ML20147B429

Intervenors Response to Partial Initial Decision in Perkins. Addl Evidence Is Needed to Resolve Radon Issue

ML20147B429
Person / Time
Site:	Seabrook, Sterling, Skagit
Issue date:	09/08/1978
From:	Sheldon K NEW ENGLAND COALITION ON NUCLEAR POLLUTION
To:
Shared Package
ML20147B393	List: ML20147B390 ML20147B417 ML20147B429 ML20147B442
References
NUDOCS 7812150273
Download: ML20147B429 (11)

Text

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SEP 2 5 nn UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY CO.T4ISSION EEFORE THE ATOMIC' SAFETY AND LICENSING APPEAL BOARD In the Matter of )

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PU3LIC SERVICE COMPANY OF ) Docket Nos. 50-443 gy W7 %

,i~7 HAMPSHIRE, et al. .)50-44r M l' g

) .f o (Seabrook Station, Units ) NN #

1 and 2). ) , 37.% 7p,

.(% e 1 NECNP Comments on the Partial 5,\ '&,.' , , :' 'd" D

Initial Decision in Perkins b'fg . - 9 J "'

\ / N, The New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution (NECSD)).'

or the Coalition) submits the,following comments on the 5

Partial Initial Decision In the Matter of Duke Power Co.

(Perkins Nuclear Station, Units 1, 2 and 3) Docket No. STN 50-483, 50-489 and 50-490, --- NRC -- , July 14, 1978. These con =ents are provided in accordance with ALAB 480, the May 30, 1978 order of the consolidated Appeal Board, which requests a party to address the questions of whether the Perkins record supports the generic findings and conclusions of the Licensing Board concerning the amount of radon emissions in the mining and milling process and resultant health effects; and whether the emissions and health effects j are such as to tip the NEPA balance against construction of the particular plant under consideration, in this case, Seabrook.

The Perkins record does not provide support for the Licensing Board conclusions. As discussed in NECNP's Comments on the Perkins Record, the Perkins record is deficient in i

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several vital respects: 1L contains no testimony from o

qualified witnesses'on low lose / low dose rate effects, and it does not reflect an analysis of the impacts of radon for a sufficiently long period, considering the life of this radionuclide. Furthermore, the conclusions of the Licensing Board are based on certain assumptions about the future stability, care and reclamation of uranium mines and mill tailings piles, assumptions which conveniently result in a reduction of the amount of radon in the environment, but which are speculative and not yet required ,by law. As a consequence, instead of being conservative in an area which would seem to demand worst case assumptions, the Licensing Board gives the industry the benefit of several large doubts in order to conclude that radon from mining and milling presents a minimal present and future health impact.

What is disturbing about the Licensing Board's judgments is that they are not based on reliable, probative evidence in the record. There is testimony to which the Board refers, but examination of this material, particularly when com-pared to the witnesses' qualifications to make the statements, reveals that it lacks credibility or factual basis.

For example, Witness Wilde, upon whom the Board relied (Paragraph 16, page 9 of Board order) 'for his statements concerning reclamation laws governing open-pit mines, has no qualifications in this area. He is not a lawyer. He has .

had no legal training. His testimony does not concern v- - - -,.a- .n.. , - - _ _ .__.__.

reclamation laws. There is no indication that he has ever reviewed relevant state laws to determine whether and to what extent reclamation is required. It is also clear from his answer at Tr. 2556 that-he does not know what the -

impact of reclamation laws, assuming they exist, will be on reducing radon emanations. In fact, Witness Wilde stated that he did not " feel qualified to really address the total question of reclamation ~of mines" (Tr. 2550). Nor did he know what the current policy, practice or requirements are for closing an open-pit mine (Tr. 2466). IIis calculation of the amount of radon from mining.per AFR, 4;060 curies, was based'" entirely on information from underground mines" (Tr.

2540). He did not have any data at all on the amount of radon from open-pit mines (Tr. 2543), which constitute at least 50% of all uranium mines.

As the Board noted, the MRC has no regulatory authority over uranium mines. It is entirely a state matter. Yet the Staff did not produce, nor did the Board request, the partici-pation of representatives of the relevant state rcg,ulatory agencies to discuss the status of and requirements for reclamation, or the degree of compliance by mine operators.

Similarly no mine operator was ever consulted. At the very least, Staff Counsel could have prepared a roview of applicable state laws.for consideration by the Board. The Licensing Board's " inquiry" of a witness without legal training, who .

did not even review the laws in question, is hardly a l

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m sufficient . basis for any judgments about ~ the rlikelihood of reclamation. This is particularly so when no party questioned Mr. Wilde's " understanding" of these matters.

The. amount of radon' expected from mining operations .s i determined-by the amount of reclamation to be' applied to open-pit mines (Licensing Board order Paragraph: 17, page 19). The record is devoid of any real evidence on what reclamation efforts can reasontbly be expected to take place. The Perkins record is deficient on this important issue and should be supplemented by further testimony from persons with expertise and familarity with the lagal requirements for and practical results to be expected of reclamation.

With respect to the radon releases to be expected from underground mines, Witness Wilde has relied for his data on material supplied as a result of two telephone calls made in 1975. This data appeared " reasonable" based on Mr. Wilde's

" experience in the industry" (Page 3, Wilde Testimony, post, tr. 2369), and thus formed the basis of his calculations.

Neither the Staff nor the Board requested the participation of these individuals or,of a representative of Xerr McGee, .

which did a independent ~ investigation in 1976. No one t

questioned the strength of Mr. Wilde's assessment of the l'

data or his calculations.

Mr. Wilde also testified that it is indus try practice to seal ventilation and hoisting shafts of mines no longer l

l producing uranium (Tr. 2541-42). His basis for this state-I ment is unclear. Certainly his coployment history shows l

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little experience with uranium mines.- Nor is it evident from his testimony that he inquired into or reviewed " industry practice". A more useful and rel_ b'e witness would have

. been a mine operator or a representative _of a mine operator's-association. .

A second major assumption of the Licensing Board concerned the_ stabilization of mill tailings

• piles. The

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Board observed that '" [t] he total ' amount ' of radon emitted per AFR depends entirely on the assumptions that are made concerning the stabilization of the tailings piles af ter they dry out. "

(Licensing Board order, Parag'raph 23, pige- 12) . The Board relied on recently developed " performance objectives" for tailings piles management, and on a Branch- Technical Position which allegedly requires all Applicants for a license to -

operate a uranium mill to commit'themselves to a reclamation plan as a basis for concluding that all , mill tailings will' in the future be stabilized in such a manner'as to eliminate both the problem of radon . emissions and.the potential for theft or diversion of the tailings materials. "

The Perkins record provides only the most superficial rationale for these conclusions. The Staff's " performance objectives" were never explicitly spelled out in Staff testimony,'nor did any party or the Board examine the Staff about what precicely they will require. Such questions were the necessary first. step in an inquiry into whether the . ,

objectives are in any way real and attainable standards.

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Some notion of the technology, cost and. time involved, as well as the over-all basis for the criteria, is essential to any judgment about the future stability of mill tailings. So too isa some. idea of the industry's response to the objectives.

The Branch Technical Position was not included in the record. ~ This alone'is a significant omission, because its precise requirements are not known to the reader. Of greater  ;

- significance was the failure of the Board or any party to question the' Staff closely on the position--its factual bases and its assumptions. .-

/

From the little that appears in the testicony of Mr.

Miller (Tr. 2394) it seems that the Staff is aiming for piles which will require no active care. At other points in the record the Staff talks about the federal government purchasing and maintaining mill tailings sites. Whether these are inconsistent positions is unclbar. What does the Staff assume about future responsibility for mill tailings?

If it is to be the industry, testimony is needed on the industry's commitment to take the steps required, even in i

Agreement States. In any case, testimony on the costs mud the mechanism for stabilizing and maintaining the piles is necessary to support a conclusion that it is reasonable to assume stabilization. It must be remembered that the NRC has no regulations requiring the stabilization of mill tailings, and in the case of Agreement States, it has no authority over uranium millers. It would be nice if the w- .-r- '

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~7-Staff's objectives and technical position formed a reliable foundation for determinations of future practice, but they do not. >

A reader of the Perkins record would be'hard pressed to conclude it from the transcript, but the radioactive emissions from mill tailings are at present a substantial health threat in a number of Western states.

In Grand Junction, Colorado, from 1950 through 1966, 300,000 tons of mill tailings from a uranium mill processing plant were given away free to the town's contractors who built from them more than 700 homes, bus in,e'ss e s , schools and churches, plus sidewalks and streets. In the early 1970's the Colorado State Health Department began an investigation into the location and effects of these tailings when a local l l

physician began to see an unnaturally high level of cancer and birth defects in his patients. 1978 studies show that Mesa County, where Grand Junction is located, has an acute leukemia rate, twice the s' tate average, according to Dr.

Anthony Robbins, Director of the Colorado Health Department.

In New Mexico, state health officials several years ago requested the Environmental Protection Agency to survey -

ground water contamination in the vicinity of the uranium mills near Grants. Researchers discovered that seven of 72 locations had radium concentrations in excess of standards, and that one aquifer had been grossly contaminated by seepage from a nearby tailings pond.

4 . 4 At the Vitro site outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, l there are 3.4 billion pounds of uranium tailings abandoned without stabilization or prcsection. 22,000 tons of tailings were removed prior to 1968 to use as fill at an unknown ner.ber of building sites in Salt Lake City. 800 tons form the foundation of Salt Lake City's main firehouse which was built in 1958. Since that time firemen have been exposed to radiation levels 5 times higher than those allowed for underground uranium miners and 50 times higher than those acceptable for the general public, according to Dr. IIarvey Gibbens, Salt Lake City - County Health Director. City officials are currently debating whether to jack up the building and remove the tailings or uimply abandon it.1/

Presently there are 22 abandoned uraniun mills in the Western states, with some 52 billion pounds or 500 million cubic feet of uranium tailings which are. scattered in mounds around these sites with little protection from wind, rain or appropriation.

The fact that no radon emission from these abandoned and lost tailings piles can be attributed to the operation of Perkins does not obviate the need to examine the. agency's and industry's past practice, both to fully assess the nature of the mill tailings problem, and also as part of.

deciding what can be properly assumed as realistic in the Staff's promises for tomorrow. ,

1/ The information in this and the preceding paragraphs came from a series of articles on nuclear waste by Gaylord Shaw which appeared in the Los Angeles Times,from telephone conversations with Mr. Shaw and from reports of the Southwest Resource and Information Center.

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It is simply not correct for the Licensing Board to conclude that "we are no 16nger faced with abandoned and unstabilized piles" (Licensing Board order, Paragraph 30, page 16). The new requirements are not yet in place, and there is substantial reason to believe that piles from current milling operations are as dangerous as the abandoned ones. The Southwest Research and Information Center which has been studying mining and milling operations in New Mexico has concluded that the tailings hazard at active operations is severe.

Supplemental testimony an,d examination is required on the subject of mill tailings stabilization. Without this additional inquiry there can be no strong confidence in the Licensing Board's conclusions.

The most disturbing conclusion of the Licensing Board is that the benefits of nuclear energy are,certain -- the impacts of mining and milling uranium hypothetical. NECNP has dis-cussed its difficulty with this in the earlier filing. There is nothing hypothetical about the continued emission of radon from mining or mill tailings.

II.

The question ~of whether the radon emissions and resultant health effects are sufficient to tip the NEfA balance against the construction of seabrcok cannot be answered on the basis of the Perkins record. The answer depends upon a more .

accurate assessment of the nunber of lives affected over the life of the radi.o..tclide, and the nature of the health impacts.

And'it depends-upon the value to be placed on a human life.

III.

NECNP has not requested a~ hearing on Seabrook alone.

However, as described in its comments on the Perkins record, tiEC;? is of the opinion that additional evidence is required to fill in important gaps in that record and . to make it usefui' for Seabrook. It may'be that the record developed in a con-solidated proceeding,such as proposed for Sterling, could be incor'porated into the Seabrook record and obviate the need to.

duplicate such an effort for Seabrook. NECNP docs not wish appear tentative in its request to the Appbal Board. How-ever,'the consolidated Appeal Board's order leaves unclear the procedure to be followed if no hearing is requested, but the taking of additional evidence is.

NECNp would s'uggest that the Appeal Board wait to deter-mine the appropriate steps for.Seabrook.until the parties to the Sterling proceedings have resolved the radon-issue.

As Counsel understands it, the matter will either be examined in a consolidated proceeding or one in which the Intervenor Ecology Action participates alone. In either event, most, if not all, of NECNP's concerns will be raised. Ecology Action 1

proposes to present several witnesses on low dose and low dose rate effects. It plans to call representatives of state health departments and other agencies with concern for uranium mining and milling operations. It also plans to present .

appropriate philosophical and religious witnesses. Moreover,

! it intends to thoroughly question the Staff and Company

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Witnesses, as should have been done in the Perkins proceedings.^ i Of course, the results may not be satisfactory to some party

- to Seabrook. If that is the case, further testimony or.

possibly even further hearings may be. required. 1 Respectfully, submitted,  !

, , - . . .. . . . . 3 j/>A.le

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f C .+ f' Karin P. Sheldon Sheldon, Harmon, Roisman & Meiss 1025-15th Street, N.W.

Suite 500 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 833-9070 Counsel for RJECNP

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DATED: September 8, 1978 i

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