12 we have been involved in as well as others, and to evaluate I 13 the responses to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's l 14 strategic assessment and rebaselining report, which we l
15 tracked.
16 Clark County has been involved in nuclear waste 17 activity since about 1983, me primarily. We were involved P
18 for a number of years with the state of Nevada's program.
19 We were funded by the state. Then in 1987 with the 20 amendments act, Clark County requested and received affected 21 unit of local government status from Department of Energy.
22 I might add that there are actually 10 affected 23 units of local government, including Nye County.
24 Unfortunately, over the last two years the Congress has not 25 seen fit to fund our programs. Clark County and others are ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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'l- currently working on FY '95 money, if you can believe it.
~
21 At.one time, I had a staff of about 17 people. Now we are 3 'down to about four or five and we had a lot of work in We are a
~
4 progress that we have had to kind of cut off. ;
5 little more. optimistic, maybe, that funding would be {
6 available in '98 but we will see how that works out.
7f Clark County', you might wonder. Clark County, by-8' .the way, includes the city of Las Vegas and has about 1.3 9 -million people. It is the largest growing county in the i
R10 United States, I believe. Becau0m of -- we are victims of ;
G3' geography in a lot of ways. Although we are south of the f
-12 site a considerable distance, we are concerned that a lot of -
i
. 13 the transportation decisions will go right through our l l
14 community. So transportation, as you can imagine, is an 15 issue of concern to our board.
l 16 We are also interested, we are a tourist-based ;
1 U
17 economy and how the effects of the transport of the material '
l 18 .primarily would affect people's decisions and desires to j
- l'9 come to Las Vegas, you might say.
i 20 Most recently, we have been concerned about DOE's j t
, 21 efforts to initiate and, say, privatize the transport of l i
, 22 nuclear material. We have a~ number of concerns with regard i 23 to that. We feel in many ways DOE is abrogating their i 24- policy responsibilities. It is not clear in our mind how )
25 this whole thing is going to work.
<. j i
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1 We as local governments would be first responders j j
2 if-there'is an accident and it is unclear how DOE and the 3 private sector would interact with local governments on ;
4 issues like -- you know, trying to work out routing, ;
'5 emergency response issues, things like that. So I think we !
i 6 feel there needs to be a lot more rigor when you are 7 considering a very sensitive program to transport material 8 around the country. I might add it is not just a Clark 9 . County issue; that is an issue that would be of national 10 importance. i i
l 11 We are also very much concerned about the interim !
12 storage legislation that has been proposed. I think we feel 4
4
- 13 that the -- that in the interests of reaching a time line 14 that things are going to get rushed, primarily with regard )
15 to, you know, transporting the waste. And so we feel -- we I
16 are concerned that in the interest of solving what we feel 17 is kind of a hypothetical problem at reactor sites, it has i
18 been proven that material can be stored safely in dry cask 19 storage, that the transportation issues are not going to be i 20 well thought out and there is going to be this rush to 21 judgment that may put the public around the nation at risk.
. 22 Other issues we are concerned about are just some 23 of the manifestations of DOE site characterization and 24 viability assessment program. One concern we have are the 25 proposed revisions to 10 CFR 9.60, general guidelines to the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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0 4 f 64 l' recommendations for sites. As you'are aware, of course, 2' this proposal was brought forth December 16, 1996, and the 3 idea was'to provide that a total systems assessment of the 4 performance of the proposed site to specific regulatory l l 5 -design within the geologic setting of. Yucca Mountain would j 6' be compared to the applicable regulatory' standards to ,
7' determine whether the' site was a suitable for the 8 repository.
. 9 We have two primary. concerns with regard to-that.
-10 DOE's proposals to deviate from Section 1.12 (a) of the ill Nuclear Waste Policy Act and a process that has been defined i p 12 by Congress to determine site suitability and as well from 13' our perspective of local government, the elimination of 14 several important pre-closure characteristics in the l 1 15 proposed revisions. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act, as you !
16 are well aware, in Section 1.12 established guidelines for 4-l 17 recommendations of candidate sites for site 18 characterizations. To quote the original 10 CFR 9.60, such 19 guidelines shall specify detailed geologic considerations l 20 that shall be primary criteria for the solution of sites and i
21 various geologic media.
P 22 It.further states, however, that such guidelines
[
23 shall specify factors that qualify or disqualify a site from i 24' development of a repository and we feel the objective, as we i
- 25. understand it, was'to examine those individual' factors that i
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1 could contribute to the failure of a repository to contain
'2 these highly dangerous wastes from the public for thousands 3 of years.
4 Section 1.12 (a) went on to specify certain-5 qualifying and disqualifying standards for a number of 6 functional areas including transportation and safety, which .i 7 of course is of primary concern to us. l 8 It is interesting to note that DOE as late as 9 September 1995 felt that these standards were adequate and, 10 once again, I think our concern that the schedule being ,
11 proposed is driving a lot of simplification of very 12 important site suitability issues.
13 DOE, by moving, as indicated-in their notice of 14 proposed rulemaking, is limiting the individual performance 15 measures given in 10 CFR 9.60. This, we feel, is in direct ,
16 conflict with,.as I indicated, their September 1995 17 statement.
18 We are concerned about this because, as you are ;
19 aware, the qualification standards were divided into pre-20 closure and post-closure areas and of particular concern to 21 Clark County are the socioeconomic and transportation j t
22 criteria noted in the current version of 9.60. For example, .
23- the criteria for potentially adverse conditions states a 24 potentially adverse condition is one that could cause the 1
25 transportation-related costs and environmental impacts or ANN RILEY'& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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.. i 1 _ risks to public health and safety from waste transps -dion i i
2 operations to be significantly greater than those for ocher !
3 comparable siting operations.
4 Realizing that the original 9.60 was meant to l 5 ' compare sites, I think it is our feeling it didn't i 6 necessarily preclude an investigation of issues such as I 7 these. And I think'the larger issue,.I guess, is while site 8- . characterization is important, this is also taking place in '!
9 the context of communities and people. I think we felt that 10 the preclosure conditions spoke to those issues. :
11 To go on, in the absence of standards and f 12 regulations determined by the EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory {
13 Commission, there is an uncertainty in understanding how DOE 14 can design a program and collect appropriate information to ;
15 determine site suitability. }
16 There has been a great -- there will be a great ,
17 reliance on the use of models. The use of models to predict l 18 the performance of a natural and engineered barrier system f 19 for thousands of years into the future is, at best, we feel, !
20 tenuous based on.perhapc the inadequate availability of l
21 information by which to calibrate and validate that model.
22 I have done some groundwater modeling in the Las Vegas
- 23. Valley and it is the old your answer is as good as the data 24 you put into it. So I think that is a concern that we 25 definitely have, that there is not enough time to gather ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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67 1 that data.
2 Also a third issue to try to summarize, realizing 3 you don't have a lot of time here, with regard to the 4 proposed 10 CFR, Part 2 (g) , the licensing support system 5 issues, Clark County has been involved since about 1984 on 6 the original negotiated rulemaking on -- for the licensing 7 eupport system and more recently has been part of the 8 advisory board in evaluating the -- how this system could be 9 implemented.
10 We are currently reviewing the revised rulemaking 11 that was just recently released, so I have some kind of ill-12 formed thoughts, I guess, on it. But a couple of things 13 maybe to present to you, a major concern with the proposed 14 rule, as we see it, change is the important structure that 15 appears to have been lost that would ensure data and 16 information relevant to licensing would be managed and 17 available to ensure the timely and comprehensive review of 18 potentially relevant information for licensing. I realize, 19 you know, the technology has improved considerably since we 20 were originally talking about this a number of years ago but 21 it is still a little uncertain, in my mind, how we are going 22 to be assured that data will be available in a timely way 23 and that all parties will be able to access that data.
24 One of the things that I see missing in the 25 revised rule that I think could maybe provide some rigor to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters 1 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
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~1 that would be the retention of the licensing support system 2 administrator. I think you need somebody to -- in the ,
3- Nuclear Regulatory Commission to manage the system. I think 4 that is very important. This function may, I realize, you 5 know,. we are talking about.a lot of data and but it will 4 ,
6 probably serve as an auditing function if nothing else. ,
7 I think we don't want to get to the point where, ;
j 8 you know, licensing may take place and then realize we don't 9 have enough information or it is not organized in a way that i
10 can be useful to all parties.
i
'- 11' I'think from a perspective of a small player in t this total issue, I think the addition of an administrator 12 i
13 would be essential to kind of level the playing field to 4 l 14 ensure that information is available for all interested 15 parties. I think also there has to be some consideration as i
~
16 to how the public or citizen organizations in the case of 17 Nevada -- in the case of Nevada some of the rural counties ,
18 would be able to participate in the discovery and review of 19 licensable documents. ,
20 While new information systems may facilitate the 21 dissemination of information, there is a cost in obtaining 22 that and I think we need to make sure all potential parties ;
23 have the resources and the ability to be able to participate 24 ~ in that. - I think maybe that needs a little strength in'the 25 proposed rule as well.
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1 On the plus side, we are happy'the rule speaks to J 2 the advisory committee. You ' know,- I think the work of the 3 advisory committee with the assistance of, say, Chip Cameron 4 and John Hoyle' I think hopefully has been useful to the NRC l
5 and'to the process and I know from the perspective of Clark 6 County and I am sure the other affected counties, if they 7 are funded in the future, that we would like to retain our 8 . ability to participate in that. ,
9 I think it is extremely useful. It is a good 10 reality check for NRC, I think, just on a lot of the -- you
'll' know, where the rubber meets the road, I guess. You know, .
i 12 the folks are going to have to live with this, potentially 13 live with this repository if it happens. So we think that 14 -the advisory committee is a useful way to do that. !
11 5 My final comments are with regard to the strategic ,
t 16 assessment rebaselining project and we would like to commend 17 the NRC and your leadership for, you know, bringing these l
18 issues up. I think a lot of them required revisiting and I J 19 think they are an important step in, you know, are we doing 20 things right now or do we have to do things differently. l 21 I know there was an attempt to get the public 22 involved. Speaking as a person who has been in government ;
- 23. for a number of years, I don't know what the secret is to 24 get the public out sometimes but I do think if this -- if 1
25 -you are planning more things like this in the future, I do l ANN RILEY &' ASSOCIATES, LTD. l Court Reporters l 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 1
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.i 1- think, and I spoke to this at one of the meetings, that you-l 2 need to' hit the popular press more. 'I mean, people don't I 3 read legal columns and stuff like that. That's true for 4 Clark County, We have the same notification requirements 5 but we need to make sure the public knows that something is 6 going on out there.
7 In our case, Clark County has a steering committee 8 made up of seven citizens and we have governments within ,
9 clark county, incorporated cities and what we did, we had a 10- subcommittee of that sit down and just look at the issues.
11 What I wanted to give was just kind of a public perspective. ,
12 In fact, the citizens were the only ones who 13 participated in my subcommittee but we submitted comments i 14 and hopefully those were useful. We did get your summary 15 document and had a chance to look at that and I think our 16 citizen members were pleased that they, you know, were able 17 to provide some meaningful input to the process.
18 Your support of the DOE working group
)
19 recommendations, I think, was good. It actually went beyond 20 what we had recommended. We felt with all your many duties 21 and funding crush and everything, you were better off maybe l l
22 just kind of doing what you're doing. But I think it is !
23 important for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to get 24 involved in as many oversight issues as pcssible, if only q 25 for the reason because things radioactive, . rightly ~or ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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71 j 1 wrongly, . are feared by- the public and to know that an !
.2 important oversight body is watching that I think is good.
3 We were supportive -- we were hopeful that your funding 4 levels will be maintained so you are able to do all these i
5 duties. l i
- 6 That's about all I had to say. And, once again, 1 ,
7 appreciate the opportunity to provide input to you all.
I 8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you very much, 9 Mr.-Bechtel.
t 10 Commissioner Rogers? !
I
.11 ' COMMISSIONER ROGERS : I have no questions.
12 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus? '
13 COMMISSIONER DICUS: No questions. f 14 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
15 Commissioner McGaffigan?
i 16 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: My questions were more
[ j
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- 17 or less answered.
i !
. 18 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, I thank all of you 19 gentlemen. It has been very useful insight and input and we 20 will certainly take note of all of this as we shape our
, 21' process here. j 22 I guess I would like now to. call to the table
' 23 Mr. Arnold from the Las Vegas Indian Center, Mr. Holden from 24 the National Congress of American Indians and Mr. Eben from 25 the. Pyramid Lake-Paiute Tribe.
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1 And since we don't know if the placards-are 2 correct, . maybe you could identify yourselves for us. !
t >
3 MR. ARNOLD: As much as I would like to tell you
~* i i .
4 .that I am Robert Holden, I am Richard Arnold, to tell the 5 truth here. ,
j 6 .. (Laughter.]
i
-7 MR. HOLDEN: I am Robert Holden, director of~the 8 Nuclear' Waste Program for the National Congress of American i
9 Indians.
4 J
10 MR. EBEN: And I am Maurice Eben.
- f. .11 CHAIRMAN. JACKSON: Okay. So who would like to ,
4
.12. begin? j t
3 13 MR. HOLDEN: Madam Chairman, Commissioners, if I [
14 could, NCAI is a national tribal government organization ,
I '
15 and, in deference to tribal representatives, I would ask l 16 that Mr. Arnold mid Mr. Eben proceed in that order, if 17 possible. ;
18 MR. ARNOLD: Thank you. ,
19 My name is Richard Arnold and I am Southern .
. 1 20 Paiute. I am the spokesperson for the Consolidated Group of '
21 ~ Tribes and Organizations, which are a conglomeration of 17 22 different' tribes and organizations that have historic and 23 cultural ties to Yucca Mountain. !
W ;
24 What'is-very interesting in hearing a lot of-the 25- . dialogue and testimony provided this morning, because-I l 4
. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES,-LTD. ,
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73 1 think while a lot of what was directed at the science, there 2 also too is a human element.
3 For us, for the Southern Paiute People, for the 4 Western Shoshone People and for the Owens Valley Paiute and a
5 Shoshone people, Yucca Mountain plays a vital role in our 6 culture and in our afterlife. It is something that is 7 viewed upon as being very historically important to us, 8 especially culturally. ,
9 We have been involved, actually, with the process
-10 since 1985 and through a whole variety-of activities
.11 including literature reviews and cultural affiliation 12 studies to ensure or try to identify the tribes that had the 13 ties to the area. One of the difficulties with that, 14 however, is that for us as Indian people, we look at 15 ourselves as being interrelated all throughout the Great
- 16 Basin and so although I identified myself as Southern l 1 17 Paiute, Mr. Eben who is Northern Paiute, we are all the same 18 so it is very difficult to try to distinguish those kinds of 19 ties, i l
20 The cultural affiliation study that was done 4 21 identified tribes actually that were not only in Nevada but i
22 Owens Valley in California, which is in Inyo County in kind 23 of that strip there. Utah, in southern Utah, and then 24 northern _ Arizona, being the Kaibeb Paiute Tribe.
25 I think the main driver behind all this actually ANN RILEY'& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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74 1 was the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, federal 2' legislation that allows us basically and guarantees us our
'3- Tright to practice our religion and all of the other cultural 4 nuances'that go along with that. Beyond that, there was a 5 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. ;
6 Although to date there hasn't been any burials found-there, t 7 it doesn't mean that they don't exist but, beyond that, !
8 under that law, there are also items that are identified 9 under that as cultural or sacred items, items of cultural
-10 patrimony and so there'are currently those activities that-11 are going on right now in working with the tribes and trying
- =
12 to identify those things so the tribes are actively working 13 in that respect.
, i 14 There is also some executive orders that ensure 15 and require government-to-government relationships between .
16 the federal entities and the tribal groups. Then, also, ;
i 17 most recently one executive order, 13007, that allows access >
18 to sacred sites and there have been sacred sites identified 19 actually early on, even in some of the historic literature, 20 some of the' sites that were used close by Yucca Mountain.
21 I give you all this information really only in 22 hcpe that it is kind of again helping you to understand i 23 perhaps the position of the Indian people and showing the 24 human element to this.
25L What we have initiated, though, there have been l
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l 1 some studies'because, interestingly enough, when I look at i 2 the scientific studies, and being brought-up very J
3 traditionally, I can also appreciate through our traditional - !
4 stories, there are a lot of similarities of things. We had 5 knowledge of underground water systems that people now talk <
J 6 about. We have knowledge of so many different things.
7 But try-to imagine if you will, English being my j 8 second language,-trying to describe radiation to somebody 9 that doesn't know the concept of radiation by the term 10l . radiation. However, imagine trying to identify that, and ,
11 often times I act as liaison or interpreter of some of those :
12 things. The elders were identifying it as an angry rock.
13 It doesn't matter what kind of cask that-you !
i 14 design, anger is anger and you put an angry rock inside of a 15 cask and it still remains angry. You bring it from another I
I 16 area, you bring anger from another area into that. Anm to i \
i 17 some people that maybe aren't from the mind sets that the l 1
- 18 three of us are, I think it may be kind of difficult to l 1
- 19 understand. But it is something that is just as believable 5
^
20 to us as perhaps maybe your respective religions or values i
21 would be. The same holds true. ,
22 We do hold tribal update meetings because we feel i 1
23 'that it is.important to be involved in learning about the l l
24 ' updates of the project and so we' have had that implemented. I 25 One of the nice' things we have, I have to say, is that we 4
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76 1 have been able to identify and recommend that there be a 2 preservation in place policy relative to artifacts, which is 3 very helpful to us.
4 However, I think, all too often Indian people are 5 oftentimes thinking that our concerns are just archeological 6 and so they see artifacts and they think of Indian people.
7 But they forget that we are human beings too and that we 8 have just as many concerns and similar concerns as what 9 everybody else does.
10 We have also done interpretative work and we do 11 make periodic recommendations to DOE at these meetings and 12 responses are given back to us. We are also very interested 13 and have been working closely in monitoring the progress of 14 the environmental impact statement and looking at how we are 15 going to have the concerns of the Indian people also brought 16 into that.
17 Just as I heard some of the other presentations 18 that were made, we as Indian people have the same concerns.
19 Transportation is a tremendous concern by the Indian people 20 and the Indian tribes. I think if you look at the 21 reservations within the state of Nevada and actually in the 22 Great Basin and even into the three surrounding states of 23 Nevada, that the tribes are in very remote areas.
24 Oftentimes they don't possess the necessary infrastructure 25 to host activities that would have them prepared for ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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77 1 emergency response, for example. They don't have the 2 training. We heard about the affected counties, actually, 3 of some of the tribes. While that was, in all due respect, 4 nice for the counties to receive that, the tribes did not, 5 the tribes that were inside of these counties.
6 There are jurisdictional problems with that, as 7 you can imagine, because of the tribes' sovereignty and the 8 trust responsibility from the dif ferent agencies in trying 9 to work on those government-to-government relationships.
10 Funding, I think, is critical for us also in terms 11 of the preparation, response and oversight that is necessary 12 for the project and the magnitude of the project. But I 13 must also point out that since our last visit here, which 14 has actually now been a couple of years ago, some good 15 things have also come out from our previous presentation to 16 you.
17 Some of the things now that we are getting more 1
18 updates and things, however a lot of the paper becomes very 19 voluminous and we think of all the trees that are losing 1
20 their lives because of all the paper that is coming out but,
{
21 nevertheless, we receive the documents from the NRC and that 22 is very helpful. A lot of it is in very technical jargon 23 that sometimes is way beyond us and I commend the people for i
24 writing it that have the command of those big words but, for I i
25 us, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
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T i' 78
- 1 But Ifthink there are,-just in closing, a few 2 other things I would just like to touch on. One, I just
-3 want to reiterate the trust responsibility-between the NRC, 4 actually the Department of Energy and any other federal 5 agency or federal entity that'would become involved that has 6 that responsibility to the tribes. The other is that-if 7 funding is restored, I think the tribes need to definitely 8 be involved in that and not be left out of the loop.
9 I heard about the advertisement and that, too, I 10 think is something that is very critical in trying to get 11 people.in public participation. One of the things that a 12 lot of the tribes have is either tribal newsletters or 13 newspapers,and/or working through the National Congress of 14 American Indians is another good vehicle to get information 15 out to the tribes.
16 Then basically the last thing is that as, 17 basically, the oversight body, I think it is critical to 18 maintain your oversight and input into the process, just as 19 we would like to be involved in the process as well.
20 Thank you.
21 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you very much.
22 I have less in the way of questions but rather to 23 note the points you have reiterated and also in particular 24 your comments relative to within the context of an EIS of 25 the transportation issues and how that might affect your ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES,.LTD.
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79 1 communities as well as 1ssues related to emergency planning. ;
2' -I am very familiar with the. executive orders relative to the
- 3 government-to-government relationship so I thank you for 4 bringing that to our. attention.
5 Commissioner Rogers?
6 ' COMMISSIONER-ROGERS: Well, just one question.
J 7 Some years ago, there was a question about the ability to 8 . access an LSS and to get the information and so on and so 9 forth. The NRC, as I recall, contributed some computers,
-10 more personal computers to some groups. Do you have 111 anything to say about how effective that was, whether that. ,
12 turned out to be useful and whether there was anything of .
13 that sort in the future that you could suggest? ;
i 14 MR. ARNOLD: Sure. First of all, it was helpful i
15 in those tribes that were able to access the computers.
1 16 Currently, though, what we are trying to do, and not to try 17 to downplay anything we are doing by any means, but I think 18 that oftentimes with some of the tribes and trying to keep 19 up with all the technology and things, sometimes we are a ,
20 few steps behind and that. So just in looking at some of :
21 the situations now, just trying to access and get on the 22 Internet, for example, in some of the remote communities, :
23 you then incur.large bills by having long-distance calls 1
24 every-time you are trying to access it. ,
25- So some of it has become cost prohibitive. So it ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ,
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80 1 was almost in one sense like a double-edged sword in that we 2 got -- some of the tribes got computers and that was nice 3 and they looked pretty. But then, you know, to then go 4 maybe to the next step.
5 So I think part of that could also be addressed by 6 either having a funding mechanism of some sort of some other 7 kind of computer support or somehow to access some of those 8 things. But definitely it is a way of trying to get 9 that -- a way of getting Indian people into the loop of 10 things, if you will.
11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
12 COMMISSIONER DICUS: No questions.
13 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Diaz?
14 Commissioner McGaffigan?
15 COMMISSIONER McGAFFIGAN: Just on that last point, 16 we may need to get some T-1 lines. The modem is going to be 17 the limiting factor, it seems like to me, in this LSS 18 system.
19 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Well, I would like to thank you 20 again and to thank all of the participants.
21 Were you making a separate --
22 MR. EBEN: Yes.
23 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Oh, I am so sorry. I 24 apologize.
25 Mr. Eben.
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1 MR. EBEN: Thank you very much. j l
2 Before I start with our statement, a lot of it is l l
3 going to be repetitious for you, our tribe just recently got 4 pulled into this nuclear transportation issue and it is very ;
5 disturbing listening to Mr. Arnold. I have heard ;
6 Mr. Arnold's name for a number of years and I just met him a 7 couple of weeks ago, last week I guess in San Diego. And 8 that is part of our problem, is there are a couple of groups 9 in Nevada and we were totally in the dark when it came to 10 some of this information.
I 11 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Actually it would be helpful, I 12 think, to us, in terms of interacting with the publics that 13 we need to interact with, if you might think about and I 14 suggest a mechanism that you think would be useful for us to 15 be sure that we reach all populations we need to reach.
16 MR. EBEN: Well, I was going to suggest that with 17 the National Congress of American Indians, they were the 18 ones who basically helped us the most along with our 19 lobbyists and friends back here, Dorsey & Whitney. It was a l 20 quick game of catch-up and then we were told we probably 21 will never catch up, so we just need to go on forward from 22 this point. And our issues out at Pyramid Lake are tied to 23 the water.
24 We have an endangered specie, it's the cui-ui, 25 Cui-ui-Ticutta and the ta cutta mean eater and the ta cai is i l
I l
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82 1 a trout and that is the Walter River Paiutes and they have 2 been involved directly and indirectly.
3 I am going to go ahead and read my statement.
4 Good morning, my name is Maurice Eben. I am an 5 enrolled member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe and 6 currently serve as a Tribal Councilman. Our tribal offices 7 are located in Nixon, Nevada. The Tribe appreciates this 8 opportunity to present our statement to the Commissioners of 9 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
10 The Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation was surveyed 11 in 1859 and was confirmed by executive order in 1874 by 12 Ulysses S. Grant. The Tribe has been through many social, 13 economic and cultural changes since the reservation was 14 created.
15 Since time immemorial, we Indian People have had a 16 respect for the land that we walk upon. At no time has that 17 caretaking responsibility changed. Indian People are still 18 the rightful caretaker of this land. As we proceed and 19 continue our discussions from this day forward, we will 20 remind you of this responsibility and stand by the prayer 21 and sincerity to our Creator in allowing us to continue the 22 responsibility.
23 We feel that as our race, the four races on this 24 earth, that was our job and it hasn't been taken away yet no 25 matter what human beings say, so we continue on and that is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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83 i 1 what we'need to remind you folks of, that is our spiritual 2 job. !
- 3 I am a descendent of the two major tribes of the 4 Great, Basin, the Cui-ui-Ticutta of the Northern Paiute and 5 the Timbisha of the Western Shoshone. The Cui-ui-Ticutta
6 are from the Pyramid Lake region'of the Great Basin and the. f f
7 .Timbisha-Shoshone of the Death Valley region of the Great 8 -Basin.
. 9 Due to the Indian Reorganization Act, our parents 10 were forced to enroll their offspring with one tribe. My
- 11: parents chose my father's tribe. Although I was brought up
- 12 in Northern Nevada, we traveled to Death Valley on a regular 13 basis to enjoy my mother's side of our family. Both my 14 parents spoke their respective languages. Both my parents 15 attended the Stewart Indian School in Carson City, Nevada. !
16 After my birth, I lived on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Indian 17 Reservation and as most families, we moved to the Truckee ,
18 Meadows where my parents could find jobs. Truckee Meadows i 19- is where Reno and Sparks sits and it is a shared area with 20 the Washoe tribe, between the Cui-ui-Ticutta and the 21 Washoes. ;
22 The Reno Sparks Indian Colony sat on land donated 23 by a kind-hearted elderly non-Indian lady for the three 24 Nevada Tribes, Paiute, Shoshone and Washoe. The colony 25 residents were mostly related to each other or knew family I
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64 1 from respected reservations or the Stewart Indian School.
2 We-were brought up around great uncles and aunts, 3 grandparents and cousins to most degrees. The extended
~4 family truly was a common part of life at the colony.
5 Fortunately for me, I was taught some of the Coyote stories 6 and legends of the three tribes from the Reno Sparks colony.
7 The Washoes-are mostly from the Sierra Nevada Mountain area 8 with ancient ties to the Great Basin before moving into the 9 mountains. The Western Shoshone came into the Basin about 10 10,000 years ago in search of food. The Paiute people, 11 according to scientists, were in the Great Basin for about 12 15,000 years.
13 The 400,000 square miles is bordered on the east 14 by the Wasatch Mountain Range in Utah, the Snake River in 15 the north and the Sierra Mountains on the west and as far 16 south as the Mojave Desert.
17 The Timbisha people lived and died in the region 18 of the Sierra Nevadas to the west to as far as the Colorado 19 River to the east. Of course, I would be centrally locating 20 them in Death Valley, Death Valley being our winter home and 21 the Wildrose Mountains and the Hunter Mountain range to the 22 West of the valley and Beaty being north and Yucca Mountain 23 to the east being wintering homes.
24 Following the traditions of other Great Basin 25 peoples, burials took place on the eastern side of valleys ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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85 1 and in rock crevices and in outcrops on the sides of the 2 mountains that at one time were islands in the Lahotan -
. 3 Inland Sea. These burial caves are found throughout the ;
4 Great Basin and are known to grave robbers too. Mr. Jack 5 Harrelson of Grants Pass, Oregon, was one of those grave 6 robbers. He was convicted.in the State of Oregon for taking 7 two bodies from graves found in areas.of the Great Basin
, 8 which are similar.to Yucca Mountain. As with the Southern 9 Paiute, the Timbisha share common cultural beliefs and 10 legends such as Coyote being the jester. The morals are the
-11 same as both Northern and Southern Paiute.
12 Before the Euro-American arrived here, we were f 13 just a People, as Mr. Arnold had mentioned. We were at 3
14 times I.want to say borders of contention because we did 15 battle over certain areas and lives were lost but not in the 16 sense of warfare in Europe. Nobody lined up in rows and 17 chased each other. Sometimes a wounding of one person was 18 enough. ;
19 I would like to say for the record there is an 20 ongoing effort by many tribes to correct their histories.
21 In the.past there have been some attempts to change tribal !
22 history by a few misguided tribal members. This was done ,
23 with the thorough knowledge of a number of anthropologists 24 and ethnohistorians with only the publication of their work 25 in mind instead of accuracy and truth. l JJM RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. '
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86 1 You have to put in mind, when we were doing this 2 last night, I think I was still suffering from jet lag, so 3 there are a few words missing. It kind of threw me off.
4 So the process taken in identifying and notifying 5 affected tribes is purposefully flawed. There is a 6 concerted effort by federal agencies today to change the 7 history of the Great Basin People. The Eureau of Land 8 Management and the State of Nevada Museum have taken a 9 positicn that the first inhabitants of the Great Basin have 10 only been in the region for 1,000 years. There is no known 11 scientific data to support this theory. Nonetheless, they 12 are attempting to use their theories against us.
13 I would request that the Nuclear Regulatory 14 Commission study all the ethnohistories for accuracy and 15 factual material. Without the truth from the original 16 inhabitants of the Yucca Mountain region is an insult to the 17 entire process. The history of the Timbisha People should 18 be studied very closely for its accuracy. Most important, 19 the archeologists doing the history of the Great Basin 20 tribes should also be investigated.
21 The changing of one spring, the name, could throw 22 the whole concept off. As most of you are aware, there is 23 the name, Tono Pah. The word Pah, it means water, no matter 24 what dialect you say it in or if you change it a little bit, 25 it just means water. In Tono Pah's case, it means bad ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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87
, 1 water.
2- Cui-ui-Pah was the name of the Lahotan Inland Sea 3 before it was ever named, I guess, and Cui-ui being our main 4 food substance. And so you will find in the Great Basin, 5 pah, and it refers to water and, as Mr. Arnold had 6 mentioned, water is very, very important to our religion let 7 alone to us as a human being.
8 The history of our people in the Great Basin is i 9- from oral histories and from scientific. According to the 10 time measurement of the Great Basin Curvilinear attributed 111 to petroglyphs found in the Great Basin, our people.have
- 12 been in the region for up to 15,000 years. Many of our 13 ceremonies are the same and are practiced during the same i 14 time of the year. The Cry Dance is done when a death occurs 15 and the meaning of the dance is the same with the Southern 16 and Northern Paiute. Legends of how the pine nut got to the 17 top of the mountains is the same with the.same outcome and ,
la meaning. The Park _ Service told the Indian People they were 19 no longer welcome to pick pine nuts in the Wildrose 20 Mountains and in 1944-1945, the site chosen by the People
. 21 was Yucca Mountain to pick pine nuts. The National Park 22 Service didn't want to assume the responsibility for the 23 Indian People back then. As a matter of fact, they wanted 24 our families to live in tepees although tepees were a Plains 25 Indian home. I think_it kind of demonstrates the lack of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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0 9 88 1 knowledge during that time toward our people.
2 The commissioned a genealogy to be done to prove 3 that the Shoshone people weren't from that area and the 4 further it went back it proved that Great Pine Dog's family 5 did come frou. Death Valley so they stopped it and that stops 6 the process and we don't think that is really the right way 7 that our people should be looked at.
8 With most ceremonies, there comes a negative side.
9 I jumped ahead.
10 There is something I carry for our people and it 11 is some of the legends and it is this particular piece that 12 I am going to read is that legend and it was named the Ghost 13 Dance and it goes a lot further back than the 1870s but it 14 is written in this area of around 1870.
15 The story of the Ghost Dance and of Wodziwod's 16 vision. And as most people know, Jack Wilson or Wovoca is 17 always associated with the Ghost Dance because after 18 Wodziwod had passed away, Wovoca picked it back up and tried 19 to revitalize it.
20 But the gentleman, the man who did get the 21 original vision, was Wodziwod and he was from the Walker 22 Lake area.
23 The story of the Ghost Dance and of Wodziwod's 24 vision was one of many histories told to us by our elders 25 from the Paiute side. In this vision, he saw the return of ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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89 1 our brothers who had traveled to the other side of the 2 world. As prophesied, our older brother was in chains, put 3 there by our little brother. They had new things we would 4 not understand. Their dance would help us as one people to 5 understand each other's ways.
6 The understanding of our mother earth would come 7 from the Red People. Should this dance be done correctly, 9 this dance would bring water in its many forms to cleanse 9 and bless us. Wodziwod's vision showed the dance steps and 10 the songs. The vision showed the clothing required to be 11 worn and what they should be made of, deer hide with long 12 fringe on the front of the shirts to shake off the sickness 13 and to be shaken through the fringe to the mother earth.
14 Those shirts have become what is called ribbon shirts now 15 and it has kind of lost its ceremonial value. You know, I 16 see basketball coaches wearing them. Maybe they're trying 17 to get some of that luck. I'm not real sure.
18 With most ceremonies there comes a negative side 19 and in this case the Ghost Dance, it was said that four men 20 would come out of the East who will turn our dance into its 21 opposite. Wodziwod's vision was one of love and peace. The 22 vision meant the dance would be turned into a war dance 23 which did happen and it led to Wounded Knee with the 24 massacre of an entire unarmed people.
25 Our dance would one day return and be brought to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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e ,
, l 90 ;
- 1. us by the ones who came to the Great Basin to get it. Over ;
- s. .
.2 the years, gifts have been sent to the Cui-ui-Ticutta and 3 ~. the Tagi-Ticutta-from the people who had taken our dance to l i
- 4 their homes. .Sevent.een years ago, our dance returned to the :
5 Great. Basin and was given-to Stanley Smart, a Paiute, 6 Shoshone, Pit' River lineage. The prophesy told the dance 7 would be given tc a snake person, who we were before the l 8 name Paiute was put on us. Wodziwod's vision is only a j t
l 9 piece of the total prophesy believed by us. It is believed
{
10 that when.the four races return to the basket we will be ;
11 able to make the sound the Creator is waiting for us to j i
12 .make And I think, as many 3 0ple are aware, there is a 13 movement toward Indian religion and right now w .re waiting j i ~ 14 and it is pretty hard. We have a lot of non-Indians coming 15 around us that are being shown by some of these misguided 16 tribal members. It is not that time yet but we are waiting. j 17 The basket that we were created in is the Great 18 Basin. So the return of the other three races obviously is 19 happening and, you know, we are waiting for that time so 20 that we can train our brothers.
21 It is our understanding that since our c1 4.on we j l
22 have always followed the south end of the lake we call Cui-23 ui-Pah, which is Pyramid Lake. Our culture is tied to the 24 ancient inland sea known as Lahotan Lake. 14,000 years ago, !
25 the climate of the Great Basin was wet and full of lakes. j l
l ANN RILEY.& ASSOCIATES, LTD. I Court Reporters l 1250 I Street, N.W.,. Suite'300 i Washington, D.C. 20005 ,
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- . . . .- -. .- - _ . ~ - - . . . . - . - . .
1
- 91 j
' 1. :During the Pleistocene Era, 1.8 million years'ago, there was I i
2 over 27 million acres of lakes. Today there are only 2.5 j i
3 million acres.
4 Five thousand years ago, the inland sea started to
, )
5 dry up. The Lahotan Inland Sea covered the vast. area of I 6 8,000 square miles and was 900 feet deep. During the 7 drought period, the water slowly drained south and east. On 8 .the. east side of the many valleys, the sands were halted i
9 which became one of the areas used to bury our dead. During .j t
10 periods of high water, the cliffs exposed by the ever- '
11 beating of wave after wave, the volcanic uplifts helped to :
- 12 .make natural burial chambers. These chambers were prepared -
13 with loving. care by placing mats made of tule reeds, food !
14 st'ored in willow woven beskets, blankets made of rabbit
{
15 hides were made to keep the bodies warm. Clothing was made 16 for the journey home. The cave would.be used, when it was 17 necessary, by placing another body on top of a previous 18 grave. This practice was used up until recently. i l
19 As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Harrelson, the grave
- 20. that he robbed came out of Elephant Mountain which is almost 21 identical to Yucca Mountain but in a smaller version. The 22 way the bodies were on top of each other, one being 2,500 23 years, the other about 1,200 years old. We have these type 24 of graves on our reservation in the same format that I just 25 read, i
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_ - l
, o 92 1 The Tribe is currently directly involved with an 2 issue with the nuclear industry that includes the 3 Departments of Energy, Defense and Navy and the private 4 sector. The project is known as the Nuclear Weapons 5 Nonproliferation Policy Concerning Foreign Research Reactor 6 Spent Nuclear Fuel. This program will result in 7 transportation of spent nuclear fuel through our tribal 8 lands. Although it is known that transportation is an old 9 practice, the issue of involving our Tribe is new. As a -
10 matter of fact, the record of decision was issued on May 13, 11 1996, but the Tribc did not receive official notification 12 from the federal government until January 1997.
13 Furthermore, we received a notice from the State of Nevada 14 on October 3, 1996, inviting the tribe to a meeting in San 15 Francisco to discuss shipment of foreign nuclear fuel.
16 Tne National Environmental Policy Act was 17 violated. No consultation occurred between the federal 18 government and the Tribe. Had DOE followed the spirit of 19 executive order 12898 pertaining to environmental justice, 20 they would have been on notice to at least contact the 21 Tribe. The DOE never did. At this point, we do not 22 visualize any consultation occurring in the near or distant 23 future. This treatment between two governments is all too 24 familiar. We request that the Commission seriously consider 25 and reconsider its authority which is vested toward federal ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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93 1 agencies responsible for carrying out the obligations of the 2 federal government.
3 When an Indian Tribe is affected either directly 4 or indirectly by any project involving the nuclear industry, 5 the seriousness of impacting the environment must be the 6 primary consideration and not secondary. This nuclear 7 energy and nuclear waste is not part of our Indian society 8 to which we belong. This makes it harder to understand and 9 accept. Although the science and technology can be taught 10 and shared, there is a fundamental an conceptual difference 11 that exists between natural law and the man-made written 12 laws. It is important to us to demonstrate to you that we 13 are unique but we do not feel any superiority to you. All 14 we expect is equal treatment from you just as you would ,
15 m treat your relatives and fa'ilies.
16 We would like to acknowledge the efforts of the 17 National Congress of American Indians over the years for 18 their monitoring of and providing education to Tribes on the 19 effects of nuclear waste. The Tribe is willing to work with I 20 the federal government and its regulatory agencies to come 21 to a common understanding but only as long as the 22 consultation process is done fairly and legally. We will 23 support the NRC in its efforts in the development of an i
24 Indian policy as other federal agencies have done in l 25 compliance with the President's executive memorandum of i
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, . i 94 -!
1 . April.29, 1994, to all heads of departments and agencies 2 regarding government-to-government relations with Native l
?
3 American Tribal Governments. ,
i 4 Thank you. .
5 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Thank you very much. !
6 Commissioner Rogers.
7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: No questions.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus?
9 Commissioner Diaz? Commissioner McGaffigan?
F 10 Mr. Holden.
- 11 MR. HOLDEN: Thank you, Madam Chairman. And again !
12 good morning, Chairman and Commissioners. ,
13 I was going to read a statement from the Nevada
- 14. ' Indian Environmental Coalition Executive Director, an inter-15 tribal organization which many -- to which some of the l 16 Nevada. tribes belong and they were going to issue a 17 statement. But that did not arrive by fax last night. So 18 once I get that, I will certainly forward it to you and will '
u.
19 forward to you the written statement that I have. It is in ,
t 20 different-pieces right now. [
21 But thank ou again for allowing me to be part of ,
22 this panel. NCAI is the oldest, largest national tribal !
23 government advocacy organization in the country. It was ;
24 formed in 1944. The purpose was to offset-attacks by 25 various jurisdictional entities, states, counties.and in !
I
' i ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. i Court Reporters i 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 4 Washington, D.C. 20005- j (202) 842-0034 :
f i i
I 95 1 some instances the federal government who did not look upon 2 tribes as viable governments base don the treaties and 3 agreements that they had signed over 100 years ago, backed 4 by the Constitution and backed by Supreme Court cases. We 5 are, as I said, an advocacy organization and in instances >
6 such as this we do represent some of those tribes who are 7 unable and do not have the resources to be here as.well as 8 those tribes who may have the resources'but asked us to 9- speak with them.
10 I want-to thank the Department of Energy for its 11 cooperative agreement that we have, similar to an agreement 12 that the National Conference of State Legislatures, Western 13 Governors Association and similar organizations have. It 14 has allowed us to disseminate information, to conduct 15 meetings about the issues and concerns of tribal governments 16 and the native peoples and the denigration of their cultures 17 in many instances.
18 Unfortunately, that cooperative agreement has come 19 under the budget knife, as we all know happens, and we have 20 been cut two thirds a couple of
- srs ago and are still 21 under a freeze and as you are well aware a freeze is the 22 same as a cut in each increasing year for funding impacts.
23 I also do want to thank the NRC and its staff for 24 working with the NCAI and working with tribal governments in 25 providing resources and information on its many programs.
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96 ,
1 Some tribes have invited the NRC representatives to 2 community meetings, community presentations to talk about ;
1 3 the issues that fall under the NRC's jurisdiction. Mr. Chip l
4 Cameron in the General Counsel's office has worked with us 5 on the LSS, as Mr. Hoyle, Mr. Greeves have been part of a ,
i 6 program that you referred to regarding providing computers 7 to tribes. Let me say that was greatly appreciated, as ,
8 Richard Arnold indicated. Let me also say, these were 386s 9 and exponentially the capability of computers has enhanced 10 and I don't need to say much more about that. But in terms 11 of those might be seriously outdated at this point. But we 12 do appreciate that effort when it came because that was, 13 honestly speaking, that was more than the tribes had at that 14 time so anything helps.
15 That is where we are coming from.
16 Much has happened. There has been much DOE l 17 activity in the Yucca Mountain area since I was last here.
18 But unfortunately not much has happened in terms of tribal 19 resources and the ability to participate in the process.
20 As I said the last time I was here, in regard to 21 what Mr. Eben was stating, not being able to participate, 22 that is quite important in the cultural resources protection 23 area Last time around we notified -- we had notified the 24 NRC that Yucca Mountain project officials were working under 25 a flawed cultural resources study that they had done by a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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97 ,
1 non-Indian from the University of Michigan. Those concerns 2' .seemed to have gone unheeded, even though as a cultural
. 3 workgroup, which Mr. Arnold is a part of, it has not always 4 been embraced by all of the tribes in that area and even 5 though respectful deference is given to those tribal 6 cultural people, it is the tribes to whom the federal 7 government has its trust obligation on a government-to- ;
8 government basis. So we would look for the federal agencies 4
- 9. to find some way to live up to that moral and legal ,
i
'10 obligation to ensure tribal participation. ,
I 11 Impacted tribal. governments may still opt to enact l 12 transportation regulatory codes which will enable them to 13 participate and monitor transportation activities, though 14 there is significant federal preemption in these areas. The 1 15 stakes are too high for the tribes to be left on the outside )
16 and no matter when they decide to avail themselves of the 17 process, they have the right to participate to whatever 18 extent feasible. The NCAI feels it falls within the trust ;
l 19 responsibility of the DOE to provide resources and 20 assistance if a tribe so desires.
21 As you have heard, some tribes may wish to 22 participate under the cover of an intertribal organization 23 such as the Nevada Indian Environmental Coalition. The i
, 24 choice is that of the tribes. The NCAI still has on record 25 resolutions from the NIEC which asked us to provide
)
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98 1 information and work with those tribes within their 2 organization to monitor activities for them and to provide 3 them with updates from the various participating federal 4 agencies.
5 I must say that DOE has at times made attempts to 6 find resources for the tribes. Dr. Dreyfus a couple of 7 years ago met with tribal officials and the short story is 8 that nothing ever became of that. The Yucca Mountain 9 Project Office had funding available and then they didn't a 10 short time later. The came back to the tribe and said, yes, 11 1 we do, and then that was pulled back also. So it has been 12 sort of on a I yo-yo string as far as the tribes being asked 13 to participate realistically and then being denied. So that 14 is something we are dealing with. So there is a little bit 15 of mistrust on the part of the tribal governments and, 16 rightly so if you can put yourselves in that position.
17 The State of Nevada and counties have received 18 impact dollars and the tribes whose land and cultures are at 19 risk are yet to receive funding and are unable to assess the 20 thousands of documents emanating from site characteri=ation 21 studies and thousands more to come. They don't know if the 22 non-Indian scientific approach is sound or not. They can't 23 evaluate DOE's scientific programs. As a matter of equity, 24 as a matter of legal and moral obligations, we would urge 25 the NRC to implore the DOE to correct this longstanding ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 99' 1 l
1 error.and provide resources to impacted tribes until there !
, 2 is at-least a funding level equitable.to the states and 3 counties and that should be viewed only as the beginning of 4 the tribal participation in this process.
I 5 The funding we are suggesting is not special 6 interest or pork barrel project. In our mind, it should be 7 a staple within DOE program budget items, not only with DOE f 1 8 but with NRC and other agencies across the board. This is 9 also not a matter of lobbying but an attempt to ensure 10 participation by the necessary parties. The federal 11 government should accept its role to provide assistance as
, 12 part of the trust responsibility under treaties and 13 agreements.
14 To go back to transportation for a moment, if I i
- 15 could, in regard to spent nuclear fuels and radiological 16 waste shipments, we are urging the NRC to establish 17 protocols requiring tribal notification. I would point out 18 'that many of the. corridors through whose jurisdiction these 19 shipments traverse or will travel in the future are coming 20 from near ground zero in regard to readiness to respond to 21 radiological transportation accidents. We all know that it 22 takes years for an emergency response organization to reach 1
23 a state of readiness. We, along with the tribes, have made 24 the DOE aware that the tribes retain the jurisdictional 25 ability to enact hazardous materials transportation codes ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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F : *- ,
I 100' 5
, 1 Jand may opt >to exercise this authority. :
2- lThe NCAI isLworking with DOE. transportation
. '3 external coordination work group and within that group have' ,
4 urged funding and training and technical' assistance to
,, . 1 5 tribes and tribal responders but this has not really reached f~
6- whatLis necessary.to bring tribes in regarding emergency i .
i Once again, the State of Nevada and
- 7 response activities.
j e
i'
- 8 counties have received impact-dollars and.the tribes'whose 9 land and cultures are at risk have yet to receive funding. !
10 .and are unable to assess these documents. So we just wanted l 11 to reiterate that'. ,
s i 12 This is quite important because it is not you and
[ 13 I and the DOE'who have so much at stake and the word 14 stakeholders is an understatement in this instance. Their j 15 homelands are being altered at this very moment, altered to 16 a state which, based on the work done, is not recoverable 17 for many generations.
18 You and I will go home tonight and perhaps file 19 these papers and our thoughts away for the time being but 20 these people will return to their homelands and will wake up 21 every morning and wonder the fate of the birthplace of their 22 culture where their Creator placed them.
-23 There is a limited opportunity to carry out a fair 24- and just policy and. implement decisions which enables them 25- to-protect.and preserve their homelands and birthright and 3004 RILEY.& ASSOCIATES, LTD. '
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1
101 1= to maintain-their way of life.--But they and their progeny .
2 .will look back on;today as just another instance when their
.3 message 4went unnoticed.
'4 I. appreciate this opportunity. .
5- CHAIRMAN JACKSON: 'Thank you very much.
6 Commissioner Rogers?
'7 COMMISSIONER ROGERS: None.
8 CHAIRMAN JACKSON: Commissioner Dicus, J .
~9 Commissioner Diaz, Commissioner McGaffigan? ?
i 10 .W ell, I thank each of you and all of you for your 11- input. -I take note of what I have heard, which I always 12 feel is useful to play back.and that is the need for i
13 cultural understanding. The cognizance of our ,
, 14 responsibilities'under the various laws and executive '
15 orders, the special sensitivity to transportation issues, l
16 -the need for consistency of interaction, the need for access i
17 to information, including the use of information technology .
18 and the issue of funding. We are probably in the same boat 19 you are as far as that is concerned.
20 I thank you again. I also thank the C
21 representatives from the State of Nevada and from Nye County ,
22 and Clark County and, of course, the representatives from i
23 the DOE. As you know, we are. briefed regularly by our staff I 24 and other organizations involved in the high-level waste .
^
25- area. But hearing directly from all of you is helpful to ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. [
Court' Reporters l 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300
- Washington, D.C. 20005 l
(202) 842-0034= 1
k e .
102
- 1 the Commission as we determine the status of DOE's efforts 2 and the direction of our own program.
3 The statements of all of the participants in 4 today's briefing and in the discussions surrounding the 5 statements, you have described the issues.and concerns that 6 all of you have, which overlap but are also unique to each
. i
] 7 ' group associated with the high-level waste repository 8 program. .It is important that we continue to maintain clear ;
i 9 communications between, obviously, DOE and NRC but among all 10 lthe affected parties so that we can use the resources
- 7 11 available appropriately and carry out an effective program. :
l 12 Again, the Commission thanks everyone very much
. 13 and, unless there are further. comments, we are adjourned.
14 [Whereupon, at 12:02 p.m., the briefing was !
15 adjourned.]
16 '
17 18 19 20 21
.22 23 24 25 I
. ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. '
Court. Reporters 1250.I Street,.N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
-g s- e-CERTIFICATE i
tais is to-certify'that'the attached description of a meeting' of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory' Commission' entitled:
i TITLE OF MEETING: BRIEFING ON STATUS ^OF HLW PROGRAM'- l
-t PUBLIC MEETING ;
f PLACE OF. MEETING: Rockville, Maryland '
.DATE OF MEETING: Thursday, May 15, 1997 !
was held.as herein appears, is a true and accurate record of i the meeting, and that this isfthe original transcript thereof j taken. stenographically,by me, thereafter reduced to i
typewriting by me or under the' direction of the court reporting company l
Transcriber: (' b vi ki ( .(lite Ar(p Reporter: Jon Hundley
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