ML20206J370
| ML20206J370 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | 05000000, 05000603, 05000604 |
| Issue date: | 11/21/1988 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| CON-#488-7627 88-570-01-CP-OL, 88-570-1-CP-OL, 88-571-01-CP, 88-571-1-CP, CP, CP-OL, NUDOCS 8811280173 | |
| Download: ML20206J370 (33) | |
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0%G;\AL O UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
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In the Matter of:, .
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ALL CHEMICAL ISOTOPE )
ENRICHMENT, INC. (ALCHEMIE ) Docket Nos. 50-603-CP/01, FACILITY l CPDF) ) 50-604-CP
) ASLB Nos. 88-570-01-CP/01, and ) 88-571-01-CP
, )
ALL CHEMICAL ISOTOPE ) '
ENRICHMENT, INC. (ALCHEMIE )
FACILITY 2 OLIVER SPRINGS). )
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Pages: 70 through 100 Place: Botnesda, Marvland Date: Noven.ber 21, 1988
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/f\L HERITAGE REPORTING CORPORATION OfficialReporters O 1220 L Street N.W., Suite 600 Washinston, D.C. 20005 1i. .,i a1 (202) 613-4848 rs c, o :> i. o ,
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UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION O
ALL CHEMICAL ISOTOPE ENRICHMENT, )
INC. (ALCHEMIE FACILITY 1 CPDF) ) ,
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and ) Docket Nos. 50-603-CP/01, i
) 50-604-CP '
ALL CHEMICAL ISOTOPE ENRICHMENT, ) ASLB Nos. 88-570-01-CP/01, INC. (ALCHEMIE FACILITY 2 OLIVER ) 88-571-01-CP
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SPRINGS). )
Monday, !
November 21, 1988 Nuclear Regulatory Commission l Eas*-we s; Towars 4~a0 East-West Highway bethesda, Maryland 4
The above-entitled matter came on for teleconference, r pursuant to notice, at 2:00 p.m.
BEFORE: HON. MORTON B. MARGULIES, CHAIRMAN Administrative Law Judge O Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ;
Washington, D.C. 20555 ;
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HON. EMMETH A. LUEBKE (
Administrative Law Judge t U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission I
) 5500 Friendship Boulevard }
i Suite 1923N i Chevy Chase, Maryland 20815 {
- HON. OSCAR H. PARIS Administrative Law Judge i Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel !
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 ;
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71 APPEARANCES:
On behalf of the NRC Staff:
BERNARD M. BORDENICK, ESQ.
U.S. Nuclear Regule. tory Convaission White Flint North Rockville, Maryland 20555 On behalf of the ADolicant:
STEPHEN A. IRVING, ESQ.
702 Soutla Illinois Avenue Suite 202B Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37030 0
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2 2:00 p.m.
3 JUDGE MARGULIES: Good afternoon. This is Judge 4 Morton Margulies, and kith me is Judge Oscar Paris and Judge 5 Emmeth Luebke and we have a reporter reporting this 6 verbatim. Who's on the lino for the applicant?
7 MR. IRVING: Steve Irving's here for the 8 applicant, your Honor.
9 JUDGE MARGULIES: Who is on the line for Staff? ,
10 MR. BORDENICK: Bernard Bordenick. f
' l 11 JUDGE MARGULIES: This is a scheduled pre-hearing ,
12 conference. We*ve had some developments in the interim 13 since our last conference. The first matter to mention is !
)" 14 that the state of Tennessee has withdrawn thwir prior 15 request to participate in the proceedings as an interested
- 16 state, pursuant to 10 C.F.R. 2.715 (c) . F I
17 The next matter to mention is we received . ;
i 18 rnailing from applicant this past Monday, containing what are 19 indexed as a page and a half of documents, most of which we
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20 have never seen before, for which we want to thank the i
i 21 applicant and filling in voids ist the record.
t i 22 We also have a letter from the applicant dated l
23 November .11, 1988 in which the applicant enclosed a letter,
! 24 its letter to the Department of Energy requesting an l 25 extension of the cont:act date and a letter to thw Nuclear
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73 1 Regulatory Commission regarding machine decommissioning.
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2 Mr. Irving, have you been in contact with the Department of 3 Energy regarding that extension?
4 MR. IRVING: Yes sir. Let me tell you what's 5 happened if I might. The folks at DOE Oak Ridge that are in 6 charge of the extension were out of town last week, so what 7 they did was they gave us a letter of temporary extension, 8 which we received I guess towards the end of last week, 9 stating that our contract terms were basically extended 10 until November 31st of this year?
11 Well, that of course is a date still prior to the 12 hearing. The reason for the temporary extension
- which was 13 basically, you know, like a ten-day extension, was to give 14 their staff time to get back from a week they had been away 7s 15 from Oak Ridge, and put together a formal extension which we
- 16 hcVe not yet received but which we are anticipating 1 */ receiving in the next week or so, that vill extend it for us 18 until January 31st.
19 We again have not received that. We got an
.? O entension granted us until November 31st. We have basically 21 nad an extension promised us until January 31st, but we have 22 received nothing in writing to corroborate that promise to 23 us from DOE. I anticipate of course they will give us that 24 document.
25 JUDGE MARGULIES: January 31, 1988 date is in Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 O
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'accordance with your. request?
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-( ) 2 MR. IRVINGt. Yes sir.
l 3 i'UDGE PARIS: January 31, 1989.
4 JUDGE MARGULIES: 1989.
5 MR. IRVING: 1989, yes sir. ,
6 JUDGE MARGULIES: Now, we were expecting to obtain 7 certain matters from the parties which we have not obtained. ;
t 8 One of them is the environmental report.on fauna and flora ;
9 out at Oliver Springs.
i 10 MR. IRVING: The flora and fauna report, your l 11 Honor, was completed last week. I can tell you orally that i
12 it -- the folks we had do it found no significant impact to 13 either, but that has now been transmitted to you and it's my :
, 14 understanding that was mailed out this morning. We received i
15 it, I guara, on Fri. day or Saturday. It was Saturday.
16 JUDGE MARGULIES: Okay. So we should be getting i
t 17 it this week?
t 18 MR. IRVINGt Yes air. !
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! 19 JUDGE MARGULIES: Okay. !
! 20 MR. IRVING: And again it's a finding of no !
! 21 impact. !
l 22 MR. BORDENICK: Could I peak for the staff on l
) 23 that?
i 24 JUDGE MARGULIES: Please do, Mr. Bordenick. ;
l 25 MR. BORDENICK: We have not received anything from ;
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75 1 the applicant yat, and before we can report to the Board, of 2 course we will have to see what the applicant comes up with.- ,
3 In addition, we had one of the staff consultants go out to 4 the site at the same time as the applicant, and we won't be i
5 in a position to give anything to the Board until we've seen 6 something from the applicant.
7 So I think it's in the applicant's interest to get
,8 whatever it is they got to the Board to the staff.
9 MR. IRVING: That was -- it wa9 ma.iled, of course,
- 10 a copy to you Mr. Bordenick at the same tinie vt: mailed a I
11 copy to the Board.
12 MR. BORDENICK: And wheri was this Mr. Irving?
13 MR. IRVING: Pardon?
1 14- MR. BORDENICK: When did the copy go out?
I 15 MR. IRVING: We received it on Saturday. It was I
( 16 mailed this morning, i
17 MR. BORDENICK: Oh, fine. Chay.
j 18 JUDGE MARGULIES: All right then. Mr. Bordenick, 19 we'll be looking for something from you after we recaive the 20 copies ourselves.
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'1 MR. BORDENICK: That in correct. At this point I 22 can't tell how long that will take because I hamtn' t seen l
23 what the applicant sent in, but I don't contemp1 ht.e it will 24 be a very involved process.
l 25 JUDGE MARGULIES: Okay. Mr. Bordenick, we have I
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76 1 not received the financial aialysis.
(} 2 MR. BORDENICK: That is correct, Judge Margulies.
The reason you haven't received is it hasn't gone out. It l 3 l
is prepared; however we are awaiting some additional 4
5 information to confirm certain findings that we have made in 6 thia analysis from the applicant.
7 My understanding is the applicant was apprised of 8 this, and we are still awaiting the information. In other
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9 words, we can't send it out our analysis until we get some 10 confirmatory information from the applicant. I don't know 11 when that's going to be.
12 HR. IPVING: Okay, if I could just state this 13 please, Mr. Bordenick. It's my understanding that that 14 information you're expecting from AlchemIE is a copy 15 basically of a bond that we're posting to ensure that we 16 have the money to cover the amount that we anticipate it 17 would cost to do the D & D on the facility.
18 MR. BORDENICK: Well, my understanding is perhaps 19 it is what you say it is. My understanding is you're 20 supposed to be getting a letter of credit from a bank.
21 HR. IRVING: Well, a letter of credit, right. I 22 think a letter of credit or a bond, something to insure, 23 surety bond, letter of credit, something that would ensure 24 that indeed that money was available in Lhe event of a say, 25 catastrophic failure by the applicant, and that is being Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 O
77 1 obtained today.
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I think that's something that we spoke with you about on Friday, if I'm not mistalen, and that's being 4 obtained today and that should be out and up to you this
'S week, hopefully by midweek. So that's something that I'll 6 -get immediately upon getting it. The request, we've begun 7 doing that and that's in the process and it'll be to you 8 this week sir. ,
9 MR. BORDENICK: And I think I can state that once 10, we get in hand what Mr. Irving and I have just discussed, we 11 will immediately get out the Staff's review on financial 12 qualifications to the Board.
13 JUDGE MARGULIES: Mr. Irving, when you talk about 14 a catastrophic failure of the applicant, what do you mean?
15 MR. IRVING: Basically, your Honor, there's a 16 statutory definition that in the event that someone that s 17 in possession of something that requires D & D for any event l 18 whatsoever, goes out of business, fails, is thrown into l 19 bankruptcy or just about any event that would cause the 20 business to fail is kind of what they call a catastrophic 21 failure as I understand that statute.
22 And it's apparently a new statute that we were 23 made aware of. I believe I was unaware of it.
24 JUDGE MARGULIES: Okay So you're talking about a
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- 25 financial catastrophe?
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78 1 MR. IRVING: Yes air.
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JUDGE MARGULIES: Okay.
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- MR . IRVING: Something where we just go out of 4 business basically. So to ensure that these items that 5 we've already taken possession that requires some D & D, I t
6 we're basically making plans up front so that that would be !
- / taken care of and eliminating the risk of any catastrophic ;
r 8 financial failure.
9 MR. BORDENICK: Judge Paris? l 10 JUDGE PARIS: Yes.
11 MR. BORDENICK: Perhaps I can clarify to some 12 extent what Mr. Irving has just said. What he's talking 13 about is the fact that many months ago the Staff advised the t
'4 applicant that there was then pending a proposed rule on ,
- 15 decommissioning, and applicant was informed of that proposed 16 rule. s i
17 He was also informed -- I don't have the letters !
18 in front of me, nor do I have the dates -- but I do know ,
i 19 that this was months ago. He was informed that in the event 20 he did not have his construction permits in hand by the time i I
21 that the rule was finalized, that he would have to comply f t
22 with whatever final rule was in place at the time his 2* application was still pending in effect. I think that's i 24 what Mr. Irving is alluding to.
25 JUDGE PARID: I see. Okay, thar.k you, Mr.
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NR. IRVING: Mr. Bordenick, I think that's true.
Again, I was up at the Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plant last i 4 week, and this morning in a briefing I received a cite to a 5 10 C.F.R. section, I think *pasturer was put in effect in 6 late July or something of this year? .
7 MR. BORDENICK: July 27, 1988.
8 MR. IRVING: Yes.
9 MR. BORDENICK: If the Board is interested, I can 10 give you the Federal Register citation.
11 JUDGE MARGULIES: That won't be necessary.
12 MR. IRVING: It's something that apparently has
! 13 come up and rather than, you know, we're just going to l 14 simply comply with it and we're taking steps this week to go
. 15 ahead and comply and get it to you.
16 JUDGE MARGULIES: Now last week the Board sent out 17 certain inquiries to both Staff and the applicant, covering 1B safeguard and security matters as well as matters involving 1
19 the safety evaluation report. Have you received those
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20 documents?
I 21 MR. IRVING: Judge Margulies, the applicant 22 received those on Saturday and I got in today and opened l
23 them this morning and we've assigned a staff team to get our l 24 response up on these matters and submit them to the Staff 1 25 and to your Honors.
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80 1 JUDGE MARGULIES: How about Staff, Mr. Bordenick?
() 2 Have they received the inquiries?
3 MR. BORDENICK: Yes, J'2dge Margulies, we have 4 received the inquiries and they have been referred to the 5 reviewers. The reviewers are working on responses. I'm not 6 in a position 6.oday to tell you when we will get those to 7 you but I do tsot anticipate that it will take very long. I 8 certainly don't think it will be before the end of this 9 week, and hopefully it will be by the end of next week.
10 JUDGE MARGULIES: I think at this point we should 11 be discussing what will transpire at the hearings.
12 MR. IRVING: Okay.
13 JUDGE MARGULIES: The first thing, do the parties 14 know how maa., witnesses they anticipate having at the 15 hearing?
16 MR. BORDENICK: I assume applicant will go first 17 on that.
18 JUDGE MARGULIES: Yes.
19 MR. IRVING: Well, your Honor we anticipate having 20 available witnesses about from the applicant's side, five to 21 seven witnesses in areas of environment, safety, security 22 and such. But I had anticipated, assuming you know, unless 23 something comes up that becomes an issue that's not been 24 satisfied to anyone, I had assumed no substantive proof 25 other than our application.
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81 1 JUDGE MARGULIES: When you say nothing but your
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2 application, you would include all the supplements and 3 responses to inquiry by the Board and the staff?
4 MR. IRVING: Yes sir, the , full record.- In other 5 words, what I had anticipated doing is having witnesses s
6 available, but I had not planned out any kind of an order of 7 introduction of proof other than to basically Exhibit 8 No. 1, which is our collective submissions to your Honors.
9 JUDGE MARGULIES: Well, as a practical matter I 10 think they would have to be broken down more specifically 11 than that to deal with an entire record, just with a 12 det.ignation of Exhibit No. 1 I think would be totally 13 unwieldy and unworkable.
14 MR. IRVING: Well, I guess I was saying that for 15 simplicity. That's not necessarily how we anticipate O 16 putting it in the record, but that's what I'm saying.
17 That's what I had intended to rely upon collectively as our 18 ovidentiary presentation. l 19 JUDGE MARGULIES: And what does Staff intend to 20 do, Mr. Bordenick?
21 MR. DORDENICK: Well, we will definitely have I 22 available at the hearing Drs. Clark and Swift, the former 23 and present project managers of these applications, and they 24 will sponsor into evidence the Staff's SERs and the 25 environmental assessments, i I
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1 With respect to the items that the Staff has j{]) 2 prepared in response to Board questions, and also che 3 financial qualifications review, if the Board has no further 4 question of the staff witnesses and there are a total of i
5 three people involved in those areas. That's Mr. Sawyer on ;
6 safeguards, Mr. Burnside on security, and Mr..Peterson on 7 financial qualifications. ;
i 8 If the Board has no need to' examine these 4
9 witnesses verbally and this is what I alluded to last week 10 when I requested that the Board advise me as soon as 11 possible, knowing that even as of today, they still can't do 1
12 that. If the Board has need for the witnesses being in 13 Knoxville live, they will be there.
14 If the Board has no need for them to be there 15 live, the staff would contemplate putting their submissions 16 into the record via a sworn affidavit.
17 JUDGE MARGULIES: Just one minute. We're going to 18 have a discussion off the record.
19 (Discussion held off the record.) :
20 JUDGE MARGULIES: Mr. Bordenick?
21 MR. BORDENICK: Yes.
22 JUDGE MARGULIES: How would you propose to handle 23 the safeguard and security matters? You would have your 24 witness in the affidavit sponsor the documents which will 25 not be made part of the record. Is that correct?
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83 1 MR. BORDENICK: That was my contemplation, yes.
2 JUDGE MARGULIES: We can see no problem with your 3 proposals as to how you want to handle these matters. Does 4 either party want to comment on the other's proposed' method 5 of proceeding?
6 MR. IRVING: Your Honor, Steve'Irving for the 7 applicant. If I'm not mistaken, they're fairly consistent
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8 and similar. We both primarily are intending to rely upon 9 the data in reports and submissions that we've generated and 10 made in a verbal record. If properly authenticated and 11 submitted -- is that right, Mr. Bordenick? I don' t see --
12 is there any major difference in our philosophy to it?
13 MR. BORDENICK: I don't think there's any 1
14 substantive difference. The only difference is a practical 15 difference. You've got your people down --
15 MR. IRVING: That's right.
1 17 MR. DORDENICK: Down there in Knoxville. I don't.
! 18 If necessary, I will bring them down.
19 MR. IRVING: I have nn objection to Mr.
20 Bordenick's plan of introducing his evidence.
21 JUDGE MARGULIES: Now an important thing to keep l
l 22 in mind is the requisite number of copies of these i 23 documents. I can't give you a number offhand. Maybe Mr.
i 24 Bordenick can in terms of the number of copies that you 25 need, but you' re going to need a lot more than the single l Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 l
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84 1 copy that is readily presented in many court actions.
(} 2 In the administrative process it requires quite a i 3 few copies, and you should be prepared to present the i 4 requisite number of copies. -
5 MR. BORDENICK: Judge Margulies, I don't have this L 6 item on my list of items to discuss today, so first of all -
7 I'm glad you raised it. Normally -- well, my recollection i i
8 is that if a document comes in as an exhibit, you need three !
9 copies for the reporter. I don't know how they arrived at
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10 three but that's the number.
11 If as the Staff would contemplate for its 12 documents, the documents are incorporated into the record as .
I 13 is read, then the number of documents that is required is a t 14 function of a number that the reporter needs, which I think -
1 15 in dependent on the number of parties. In this case, since ,
O- 16 we just have the applicant and the Staff and the PDR copy. ,
17 JUDGE MARGULIES: Well, you also need a copy for >
l 18 the Appeals Board.
19 MR. BORDENICK: Okay, Appeals Board. It seems to ,
t 20 me that in the past I would say if you had ten copies of ;
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- 21 anything that was going into the record as I've read, you'd l
22 probably be a few over. And after the Staff -- now the ,
f 23 applicant, some of his exhibits or his documents are going (
24 to be fairly bulky, and as to those I would imagine the l 25 Board would want to treat them as exhibits. But I'll leave i
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L 85 1 that to the applicant and the Board. I have no predilection
(} 2 either way.
3 As to the Staff, I would contemplate asking that 4 the Board incorporate into the record as if read the 5 documents. In other words, they would be bound into the i
6 transcripts, if that's agreeable to the Board and the 7 applicant.
8 MR. IRVING: Well, from our standpoint Mr.
9 Borderick really, we want to certainly comply and make 10 certain everyone gets their copies who's supposed to get 11 their copies, but as you noted, the entire record that we've 12 generated is quite voluminous.
13 Nonetheless we'll do whatever the Board would 14 prefer us to do on some of these larger documents. If it's 15 necessary indeed to physically reproduce ther. and have those 16 copies available and physically enter them into evidence, i
17 rather than incorporating by reference, something say 18 already filed in the cause. Certainly we'll do that.
19 MR. BORDENICK: Judge Margulies?
20 JUDGE MARGULIES: Yes?
1 21 MR. BORDENICK: Does the Board contemplate having i
l 22 an additional conference call? I would suggest that we do.
23 JUDGE MARGULIES: I guess we can, but it's a 24 little prema'ure to discuss it at this point.
25 MR. BORDENICK: Hell, the reason I raise it as i
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86 1 this point was that I think by contacting the -- I mean I'll 2 have enough copies of Staff documents down there in any
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3 event, however we do it. Whether it's three copies or ten 4 or 15. We'll have the copies down there.
5 I think in the interim, Mr.' Irving and I can 6 discuss this further and also I will contact the reporting 7 company that will be reporting this and see what their 8 desires are and try to come up if, for example, the Board 9 agrees to the Staff's physically putting its documents into 10 the record as if read, which on reflection it may turn out 11 to be fairly bulky because it looks like to me we may now be 12 talking about a one day hearing, putting aside limited 13 appearance statements.
14 JUDGE MARGULIES: My offhand feeling is that it 15 would be better if they would go in as separate documents, 16 as exhibits.
17 MR. BORDENICK: I'm tending to agree with you now.
18 If that's the case, I think we will end up needing lesc 19 copies. I assume the Board will have copies of everything 20 with them and that the applicant will have copies of the 21 Staff documents and vice-versa, that there will be no need 22 to exchange documents with anyone at the hearing.
23 Simply giving -- it's certainly agreeable to the 24 Staff to mark documents as exhibits, and I will double-check 25 with the reporting company. The number that sticks in my Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
87 1 mind from past experience is on exhibits you need to give
(} 2 the reporter three copies. But I will check and see if 3 that's still the current version.
4 JUDGE MARGULIES: And then the Board is entitled 5 to copies, but if we have the documents, then we're not 6 going to require the parties to submit additional documents.
7 Certainly in terms of the filing of the applicant, in terms 8 of their environmental statement and their PSAR, they've now 9 furnished each Board member with two copies, so we certainly 10 don't need for own use any more copies of those documents.
11 MR. IRVING: Tha:k you, your Honor.
12 JUDGE MARGULIES: But you also understand that 13 since the documents that were submitted were updated by the 14 letters of inquiry and the responses, those too should be 15 included as exhibits for the record.
16 MR. IRVING: Yes sir.
17 MR. BORDENICK: Yes, understood. Judge Margulies, 18 I don't know if this is -- I don't know i f wa have finished 19 discussing this particular topic, but in any event I just 20 wanted to point out to the Board and the applicant that at 21 an abundance of caution, Wednesday of this week the staff's 22 licensing assistant for AlchemIE is going to go down to the 23 public document room and make sure that as of whacever date, 24 allowing for mailing times, that the public document room in 25 downtown Washington, DC has in it what it's supposed to have Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
t 88 1 and conversely does not have anything in ihere that
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sh:suldn' t be in there.
If there's any problem in that regard,-I can 4 report on it to the Board and the applicant dur.ing the next 5 conference call if one is scheduled.
S MR. IRVING: From applicant's standpoint that's 7 fine. I've verified all of our documentation here, that i 8 copies were sent there but I haven't verified of course they 9 are received, and in that regard it would be of benefit to I 10 us.
11 MR. BCRDENICK: Yes. I think we want to make sure 12 before we go to the hearing that the public document room is 13 accurate vis-a-vis what it has or doesn't have.
14 JUDGE MARGUL1ES: All right. Now we have the ;
15 matter of briefs to be filed following the hearing.
16 MR. IRVING: Your Honor, the applicant, assuming 17 things continue to progress and we're able to resolyw most 18 of these issues, that's the type of issue that if allowable 19 we would waive.
20 JUDGE MARGULIES: Well, it would assist the Board 21 to have briefs filed in the form of initial decision, which 22 is customary in these proceedings, and if we don't have any 23 problems I don't know why the briefs can't be prepared in 24 advance and be turnev a --
25 HR. IRVING: At the hearing?
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89 1 JUDGE MARGULIES: At the hearing or very, very
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shortly thereafter.
Mr. Bordenick?
Do you have any problem with that,
'd 4 MR. BORDENICK: No, I don't have any problem at [
5 all. As a matter of fact I was planning to call Mr. Irving 6 and discuss this matter. There were so many other things 7 pending I sort of put this off. But I don't,know -- I think 8 Judge Margulies is correct, that we could probably prepare 9 what will turn out to be the bulk of the findings prior to 10 going down for the hearing, and then we can just sort of i
11 fill in whatever blanks have to be filled in as a result of 12 *La hearing being held. l 13 I think the Board can direct parties to file 14 proposed findings, and if the parties choose not to, then 15 they cannot contest whatever it is the Board finds. I think O 16 that's what the case law says. So if the Board wants 17 findings, as far as the Staff is concerned, the Board will 18 have findinga.
19 But I think again, this is another item perhaps we 20 can defer further discussion on vis-a-vis setting dates 21 until the next conference call and Mr. Irving and I can 22 discuss this matter.
23 JUDGE MARGULICSI Well, fine. As you can see, 24 we're all working towards the direction of getting most of 25 these issues resolved before hearing, and if possible we Ileritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
90 1 would like to accomplish that. We also have the matter of
(} 2 limited appearances, which we also have to take at the 3 hearing.
4 At the present time, we have not received any .
5 noticas of anyone wishing to submit a limited appearance.
6 But that's something that also will have to be accomplished.
7 We seem to be moving along without any difficulty.
8 As a practical matter, we have the hearing set for 9 December 21st, which is at a very busy time for a lot of 10 people and presents some problems. What is the feeling of 11 the parties if we would move the hearing up to the first 12 week in January, to be held down in Knoxville and to wind it 13 up with the limited appearances and everything else at that 14 time?
15 MR. IRVING: Your Honor, on behalf of the 16 applicant I guess it's one of those situations where I'd be 17 able to answer that question better once I've gotten some 18 kind of a confirmation or talked a little bit further this 19 week with the Department of Energy.
. 20 I have, of course, in sending them the letter and i 21 giving them the information, used the December 21st date as i 22 a frame of reference. I don't know how much that impacts 23 upon them and the extent to which that affects them at all,
) 24 but before I could say it would be really satisfactcry, 25 certainly I would like to accommodate in all regards.
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1 Something like that is reasonable, still within
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the time frame, but I would like to see if that poses any problems with the Department of Energy because we're in a
. 4 sensitive position.
5 JUDGE MARGULIES: Yes, I fully understand that.'
6 What is your feeling, Mr. Bordenick? !
7 MR. BORDENICK: Well, as usual of course, the ;
8 Staff will be at a hearing whatever and wherever the Board 9 says, but as a practical matter in this case I think Mr.
10 Irving is certainly correct. We have no objection in the 11 abstract to putting the hearing over'until after the first ,
l 12 of the year. I think it would accommodate a lot of people
[
j 13 at a busy time of the year.
i 14 I would suggest to Mr. Irving and the Board that ;
i 15 we wait until -- of course Mr. Irving will have to tell DOE
( i i
16 what the Board's contemplating, but if in fact DOE grants an L I
! 17 extension on the contract until January 31, 1989, and as the f i r I 18 Board has pointed out it looks like we're moving ahead on h l I i 19 track so to speak, I don't know why the hearing couldn't go ;
t i
20 over. [
i 21 But I will defer to the applicant's -- I have to l 1 (
l 22 defer to the applicant's situation in that regard. l 23 MR. IRVING: I guess one goestion that would arise !
24 would be in the event that it will continue for a week or l I
! 25 nomething like that, would it require an additional notice [
l I
, Heritage Reporting Corporation i (202) 628-4888 i (:)
92 1 period in the Federal Register or what would be the 2 mechanics of it?
(~ }
3 JUDGE MARGULIES: No, it doesn't require any 4 Federal Register 30-day notice, if that's what you're 5 alluding to.
6 HR. IRVING: That would have been satisfied by the 7 existing notice? ,
8 JUD3E MARGULIES: That is correct., [
9 JUDGE PARIS: In the first week in January, I'm 10 looking at the official NRC calendar. I note that January, 11 the 2nd on Monday is a Federal holiday.
12 MR. BORDENICK That's correct, but I think the 13 Board could keep the days of the week the same. In other 14 words, the way it now stands is that the hearing would be 15 held on a --
16 JUDGE MARGULIES: The 4th and 5th, rather than the i
17 21st and 22nd, if there would be a two-week postponement.
18 MR. BORDENICK: Yes. I don't think that the --
19 Judge Paris, I don't think that the Federal holiday would 20 interfere with holding a hearing that first week of January.
21 JUDGE PARIS: No, I'm not suggesting it would. I 22 just was pointing that out. The 4th and 5th, how d;os that 23 sound?
24 MR. DORDENICK: That week? That's fine with me if 25 the applicant's amenable. I suspect he's going to want to Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
93 l 1 wait until he has something in writing from DOE saying that !
2 he has an extension until January 31st? ,
3 JUDGE PARIS: Yes, sure, and then that would give 4 us the 3rd and the 6th to travel on.
5 MR. BORDENICK: Yes, that's correct. I think it 6 will be a whole lot easier for people to travel that week .
[
7 then the day before Christmas. ,
8 JUDGE PARIS: Yes, I think you're right.
I 9 MR. BORDENICK: Well again, I would strongly 10 suggest that the Board hold another conference call, and I 4
11 would suggest a week from tomorrow. ,
L2 JUDGE MARGULIES: A week from tomorrow. That i
! I 13 would be 28th at --
, i i 14 MR. DORDENICK: That would be Tuesday, the 29th. i 15 JUDGE MARGULIES: Oh. A week from tomorrow.
O I'
I 16 Okay.
17 JUDGE MARGULIES: The reason I suggested a Tuesday !
18 instead of a Monday is that I won't be in the office next i 19 Monday, but if that's the day I can arrange to participate l 20 in the conference call. But I will be in the office on 21 Tuesday and I think it would be more helpful to the Board if
! 22 I'm able to confer with the Staff prior to the conference !
i 23 call, and I won't be able to do that until the 29th, morning 24 of the 29th. So I would suggest the afternoon of Tuesday, I i
'i 25 the 29th. 'l t
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94 ;
1 JUDGE PARIS: That looks good for me.
{} 2 3
JUDGE MARGULIES: We will set that as the date for a further conference call at 2:00 p.m., the 29th of 4 November. >
5 MR. BORDENICK: That's fine. I appreciate it.
6 Thank you.
7 JUDGE MARGULIES: If you get the extension for the 8 31st, Mr. Irving, do you have any problems with the dates of ,
l 9 the 4th and 5th?
10 MR. IRVING: Your Honor, in terms of my schedule, ;
11 no I don't. It's one of those things I have to talk to i
12 AlchemIE Board of Directors about. They have made plans, I 13 know, to begin doing some modifications in th3 CFDF facility !
~
14 in late December, and I don't know how that would be i
15 impacted by the change. I don't know.
O 16 That's just one I really need to discuss with them j
17 before I could commit anything. I understand. I certainly 18 understand your Honor's position on that I, you know, tend '
19 to personally agree on it. But I know, you know, what a l i
20 critical date it is to AlchemIE, and I think they've built a 21 number of their timetables around that December 21st date.
22 I need to talk to them and see what kind of a problem it 23 poses with them so I could relate to your Honors.
24 JUDGE PARIS: Well, we certainly understand that 25 and you can report back to us on the 29th, I guess.
Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
. 95
( s.
1 MR. IRVING: Your Honor', I appreciate that.
4
{} 2 3 final ruling.
JUDGE PARIS: I'll let Judge Margulies make the I was just giving my opinion.
4 JUDGE MARGULIES: Well, we are working, I think 5 quite successfully at this point, although we still don't 6 have all the f.n*ormation and we still have a number of 7 inquiries out for which we have no information. But if 8 necessary, we will try to make the 21st date, but it would j 9 certainly make it easier if we commenced and completed the 10 hearings by the 5th of January.
11 MR. IRVING: I'll certainly go and talk to the 12 applicant's board about that, your Honor. The only thing j 13 I'm conce,rned of is I know they have some kind of a, and I'm l 14 involved in it. I don't know exactly what the date is on it 15 now because I was out of town last week, but they've got a j 16 contract that embodies a number of things with GE Nuclear i t
17 Corporation. I'm not certain how that's goiny to be 18 impacted. !
19 So there's a number of areas I need to ask them r 20 about that, and I'll certainly find that answer and get back l i i 21 before our conference call on Tuesday, if that's when indeed [
. t L
l 22 we're going to have it.
l 23 JUDGE MARGULIES: Yes. We've set it for the 29th, 24 MR. IRVING: What time is that?
25 JUDGE MARGULIES: 2:00 p.m.
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96 1 MR. IRVING: 2:00 p.m.?
2 JUDGE MARGULIES: Yes. Is there anything any of 3 the other parties want to raise at this point?
4 MR. BORLENICK: I don't have anything on behalf of ;
- 5 the Staff? j l
6 MR. IRVING: No, not from the applicant, your j 7 Honor, e. cept to finish getting the information on .hese !
8 inquiries that we received this weekend and get that to you ;
9 immediately, and the flora and fauna report has been ,
10 transmitted today. ,
11 JUDGE MARGULIES: We will just go off the record ,
12 for a minute. The Board wants to discuss several matters. ,
I 13 (Discussion held off the record.) r
! 14 JUDGE MARGULIES: The Botrd is back on the record.
! i
, 15 One of the Board members is concerned as to where the l
! 16 proprietary and safeguard and security documents are going j i i 17 to be kept, Mr. Bordenick, in that they will not be part of ;
i i i
18 the record. !
l l
. 19 MR. BORDENICK: Okay. There are two things we can !
) 20 do in that regard. We can either weed out -- NHS has these (
' t 21 documents in a segregated docket, segregated vis-a-vis the 22 fact that it's proprietary. We can either do that and there [
t 23 can be some notation in the record that in the event, for 1 24 example, the Appeals Board or the Commission needs to see l I
25 those documents, that would be where they reside. ;
i r
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97 1 Or in the alternative, I have in other cases 2 arranged with the -- no, I take that back. In the case I 3 was talking about, what we did which involved a power
.! 4 reactor, the Board agreed that we would have the NRR docket 5 people set up a separate docket, and in fact that's what as G I indicated, that's what NHS has already done. So can you l 7 hold one second?
l 8 JUDGE MARGULIES: Certainly. I think we ought to 9 decide how we're going to do it.
l 10 JUDGE PARIS: Yes, i
11 (Pause.)
i
- 12 JUDGE MARGULIES
- Well, that's just another one of 13 those matters which we can defer until the next conference, 14 as to which method will be used.
- 15 MR. BORDENICK That's correct, and actually I did a
j 16 have one further matter that just came to mind that I could i 17 raise at this point. I was reminded of it by the discussion 18 we just had. On the question of the Board's having -- I 1
j 19 forget the -- the Board originally had inquired about having 20 a security advisor.
j 21 JUDGE MARGULIES: Yes, that seems to be resolving 2? itself, that we have had no problems arising --
23 MR. BORDENICK: That was going to be my first 24 observation. I quite agree with that and secondly, I have 25 ascertained that I guess the related question of if the Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
98 1 Board had to go in camera, where would they hold the
(~N; 2 hearing.
3 I'm informed that if the Board were to go in 4 camera, and I'm not suggesting that would be necessary, but 5 just to relay to the Board and the applicant my 6 understanding is that if the r,oard were to go in camera on 7 safeguards matters, that all they would have to do would be 8 to clear the hearing room in which they were in. They would 9 not have to go to another hearing room.
10 However, if they did go into classified 11 information, they would have to go to a secure hearing room.
12 I don't know if I've made myself clear on that, but in any 13 event I'm not suggesting that either eventuality would como 14 to pass. But we had talked at the pre-hearing about where em 15 would the Board go if they needed to go in camera. The
!b s
16 answer would depend on what it was ptat they were going in 17 camera for.
18 JUDGE MARGULIES: Well, in that we don't have any 19 confidential information before us and I don't foresee us 20 having any --
21 MR. DORDENICKt That's quite correct. The only 22 confidential information relating to this -- well, not even 23 relating to this application, but relating to AlchemIE's 24 operations, really is certain components of the machines 25 that they're going to use, which are not part of the NRC Ileritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888 O
U
99 1 record and I don't think there's any need that it become
(} 2 part of the NRC record.
3 JUDGE PARIS: Will this be proprietary 4 information?
5 MR. BORDENICK: Tse safeguards material is 6 considered proprietary.
7 JUDGE PARIS: Yes, I understand'that.
8 MR. BORDENICK: But any classified information 9 would be in a different category from the safeguards or 10 proprietary information.
11 JUDGE PARIS: Do you anticipate their being any 12 classified information?
13 MR. BORDENICK: Absolutely not.
14 JUDGE MARGULIES: It seems this whole discussion i 15 should become academic. We will try to resolve all of those 16 issues before hearing and in all likelihood we will not have .
17 to go into in camera.
18 HR. BORDENICK: Well, that certainly sounds ;
19 agreeable to the Staff.
20 JUDGE MARGULIES: If we get the responses we are 21 looking for, then it will be academic. Is there anything l l
22 furthur of the Board? '
23 MR. IRVING: Not from the applicant, your Honor.
24 MR. BORDENICK: Nothing from the Staff. ,
25 JUDGE MARGULIES: We will conclude this hearing i
Heritage Reporting Corporation l (202) 628-4888
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i 100 1 and we will be speaking again on the 29th of November at
(~ 2: 2:00 p.m. Thank you.
(_3/
3 HR. BORDENICK: Thank you sir.
4 JUDGE PARIS: Thank you.
5 (whereupon, at 2:45 p.m., the hearing was 6 adjourned.)
7 8 -
9 10 11 12 13 14
)
16 17 18 10 20 21 22 23 24 25 Heritage Reporting Corporation (202) 628-4888
1 CfRTIFICATE o
km 2 3 This is to certify that the attached proceedings before ti*
4 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the mattez 5 of: ,
6 Name: All Chemical Errichment, Inc. (AlChemie Facility 1, CPDF) and All Chemical Isotope Enrichment, Inc.
7 (Alchemic Facility 2, C1.lver Spr3nas) 8 Docket Number: 50-603-Ci '01 et al.
9 Placa: Bethesda,- Maryland 10 Date: November 21, 1988 11 were held as herein appears, and that this is the originu, 12 transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear 13 Regulatory Commission taken stenographically by me and, 14 thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the
() 15 direction of the court reporting company, and that the
- 1. 6 transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing 17 proceedings. ' _
s 18 /s/ ' - vJ - %
19 (Signature typed) : B. K. Hunnicutt, Jr.
f 20 official Reporter ,
21 Heritage Reporting Corporation 22 23 1
24 25 Heritage Reporting Corporation O (202) 628-4888
_