ML20207G269
| ML20207G269 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Three Mile Island  |
| Issue date: | 12/10/1986 |
| From: | NRC - ADVISORY PANEL FOR DECONTAMINATION OF TMI UNIT 2 |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NACTMI, NUDOCS 8701060452 | |
| Download: ML20207G269 (134) | |
Text
. .
i ORIGINAL
( Uh1TED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION IN THE MATTER OF: DOCKET NO: '
ADVISORY PANEL FOR THE DECONTAMINATION OF TMI UNIT 2 1
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LOCATION: HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA PAGES: 1 107 .
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DATE: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1986 '
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, ' Advisory Panel for the Decontamination of T!!I-2 llearing held: Holiday Inn Second Street
, Harrisburg, PA 7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
t EDD21.DS2k212 21222D.t Arthur IIorris - chairperson
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Thomas Smithgall Joel Roth
!!f c1 vald (It is spelled Niel) t' Gordon Robinson I
Joseph Dittunno g '. - .s' Elizabeth't;arshall 1:enneth fliller
')'i '[- Frederick.Yice Thomas Geruskv ~
John Leutzelschwab
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AGENDA ADVISOP.Y PANEL FOR TIIE DECONTAMINV" ION OF T!!I-2
- 1. Chairman's Introductory Remarks and Comments -
. Chairman Morris .
- 2. Decommissioning of TMI Unit 2 - E. Epstein
- 3. Status Report on Defueling - GPUNC
- 4. NRC Status - NRC
- 5. Post-Delueling Monitored Storage (PDI!S) - GPUl!C G. Post-Defueling Monitored Storage (PDMS) continued - GPUNC
- 7. Public Comment b
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! EDDCEED1DSB s, : 1 2
2 3 Ti! E CHAIRMAN: I would like to call the
,4 Panel to order.' I would like to mention for the 5 record that Ann Trunk called to let me know that a 6 family member passed away, and she is unable to 7 attend this evening's meeting. -
8 I want to recognize on a lighter note 9 the comments from my friend Joel Roth, who chaired 10 the last Panel meeting, and also that of the other 11 panel members who indicated that Joel runs a much 12 quicker meeting than I do, and ended, I think, at
' ~
13 9:15. He can certainly have the, job.
14 I did indicate to Joel, when he is 15 chairing, he doesn't have himself to contend with 16 as a panel member, and that may have made the 17 difference.
18 Ue have on the agenda tonight the most 19 important topic, I believe, is the Post-Defueling
. 20 !!onitor ed Storage, or at least that would be a 21 topic we will be discussing for the first or 22 assigning most of the time to.
23 I have been asked by one citizen, Eric
< 24 Epstein, for time on the agenda. He was allocated 25 ten minutes. I think he is here. And I have been
,m -- -
4
[: 1 told that since really it is involving 2 decommissioning, and that is tied into the 3 post-defueling monitor storage, rather than having 4 you first on the agenda, it may make more sense to
. 5 move you to become the first person to make 6 comments following the presentation by GPU on 7 that.
8 ERIC EPSTEIN: I wanted two five minute 9 allotments, one to deal with that and one to make 10 comments on the operation.
11 I know how rigid you like to stay to
- 12 your time schedule, and I can finish the first one
( .,,
13 quicker than you can run, maybe.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Come up now and try me on 15 that.
16 HR. EPSTEIN : I would like to make a 17 brief statement. Let me first state that I am 18 going to read this so I can expedite the
. 19 proceedings. -
20 Let me first state that Three Mile 21 Island Alert was founded to be an extremely
- 22. valuable forum for airing public grievances, 23 addressing questions about the cleanup of Unit 2,
'24 and confronting both the utility and the NRC.
25 In addition, the Panel has served as a
5 f,; 1 useful conduit to the Commission. And now, while 2 we recognize that many issues regarding cleanup 3 have been addressed, we also realize that there is 4 a long way to go before cleanup of TMI 2 is safely 5 put to rest, if ever.
6 In the near future, the Panel will 7 address a number of issues, including tonight the 8 post-defueling monitored storage, GPU's planned 9 disposal of 2.1 million gallons of radioactive 10 water, and NRC's EIS regarding disposal of the 11 water, also the transportation of radioactive 12 waste from THI to Idaho.
13 All these issues are of critical 14 importance to the community and warrant the 15 continued vigilance of the Panel. All this is a 16 long way of saying that we hope the Panel, and 17 especially you, Mr. Chairman, recognize the need 18 for the Panel to perpetuate itself and address 19 these issues and other issues and problems that 20 are certain to arise. .
il The need for your continued existence is 22 all the more critical when you realize that no 23 hearings were held or will be held during 24 controversial parts of the cleanup.
25 A small plug. I know there have been
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6 k'~ '
I some rumors that people chink the role of the 2 Panel should diminish soon. And I would just'like 3 to say I think you all have done a good job. And 4 I hope you-stay as a forum for us. It has been 5 useful.
6 To get down to business, what I have and 7
what I would like to introduce to the record is C
some comments from a person by the name of Kay 9 Drey, St. Louis, Missouri. Some poeple who are 10 colleagues of mine don't necessarily agree with 11 her comments, but she prepared a five-page f 12 document that you may have a copy of already.
k 13 It is very lengthy and specific. I do 14 have copies for the Panel members, and I will 15 briefly go over what she has said. It has to deal 16 with waste transportation. And it is pertinent 17 not only to our community, but to communities that 18 are on the waste route on the way to Idaho.
19 Her concerns and questions specifically 20 address the following: the chronology of the 21 revisions relating to the canisters, changes made 22 in the 0-ring seals on the fuel cansisters, the 22 decision er the decisions to allow the use of 24 nitrogen or helium in addition to the originally 25 approved argon as a cover gas in the canister,
7
(; 1 inner vessel, and outer cask cavities.
2 The pyrophoricity of the zirconium in 3 the core debris, especially the damaged 4 ~ zirconium-alloy tubing that originally enclosed 5 the uranium fuel pellets.
. 6 Of special importance, also, is the 7 decision to permit the shipment of two casks 8 simultaneously, as occurred on Labor Day weekend.
9 The decision to change the certificate to include 10 the following cargos irradiated core structural 11 components, contaminated defueling equipment, and 12 filter-aid materials.
C.. 13 In addition, she is also concerned, as 14 am I, about the damaged fuel core and concern 15 about the stability of the fuel pool.
16 All this again is a long way of saying,,
17 and sparing you a lot time, I would like to 18 introduce those questions, of which I have 15 j 19 comments for the Panel members, into the official 20 record. And I would like you to forward them to 21 the NRC.
22 Again, I think they are concerns that I 23 share, as well as Miss Drey. And I know other 24 folks in the community may not share them.
25 The last thing I would like to mention,
3.
8
{} 1 and I don't know if I am out of line here, but 2 just one final comment. I will address it to Mr.
3 Travers.
4 I notice in the defueling section of the 5 last status report from Dr. Travers that, and I
, 6 quote " attempts to pick up the core debris 7 following core drilling have proven unsuccessful."
8 ny question is, Why? And if GPU can't get bits 3
9 out with pneumatic drills, how are they going to 10' get them out? And if they can't pick up debris, 11 how will they pick up larger chunks of waste?
. 12 I have three things that I would like to
(,.
13 say very quickly in my initial five minutes; 14 first, a few accolades to yourself. The comments 15 from Miss Drey I would like.to forward to you from 16 St. Louis, Missouri, and also that question for 17 Dr. Travers.
18 And I trust I have been below 300 19 seconds.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: You have been. If you 21 want to hold on a second, Eric, maybe we can go 22 through these quickly.
23 As to the future of the Panel, we have
[
(- 24 discussed that as a panel. I think the precent 25 position is that we will not be scheduling a
t 9
(, 1 discussion on that for at least sometime into the 2 future because we feel there are enough other 3 issues to be discussing in the foreseeable future 4 before we really get into when the end point of 5 the panel is.
, 6 We recognize we are an important forum 7 to the public, and there are still some pressing 8 issues for us to undertake. And I believe the 9 sense of the Panel at this point is not to 10 deliberate on that for at least the foreseeable 11 future, j- 12 The second point was whether you could
(" 13 make this a matter of the record. I think if you 14 get a copy of this over to the stenographer, she 15 would be able to include it.
16 And the third item, Bill Travers is 17 ready to answer that now.
18 MR. TRAVERS: I-can answer it now, but 19 as I understand it, GPU is going to provide a 20 presentation on the status. And this is one of 21 the issues we will discuss.
22 Afterwards, if you want to ask me some 23 questions, no problem.
f.
% 24 MR. EPSTEIM: Should I distribute copies 25 to the members?
10
-(dI. 1 T!!E CHAIRMAN: Sure.
4,4 < . .
2 We will make sure we have time after the 3 post-defueling monitor storage, you will be the 4 first on, Eric.
5 The next item is the " Status Report on
, 6 Defueling" from GPU.
7 MR. STANDERFER: I am Frank Standerfer, 8 the Director of the Cleanup of GPU. Eric did a 9 good job of introducing me.
10 We will talk exactly about what we did 11 when we drilled the core up and what we think were 12 the problems with picking it up and so forth.
13 After the core drilling this summer, we 14 attempted to load what we call the hard layer.
15 Here is a cutaway of the vessel on the screen 16 here.
17 (Showing viewgraphs.)
18 We are really talking about that portion 19 in the middle that is red. It was the '
, 20 resolidified material that ended up having such a 21 hard layer on the top it.
22 After attempting to break that hard 23 1cyer up with the tools that we have available, we 24 decided to put the core drilling machine back on 25 the work platform and drill holes in that.
. . . . ~ . .
11
, 1 And during the break, Panel members can 2 take a look at the drill. This is one of the 3 drills. It is a flat-faced drill with several 4 diamond disks mounted in it. And actually it 5 grinds and chips its way through hard material.
6 And this is the type of drill we used. It is four 7 and a half inches in diameter.
8 Now, this is a cross section through the 9 core. The core is the white boxed zone in the 10 center there. This core drill would only go out 11 to about a 4-foot-1 radius from the center. So we
. 12 couldn't reach all the way out to the edge of the
(' 13 core, but we could drill holes as shown in, this 14 diagram. There are 421 holes that could be fit 15 a dj a cent to each other. We decided not to -- we 16 finally decided not to drill with ligaments 17 between the holes, but drill the whole thing out.
18 In the upper right-hand corner there is 19 a 19-hole pattern in yellow or orange, which was 20 our test section. We went in and drilled those 21 first 19 holes to make sure that we were producing 22 the kind of material we thought we were producing.
23 And the TV pictures and the digging equipment used
/~ 24 in the test pattern indicated that we had produced
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25 a gravelly kind of material, and it dug
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- 1. satisfactorily. , ,
2 The next is a cross section of that test 3 pattern. Again, it is the orange portion there.
4 We also used the drill and went down into the S' actual stub ends of the fuel elements, which.are
, 6 underneath the resolidified material, that is the 7 blue section, to see whether we could drill up 8 fuel elements. We also did that but did not do 9 that in the rest of the core.
10 The next one, we ended up drilling about 11 410 holes. The test pattern up in the corner and
. 12 the rest of the holes shown in green. We left 13 several holes as potential samples for the 14 Department of Energy in their test program, so we 15 would leave some chunks for them.
16 And the drilling started in the middle 17 of October and finished on the 14th of November.
18 It took four or five days to get the drilling 19 machine back off. And we started defueling on the
, 20 21st of !!ov emb e r .
21 And for four days we attempted to dig 22 this material and were unsuccessfull in digging, 4
23 other than we got a few fairly large rocks off of 24 the debris bed. I guess the mistake we made was 25 we were so confident that this material would dig i
13 1 easily, that we did not.stop and take the time to 2 produce good water clarity and do a good survey of 1
3 tne i
bed to see what we had prior to digging.
4 And on the day before Thanksgiving, we 5 stopped trying to dig this material. We produced 6 good water clarity over the Thanksgiving weekend' 7 and then did detailed video surveys of the bed 0 last week. I have a short videotape that we will 9 show in a little while.
10 Apparently, what happened is a number of 11 pieces from the donut section sloughed off into s 12 the area. We have a fairly large number of large 13 rocks sitting on top of this debris bed. There is 14 one that is two foot by one and a half foot by one 15 foot. There are a dozen or so 12 inches in 16 diameter. And that is just big enough so they 17 won't fit in one of our canisters, because the 18 hole in the canister is an 8-inch square.
s 19 We had a number of fuel rods that had 20 become twisted and were on the debris platform.
21 And in looking at it, it is pretty clear why the 22 spade buckets that we hav'e would not penetrate 23 this material and would not dig it.
[
( 24 This week we have trimmed fuel pins. He 25 a l s o ,- during the drilling of this, we twisted off
14 C '
[4,] I six of these drills. They were left where they 2 broke off in this debris bed, and we want to pull 3 those out.
4 We ha*!e retrieved two of them so far.
- - 5 And-the others we intend to pull out of this 6 material. Maybe that-will disrupt the materie) 7 also in just the act of pulling them out of this 8 material. Some fine material produced during the 9 drilling probably also filtered lower into the.
1^ reactor vessel.
- 1. Was that the last slide? Oh, the 12 drilling --
I was just showing you the top view of C' . 13 the drilling. This is a side view through the 14 drilling. It was drilled or a step pattern trying 15 to match the resolidified material. So it is IG deepest in the center and steps out towards the 17 outside.
10 The test pattern looked like gravel, 8- 19 like chunks from an inch in diameter down to 20 fairly fine sand. And that is what we expectcd to o
21 produce -- drilling 100 percent of the area with 22 this drill.
23 In the videotape we will show some
( 24 gravel, but you will see big rockc also. And I 25 think some of the loose material has filtered on
15
/
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down into the fuel element stubs and kind of lef t 2 the bigger material on the top.
3 !! R . DiNunno You talk about a debris 4 platform.
.- 5 MR. STANDERFER: Well, I shouldn't have 6 said that, the debris bed. That green area is 7 where we are currently working.
8 As we pull the drill strings out of it 9 and probe that this week, we will have a better 10 understanding. Now, the drill actually did drill.
11 We did drill every one of those holes.
12 How, maybe some of these rocks were 13 being pushed around by the drill. We didn't think 14 so. But obviously, we did not produce the type of 15 material that we h a d expecte d.-
16 MR. ROBINSON: Do you know where these 17 big rocks came from?
18 MR. STANDERFER: Put that last viewgraph v 19 back up, the previous one.
20 e
The white area on the outside of the 21 green is the portion of the resolidified material 22 which we couldn't reach with this drill rig. It 23 couldn't go out that far. Incidentally, we are I
( 24 modifying it so it will go all the way out.
25 But that is where it is feathered out to
16
. .s
((; 1 be 6 inches to a foot thick.
And in the 2 inspection now, at least half of that is sloughed 3 away and fallen into the center section. So that 4 is where the big pieces car.e from, we believe.
5 I still have to believe that in the 6 green area, we, in fact, did pulverized the 7 material, but that is yet to be proven.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: The part I was getting 9 confused on personally is, when I was thinking of 4
10 drilling, I was thinking of core drilling.
11 MR. STANDERFER: This is a solid face,
- 12 hard-rock drill that drills a hole all the way 13 across.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: I understand. You go so 15 far down and just grind up the material that is 16 below it for so many inches deep. And you went 17 across the entire surface, so you should have X 18 depth of groundup material.
o 19 MR. STANDERFER: Right.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: And at this point, you 21 just can't remove it, and you don't know why?
22 HR. STANDERFER: That's correct. The 23 only thing that could have happened is, as we
/
(.. 24 drilled, pieces were kind of pushed aside by the 25 drill rather than drilled in place, but that is
...m.~..
17 speculation.
( )- 1 2 Let me show you the videotape. It is 3 just a three-minute videotape. This does not have 4 narration on it. We had six hours of this 5 videotape done over the weekend.
6 This is is one of the drill strings from 7 a twisted-off drill, and actually has a fuel rod 8 twisted around it. And that fuel rod is about a 5
9 half inch in diameter. So that is'a close-up of 10 one of the broken drill strings in the bed.
11 This shows the underside of some of the 12 peripheral fuel elements that are still standing (f.;,
13 but undercut. And this is the top of a couple of 14 the peripheral fuel bundles around the outside 15 with the end fitting missing, so you are looking 16 at the tops of the tubes. There are 19 of the 177 17 fuel elements still standing around the outside 18 portions.
- 19 Agaln, we are looking at the outside.
20 That is the former wall there that the outside of 21 the core matches up against. And there is one of 22 the outside elements with the end fitting in 23 place.
24 If you can see on the lower portion of 25 this picture, there is a piece of kind of sheet i
18 (j 1 metal flared out. That is part of the grid that 2 holds the rods, and that has been damaged and 3 flared out.
4 That is the type of damage that made it 5 so difficult for us to load these end fittings
. 6 into the cans because the cans were built to take 7 about that square shape and did not provide for C much space for a piece like that, a flared piece 9 to be present.
10 Now, we are down into the debris bed.
11 You can see a number of rocks. These are 4-inch
,, 12 to 6-inch rocks here and some pieces of fuel rod.
L. 13 This is some of the fuel rods coming up 14 from below. And we believe that this is one of 15 the areas that --
the donut section had sloughed 16 away from.
17 MR. DiNUNNO: These are rather difficult 18 to interpret, and I wonder if members of the e
l 19 public out there can understand what it is they
, 20 are looking at.
21 If not, you ought to really point out 22 some of these things. I understand what the top 23 of the fuel rod is and so forth, but I am not sure f
(,_ 2 /. that others out there will.
25 I:R . STANDERFER: Again, this is one of
19
(' , 1 the broken drill strings with some of these rods 2 twisted around it. Here are some of the broken L 3 fuel rods that are part of a standing peripheral 4 fuel element that have been undercut and they are 5 missing in this location.
6 MR.- ROBINSON : About a half inch in 7 diameter?
8 MR. STANDERFER: Yes. These are half 9 inch in diameter fuel rods.
- 10 MR. ROBINSON: Are these at the edge, 11 the donut?
s 12 MR. STANDERFER: This is above the
('
13 donut, standing out of the donut. There may be 14 200 rods up above, but underneath there has been a 15 bite taken out.
4 16 This is the top of one. fuel subassembly 17 and this is the top of another fuel subassembly.
18 And the end fitting, which we will see in a e.
19 minute, has been lifted off. So we are looking 20 just at the fuel rods, the top of one of these 21 fuel subassemblies. 4 22 UR. ROBINSON: Are these subassemblies T
23 the 15 by 15?
24 MR. STANDERFER: These are the 15 by 15, 25- yes.
20 l' Here is another fuel subassembly coming
{.
2 into view, although it has an end fitting on the 3 top. So this is the way they would normally look.
4 And this is the damaged portion right here where 5 it is flared out. This piece of sheet metal holds 6 the tubes in place. And it is flared out enough 7 that we will have difficulty putting the end 8 fitting into a can without cutting this piece off.
9 HR. DiHUNHO: Those are the end fittings 10 you are having trouble with after you cut them 11 off?
12 !!R . STANDERFER: Yes.
'C 13 There are several rocks in this 14 picture. They are 4 to 6 inches in diameter, 15 Here is one and one here and another here.
16 We should be able to load this kind of 17 material with our spade buckets, if we get into 18 this area without 'getting hung up on any other 19 material. And that is why we trimmed a number of 20 the rods earlier this week that were interferring i
21 with the bucket mechanism.
22 11R . ROTH: What size bucket?
23 !!R . STANDERFER: We have two of them, 24 one has a 6-inch wide bite and the other has a 25 14-inch wide bite. It is a flat spade with a i
I k' _ _ _ _ , _ _ _ _ _ --_
21 E, 1 . single bucket that hydraulically is rotated to 2 match the blade that is pushed down.
3 Again, this is about a 6- to 10-inch 4 long rock here.
5 This is looking at an area which we 6 think part of the donut sloughed away in this 7 area. And we are looking at some of the rods 8 sticking up from underneath, from the-stub and 9 fuel assemblies underneath.
10 ,
Here is another standing of broken drill 11 string which we will pull out of the bed. That is 12 about 4 inches in diameter, this pipe here
(' 13 connected to the type of drill that I have on the
~
14 table there.
15 This is a larger rock. This is a rock 16 that is about 2 feet long and a number of fuel 17 rods. Again, we are looking down at some of the 18 stub end fuel rods in the donut section Here is 19 another rock and an area where there are rods.
20 This is an area -- I believe this is part of the 21 donut section. You can see where some of the 22 drill holes were.
6 23 We are still interpreting these
[ 24 videotapes. And so we put together a short i 25 videotape that I could use tonight, but it is I
22 I probably not the best footage from the six hours h
2 that we could have put together.
3 There i s no reason why we shouldn't be 4 abl e to dig this kind of material, because that is 5 the kind of material we intended to produce; 6 although these rods, without being snipped up, 7 could be interferring with the closing the spade 8 bucket in an area like that.
9 Again, here we are looking at some of 10 the stub end rods sticking up and some of the 11 debris material.
12 HR. ROTH: Were you surprised to find
'C 13 rods like that?
14 HR. STANDERFER: No. These peripheral 15 subassemblies, we have had them from time to time, 16 a few of the standing ones fall. There were 29 17 last spring, and we have 19 standing now.
18 They are not very stable. And when they 19 do fall down, apparently we are able to break 20 these rods up. They are pretty brittle.
21 UR. ROTH: They are not part of the 22 ceramic (phonetic) mass?
23 HR. STANDERFER: Not as far as I can 24 tell.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: When you are seated, i
l
. _ . _ . ~,
23
( ','- I could be give us a feeling, unless you are not 2 finished with your presentation, what the latest 3 problem will result in in the way of time delays, 4 specifically the fact that you have done all this 5 drilling and, at this point, you cannot seem to 6- remove the material because it doesn't appear to 7 be loose?
8 MR. STANDERFER: Yes. I guess I first 9 say that this is another evidence that this is 10 really a developmental kind of project. Each time 11 we reach one of these areas where it is new and 12 different, we are forging new ground and we get C 13 surprises.
14 Uhen I talked about schedule last 15 October, I said I wanted to review the schedule 16 after the first of the year. I still want to see 17 what we can accomplish during the month of 18 December on this before I come down officially on 19 what kind of schedule impact this might have.
20 But obviously, we are running two to 21 four weeks behind where we thought we would be 22 when I talked to you in October.
23 T!!E CH AIR!!AN : Any questions from 24 anybody else on the panel?
25 !* R . G ERUS KY : What is your-next step?
i
24
((} l MR. STANDERFER: Tomorrow we will be 2 pulling the remaining four of these drill strings 3 out of the debris bed. We will be probing the L 9 4 debris bed with a pointed probe tool.
5 And we will be going into the areas 6 where the big rocks are, picking them up, and 7 putting them on the top of one of our fuel cans in 8 a funnel arrangement. And we have a slide hammer 9 type tool that we will attempt to chip them and 10 break them into smaller pieces so they will fall ,
11 into the cans. And then we intend to use the
.. 12 spade bucket tool to go into some of these areas 13 that look softer.
14 Now, right after drilling, we went in 15 blind because we thought that this would be all 16 uniform gravel. And now we will be going in much 17 more carefully into those areas where we believe 18 you can dig.
19 MR. GERUSKY: Are you going to drill any 20 more?
21 MR. STANDERFER: We are not planning to 22 drill any more, no. This material has been 23 drilled up, and I am convinced that it has been f~
(. . 24 disrupted. This no longer looks like an uniforr 25 monolithic hard layer.
l i
25 l 1 And the challenge is to modify our tools J
2 so that they can bite into this material, !
3 MR. WALD: If I get any good news out of 4 that tape, it is that the water clarity problem 5 seems to have been resolved, or will that delay
, 6 you further?
7 MR. STANDERPER: We are able to produce 8 water clarity when we want it, but it takes 9 several days to get water clarity like that. We 10 had a test that was started yesterday and this is 11 using a little different filter arrangement with
, 12 diatamathasert (phonetic) body feed and a 13 coagulant material.
14 And for the first time, we believe we 15 have got an arrangement that will allow our 16 filters to run continuously at high flow rates.
17 And if this test continues to be successful this 10 week, we will be able to produce water clarity on 19 demand in hours rather than days, and the filters i
20 wouldn't be expended in the process.
21 So that is encouraging news.
22 MR. SMITHGALL: 'What loading capacities 23 are you anticipating when you get the larger rods?
i 24 MR. STAMDERFCR: Well, we continue to 25 plan to load the fuel cans up to 1,500 pounds per
26
( 1 can. These rocks are very dense, so once we get 2 them in the can, we will have to stop short of the 3 top of the can with that kind of weight in them.
4 MR. SMITHGALL: You don't anticipate any 5 increased canisters?
6 MR.- STANDERFER: No, I do not see that.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: I don't see any other 8 questions. Thank you, and we would move on to the 9 MRC status report.
10 MR. STANDERFER: I would be less than 11 candid to say how disappointed we were when we
,, 12 went in expecting this to be very easy to do. And
(
13 it is j ust as challenging as every oth er . task we i 14 have initiated.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: And I would be less frank 16 if I didn't tell you, Frank, that in January you 17 will expect more piercing kinds of questions on 18 the delay.
19 You really basically said that you need 20 additional time and you said you would reevaluate
- 7 21 in January. And if we meet in January, we would 22 e::pe c t that we would be looking to get specifics 23 from you in the way of any delayc.
. 24 MR. S T AN D ER F ER : Fair enough.
25 MR. TRAVERS: My list of updates is
i t-l . ..
N 27 j 1 gettin shorter, but I do have a coup 1e of things.
2 As you know, we have been working to
- 3. prepare a draft supplement to our overall 4 environmental impact statement for the cleanup 5 which will specifically address the disposal of 6 accident-generated water.
7 I believe the last time we met, I 8 projected that we could get a draft out for public 9 comment in December or by December, and we intend 10 to meet that. It looks like we can meet it.
11 '
The comment period usually lasts 45 12 days. Often times, however,'if people request an 13 extension, some limited period of additional time 14 is allotted for that. So we are pretty much on 15 track for getting that document out, and I am very 16 , pleased about that.
t i 17 The next subject, I know the Panel 18 continues to be interested in the Parks 19 proceeding. And the information I have for you 20, tonilght indicates that the discovery period is 21 scheduled to end February k, 1987.
22 And discovery for those of you who don't 23 know what it is is just that process by which the
(. 24 parti'es file written information to cupport their 25 contentions in the case. And that is now s
\
\
.- v ,
+
\ g I
( ', 1 scheduled to end in February.
2 The last thing I wanted to t' ouch on with 4' N i 3 the Panel is a job I have been asked to do,by'the 4 Commission. And it stems from the fact tbat a t. . -
s
. x 5 your last meeting with the Commission on June 24, ' ,
, 6 1986, the subj ect of panel end point came u'.p }
7 As a result of that, I was asked tolput 8 together, after consultation with the Pane ,
9 information that the Commission could consider as 10 to when the panel would logically end its ,
11 activities.
12 I think I have gotten a pretty good read G 13 from your discussion at the last meeting and \ from 14 the brief statement Art made at this meeting, but '
15 I thought I would go over what it is I plan to 16 tell the Commission about what my interpretation -
I' 17 of what your thoughts are before I do it. >
18 Basically what I propose to tell the
, . 8 T
19 Commission is that, while the subject has been
, 20 discussed, the Panel has deferred for the ctime '
~
I l 21 being, at least, any near term consider'ation of' 22 identifying at least very specifically when it 23 might go out of business.
l 24 I have indicated that there are several l
l 25 major activities that the Panel seems inclined to ,
9 l
7-y (,:.*wg 3.1 a Egg . , t
- g .'
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-):&! ,
- 29
^
h .. a 1 l' tie their r er.aining? lif e time to, and those include
- Q. e
' ~
~i '
2 defueling,,the water-disposal issue, and lastly
- 3 the post-defuel'ing status of the plant.
, 4,I ,
And I just thought I would give you an a
5 opportunity to reflect on whether my read is the y y ? ,
- t, ' 6. y *right one before.I-idojthat. s t
'7 T!!E CHAIRMAN: If no comment, I assume i
r s. s N'
t 8 >: ) that we. gpee with you, l r
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9
{ ,- (No comment.f:
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33 .
l' t A 11 someone ha's s ques.t ions.
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I2
[THE CHAIRMAN: Just a quick question.
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13 J .
On October 29 Mr. Clark, President of
.6 -
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,. y 14 '
GPU Uu cl ea r ', sent a letter to Mr. Taylor, Office
- q . v. _
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q J. s 15 of Inspection,.hnd Enforcement, regarding the Ap, ( j i 16.; impcisi ti on of civilxpenalties of the hand release
' b; 17 , mechanism, andl indicated they were going to go
.g .
U I C' -s forward andipay t at 40',000 fine.
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- 19 3
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THE CHAIRMAN: Has that been paid?
4.%
- p ?.
J. 21 tkR. hR AV ERS : I don't know. I think it x,
22 'qs to have-been paid by now, but I can certainly h
23 ycheck c +>
o n' lthat.
THC CHAIRMAU:
- f .. <.
24 But that particular issue
+
25 is a cl o s e d issue now? s y . x t
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- 4 -, , - - - .-. - y. -_
=.
30 g '. 1 MR. TRV ERS : It is a closed issue as far 2 as the NRC -- as long as we have got the check.
3 MR. STANDERFER: That check was mailed a 4- long time ago.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: The check is in the mail, 6 or it has been paid?
7 HR. STANDERFER: It was mailed a long 8 time ago.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Any other questions of 10 Bill?
11 MR. SMITHGALL: Real quick, Local
,, 12 public document. What is that?
(. . 13 MR. TRAVERS: The local public document 14 is -- I think it is in the State Library, Downtown 15 Harrisburg. But we also have an office in 16 Middictown where, if people are interested, we 17 will be glad to open up and let them look at it.
18 MR. S MITHG ALL : Communication from 19 yourself to Mr. Standerfer in reference to the 20 site inspection, you send me this stuff and I feel 21 I have to read it.
22 One thing caught me and that is the i 23 marginal effectiveness of the in-vessel video 24 cameras was cited as being weak.
25 Any comments on that?
i
.......m..... ..
! 31 0{,,}. .
1 MR. TR AV ERS : I will read you the 2 address, if I may first, of the local public 3 document in case anyone in the audience is 4 interested.
5 It is the State Library of Pennsylvania, 6 Government Publications Section, Education 7 Building, Cosmonwealth and Walnut Streets 8 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 17126.
9 I don't have any comment over and above 10 what was noted in the inspection. I believe, if I 11 am recalling it correctly, an inspector making an 12 entry where inspections in the command center G '
.13 probably noted that there had been some marginal 14 effectiveness of the cameras during the particular 15 period he was witnessing.
0 16 I know there are efforts, almost 17 continuous efforts, to keep the system by which 18 they view the work going on in the reactor vessel.
19 !! R . SMITHGALL: The only reason why I 20 ask this again is whether or not, besides the 21 technical problems that they have got with the 22 defueling, whether or not'there are operational 23 problems as well that you cited that you either 24 see improvement in or no improvement or problems 25 with?
. 32 1 MR. TR AV ERS : ife do see operational
{ }-
2 problems. They see them and we see them. I think 3 there are, as I mentioned, continuing efforts to 4 keep up with the problems and resolve them and 5 make the system work better.
6 I think what you are referring to in 7 that report is probably an item that an inspector 8 noted as apart from something that was observed 9 that he felt had some safety significance or some 10 significance to something they were doing 11 incorrectly.
12 !!R . SMITHGALL: They noted it as e
13 reducing overall efficiency and safety of the 14 operation.
15 !!R . TRAVERS: I think that is right.
16 Anything that takes any longer and results in your 17 having to work, for example, in the radiation 18 field any longer, has sone linkage to overall 19 safety.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Anybody else?
21 MR. DiHUNNO: Just a point of 22 clarification. Will the EIS be the mechanism 23 whereby the Commission addresses this
/.
g 24 acceptability of this concept of dinposal of the 25 reprocessed water, or is that a separate action?
33 2
- 1 MR. TR AV ERS : The EIS is one step in 2 that process. It is a formalized process that is 3 designed to strictly look at environmental impact 4 in a very defined way.
5 That will be published for comment, as I
, 6 _ mentioned. It will go towards addressing _ comments 7 that'are received in a final supplement, a final 8 environmental impact statement.
9 And then what the staff will do after 10 that final is issued, is communicate with the 11 Commission our recommendation on GPU's specific 12 proposal for dispossession of that water.
.f 13 I expect that the Panel will probably 14 meet with the Commission in that time frame as 15 well to give their views.
16 MR. DiNUNNO: You will address in the 17 EIS the environmental implications, that portion 18 of the ' operation, your recommendations dealing 19 with that process will be in separate action?
20 1:R . TRAVERS: That's right. He won't, 21 for example, when we write the environmental 22 impact statement say the staff is going to endorse 23 this.
24 He would attempt, if there was a clearly 25 identifiable alternative that was far superior
34 I than any other, we would try to identify that
('&*').
2 alternative and I think the rest would fall from i l
3 it. But it is a relatively separate, if linked, 4 process.
5 I want to mention, since we are on that J
6 subject, that there is one final step that would 7 need to occur before a final alternative could be i-8 implemented, or a chosen and commission approved 9 alternative could be implemented, and that is a 10 process that we will have to go through to amend 11 the license that now prohibits disposition of that
. 12 l water.
- 13. That process is, again, a rather 14 formalized one, and it affords the opportunity for
.15 anyone who wishes to do so to petition for 16 hearings, for example. And I expect that process 17 will follow after the Commission speaks.-
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. The 19 next item is the PDMS, Post-D1 fueling Monitored 20 Storage by GPU.
I 21 A guestimate, if you would, on the '
22 formal part of your presentation as to length of 23 time?
r, 24 !:R . STANDERFER: There are 15 25 viewgraphs, and I think it will take about 20
35
. C,j 1 minutes.
2 I am assisted by Bob Rogan, my Director 3 of Licensing and Nuclear Safety. He was 4 responsible for pulling together the 5 Post-Defueling Monitor Storage Plan that we
-6 presented to the NRC last week. And there was a 7'
press conference last Wednesday, and there was 8 some newspaper coverace at the time.
9 The cleanup has now been in progress for 10 nearly eight years. And this plan that we 11 provided to the NRC last week is the basis for 12 continuing submissions that we will be making in h's 13 connection with the status of the plant at the end 14 of the cleanup.
4 1
15 The cleanup, this slide here starts with 16- a circle on the left-hand side which represents 17 the accident.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: I think, if we could, it
-' 19 seems like the top of that again -- can we focus 20 that better?
21 MR. STANDERFER: Again, the cleanup is 22 shown here in the three left-hand boxes. The 23 first was the recovery of access to the plant with 24 plant stablilization. The second box is the fuel
- 5 removal. The third box is decontamination work,
...w .
36 g) 1- which comprised the cleanup program. We are 2 expecting to finish the cleanup program in about 3 two' years.
4 So what we are talking about is the box 5 on the right-hand side after the cleanup program, 9
6 post-defueling monitor storage. And the plan 7 that we provided the NRC last week and is 8 available is the plan for the plant after the 9 cleanup program.
10 This monitor storage is independent of 11 any decision for the disposition of the plant. A 12 disposition decision, what is to be done with the C 13 plant ultimate,y, has not been made.
14 The monitor storage will be safe, 15 stable, and secure. The plant will be locked with 16 access for inspection and maintenance by GPU 17 Nuclear staff, necessary protective systems will 18 be maintained. It will pose no risk to the health 19 and safety of the public. It is consistent with 20 Alara principals and limits.to exposure to our 21 workers.
22 The criteria presented in the plan will
! 23 ensure that we will meet or exceed normal
/ 24 licensing standards for an operating plant.
25 The post-defueling monitor storage will l
i i
l
37
{ ;. - 1 provide several layers of assured protection of 2 the public: Inherent stability, effective 3 containment, and positive control. And we will 4 take them one by one.
5 First, inherent stability. The plant 6 will be in a condition which is stable and not 7 open to transients or accidents. Well over 99 8 percent of the fuel will have been removed. A 9 nuclear chain reaction will not be possible with 10 the small amount of fuel that is remaining in the
.11 plant.
12 Contamination will have been removed to
(-
13 the extent that there can be no hazardous releases 14 of radioactivity, and the remaining contamination 15 is contained in place. No water will be included 16 in the systems or equipment. Few combustibles 17 will be present. There will be low fire potential 18 and there will be no pressurized systems.
. 19 The second is effective containment.
20 The remaining radioactivity.will be isolated from 21 the environment by protective structures, enclosed 22 piping systems, sealed cubicles, locked reactor 23 containment building, and in the secured auxiliary 24 and fuel handling building.
25 And thirdly, there will be positive
'38
] 1 control in that there will be routine conduct of 2 radiological and environmental monitoring. We
+ 3. will maintain plant security systems, such as fire
-4 protection and other plant security and protective 5 systems.
6 With regard to other facilities and 7 systems, the THI 2 boundary will remain within the 8 TMI site protective area. The TMI facilities will 9 be locked with access control by site security 10 forces.
11 The reactor building will normally be 12 locked and containment will be maintained 13 functional as a contamination barrier in 14 accordance with the new post-defueling monitor 15 technical specifications, which we will to the I 16 NRC.
17 At least one of the two redundant trains 18 of reactor building ventilation systems will be 19 designated as operable for use as needed. Access 20 to the upper level and ground level portions of 21 the containment building will be approximately the 22 same as it is today.
23 And with regard to the basement, we do 24 not currently have personal access to the basement 25 of the containment building. And in finishing the
39
}{ 1 cleanup, we expect to reduce-the radiation levels 2' in the basement so there will be limited access 3 during the post-defueling monitor storage period 4 to t5 basement, although that is not a 5 requirement. The post-defueling monitor storage 6 activity can be successfully conducted without 7 personal access to the basement of the building.
8 'The auxiliary building will be locked, 9 but accessible for regular inspection and 10 surveillance. The building's exhaust system and 11 filter will be maintained operable and will be 12 operated as required.
'C 13 The auxilliary building's sump pump 14 system will be ope r a bl e. When we have rains and 15 so forth, waters do collect in some of these 16 sumps, and we will be routinely maintaining those 17 sump pumps. The fuel handling building exhaust 18 filter will be maintained operable as required.
19 And the fuel pool and SDS pool in the fuel 20 handling building will be drained of water.
21 All of the systems in the plant, both 22 the originsi systems and the systems installed 23 during the recovery period, will be determined and 24 labeled either operable or deactivated.
25 The operable systems will be those that
N
. . - ~ . . . .
40 1 are required for the post-defueling monitored Q'N /
2 storage systems support or support to other 3 on-site systems.
4 The deactivated systems will be either 5 mothballed for future use or deactivated with no 6 intended future use. So all of the plant systems 7 will be put in one of these four categories.
8 With regard to fuel removal, the damaged 9 core,.plus structure, is estimated to be 290,000 10 pounds. Working in kilograms, that is 132,900
'l l kilograms. He expect to remove and ship over 99 12 percent of the fuel; that is, over 132,000 C 13 kilograms with the residual fuel being somewhat to 14 less than 400 kilograms.
15 At the present time we have made and are 16 continuing to make measurements i n the various 17 parts of the reactor system outside of the reactor 18 - vessel to determine how much fuel is present. The 19 current status of that indicates that in the 20 reactor coolant system, and-that i s in the 21 pressurizer, the steam generators, the pipes and 22 valves and so forth in the reactor cooling system, 23 there is between 15 and 125 kilograms of fuel at
, 24 the present time.
25 Outside the reactor system itself, the
_r . - , _ , , , ._,_,_____~,,,,.9__ ,,..y, , , , . - , ,n. , __-,,.y,,_,y ._,,_,
41
{; 1 plenum has.been removed into the deep end of the
'2 canal. The reactor building basement, there is 3 still a pr oj ection. There is a small amount of 4 fuel on the basement floor, although there may be 5 none. The core flood tanks, the makeup and 6 purification. systems, domineralizers, and the 7 letdown coolers, it is estimated now from the 8 measurements that we have made to be between 5 and 9 15 kilograms of fuel in those locations. And all 10 other locations less than 5 kilograms of fuel..
11 So outside of the reactor vessel itself, 12, our best estimate at the present time, and this C 13 keeps getting better and better, is between 25 and 14 150 kilograms of fuel. And that is before we have 13 defueled any of these locations.
16 So the extent to which it is economic 17 and it does not require excess worker exposure, we 18 plan to remove as much of this fuel as possible.
19 !! R. ROBINSON: What is the difference 20 between 400 kilograms and the 150 there? Is that 21 going to end up in the reactor vessel?
22 !!R . STANDERFER: The difference is 23 really what might still be left in the reactor 24 vessel itself. This table here is outside of the 26 reactor vessel. I don't know what the final e
42
/ ~ ', I configuration of the reactor vessel will be.
4 -
2 In order to get below a significant 3 quantity of fuel, the quantity that people worry 4 about with regard to diversion and enough material 5 for nuclear weapons use and so forth, is 400 6 kilograms of-U02. And we are certainly going to 7 be below that number.
8 The final quantity will be somewhat 9 below that. And this shows that there is between 10 25 and 150 kilograms currently outside of the 11 reactor vessel. We expect to reduce that. And
. 12 whether there will be 100 kilograms or 200
('; -
13 kilog, rams in the reactor vessel itself, I don't 14 know. But those are the kind of numbers we are 15 talking about.
16 And we must demonstrate that that 17 material is fixed and cannot be assembled, so that 18 we can demonstrate to the NRC that there is no 19 possibility for criticality even though the system 20 was flooded with white water without any poisons 21 present.
22 l'R . S!:ITilG ALL : Frank, explain to me 23 again the divergence between 25 and 150.
_24 f1R . STANDERFER: Excuse me?
25 !!R . S!!ITHG ALL : The divergence in these
43
~
e 1 numbers.
2 MR. STANDERFER: Pirst chart was --
3 MR. S MITIIG ALL : No, no this one, the 4 ex-vessel.
5 MR. STANDERFER: Oh, okay. We made good 6 measurements in several locations. We have a 7 pretty good understanding of what is in the top of 8 the steam generators and what is in the 9 pressurizer.
10 In the coolant pumps, for example, we 11 have not yet introduced the fiber optics system to 12 examine the pumps. We will be doing that around
(* ,
13 Christmas time. So that measurement --
there has 14 been some measurements, and then there is some 15 estimates.
16 And so those measurements exterior to 17 the pipes and estimates end up with wider 18 variations in them. As we get into these areas, 19 take samples, and do direct visual examination, 20 then these numbers can be made more accurate. So 21 that is just a range of our current estimate.
4 22 In other words, we are pretty sure it is 23 below 150 kilograms, and we believe it is above 25
. 24 kilograms.
J5 !!R . DiNUNNO: Again for clarification,
. . . ~ . . . . .
44 how about translating that -- how many bucket
( 1 2 fulls, for example, are we talking about?
3 MR. STANDERFER: Well, 400 kilograms of 4 this material can easily fit in a bread box.
5 MR. DiNUNNO: That helps'to explain what 6 we are talking about. This is really a small 7 quantity of material.
8 UR. STANDERFER: Yes, that is about 800 9 pounds of material, and it would be about 3 cubic 10 feet.
11 MR. ROBINSON: How accurate are your 12 measurements as far as how much material you have?
13 I know in some places you are more 14 accurate than others. But once you get through 15 all of your examinations, how accurate will your 16 estimations be of your measurements?
17 MR. STANDERFER: I just don't have an 18 answer for that. It depends upon the technique we 19 use. And in some cases, when we take samples, it 20 is accuracy of chemical metheds. And in other 21 cases we are using spectrometers to measure 22 different radioisotopes and inferring the amount 23 of fuel present, from cerium for example. And 24 that might be a Factor 2.
25 Again, we are talking about the last
45 jf, - 1 three-tenths of 1 percent cf the total amount of 2 fuel. So it is a small portion of the total fuel 3 't hat was present.
4 MR. ROBINSON: I understand that. My 5 concern, and will you probably go into this later 11-
, 6 a little bit, but you are saying and it is a wild 7 assumption that you could ever have a critical O mass in there, but you are saying 93 kilograms for
[ 9 critical mass. And you are saying that you will 10 accept anything less than 70 kilograms.
11 It just sort of bothers me that your 12 accuracy. maybe only as good as a Factor 2, which ,
(o' 13 would give you 140 kilograms, realizing there are ,
14 a lot of factors of safety in there, but I still i 15 don't --
1 16 MR. STANDERFER: We will add up all the-
- i. 17 inaccuracies and use the larger number.
u I
18 MR. ROBINSON: So what you are saying 19 is, if you decide and have to have 70 kilograms, j 20 it will be with all the inaccuracies built into i 21 it?
22 MR. STANDERFER: That is correct.
23 The radiological conditions of plant
/
i '
(, 24 spaces are shown on this chart. The reactor j 25 building and the numbers here are in rem per hour.
46
((- 1 Often you see milirem per hour. So this 1,000 2 times higher than milirem.
3 The defueling canal, that is where we 4 are currently -- the defueling operators are 5 working, shows .015 rem per hour, and that is 15 6 milirem. And on the 347 level in containment, the 7 upper level it is .03. That is rem and that is 30 8 milirem. The 305 level in the containment, which 9 is the grade level is .07 rem, and that is 70 10 milirem. The basement at the present time.is ,
11 around 35 rem. We show that to be less than 35 12 rem.
(~,,,
13 As I said earlier, we expect to produce 14 levels in portions of the basement which would 15 allow access of persons during monitor storage.
16 And so we are showing that the basement will be 17 somewhat less than 35 rem. In the auxiliary 18 building, in the fuel handling building, and the 19 other buildings in general, the radiation level 20 will be 2.5 milirem per hour shown here .0025 rem.
21 At that level and the service 22 contamination level, these will be essentially 23 unrestricted use. tio protective clothing
, 24 required. And so the only part of the plant which 25 will routinely require special clothing and
47
' . 1 special procedures is the reactor building itself, 2 which will be sealed.
3 HR. G ERUS KY : What kind of effort is 4 involved?
5 MR. STANDERFER: In at least half of the 6 buildings shown on here, we are at that level now.
7 In the auxiliary building, for example, 8 the general aux is at 25 milirem per hour. The 9 access to the basement was achieved this spring, 10 or this fall, such that it does not require any 11 special clothing.
. 12 And the work in the auxiliary building 13 deals with a few cubicles, which we are working 14 on. But generally, if you came out to the plant 15 today, we could take you through the bulk of the 16 aux building in your street clothes without any 17 special precautions. .
18 The fuel handling building, for example, 19 since we are still handling a lot of fuel up there 20 and we are treating a lot of water wastes, we will 21 have to reduce the general level to these levels 22 after we are done with those operations. But that 2
23 is not going to be a major task.
24 MR. GERUSKY: These are the dose rates 25 that will be acceptable in areas accessible to
1 I
48
/'.
I personnel afterwards?
2 MR. STANDERFER: Yes.
3 MR. G ERUS KY : Not cubicles that are 4 sealed up?
5 fir . STANDERFER: No. In the sealed 6 cubicles we expect to do a good job of cleaning 7 them up.
8 MR. GERUSKY: But you won't have this 9 rate?
10 MR. STANDERFER: When it says "other 11 areas," the dose rates in those areas will be less 12 than 50 milirem per hour.
C 13 MR. G ERUS KY : In the cubicles?
14 !!R . STANDERFER: Yes.
15 Other than the reactor building on this 16 chart, the rest of those areas, we expect to get 17 those kinds of numbers which are representative of 18 a normal reactor plant.
19 !! R. ROBINSON: In the basement, you say 20 somewhere that you are going to try and get down 21 to 10 rem per hour, somewhere in that vicinity?
22 !!R . STANDERFER: Yes. We said nominally 23 below 10 rem per hour is when you begin to allow f
( 24 personnel access.
25 There are several areas now that are one
49 to three, so the general number of 35 is an
() - 1 2 average. But there are areas now one to three and 3 then other areas that are 1,000.
4 MR. ROBINSON: Do you have any feel for S the half-life? In other words, how long would it 6 take if you just let it sit there before some of 7 these areas would be --
8 MR. STANDERFER: Well over 90 percent of 9 that exposure from Cesium 137 with a 30-year 10 half-life. So after 30 years the number is 11 naturally decreased by two.
12 Of course, the other issue there is h 13 strontium surface contamination which, while it is 14 not a direct gamma exposure problem, it is 15 certainly a beta problem and would requ' ire 16 protective clothing and that sort of thing.
17 During the monitor storage period, a 18 number of activities will be going on in the plant 19 ,
associated with that. There will be entries to 20 perform inspections and monitoring of the plant, 21 there will be verification,of containment, there 22 will be technical specification surveillance of 12 23 those pieces of equipment that are still in our 3/ 24 technical specifications under the license.
25 They will be significantly reduced from 1
l i
50
- I what we have today. There will be technical 2 specifications and calibrations. There will be 3 solid, liquid, and waste processing from these 4 activities of inspection and monitoring. There 5' will be some limited waste being shipped from The 6 Irland from, again, the monitoring storing 7 activities.
8 There will be a number of systems which 9 are required to be maintained to be operable 10 during monitor storage. We will be maintaining 11 those systems in building. There will be
. 12 housekeeping, response to natural events, and
(,
13 other emergency responses, if someone fell down a 14 stairway kind of thing. He have to be able to go 15 in and safely bring them out.
16 The licensing condition, we expect the 17 plant will continue to be licensed under 10 CPR 10 Part 50 of the !!RC regulations with a possession 19 only-type license, which means the plant cannot be 20 operated, but it is under a normal power reactor 21 plant license.
22 There will be new HRC approved technical 23 specifications for the monitoring storage pericd.
f
(, 24 He expect to comply with the current radiation 25 protection regulations in 10CFR Part 20 and the
l 51
(; 1 offsite dose will be a small fraction of 10 CPR 2 Part 50, Appendix I limits, which are used for all 3 plants of this type. And I might add, throughout 4 the cl ea n up , we have been well within the limits
. 5 as laid out in that NRC standard.
6 There will be continuing radiological 7 environmental monitoring of both associated with 8 T!!I 1 and TMI 2. Surveys will be conducted on a 9 regular basis. We will monitor both liquid and 10 gasseous effluents, continue to monitor the 11 extensive on-site and offsite environmental 12 monitoring program. And there will be routine
(* 13 monitoring and environmental reports made to the 14 NRC.
15 In addition to protecting the health and 16 safety of the public, this approach to restoring 17 the plant after the cleanup will ultimately reduce 18 worker exposures in that, during monitor storage,
. 19 radiation levels in the plant will be reduced 20 further by natural decay such that worker exposure 21 in the future in doing continued work in the plant 22 will be lower.
23 And the monitor storage period doec
,, 24 allow for continued development of decontaminction 25 technology, so the most effective and efficient m
52 (j 1 and proven techniques can be used in the future.
2 The approach minimizes, thereby, 3 exposure te our workers. It is consistent with 4 the Alara practices, and maintains a general low 5 exposure to the workers as we have throughout the
- 6. cleanup.
l 7 To decontaminate further, once the 8 cleanup is completed, it would result in 9 unnecessary additional exposure to our workers 10 without producing any significant gains and 11 protecting the health and safety of the public.
12 We believe that the monitor-storage as
(. .i 13 proposed will provide a secure, monitored TMI 2 14 plant which doer not present a hazard to our
> 15 workern or the health and safety of the public.
16 And with that, Mayor Morris, that is the 17 formal presentation.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: What I would like,to do 19 at this time is take any questions from the Panel.
20 And depending upon how long that takes, possibly 21 call Eric Epstein up for him to make his comment i
22 or ask whatever questions he wanted to, and then 23 we will determine at that point just wher2 we go
(,, 24 from there.
J 25 Panel members, any questions on the
. _. - .- - -. O
53
[ ', 1 presentation?
(> * -
2 HR. ROTH: Roughly how long do you think 3 you will stay in this interim monitored storage 4 mode?
5 !!R . STANDERFER: I don't know, Joel.
6 The plan is to put in systems which will operate 7- indefinitely.
8 We will demonstrate to'the NRC in our 9 environmental analysis that we will be submitting 10 to them that this will be a stable condition which 11 can be indefinitely maintained.
12 In answer to a similar question asked by C 13- the NRC Commission to my bosses last January, it 14 was answered that it could be as long as the 15 effective life of Unit 1.
16 MR. ROTH: What is the basic difference 17 than between what you are doing with this 18 monitored storage and what would be called 19 decommissioning?
20 THE CHAIRMAN: If"I could, and we can 21 come back to that question that Joel just asked 22 because I am sure there are people who want to get 23 into that.
, 24 I am wondering, initially, if we can 25 , exhaust questions on the presentation as you put 4
_ -.__- - - _ , - _ . _ - . -. - _ , _ - _ - - - . - - ..-,_.---.--_-._-_m ..
54 1 forward here, and then when people understand that C3-2 and those questions h..*e been answered and points 3 made, I will return to Joel to pursue the 4 questioning on the decommissioning versus this, 5 because I think we need to separate that.
6 !!R . ROTH: I am simply trying to bring 7 something together, not to get into a long-winded 8 discussion on my part or Frank's part.
l 9 THE CHAIRMAN: I raise that because I j 10 know Eric asked for time on the agenda. He wants 11 to go into decommissioning, I think. It just may 12 be a more logical way of proceeding.
I I.
13 I am not trying to avoid the question.
14 HR. STANDERFER: I might say in a brief 15 answer, the owners of this plant have not yet 16 decided whether they would be interested in 17 attempting to reoperate the plant or decommission 18 the plant. That decision has not been made.
19 It is not part of my job. It is not 20 part of the cleanup. In fact, I am admonished and 21 I have auditors watching me to make sure I am not 22 spending any of the cleanup funds on that issue.
23 MR. SMITHGALL: How long is how long?
. 24 11 R . STANDERFER: 11h a t ?
25 HR. S!!ITHG ALL : That 30 years you are l
l
t s s
55 1 talking'about as far as the relationship between 2 EDUS and the useful life of Unit 17 3 MR. STANDERFER: I don't know the useful 4 life lcf Unit 1, but you are talking numbers like S that. '.
6 MR.- SMITHG ALL: What type of costs does
'i 1 7 this PDMS hav.e?
8 HR. STANDERFER: We have a plugged in 9 estimate right now'of $10 million a year. I 10 believe that,it will be somewhat less than that.
11 But we have not yet made a detailed estimate of 12 the monikory period.
C 13 Throughout,1987 we will be designing the 14 monitoring systems and doing the detail design of 15 their installation, and then we will have a better 16 understanding of what the costs will be to 17 maintain them and man the plant.
18 MR. ' S MITHG ALL : That is $10 million per
, 19 year?
20 MR. STANDERFER: That is the nominal I
21 estimate. And that is strictly a plugged number 22 which we'believe we will be below.
MR. SMITHGALL:
23 An obvious question, I 24 guess, is decommissioning versus the PDMS 25 proposal, and whether or not you will be prepared
6 56
(( , I to answer or someone in the organization will be 2 prepared to answer whether or not the; company ,
3 remains in rate base, PDMS mode, versus 4 decommissioning? '
5 MR. STANDERFER: Again, I asked in e 6 preparing for this meeting, I asked questions
'i 7 along those lines.
8 The rate base determinations are, of
~
9 course, made by the*Public Utility C mmissions 10 based on submissions from the owners of the plant, 11 Metropolitan Edison, Fenelec, and Jersey Central.
12 The rate parts of our company have not ',
C 13 yet taken estimates for PDMS, nor have they 14 determined what their position will be with regard i
15 to funding that operation.
16 So that is just not settled at the 17 present time. _
4 c-
^
18 MR. S!!ITHG ALL : The terminology in your ,
19 report uses the words " deactivate certain parts of 20 the plant."
21 And I am certain there are questions in 22 the public's mind as to whether or not the 23 d e a ct !. va t i o n of those useful pieces of machinery
... 24 can be activated and used again. I think that 25 will be a concern to a lot of people, ,
s N
1
if a '% ,
- ^
l =
a .
, ( 57
'~
1 f ' l R. STANDERFER: Deactivate means you t.
- 2 cut off electrical power; you have cut off water j 3 cooling systems; you have opened valves so that no
,? -
Ki ,
4 pressure can build up.' That is the kind of thing
- )'.-, s, n
/
i 5 I mean by deactivate.
l%g p 6 It is kind of like what someone would do SI . T 7 to a water system so it' won' t freeze up. ---
,e ' '
j a J;; 4!- .' J ~* 0 MR. S!! THGALL: For the safety
- t [9 ,, _ cladification, th'e deactivation will not inhibit
~. ,
10: future dismantelina, salvaging, or refurbishing a x 4
" " 1 14I t ho's e syste's m or equipment?
12 !;R . STANDERFER: Yes. In other words, lp[' ' (...) .
13 this is not a destructive deactivation.
14 f R. RG,B IN S ON : I want to get back again
\ 15 to that 400Lkilograms or so. I agree with Joe 16 that the amount is rather small considering 17' particular1'y that y'ou started off with 100 tons 3 18 or so.
s -
19 But if you had your druthers, I think 5 20 you.and the Panel would rather see that there was 21 zero there. ,
So other than the criticality
., d 22 c o n s'i d e'r a t i o n s , what are going to be the factors
\ ;f \ . ,,
g
/I m 23 ~
that ddterdine whether you -- just how much of f .
, ,2 4.. that-vou get rid of?
J 25 - '
I;R . ST A!!D ER F ER : The principal I
% g Y
. i L- '
~
3 ~ '
't /
I f t
- ~v. - . . - - _ . - -- .
58 1 consideration is exposure to workers and getting 2 into some of the locations.
3 On the surface corrosion film, there is 4 probably 10 to 20 kilograms in the system just 5 tied up in the surface films. Those can only be 6 removed chemically, and we are planning on doing 7 no chemical cleaning, so that is fixed in place.
8 In other locations, depending on where 9 they are, there may be very very high worker 10 exposure to get to those areas. And then we will 11 have to make a determination as to whether the 12 quantity justifies the worker exposure.
C 13 So it is basically going to be an-14- c::co s u r e Alara-type determination once we are 15 catisfied that we can clearly demonstrate that ue 16 are below the quantity which would be of any 17 concern from a criticality standpoint.
18 HR. ROBINSON: Will the NRC participate 19- in these final decisions as to the amount; or will 20 you set the general guidelines and then they 21 approve them or disapprove them?
22 MR. STANDERFER: I would e;:pe c t that we 23 will lay the criteria out, and we will have to
, 2 /. convince the NRC that we met our criteria once 25 they agree that that is satisfactory criteria.
2
59
}) 1 There is an additional activity which is 2 part of this, and that is arriving at a fixed 14 3 quantity for accountability purposes. How much 4 fuel did we transfer from GPU to the Department of
- . 5 Energy? And that has to be a gram quantity. It 6 does not allow any plus or minus on it.
7 So we will have to reach agreement on C what that quantity which will be transferred in 9 the books between the two organizations will be.
10 MR. ROBINSON: That does bring up a 11 question as to just how close accountability with 12 what you start with -- with what you know you C 12 started with initially and what you can fi.nd which it was shipped out and which you think you have.
15 ' How close do you feel you are going to 16 be on that? Do you have any estimate at this 17 point? ,
18 MR. STANDERFER: No, I don't. But in 19 looking at this earlier, the Department of Energy 20 and the NRC and GPU believe'that we will be close 21 encugh so that the three organizations could agree 22 on numbers.
22 As you probably know, in doing i 2 /. accountcbility in reprocessing plants and other 25 plants where fuel is loose, while you have a fixed
60 q ?,. ' 1 gram quantity, everybody understands that there is 7' 2 an accuracy associated with that.
3 And as you go in and clean one of those 4~ systems out, you end up with material unaccounted 5 for, *1ther-a plus or negative quantity in that 6 next operation.
7 MR. ROBINSON: I am really talking about 8 the total you started off with, the 100 tons or so 9 of fuel, and the total you account for either by 10 estimate or so on.
11 How close do you expect to be? There
, 12 are going to be_some that you are not going to 13 know anything about.
14 MR. STANDERFER: That is right. I think t
15 the Department of Energy anticipates'that the 16- quantity we transfer to them will be accurate to 17 one-tenth of a percent on the total.
10 Since they have most of it, that is --
19 it maybe 25 percent on our side of the fence.
20 MR. ROBINSON: I guess what bothers me
-21 is that you are saying that you probably will know 22 that you have less than 400 kilograms in the total
- 23 system.
2 /. MR. STANDERFER: Yes.
25 UR. ROBINSON: But if you look at what ,
i 61
(. 1 you started with, 100 tons or so, and then you 2 look at what you shipped out and what you think 3 you still have left in the system, I would imagine 4 there is going to be some difference between the 5 totals.
6 I am curious as to what you might think 7 that would be?
O !!R . STANDERFER: !!ayb e -- Bob, do you 9 have a guess on that?
10 !!R . ROGAN: We have talked in terms of 11 as much as one-half of a per cent. But I don't i
>12 know that that is anything we have actually proven C 13 yet.
14- t?e are in the process now of developing 15 the plan and techniques for our final S & !!
16 accountability. I am aware and confident that the 17 kinds of numbers we will develop in that 18 particular process will be far more carefully 19 assessed than were the ones we used to determine 20 general locations of fuel.
21 So we are developing a fairly detailed 22 plan. And we will try and minimize the air bands 23 as much as possible. I think we will be pretty 24 accurate, but I can't put an exact number on it, 25 no.
. .= . . --
4 62 i 1 UR. ROBINSON: ,
Again, it comes down to 2 you estimate you have 400 kilograms that are left 3 in the system. And just as a terrible example, 4 you might have 1,000 kilograms.
5 MR. STANDERFER: I would think it might
, 6 .be plus or minus 25 kilograms.
7 MR. ROBINSON: That is the figure I was 8 looking for.
9 MR. ROGAN: If I could just clarify the 10 400, the 400 is not something we expect to have 11 left.
1 12 MR. RODINSON: I understand that. It is 6 13- probably considerably less than that.
14 MR. ROGAN: Yes.
15 !!R. STANDERFER: But the accuracy might 16 be a plus or minus 25 kilograms kind of thing. I 17 am just guessing.
10 MR. ROBINSON: That is an order of 19 magnitude.
L 20 MR. STANDERFER: It is not plus or minus
( .
l 21 1,000 or plus or minus 200, but more like plus or 22 minus 25.
23 T!! E Cfl A I R M A N : I would hope that the
, 24 Fanel understands and the public understande, this 25 will not be a subject that will end with the i
i
63
[ 1 presentation tonight; but it is a subject area 2 that we will revisit when more specific 3 information following testing is availabic.
4 So at that point, when you can be more 5 specific, may be the time to really get into this 6 question that concerns Gordon.
7 HR. STANDERFER: The final in-plant 8 surveys which will establish what are the 9 radiological conditions at the end of the cleanup 10 and how much fuel is in the various locations will 11 be done in the summer of 1988.
12 The accountability transfer will be h- 13 a ccomplished when the last fuel shipment leaves 14 The Island, which will be towards the end of 1908.
15 Eo we are talking about numbers which will be cast 16 in concrete about two years from now.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: As a follow-up to that 10 question, the NRC action on whatever this 19 submission is, is there specific action that you 20 are looking for from the NRC in regards to this 21 submission?
22 MR, STANDERFER: Yes.
23 THE CH AIRM Af? : And if that action --
te 24 UR. STAUDERFER: With this submission?
25 !! o . This is given to the NRC for information.
i 4
64
() 1 The next submission will be our environmental 2 report, which they will have to take, I believe,
, 3 and modify the programatic EIS on the project to 15 4 allow-for this option, which is very similar to 5 Alternative 3 in the current DEIS.
6 Then there will be a series of technical 7 specification changes, which they will have to 8 approve. They are licensing changes. So their 9 approval will be in the licensing changes which we 1
10 will submit, plus the use of the environmental 11 report in doing their environmental analysis.
- 12 So this report here is a road map which
(.s 13 we are gi. ring them now, which kind of describes 14 the territory that we are planning to move over.
15 THE CHAIRMAU: -And just to finish the 16 thought, the final approval that you would seek 17- from the HRC will contain more specific' 18 information than what you have today on the fuel 19 that would remain in the system?
20 UR. STANDERFER: Yes.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: And we would, as a panel, 22 have an opportunity to comment on and discuss that 23 further at that time?
24 I:R . STAMDERFER: Yes. That would be 25 . submitted to the NRC about a year from now. So
65
- 1 1 that is a submission that would be made towards t:s 2 the end of next year. ;
~3 MR. ROBINSON: On the reactor building 4 containment, you have specifications for that?
5 MR. STANDERFER Yes.
6 MR. ROBINSON: And you are going to go 7 in for changes in tech specs?
8 MR. STANDERFER: Yes.
9 MR. ROBINSON: Are you thinki.ng in terms 10 of asking for changes in the tech specs, such_as 11 the leak test requirements and things like that?
12 MR. STANDERFER: Absolutely.
13 MR. ROGAN: We are planning on 14 establishing the containment as a contamination 15 barrier rather than as a containment isolation as 16 you currently know it.
17 !!R. STANDERFER: Not a pressurized 18 containment.
19 MR. ROBINSON: I-understand. I am just 20 curious as to what your plans are.
21 MR. ROGAU: We are talking about 22 maintaining the integrity of the containment as a 22 contamination barrier.
. 24 MR. ROBINSON: What does that mean?
25 MR. ROGAU: All of our engineered
66
} 1 pathways to the environment will be maintained, 2 filtered, and monitored.
3 We will maintain vent systems and 4 maintain control of the internal atmosphere of 5 containment in terms of airborne radioactivity 6 levels. But we will not maintain, for instance, 7 negative pressures. We will not have certain tech 8 spec requirements and so on.
9 So it is not a reactor containment 10 isolation requirement as we currently know it for 11 an operating reactor. It will be a contamination 12 barrier, in that it will essentially seal off what
(".' 13 is inside the building from the environment.
14 MR. STANDERFER: Monitored pathways, 15 will not have double vcive requirements.
16 HR. ROGAN: Probably single valve.
17 MR. RODINSON: How about gasseous le pathways?
19 !!R . STANDERFER: Yes. That is what we 20 are talking about, gasseous. pathways.
21 11R . ROGAN: Yes. We will have a 22 filtered, monitored pathway.
23 !!R . ROBINSON: Then this does imply a
[
(. 24 certain leak tightness, probably not as much as 25 required under your present tech specs.
67
() 1 Am I correct, or is this not true?
2 MR. STANDERFER: It is not a pressurized 3 leak tightness, but it is a barrier with no holes.
4 MR. SMITHGALL: What type Jf airborne 5 release do you expect from the containment 6 building during this storage?
7 MR. ROGAN: In terms of content or in 8 terms of quantities?
9 MR. SMITHGALL: Yes.
10 MR. ROGAN: Obviously, the source term i
11 is going to be surface contamination, which will 12 derive from migration of a contamination in the
(*) 13 basement, for instance, or from concrete surfaces.
14 In general, it will have no driving 15 force, so we would not expect any kind of a 16 continuing significant release to the environment.
17 Indeed, our current analysis, and we are still 18 working, shows that we would on a routine basis be
. 19 well, well below Appendix I, kind of a small 20 fraction of the Appendix I kinds of limits.
21 So it is essenti, ally a nonrelease, and 22 we -- there will be no dr'iving force and no major 23 source term on a continuing basis that would 24 provide a release to the environment.
25 HR. SMITHGALL: Driving force meaning v ~ -e- ,v-
68 1 you are not going to periodically purge?
2 MR. ROGAN: Driving force. meaning from 3 an accidental or off normal point of view.
4 HR. STANDERFER: Not stirring the 5 material up, where there is not a fire or high 6 pressure.
7 HR. ROGAN: He will, as indicated in the 8 plan, from time to time operate the purge, but it 9 will be through a filtered monitored pathway so we 10 will not have a significant release to the 11 environment.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Any other questions from
(' 13 the Panel?
14 (No response.)
15 What ic your pleasure at this point, 16 Panel? Do you want to take a break before we get 17 into the public comment? The last remaining item 18 really is an opportunity for the public to make 19 comment.
20 Woule you like t o . jp) right into that or 21 would you like to take a break?
22 UR. SMITHGALL: Keep going.
23 THE CHAIRMA: Unless someone tells me 24 nct to, that is what we will do.
25 (No response.)
69 Eric, I believe is still here.
L(], 1 . You have 2 five minutes left, unless you are going to sell P
3 your time to somebody else.
4 MR. EPSTEIN: Don't I have any minutes
5 carried over from the expedited presentation 6 before? -
7 THE CHAIRMAN: I think I did time you, 8 and'you used up four minutes, so you have six to 9 go.
10 MR. EPSTEIN: Let me begin by saying 11 after reviewing the document that I think you all 12 have, I found it extremely vague in general. And C 13 there was no problem in coming up with 17 14 questions, which I have here. In fact, there-are L
4 15 probably more because there are some variations on 16 theme. I will make them available to you all.
17 I would like to submit these as part of 18 the official record. And I would also like to 19 give them to the utility so I get a formal 20 response to, rather than just getting 21 knowledgement that I presented 17 questions and 22 never get a response.
23 I vill ask only four or five, and Joel 24 was hinting at it before. From what I assume, Mr.
25 Standerfer is not prepared to comment on whether
70
{) I this final phase that we are in is analogous to 2 decommissioning, or if GPU plans to restart Unit 3 2.
4 But I was wondering if he was prepared 5' to comment on the fact that, while we are waiting 6 for this facility to come down in, I guess, 7 radioactivity -- I" don't know if that is a good if' way to phrase a question, whether or not that 9 would enbrittle the apparatus and the mechanisms 10 at Unit 2 and render it impossible to restart.
11 I was wondering if he would venture a
, 12 comment on that?
13 ,
MR. STANDERPER: We don't envision any -
14 damage occurring during the monitor storage period 15 which would be of that character.
16 of course, any facility, the longer it 17 is maintained in an inoperable status, there is 18 deterioration of equipment. So in time, if the I
o 19 plant was to be reoperated, there would be more 20 and more pieces of equipment that would either be 21 deteriorated or would be obsolete. But that is
- t. 4 22 not a major issue.
23 I:R . EPSTEIN: That is not something that
. 24 uould preclude the restart necessarily the longer 25 the plant sits idle?
. 71
- 1 HR. ST AND ERF ER
- No. In evaluating the 2 plant for restart, it is the damage that occurred 3 during the accident that has to be assessed and 4 not any deterioration which would occur during a 5 monitor period.
6 MR. EPSTEIN: One other question. I was 7 wondering, in the event that the utility became i
8 insolvent or bankrupt, what kind of committment or 9 contingency would be in place to see this final 10 stage out, or if there is a contingency?
11- THE CHAIRMAN: Are you prepared to 12 anrwer that?
C 13 UR. STANDERFER: I am really not 14 prepared to answer that other than that.the 15 Company has come through a fairly bad time over 16 the last eight years and we are still here; and so 17 that is an indication that we will be here in the l 18 future.
19 MR. EPSTEIN: I thought I would ask.
20 A few other quick. questions.
21 MR. STANDERFER: Bill Travers can 22 comment later, but one of the responsibilities of 23 the licensing agency is to ensure that the owner I,.. 24 is financially sound.
25 MR. EPSTEIN: But nobody can plan for
72
[; I the future. If you could, you would be chairman 2 of the economic advisors for the President. You 3 can never forsee what is going to happen. And 4 that is just a concern I have, not only here, but 5 at other plants.
6 Let.me continue. I'know at Peach Bottom 7 they are currently reracking fuel on-site, and it 8 is happening at' other nuclear power plants. I 9 wonder what guarantee is in place to prevent Unite 10 2 from being a waste storage site with the waste 11 from Unit 1 and also Oyster Creek?
y, 12 MR. STAMDERFER: Of course I can't 13 comment on those two plants. They currently have 14 fuel storage basins that can take the used fuel.
15 And the Federal Government, of course, is to have 16 a repository some place in the country in 1998 to 17 take that spent fuel.
18 !!R . TRAVERS: You may recall that one of a 19 the fundamental policies that the Commission has 20 recognized throughout the cleanup, when it issued 21 EIS and at other times as well, is that it is not 22 the Commission's intention to see Three Mile 23 Island become a repository of waste of any kind, g 24 including the waste resultant from the accident in 25 1979. I expect that will be a policy that is
(
l i
73 Cy- 1 continued.
2 MR. EPSTEIN: I would hope so because an 3 island seems to be a frightful place for a 4 low-level or high-level waste site.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: As you make the editorial
. 6 comments, you-are using up your time.
7 Ask your question, if you want, and get an answer 8 quickly. You might get more questions answered 9 that way.
10 MR. STANDERFER: The monitor storage ,
11 activity in no way is proposing the facility to be 12 a permanent waste storage site.
O~ 13 MR. EPSTEIN: In your proposal you 14 maintain that the program, the PDf!S, will be 15 underway for the disposal during this time of the 16 2.1 million gallons of radioactive water.
17 Uhat if it is not? What bearing will 18 that have on the post monitoring defueling? I 19 think it is an optimistic assumption, as far as I 20 am concerned, that option will be approved in an 21 expedited fashion. ,
22 !!R . STANDERFER: ' Well, we will know next 23 spring whether it is approved or not. He will be
/ 24 contracting with a company in February or early 25 !!a r ch to perform the evaporation.
w - - - - - - - - - - , ,
74
(-[j 1 We will be installing equipment next 2 spring. We are assuming that the NRC will approve 3 the evaporation option, and that should occur late 4 springtime. And we will be performing that 5 disposal option starting next summer.
6 So.at least a. year and a half before 7 monitor storage that question will. have been 8 settled.
9 MR. EPSTEIN: If all your assumptions 10 are correct?
11 UR. STANDERFER: That is correct.
12 HR. EPSTEIN: I think that is rather
(* 13 optimistic. If the plant will be in a condition 14 of inherent stability, what was its condition 15- before?
16 MR. STANDERFER: With the fuel present, 17 inherently there is the potential for criticality 18 if poisons are not maintained and if a number of
~
1 19 a,c t i o n s aren't maintained by plant operators.
20 With the fuel missing, the fuel removed, 21 and with the radioactive materials in the I
22 different portions of the plant clean enough to 23 the extent that all is left is fixed material,
, 24 than it is stable.
25 HR. EPSTEIN: Okay. One final question,
, , . , . , . , , , , , , . . , , , , y
75
() 1 if that's okay? _
2 MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. Just keep it 3 moving.
4 MR. EPSTEIN: GPU from what I understand 5 believes that during this period, there will be 17
, 6 allowable time and I quote "For the resolution of 7 current limitations on national waste disposal 8 capabilities so that selection of processes may 9 less depend on volume reduction."
10 Anyone who has been invol;ed witu the 11 waste disposal issue knows that it is 12 unpredictable, volatile, and always involved with
(- ) 13 endless delays.
14 !!ow much time are you allowing for the 15 national issue to be resolved; and what if the 16 waste disposal issue becomes delayed indefinitely?
17 I;R . STANDERFER: The Low-Level Waste; 18 Policy Act indicates that the regional contracts 19 should have their sites operable by 1993.
20 !!R . EPSTEIN: Nobody is on time.
21 11R. STANDERFER: I think the State of 22 Pennsylvania is planning to meet that time scale.
23 111th the availability of a site in the 24 Pennsylvania area, it certainly provides more 25 flexible options for handling a low-level waste
. - , ,-- _ _ , - - - - - - . ~ - . . _ ,r - - , . _ _ - - - - - - - ,- - - - - - , .
76
) 1 out of Three Mile Island than currently sending it 2 3,000 miles to Washington state.
3 HR. EPSTEIN: What if that is not in 4 fact --
what if they are behind in time? What 5 kind of impact will it have on the PDMS?
_, 6 MR.-STAUDERFER: It won't have any 7 impact unless they never materialize.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: To complete your 9 presentation, you started out by saying you have a 10 list of questions. And we have some 17 questions
- 11 here, some you have asked.
4 12 You did indicate you would like to get O 13 answers to these questions. And I am going to ask 14 Frank now if that is -- if he would take a look at 15 those questions and see if he can provide answers.
16 MR. STANDERFER: I' surely will.
17 THE CH AIR!! AN : If you feel it'is asking 18 too much and there are some areas you can't get 19 into, you have to make that determination.
20 But if you feel there are questions that 21 are reasonable and germane to the discussion here, 22 I ask that you try and answer them.
23 !!R . STAUD ERF ER : Pine.
24 T!!E CH AIR!!AN : I was asked by !!i s s 25 Davenport, or at least Joel Roth indicated she
, _ . . ,m-,,
77 gp 1 wanted to have time on the agenda, so I would 2 call on Debbie next.
3 I would ask that the members of the 4 public, as they do take an opportunity to either
$ ask questions or make a comment, that you try and
, 6 keep within the five-minute limit.
7 And just as a reminder, if you neod more 8 time than five minutes on the agenda, you need to 9 get to us at least a week or two before the 10 meeting so we formally put you as part of the 11 agenda.
12 DEBRA DAVENPORT: I had some comments 0 13 both on the disposal of the water and on the 14 decommissioning or storage plans for Unit 2.
15 I am concerned about the disposal of the 16 water. And I am wondering if you can really -- is 17 there some input at which you say the processed 18 water is no longer processed water and can go back 19 into the river?
20 In other words, what in the end are you 21 going to have to evaporate? How much 22 contamination is going to be in the water, because 23 we haven't finished cleaning up Unit 2 yet?
, 24 So this worries me. And I am really 25 concerned that all plans are premature until you
78 Jf 1 know what is throughout the systems.
. I still have 2 some questions about the area under the reactor 3 vessel, what fuel is in the elbows or flying out 4 through the system, the coolant system in the 5 plant.
.- 6 And recently in a meeting I was told 7 that with the B generator where there had been 8 primary to secondary contamination during the 9 accident, it might not be possible or safe to 10 check the B generator to find out what was there.
11 In other words, 'we might never know completely i 12 what happened.
(. i 13 There may not be a lot in there, but-I 14 uould like a fuller answer on-how we know what is 15 left, how measurements were taken.
16 I would like the Panel to look into what 17 is throughout the system, h'ow were measurements 18 for this made, how was this deduced.
19 And I have also been asked by someone
( -
20 not here tonight to check on, or to say that they J
I 21 were very concerned that any fuel would be left in 22
- the pipes. They are concerned about the potential 1
i 23 for criticality.
, 24 THE CHAIRMAN: Debbie, if I could, in 25 discussion that preceded you before we got into f
l I
79 J; I the public comment, Gordon Robinson pursued the
'2 ' question pretty thoroughly.
3 And the comment from GPU was that they 4 need to do additional work in establishing the 5 levels of fuel that would remain. And that there 6_ would be much- more specific information available 7 at some point in the future for public. comment and 8 discussion.
9 At that point, we may be in a much ,
10 better position to respond to what it is you are 11 asking tonight. Now maybe some other panel member 12 wants to answer too. But you are talking about Cs.
13 quantities that are have not been quantified to 14 the level that GPU feels they can be overly 15- specific.
16 There will be a point when more specific 17 information is available.
18 MS. DAVENPORT: Also regarding all of 19 this, I feel also in the disposal of the processed 20 water that there is great anxiety here in the 21 public by either disposal , route that had 22 originally been considered, and that is by washing 23 it down the river or to evaporate it.
24 And I think now the threat of 25 evaporation hanging over peoples' heads here, like
80 gp 1 the venting and like the accident, is not a very 2 good thing. The perception of'it is very bad. I 3 don't trust something that would be done for two 4 and a half years, floating out in the air with the 5 people in Central Pennsylvania.
6 I feel like this has all been considered 7 with very little public input. I feel like they 18 8 set up the mechanism to approve this. I realize 9 there could be tech specs and hearings, but will 10 this be more intensively gone into by the Panel?
11 THE CHAIRMAN: I would hope at at the 12 next Panel meeting, which I have not asked or O 13 gotten approved from the Panel, but I am hoping 14 that in mid-January we can have a meeting of the 15 Panel basically devoted.to discuss the water 16 issue, because we will be getting-the updated EIS 17 that deals with that before the end of December.
4 18 It is an issue that we may need a couple 19 of meetings on, depending on the public reaction 20 and the Panel reaction. S o .t h e r e: will definitely l 21 be a meeting basically devoted to that topic. And 22 I certainly would invite you to come and 23 participate in that meeting, all meetings.
2( MS. DAVENPORT: Just one more question.
25 This is for Dr. Travers.
l r
l l
i
. . -- .. - . - - - . - ~- - - . . - . _ _ - . . _ - - -- --.. . -
81 g j- 1 Someone had expressed concern -- this is 2 a little off the subject,.but maybe not. The use 3 of the plasma are torch underwater. They said 4 there could be runoff from that and they were 5 concerned that when that method was used -- I am e 6 not sure what part of the core they are going to 7- use that on or to what extent, there could be a
- 8. melt down or runoff from the torch'which would 9 change the geometry of the core, the composition 10 of the materials and the shape, and in some way 11 cause criticality.
12 And I think they are wondering if there
(' 13 is any plan for the runoff.
14 HR. TRAVERS: I guess I am not clear on 15 what you are mean by " runoff." We certainly are 16 looking at the proposal by GPU to use a tool,
,- 17 plasma arc tool, in cutting up some of the 18 material in the reactor vessel.
19 Frankly, we haven't found any linkage to
. 20 potential criticality associated with that review.
21 And I am not sure I understand what it is you mean i 22 when you say " runoff."
23 MS, DAVEMPORT: Apparently, whenever you 24
.. would drill into something or you would use a 25 torch in any industrial process, you get a little 4
f 4
,-~,e-,- -
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. . . ~ . . . . .
82
/"T 1 bit of melt, even underwater, t.
2 And they are saying that the melt could 3 fall off and whatever quantity run down and cause 4 a problem underwater.
5 MR. TR AV ERS : I don't know the details 6 of what the concern i~s; but I don't expect that, 7 given the situation with soluble boron in the 8 system at the levels it exists, that some small 9 reconfiguration due to some melting as you are 10 cutting material is going to be a problem.
11 I would be glad to hear more specifics.
. 12 THE CHAIRMAN: I would ask, Debbie, just
([3 13 for the record, that if whoever is suggesting that 14 you ask the question, because you said you are 15 asking on somebody's behalf, I would ask if there 16 is a real concern, which'apparently there is, if 17 that person can be more specific and maybe put it 18 down in writing so there is no confusion. Then I 19 think maybe the question can be answered more 20 specifically too.
t .
! 21 I think it is very difficult, and I 22 understand Dr. Traver's problem with a question 23 that general to be responsive. And we would like 24 to have a responsive question to it if you can be l
25 more specific.
i
1 N
83 1 MS. D AV EM PORT : I will get it in 2 writing. Should I send it right to Dr. Travers?
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Send it right to Dr.
4 Travers and send me a copy of-it, if you like.
5 Mary Osborne had asked, I believe, for
, 6 time as well.-
7 MARY OSBORNE: Hary Osborne from Swatara 8 Township.
9 In October Sherry Frederick and Francis 10 Scolnick and I met with the NRC to discuss some 11 mcnitoring problems we were having.
12 Y I attended that meeting mainly to C 13 express my concern and anger over some disturbing 14 environmental and health problems. I told them I 15 have been keeping a list of area residents 16 complaining of skin burns, hair loss, diarrhea, 17 and a burning feeling in the nose or throat.
18 ,
This list I have kept since 1984 when we 19 did our door-to-door study across the river.
t 20 MR. ROTH: Whom from the NRC?
[ 21 MS. OSBORNE: Randy Blau and two others 22 from the King of Prussia. I think one was from 23 Unit I and one from Unit 2. I am not sure.
. 24 Some of the people who have had these 25 ,
proolems have since moved away just because they i
1
y I
84 .<
f
'T 1 couldn't tolerate this any more. '$
s . ,
2 I am still in touch with a few of them, '
3 five people to be exact. And since these people; <
4 have moved, they no longer get these skin burn ,
5 effects on their faces and they don't get diarrhea 6 any more and-their hair is returning to the normal 4-7 thickness as it used to be. This is in adults 'and , ,
8 children. ,
9 Some of these reports happened at times 10 of known events at THI, as we found out from news 11 reports later. I believe there is a combination
,, 12 of factors; the TMI 2 cleanup releases, the Unit 1
(/ 13 releases, and possible soil contamination from the 14 accident.
15 Soil samples and water samplas and air 16 samples have been taken.in this area. We are told 17 they are within background or allowable limits.
18 on March 25 of this year, I visited a 19 friend of mine on a farm three and a half miles 20 northwest of TMI. As I was.getting into my car, I 21 felt my face burning. When I took a deep breath 22 through my nose, it burned j ust like firc, as I 23 was told by these peopic who used to call me. /
24 '
d News reports the next day said "One -
25 hundred undergo tests in THI gas buildup." ,
Later s
-- --~w
T g 85 1} } 1 'when I received my weekly status report, it showed r$ - 2- a releaseof 194. curies, nobel gases, and some f
., ; 3 p a r t i.cul a t e .
. - / v Ib '
(
- N[ -4 [
v,
[ On August 19, 1986, at five different
.c .
.5 ,
times'between 2:00 and 6:00 p.m., I smelled a 1 \
,y- j 6. j clo$ine thiasulphate or hydrogen peroxide type s e
/ / '
7 smell atz my home six and half miles north,
'A '
8 north-west of THI, and also on the South Bridge, mg 9 which is almost ten miles from TMI. The wind was 10 blowing from the TMI direction. Mrs. Corradi and I
11 children also reported this to me.
12 I suspect these chemicals were used in
() 13 killing the green creatures growing in the reactor 14 vessel. This scarces me. If this can be smelled 15 six and a half to ten miles away and was used in.
16 the reactor, what is keeping the radioactivity 17 from traveling just as far?
18 Since many of you are public officials 19 and as members of this ?.anel, I thought you should 20 know of these current problems.
21 The body burden of the accident and 22 continuing releases is cumulative. !!a ny of us 23 cannot take any more doses. It may be the trigger 24 of the dreaded illness. On top of all this, GPU 25 wants to sock it to us one more time by t
y ,p+- - -, . ,y , .-- , . , , , , ,- -.-v. .e.. -...m.,e .,- - , -
. . . . . . ~ ..
86
/*$ 1 evaporating the liquid.
We . .
2 You folks with your technology better 3 invent an acceptable alternative real quick. We 4 are fed up with being used as dosimeters and 5 guinea pigs. And I am speaking on behalf of a lot
, 6 people that called me who will not come here to 7 speak to_you.
8' I.want to tell you a couple of other 9 . things that I learned recently, which is just 10 incredible. Recently Dr. Champlin of the bone 11 marrow team who went to Chernoble, gave a speech 12 at one of the hospitals.
13 The most alarming thing I-heard was the 14 fact that the radiation releases in Chernoble 15 somehow caused an outbreak of the herpes simplex 16 virus. And that is a very important fact because 17 the herpes simplex or -- the herpes virus, there 10 are five different types that I know of. One of 19 them is the Pip's Disease (phonetic).
20 In !!iddletown during the accident, the 21 mothers reported this thing called the Pip's 22 Disease. Once again after the restart of Unit 1, 23 there were people reporting this same phenomenon.
, 24 And also my children did have a chickenpox-type 25 thing after the T!!I accident. And these are
87 things to put before you for you to think about.
(f) I 2 The last meeting I was here, I did ask 3 Gerusky about this chlorine thiasulfate type 4 smell, and I wanted'to know if he had looked into 5 it to find anything.
, 6 MR.- GERUSKY : I haven't found anything.
7 MS. OSBORNE: Are there state 8 regulations as far as the chlorine that can be 9 released or any kind of chemicals?
10 HR. GERUSKY: The air quality 11 ,,
regulations. I can get you copies of those.
12 MS. OSBORNE: In one of the original
]
13 environmental impact statements, they mentioned 14 the chlorine from cleaning the cooling towers.
15 And I thought there were limits.
16 And in the many years since I have lived 17 here, I never smelled this until recently. And it 18 really bothers the heck out of me. Because when I 19 drive down by The Island, I can smell thiasulfate 20 or the hydrogen peroxide. I never smelled the 21 chlorine next to the Island before. I wanted to 22 let you folks know.
23 I have a copy of my letter to Randy Blau 24 listing the times of my chlorine smell and also 25 the location and aise about 25 episodes of the
_.._. - - .._.. _ m._ . _
88
() 1 skin burns. I would like to have it put on the 2 record.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: I don't personally 4 believe that we can accommodate that. I feel that 5 if you have copies you want to make available for 6 the Panel members to read, that is appropriate.
7 But I don't believe that, given your 8 presentation tonight, that it is appropriate to 9 have that particular part made part of the record.
10 MS. OSBORNE: Why specifically? Because 11 I believe this relates directly.to the cleanup and 12 the contamination of the THI accident.
O 13 THE CHAIRMAN: It may. From what I 14 understand you saying, basically, and unless you 15 are saying it has specifically to do with the 16 issue that you talked to Tom Gerusky about on 17 trying to clear up the algae problem, if that is 18 specifically about that, that is different.
19 But I thought, and maybe I 20 misunderstcod, this had to do with the accident 21 itself.
22 MS. OSBORNE: It has to do with both 23 because --
the offsite releases, whether chemical 24 or radiation have a great deal of concern to me.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: If you provide that to me
89
) 1 and it is regarding the issue of the algae, then 2 we will make it part of the record, 3 If it is specifically concerning your 4 meeting on the initial accident, then that is a 5 subject --
I think I would return it back to you
-.. 6 and ask you to make copies and make it available 7 to the panel. I think they are two separate 8 issues.
9 And while as a panel we have agreed to 10 have us listen to discussion on what happened at 11 the accident and certain research tnat has been 12 donc, I don't feel that we should be making that C 13 part of the record.
14 MS, OSBORNE: Then I would request that 15 anybody interested in this can, write to Randy Blau 16 at King of Prussia to get a copy from him.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Why don't you provide me 20 18 with a copy of it so I can take a look at it and 19 see which of those two categories it should fit i 20 into. .
21 f rS . OSBORNE: Okay.
22 ( !!a n d i n g . )
23 THE CH AIR!!AN : Bev Davis also indicated 24 that she wanted time.
25 !!S . DAVIS: I think one of the problems
90
(, I that we have is -- you gentlemen on the panel have 2 -been good tonight particularly in trying to 3 clarify questions which.we may have which we don't 4 have the technical ability to ask.
5 I think we all appreciate the expertise 6 that is presented here that can ask'those kinds of 7 questions and try and get some answers that maybe 8 you can translate back to us.
9 One of the things that, as I remember in 10 the original end product or end operations of the 11 cleanup, was the two-year period that was 12 mentioned in which there would be water cleanup.
13 Am I understanding that that has been 14 shortened or changed? I really don't understand 15 what happened to that particular segment.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Maybe somebody else is f
17 following that.
18 !!S . DAVIS: About three or four years 19 ago when the operations, which were to wind up the 20 cleanup were outlined, there was the defueling 21 deadline.
22 And beyond that there was like a 23 two-year period in which the water cleanup was to 24 occur. During that two-year period, they mention 25 particular fines that were not filterable, but
psHM----
91 1 which would be in the water.
J{} _
2 As I say, I am not sure whether I am 3 hearing the answer to that question or not. But 4 my question is, What is going to happen to this 5 unfilterable radioactivity in the water which is 6 floating in the reactor coolant system? I thought 7 it took two years to cleanup, but I don't hear any 8 more~about it.
9 MR. STANDERFER: All of the water that 10 will be disposed of by the evaporation process 11 will pass through our filter systems and through 12 our chemical purification systems. So the water O 13 is reduced to a very low level of radioactivity 14 prior to evaporation.
15 And then during the evaporation process, 16 it is concentrated in the bottom from the 17 evaporator which becomes low-level waste and 18 shipped to Washington state.
19 So the evaporation process, and I think 20 the NRC's environmental analysis which will be 21 available later this month, will address what the
,- 4
' 22 actual effluents will be from that process.
23 With regard to timing, we expect to 24 evaporate about half of the water before we finish 25 the end of the cleanup. And the other half will
92 i
1
} 1 be evaporated during the first year of the l 2 post-defueling monitor storing period. ;
3 So water evaporation is going to fall in 4 both of these time periods.
5 MS, DAVIS: So that is where the two 6 years is? -
7 MR. STANDERFER: We were proposing an 8 evaporation process at a rate that would take two 9 years to evaporate the 2 millio'n gallons of water.
10 MS. DAVIS: So the fines are going to be 11 boiled off into the atmosphere?
., 12 MR. STANDERFER: No. There are no
) 13 fines that are evaporated. We ar'e evaporating 14 water.
15 MS. DAVIS: So you are saying it will be 16 contained within the reactor bottom?
17 MR. STANDERFER: The small amount of 18 particulate material that would be present would 19 be in the evaporator bottom concentrate material, 20 which would be solidified and sent to a low-level 21 burial ground.
22 US. DAVIS: If the fines are not 23 f il t e ra bl e , are they included in the measurable 24 radioactivity? Are they measureable if they are 25 not f il t e ra bl e ?
l 93 l
- {; 1 MR, STANDERFER:
Yes. You take water 2 and put it in a radiation counter and you can 3 count everything that is present in the water.
4 I might mention that the principal 5 isotope that is disposed of by the evaporation
. '6 process is tritium, which is heavy hydrogen, 7 which is incorporated in the water molecule. And 8 that is actually part of the water molecule, and 9 that is what is being disposed of.
10 MS. DAVIS: One question on the public 11 document room.
12 There has not been a librarian for that C ,13 public document room for approximately two months
- 14. and the documents are piling up.
15 Who hires that librarian, the NRC or the 16 State?
17 HR. TR AV ERS : Not us; the State. We 18 send the documents to the State library system. I 19 am not sure how they handle them, apparently not
, 20 very well for the last six months.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: That may have something 22 to do with the large surplus that is proposed for 23 this year end.
24 MS. DAVIS: There was a mention made in 25 the last meeting about that there are other
- - ~ _ _ ._..._._._____._. - _ _ _ .- _ _-. _ . _ ._ _ . __ , _ - - _ _ . _ _ . . _ __
94
{) 1 storage-type licenses that exist at other plants.
I was curious, and it doesn't have to be 2
3 answered here. But I was curious as to what other 4 plants in the country would have this kind of a 5 situation, a storage-type license?
. 6 HR.-TRAVERS: There are a number of 7 plants Dresden 1, Humble Bay, Peach Bottom, Indian 8 Point 1 is another.
9 HS. DAVIS: So there is a special 10 license that all these technical specification 11 changes would be in addition to this special 12 storage license that they have?
O 13 HR. TR AV ERS : There is a basic license 14 that I think most of those plants still have under 15 an operator's licenser however, they ceased 16 operations and either have declared that they 17 don't intend to operate again or are considering 1
18 the question.
19 US. DAVIS: How long does this license 20 last for Unit 27 21 MR. TRAVERS: I would have to look that 22 up; but originally most licenses are issued for 40 23 years. And I believe this was issued in '76 or 24 '77. It was that time frame.
25 THE CHAIRHAN: Thank you, Bill.
l
95 g} l MS. DAVIS: One last question.
2 THE CHAIRMAN: Make it real quick.
3 HS. DAVIS: We are talking about 4 low-level waste which would go to a Pennsylvania 5' burial ground. I would be interested in an 6 estimate of what we are talking about now.
7 Are we talking about the evaporator 8 bottoms. What kind of curie total and what kind 9 of volume total are we talking about that might 10 possibly, after 1993, have to be accommodated some 11 other place in Pennsylvania?
12 MR. STANDERFER: We would expect all of C 13 the evaporator bottoms to be disposed of long 14 before the Pennsylvania site will be available.
15 So all the evaporat.or bottoms from the 16 water disposal will be going to Washington state 17 or South Carolina.
10 MS. DAVIS: Have you made an estimate in o
19 answer to the rest of the question?
20 !!R . STANDERFER: Yes. There are numbers 21 in our proposal that we sent to the NRC. And I am 22 sure that the HRC will summarize those numbers in 23 their EIS.
24 So the documentation we submitted and 25 the documentation you will see from the 1:nc in the
{
96 J) 1 n,xt month or so will have those numbers. ,
2 THE CHAIRMAN: Is there anybody else
.3 . from the public who.has not had a chance to speak 4 at this point?
5 (Hand raised.)
6 Anybody else from the public besides 7 this gentleman?
8 (Another hand raised.)
9 We will take two those individuals.
10 Come forward, sir. And if you would, please try 11 to stay within the five minute time limit.
12 AL !!ADDOCK : I am Al Maddock,
{i .
13 fli d dl e t ow n . ,
14 Pertaining to the containers, in the 15 annual reports posted by this company call for 16 quality control of these containers, that these l 17 containers be safety graded.
18 Are there quality control reports l 19 available? And do you have a copy of that report?
20 I sent you some information.eerly in the summer on 21 this and did you nothing on it.
22 THE CH AIR!iAN : tihen you say "you," you 23 are saying me?
24 IR. !!A D D O C K : That is right.
25 Ti! C CH AIRf: Ati : What did you ask me to do
97
() I with it? , ,
2 MR. MADDOCK: I sent you a copy of the 3 report calling for the quality control information 4 on the safety grade. And I am st'ill waiting for 5 it.
6 This is not my information. This is the 7 information you should have sent to the NRC, not 8 sent it back to me.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: I don't know if you are 10 sending me information that'you should be sending 11 to the NRC.
12 MR. MADDOCK: The NRC doesn't answer any C 13 of my material. Sorry to say, I am living in the 14 wrong county.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Again, can you phrase the 16 question in order to allow .the NRC to answer it 17 this evening?
18 MR. MADDOCK: All I am doing is asking 19 for what is in the annual report that is put out 20 by the company that builds the containers.
21 Do you have a copy of that quality 22 control report for the safety grade. And is that 23 copy available? You should have a copy and it 24 should be open to the public.
25 THC CHAIRMAM: Not necessarily would I
98 j 1 have a copy of that.
2 HR. MADDOCK: The panel should have a 3 copy.
4 THE CHAIRHAN: If someone from the Panel 5 wants to speak to that, fine. I would ask that --
, 6 are you asking for a copy of such?
7 MR. MADDOCK: I am asking for the 8 report, yes.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Is such copy available?
10 MR. SMITHGALL: Are you asking for a 11 copy in raference to the canisters, the shipping 12 canisters?
O 13 !!R . !! ADDOCK : The quality control report 14 of the canisters that is supposed to be made 15 available to the public. It is in their annual 16 reports. I sent you a copy.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: It may be true that they 18 are available. I am not saying that I have ever 19 had a copy, and I am asking Mr. Masnik, if you are 20 making a request for such a. copy --
21 UR. MADDOCK: I am making that request, 22 yes. You are running me over my two minutes.
23 THE CH AIR!!A!!: You are. If you juct
, 24 hang in there and let him answer the question.
i 25 !!R . !! AS!!In : Which annual report are you l
t.
99 1 referring to?
(]
2 !!R . !! ADDO CK : 1985 and 1986.
3 f* R. MASNIK: On what company?
5 l-! R . !!ASNIK: I know that the NRC has 6 looked into those quality control reports. I am 7 not sure that they are available.
8 MR. MADDOCK: Page 15 and page 18 of the 9 reports is where it tells you.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Give Mr. Travers a 11 chance.
12 MR. TRAVERS: As far as I know, NUS had C 13 nothing to do with the containers.
14 If you are talking about the shipping 15 casks, maybe that is what you are talking about, 16 'there is a company called NuPack that built them.
17 They are similar.
18 MR. MADIC: I understand.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Apparently, you don't 20 understand, sir. So please let him finish.
21 !* R. TRAVERS. If it is MuPack, maybe 22 that might trigger somebody's memory better.
l 23 But generally we have looked at quality l 24 c o r.t r o l aspects of the design and the fabrication 25 of the canisters and casks. And we have
100
(} 1 inspection reports that deal with the subject.
2 If you would like a copy, we will try 3 and send it to you.
4 MR. MADDOCK: Send it back to me, and I 5 will take a look at it for the next meeting.
. 6 THE CHAIRMAN: What are you going to do 7 for the next meeting?
O MR. MADDOCK: He will send some material 9 so I have it ready for the next meeting.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Fine.
11 MR. MADDOCK: What a joke.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: You certainly did a good
~
Y 13 job of confusing me. I don't know if you did that 14 for anybody else, and I am not trying to be smart.
15 I just did not understand what the point is that 16 you are making.
17 MR. TRAVERS: I would like to' clarify 18 what I will send Al what we have done. I don't 19 know what anyone else has done.
20 MS. CORRADI: Joyce Corradi, Concerned 21 Mothers and Women.
22 The first question I would like to know 23 is what happened to the pulverizer? I was under 24 the impression there was a special piece of 25 ecuipment that would be used to make these large
101 l pieces smaller and make them available to go into
[
2 the canisters. Am I correct?
3 HR. STANDERFER: We designed and built a 4 piece of equipment called a shredder, which has 5 teeth in it which will pulverize this kind of 6 material. And that is available as one of the 7 tools which we may use for this material. ,
8 It has not been installed in the reactor 9 vessel at the present time, but it is qualified 10 and we have actually broken up pieces of granite 11 with it in our test area. And it is one of the 12 several tools which we may use for this operation.
O 13 THE CHAIRMAN: Fine.
14 MS. CORRADI: One of the questions I 15 still don't understand is, How do you weigh the 16 fuel when you decide how much fuel has left and 17 how much fuel is still in the system? How do you 10 weigh that fuel in relationship to the rest of the 19 mass?
20 In other words, when you are taking fuel 21 out of the containment, you are not just taking 22 fuel, you are taking debris along with it. How do r 23 you measure the weight of that in relationship to
. 24 the rest of the debris?
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Do you have other
102
(; 1 questions?
, 2 !!S . CORRADI: No, that's it.
3 MR. STANDERFER: We actually weigh the 4 canister empty and weigh the canister after it has 5 been filled with scales.
6 MS.-CORRADI: I understand that. But 7 how can you tell the weight of the fuel that may 8 be within that canister in ratio to the rest of 9 the debris?
10 MR. STANDERFER: We do not make that 11 kind of determination.
12 MS. CORRADI: How can.you determine what O 13 is in the reactor versus what has been shipped 14 then?
15 !!R . STANDERFER: The procedure that we 16 w or ked out with the NRC and the Department of 17 Energy is we will remove all of this mass of 18 material, put it in canisters.
19 We know how much was pres.ent at the time l 20 of the accident. That was how much we started
( 21 with. We will measure how much we did not remove.
22 And the amount that was shipped then will be the 23 difference.
, 24 So it i s an actual calculation to be 25 made at the end.
1 y w- ,y-- - - e- ,
.+4 .
103 g 1 HE. CORRADI: How do you measure the 2 amount you did not remove?
3 UR. STANDERFER: We'take samples of 4 surface films and samples of material that is left 5 in the bottom of the pipes. We have gamma 6 spectrometers-that measure radioisotopes that can 7 be related to the amount of fuel.
8 And so by a variety of measurements, we 9 will measure the quantity of fuel that was not 10 removed. That subtracted from the quantity of the 11 fuel that was present to begin with is the amount 12 of fuel that will.have been transferred to the C 13 Department of Energy.
14 I:S . CORRADI: But you are saying to me 15 it is more a guesstimate?
16 HR. STANDERFER: No. It is a 17 calculation from two known quantities; how much we 18 started with and how much we ended with.
19 HS. CORRADI: One other question.
20 If that is in fact true, then how do you 21 know that you have too much fuel or too little 22' fuel in your canisters when you are shipping them?
23 !!R. STANDERPER: We actually weigh them.
j . 24 And we know within a reasonable accuracy how much 25 fuel is present, such that we do not exceed the i
L
r 104
() 1 limit for the shipping. . .
2 !!S . CORRADI: How do you do that?
3 !! R. STANDERFER: We weigh it.
4 MS. CORRADI: The weight is the only 5 thing?
. 6 !!R.' STANDERFER: The weight is the only 7 thing based on analysis of samples so we know the 8 ratio of fuel and structural material in the total 9 weight.
10 !!S . CORRADI: You are saying to me in 11 actuality that those samples --
p_ 12 11R . STANDERFER: The exact quantity is G-) 13 not known. But-we make.a calculation so we know 14 that we are below the allowable quantities.
15 !!S . CORRADI: I still have concerns with 16 that.
17 T!!E CH AIR!!AN : Any other questions?
18 ( !!o response.)
19 !!R. !! AS NIK : We have to decide when the 20 next meeting is.
21 THE CII AIRf!AN : I understand. Is there 22 anything else you want to cover tonight?
23 !!R . !! AS NIn : !! o . .
24 T!!E CII AIR!! AN : I would like to ask the 25 panel members whether they would be able to meet, l
1
105
( 'I how they would react to a meeting on January 14, 2 which would be a minimum of two weeks and 3 -hopefully three plus weeks or so after receiving
. 4 the draft supplement EIS from the NRC?
5 And I would ask really since that is to 6 discuss the water issue, whether we could hold 7 that meeting in Lancaster. I would like to do 8 that.
-9 MR. GORDON: I have a conflict.
10 MS. MARSHALL: I have a conflict.
11 MR. GERUSKY: I have a conflict.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Three conflicts. Do you
(' 13 have a suggested other day?
14 MR. SMITHGALL: The day or the week?
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Gordon cannot make the 16 15th. Can anybody else?
17 MR. ROTH: I can't.
18 MS. MARSHALL: The month is bad for me.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: So we should leave you 20 out of the discussion.
21 How about the following week?
22 THE C!IAIRMAM: Unless we have another 23 day, I think we should go with the 15th.
f
. 24 MR. ROTH: I thought the previous 25 meeting we decided that Hednesday night was going
N 106
( ,. I to be the meeting night. , ,
2 THE CHAIRMAN: I am willing to try 3 another night. On the 21st on Wednesday, let me 4 ask how that is.
5 We did not determine Wednesday night 6 would be i t . 47e said that we would try that for 7 awhile, but we might revisit.
8 How is Wednesday the 21st?
9 MR. GERUSKY: I don't know.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Anybody else not know 11 other than Elizabeth Marshall?
12 (No response.)
O 13 THE CHAIRMAN: Looks like the 21st is 14 good. Looks like Joel won again. He keeps 15 fighting and he wins these battles.
16 MR. ROTH: I would like to take a second 3
17 and make a comment because I have been patient 18 from the beginning.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Can we first conclude and 20 say the 21st is the meeting?
21 MR. ROTH: Yes.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: It is 7:00 p.m. i t.
23 Lancaster. And the only two people who seem like
, 24 they have a problem is Elizabeth Marshall and 25 probably Tom Gerusky.
107 j 1 MR. ROTH: The. Chairman was.very kind in 2 the beginning to make comments concerning the 3 efficiency of my chairing the meetings. And I 4 would like to respond in that kind, and I waited 5 two hours.
- 6 For the record, the mayor is also very 7 efficient -- and I have an article here Arthur 8 !!o r r i s is the fastest mayor in the country. He 9 was in a race in Texas, and he was judged the 10 fastest mayor in a six-mile'run. So where his 11 efficiency is in running, mine must be in 12 chairing.
(l 13 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Roth.
14 That was a very important piece of information.
15 Unless somebody has something more 16 important to say, we stand adj ourned. Thank you.
17 (Hearing adjourned at 9:30 p.m.)
18 I- 19
. 20 21 ,
22 23 s 24 25 s.-. ~ , .,,es,. __, - -
108 (T .
S3231219b23 I, Gwen A. Leary, the officer before whom the within deposition (s) was taken, do hereby certify that the witness whose testimony appears in the foregoing deposition,'was duly sworn by me on said date and.that the transcribed deposition of said witness is a true record of the testimony given by said witnesar That the proceeding is herein recorded fully and accurately; That I am neither attorney nor, counsel for, nor related to any of the parties,to the action in which these depositions were taken, and further that I am not a relative of any attorney or counsel employed by the parties hereto, or financially interested in this action.
Gwen A. Leary, Reporter Notary Public 0
is..
i l
4 4e6,b%M4 W6
(
TMi - 2 CLEANUP PROGRAM l
POST - DEFUEL.ING MONITORED STORAGE
. F. R. STANDERFER DIRECTOR. TMI-2
' DECEFEER 10, 1986 i
4
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j Wy 3AOno . ^ ;szc . .aq 4pM ?!c i S M POST DEFUELING 9"3 9 i NM@;e*TlCLEANUP PROGRAMpO4M9 - '
afg'C'4 MONITORED STORAGE
- - - * - = -
10 "n
( - #1 $h'W>ei.Y.gP.migim.pmg xv ig;$f}g
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,9 y PHASEI ik PHASE il dh PHASE III $
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- g$S
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t DM M s STASIL- FUEL IZATION I?7N REMOVAL DECONTAM.
INATION 7 DOS OS TION
$d/ 1 IM2 26? M n %;
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- W e M
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g
%"Ch
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e p REGAIN STABLE COLLECT AND
\
ACHIEVE SECURE, MOleTOR AND MAINTAIN '
CONDITIONS TO PERINT ENCAPSULATE FUEL. SAFE CONDITION, CLEANUP TO PROCEED. TMI-2 IN A SAFE, INCLUDES SUPPORTING SUCH THAT THERE ACTIVITIES INCLUDE: ACTIVITIES SUCH AS: STABLE CONDITION.
IS VIRTUALLY NO ACTIVITIES INCLUDE:
HAZARD TO PUBLIC Reactor Control OR ENVIRONMENT.
Characterization ACTIVITIES INCLUDE:
Surveillsace Containment Accesa Dose Reduction . Evaluation Initial Decon = Reactor Disassemtply =
alntenance Water Processing . Weste Management . Adelltional Decon Waste Storage . Weste Disposal
. Secure Systems g i
& Facilities !
! Overall Cleanup Program Strategy
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ __ - c .
s f,s' .
( s PDMS PROVIDES LAYERS OF PROTECTION e INHERENT STABILITY i
( e EFFECTIVE CONTAINMENT i
e POSITIVE CONTROL i
{
i I
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+)
F INHERENT STABILITY ,
- i e
THE PLANT WILL BE STABLE AND NOT OPEN TO TRANSIENTS.
e OVER 99 % OF THE FUEL WILL HAVE BEEN l
REMOVED. A NUCLEAR CHAIN REACTION WILL e NOT BE POSSIBLE. ,
o CONTAMINATION WILL HAVE BEEN REMOVED TO l THE EXTENTTHERE CAN BE NO HAZARDOUS '
RELEASE OF RADIOACTIVITY.
(
e WATER REMOVED FROM PLANT SYSTEMS AND EQUIPMENT.
e FEW COMBUSTIBLES, LOW FIRE POTENTIAL.
e NO PRESSURIZED SYSTEMS.
W l
r
(
EFFECTIVE CONTAINMENT i
REMAINING RADIOACTIVITY ISOLATED FROM
?
THE ENVIRONMENT BY PROTECTIVE STRUCTURES:
x !.
i e CLOSED PIPING SYSTEMS
, , s I
e SEALED CUBICLES
( -
>; e LOCKED REACTOR CONTAINMENT BUILDING >
, e SECURE AUXILIARY AND FUEL HANDLING BUILDINGS i
e e v
l
(
POSITIVE CONTROL i
1 e RADIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING e PLANT PROTECTION SYSTEMS, SUCH AS
( FIRE PROTECTION l e PLANT SECURITY 9
f 9
i r
I
(
't O
FACILITIES AND SYSTEMS e TMI-2 BOUNDARY e REACTOR BUILDING
(
e AUXILIARY BUILDING e FUEL HANDLING BUILDING 1
D d
r ,.
( TMi-2 FACILITIES & SYSTEMS Original Recovery L J
, All Placed in One of Two Classifications r 3 r 3 OPERABLE DEACTIVATED These include: These include:
r 3 r 3 PDMS Succort Mothbaffed for Future Use Systems and Facilities for Systems and Facilities whicli steps have been taken kept operational full time to preserve availability for or available to operate to future use
( support PDMS activities L J L J r 3 Not Preserved Site 'Sucoort Systems Systems and Facilities safe, but with no action taken to Systems and Facilities preserve future availability; made available to support some systems may be site operations partially or wholly dismantled L J t J CLASSIFICATION OF FACILITIES AND SYSTEMS f
(
'. NUCI1:AR CORE DEBRIS PROJECTIONS
~
DAMAGED CORE PLUS STRUCTURE = 293,000 LB
. e DAMAGED CORE 132,900 KG
( e REMOVE AND SHIP > 132,500 KG e R.ESIDUAL FUEL < 400 KG i
~
l '
EX-VESSEL LOCATIONS CONTAINING FUEL
(
" CURRENT" ESTIMATED QUANTITY OF UO2 KG 1
REACTOR BUILDING l REACTOR COOLANT SYSTEM 15 -125 REACTOR COOLANT PUMPS PRESSURIZER STEAM GENERATORS REACTOR COOLANT PUMPS OUTSIDE RCS 5 -15 UPPER PLENUM ASSEMBLY REACTOR BUILDING BASEMENT CORE FLOOD TANKS
( MAKEUP AND PURIFICATION DEMINS LETDOWN LINE AND COOLERS AUXILIARY AND FUEL HANDLING <5 BUILDINGS (AFHB)
AFHB PlPE SYSTEMS AFHB DRAINS, FLOORS, AND SUMPS 25 - 150*
- BEFORE DEFUELING OF EX-VESSEL LOCATIONS
TMI-2 CLEANUP PROGRAM RADIOLOGICAL GOALS
(
GENERALAREA DOSE RATE R/HR REACTOR BUILDING REFUELING CANAL <0.015
, EL. 347' & ABOVE (EXCEPT D-RINGS) <0.03 EL. 305' TO 347' <0.07 BASEMENT (EL. 282') <35 AUXILIARY BUILDING CORRIDORS <0.0025 OTHER AREAS <0.05
(
FUEL HANDLING BUILDING CORRIDORS <0.0025 OTHER AREAS <0.05 f
OTHER BUILDINGS TURBINE BUILDING <0.0025 CHEMICAL CLEANING BUILDING <0.0025 (EXCEPT EPICOR ll AREA TO BE LEFT OPERABLE)
SERVICE BUILDING CONTAINMENT <0.0025 TANK AREA i
I
I PDMS OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE ,
( '
e CONTAINMENT ENTRIES FOR INSPECTION AND MONITORING e VERIFICATION OF CONTAINMENT e TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION EQUIPMENT SURVEILLANCE e TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION CALIBRATIONS e SOLID AND LIQUID WASTE PROCESSING FROM PDMS ACTIVITIES i e WASTE HANDLING AND SHIPPING FROM PDMS ACTIVITIES e
SYSTEM OPERATIONS REQUIRED DURING PDMS e MAINTENANCE OF SYSTEMS AND BUILDINGS
~
- e HOUSEKEEPING l e RESPONSE TO NATURAL EVENTS e EMERGENCY RESPONSE i
l.
(
1 PDMS LICENSE CONDITION e CONTINUE LICENSE UNDER 10 CFR PART 50 -
" POSSESSION ONLY" e NEW NRC-APPROVED TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS FOR PDMS
(
e COMPLY WITH CURRENT RADIATION PROTECTION REGULATIONS - 10 CFR PART 20 o OFFSITE DOSE A SMALL FRACTION OF 10 CFR PART 50 APPENDIX 1 LIMITS L
4
t RADIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING o SURVEYS CONDUCTED ON A REGULAR BASIS e MONITOR BOTH LIQUID AND GASEOUS EFFLUENTS
< e MAINTAIN EXISTING ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING. PROGRAM s ' MONITORING AND ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTS TO THE NRC i
l l
>a a 4
4 h
SUMMARY
POST-DEFUELING MONITORED STORAGE MAINTAINS A SECURE, MONITORED TMI-2
( PLANT THAT DOES NOT PRESENT A HAZARD TO OURWORKERS OR TO PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY.
O e
- - - - --,,..-e , , -, , , , , - . , , . . . , - . . , . , - . . - - , . - -
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- October 9,1986 Tes Mr. Charles E. MacDonald, Chief, frenoportation Certification Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle end Meterial Sofety, U.S. % clear "P -L, CaseILoeien raams Mrs. Lee Drey (Key) 515 West Point Ave., St. Louis, le 63130 -
f This letter le to request information about the revisione sw stevielen One of the Three Mile telend-2 defueling cash-and-cenistar Cartifieste of ru tanes he. 9200 es loeued on July 17, 1986 -- that is, in comperison with the initial Certificate, Revision Zero, walen the 88tC had isewed to the Department of Energy an April 11, 1906. I am interested in learning about the reistive responsibilities of the 881C, DUC, Department of frenoper.
tetton, and Genese1 Public Utilitime Eclear (GPult) emt its contractere with respect to the initial and revised packaging decimiens.
l 1 remain concerned about the potential for a fire from uithin er without the cook, e critieelity escident (en uncontrolled nuclear ehman emoetion), and/or a hydrogen esqele-eien, plus the nea-easidental generation and potettel r=1==== ef radienstive gases ed etene. Published bosete about % clear Pechoging, Inc.'s, apsed reeerd of 'deelyiing, fabricating and delivering its innevetive % Pee 125-8 spent fuel cost in just 17 monthe' le.g., % clear 8 toes. July 1986, p. 42) don't help soeunge my foers about the decision to ship this highly damaged, permanently heterdmae, epredictable fuel virtually seest-to-comet, in e wet (' drip-dry") state.
- 1. Sese apseettene about the ehreM--w of the reviaimes
- a. Do you know why Sebcock & Wilroe. se designere of the canisters, chose to finoltre and publish Revision Two of its fenister Appendia (of the Cesk Safety Analyste Report) on April 91, 1986, the some day the 88tC issued its initial Certificate of Compliancei IThis revised appendie, se you enon, wee not submitted to the IIRC until June 11 es e port of NPet
- 4 letter requesting revisione to the two-senth-old Certificate of Compliance.)
- b. Could you pleese tell me if the chrees, "Reviseds por 88tC comumente -- Janvery 6, 1966,* which sopeers on the revised dem,ings of sech of the three types of canistere in the Acril 11 Canister Appendia, refers to changes in just the drowinge (or I footnotes to the drawings) -- or did the commente address actual changee mandated '
by the 88tC in the design and/or esterials of the canistere?
e
- c. If the felt commente are in memorandum or other written form, may 1 please have a copy?
( d. I find the chronology entremely difficult to reconstruct. For esemple, the fuel canister jagg&cg spoorently began en November 12, 1989, elemet two months before the fftC commente teeationed above) end eight months befoge the fdC issued its July 17 revised Certificate approving various canister revisione. Wee there same reeson or proc 4 dent for the rueh?
- 2. About the change in the 0-rina seele en she fuel canisteres
- e. bhan did GPUN discover that the sete111e 0-ring seals hed to be changed to rubberized oleetic? Same reisted detees (1). According to the if4C TMI-2 Cloenup Project Directorete, the leadina of *%e first fuel eenistere benen an ";.
r 12. 1985: and the first three loeded, sealed and dowetered fuel cenieters were treneferred from the Reactor 8W11 ding to the underwater eterage rocks in tx "A* Spent Fuel Poel (in the fuel Mend 11ng Suild-ing) on January 12, 19t5. Ev Aaril 13. e total of 42 fuel and knamhaut sgogggggg e
had been treneferred to the fuel poet. (from the ' Weekly Status Aaporte.')
(2). According to e May 28, 1986, article in the Morrisburg, PA, Pg33&gh TMI plant personnel first natie-d ese lambe freue mine eenietsre in Januarv er Februarv coming fror "foulty setsi geekets neer the top of the cenistere.' It wee i further reported that '34 cenietere (that had been) loaded after the leeko j ,
were detected have been fitted with the synthetic geekste and do not leek.' ,
i j b. When was the efec first infa --d of the need for the change?
(1). I believe the 88tC leeued its initial Cartificate of Compliance (April tt,19M) on the beste of the Ceek Safety Analysis Report's Canister Annandir. REE1RLE1 Zgsg, dated October 23, 1965. At that time the following wording sopeered on page 1-3s 'The closure heed (of the fuel centster) hoe (mete 11tel Incenal X-150 0-ringe around the loading hole end dowetering drein hole that are held in place using wire clips and smell screws." And on page 3-4: "A mete 111e
, - . ~ , - , - , -, ,. , - _ _ . , _ .- . . . . _ . _ , , , . _ , - - - - -- -. _, - , - - , - - . .
_ . - .--.~
being etteshed ti the sleeure heed eeels the sentzter sovity shen the head to instelled." (empheese added)
(2). The Canister Appendia Rowtoien Two, dated April 11, 1996, and endemitted to the NRC on June it, thenges or deleted the above wording, and en pogo 3-4 esteeds 'The mein seet end drain line seel are febricated free Ethylene pro- 1 331gagmeterial.' (empheets added) Similar woreing wee added to the fuel p( centster dre-ing, Reviolon 3 dated April 4,1966. In behalf of the DIK, Nelser Pacheging, Inc., offered the following retianale for the change in doe 91 n frise inconel motel to etnylene propylenes 'te occamelish the upper heed pressure boundary esel to the canister body.' (frase % pec's June it letter, d IT-5964, Attachment C, p.1).
- s. Weso any laboratory Agata Sg computer simul,tione (e.g., thermell perfereed en a full- er apaorter-ecolo massi fuel canister fabricated with the new ethylene l
peopylene G-rings, and if ee, then, whose, and with what moeuttet (A Febouery l a 1996 IEC report que the eging of enubbero eredits othylene propylens with having good redaation roeistence, but with only modorete temperature eging resistence.
This peuporty would certainly esos to be relevant in the event of a lengduration, high-intensity fire. (NWREC/CA-4279, Vol. 1, p. 2.11)) ;
- d. Aseeeding to the June 11 % Pee letter *the tornese value for the seel cenieter e
- 1a = *e belte* wee increased frise 40-50 to 50-60 ft-lhe." (Attactueent C, pp. t and Se else, techtel Revisten 5-t drawing, corrected Jtsie 9,1904.) Attachment C further stetoes *The canister seel wee eressure tested to espifire design per-i formenee using a torspse of 50 to "O ft.-lhe. and canisters will be torneaed to
' thle value before shipment." (pege 1, emphasis added) Where was this pressure testing dones whens by whoms and et what internal end eatsenel design pressurent Wee it done maing en actual er scale-model cenister loaded with drip-dry TMI-2
, fuel?
(The only eenister teste I had reed about elsewhere were of ann erotatves knockout canister fabricated and droo-tested et Ook Ridge National laboratory (Centeter Appendis, October 1965 and Aptf1 1986, Section 4): and of dron teete k
of agGlt, fuel canisters fabricated to reflect "the design configuratien et the
.. . - time of the test,.* et Sebcock & Wilcom's Lyn =hburg, VA, facility (ibig., Sec. 3)).
- s. When wee the ehence in 0-rino meterial (s.nd the increased torcque value for the seal cleeurs bolte) setually eneroved bv the NRC7 jf before the July 17, j)$6, issuance of Revision One of the Certificate, may I please have e copy of any relevant don mentation?
- f. How eenv fuel canisters with metal Inconel 0-ringe had alreadv been fabriented by the time GNN decided to change to sleetcomer (Nuoprene?) 0-ringe?
- g. How eeny had already been f11131, sealed, dewatered and treneferred to the opent fuel pool by then?
- h. Were the 0-rings chonced on any of the fuel ennistere ef ter their trenefer to the fuel pools and if so, have you any description of the procedure which you seuld send est (1). I an interneted in learning how the lide could beve been removed with the
. cenieters undesweter without allowing the contente of the cenieter to be inundefsd. including the recombiner cetelyst bede (which will not function if submerged). Or if the conister lid seele were replaced outside of the peel, I wonder about the workers' radiation doses.
(2). The following procedure description wee attributsd to Gordon Tesh, a GPUN spokesmen, in the May 28 Petrict erticles 'He said werkers will take the cope off cenisters with metal geekets, put a temporary notel cover over to minimise weste leakege to the fuel pool water, replace the geehet and put
- back the heede.' The article continuess "The NRC, in a letter to GpU thselear, opproved the procedure. But the fdtC mente omrences that usestos
(
l 1eeking from the cenisters into the opent fuel paci 'cen to properly dio-t posed of,' the letter said." le that a correct description of the procedure 7
- 1. Would you please tell as if the ama fuel eenisters that were shipped through St.
Leute on July 22 in the *f rit Dt esak had elastomer cr motel 0-rings? The cents.
ter serial nuacere are D-136,139,140,141,153,154 and 160 (eccording to the i
r r-
.= - u. n.
GPU baiser Radioactive Meteriel Shipment Checklist for Shipment he. RS-46-061-II).
t
- j. Would you also sleese teu se about the 0-ring seele en the fourteen cenietere entoped through here et dann on Septedser 2 7 1 de not hows a list er description i of those.
- k. .h et curisees GPUN's above enecklist to nuedpered Shipment No. !!. Wee there over
( roeu re Shipment No. I ?
- 3. Ataut the deciolon te allee the use of nitronen er helim in addition to the originally opproved ggggi es a cover goe in the canister, inner vessel and outer cook sowitises while the MC's April 11, 1906, certificate of Campliance and ite Safety Evolustion Report (at page 23) eention the use of eli three gases, it mes apporontly not until NPec's letter of June 11 that the MC wee info med of reisted nording changes in Aswistan 3 ef leaPee's Safety Analysis Report .haie sped (et pages 7-2, -S. and -4.
- 8haPac apparently everlooked adding "nitgegen or ham =* to peque t=2 and T-3.) Other earlier documents had indicated that only inert eronn elene mee to tuo used as a purge or cover goe - e.g., the April 1986 SER (et p.13) the earlier SAR edittene (.hane and October 1985, and Janvery 1906, e.g., in Section 7 en opereting prosecharsels and the SAA Centeter Appendia of October 1905. (The use of helle goe had been specified in the October 1905 r,sek SAA for leek testing to verify the so-doelgned fabrication of t%e outer cook and inner weseel, and of their rupture diske -- senerding to Section 8 -
but not se a cover ges.)
- e. would you ploese tell so when and whv it wee decided that it would be both necessary and acceptable to use not only argon, but nitrogen end helitse es won, as e cover ges?
That is, what esseemment was made of the besefits and heterde of using each of these gemee. I would like to know how you ranked the reistive importance of oxygen end hydrogen diffusion, therziel diffusion, chemical reactivity, and external detectability.
If there le any supporting documentation, I would appreciate receiving e copy.
- b. Were studies conducted of an actual or model cook and senieter to project whether hellun introduced as e cover goe could be kept cetained over the requisite storege and travel times, and unether helium could edeawately diffuse heat awav from the fuel decrie in the event of a fire too por e Rockwou Internettonal repo;t en special TMI.2 core decrie handling problemas GEle-OSt, June 1905, p. 2S)?
( '
- c. Were separate yolumetric ornenelon calculatione mode for holises and nitrogen to s determine the potential internel-pressure buildup within su three pressure-retaining bounderise (outer cook, inner woesel, and canisters) - and were these factored into e thermel enelysis of the packaging during a hypothetical fire, se per 10 CFR 71.73(c)(3]? The NRC's April 1986 Safety Evaluation Report mentione such calculations only for ergon (pp. 12, 13).
- d. Did the NRC require laboratory inweetigatisme of the notential coubustion behavior specifically of the aircoeiun present in the TMI-2 core debris in en atmosphere that would contain not just ergon se a cover gee, but potentieuy helium or nitrogen, es well -- plus, of course, the radiolyticany-produced hydrogen and oxygen? If so, may I please have e copy of the resulte == st both nessel and occidental temperaturoof
- e. were similar studies mode of other reactive core debrio componente, particularly in the presence of nitronen?
- 4. Some additionei ouestione about the awresharicity (tendency to ignite opontaneosely) of -
the timeonian in the core debrie - that is, the desaged 31EvenhWy tubing that
, originally emlosed the uranium fuel penete) - ond of other zoactive omtale:
- e. Since se much of the reerlidified core is hoving to be nochenically renoved free the reactor weseel (e.g., bg long-handled moruel toele, hydraulic chisels, and drille),
hee the 88tC projected the probability of the resulting fresh. unomidized&
- estel surfaces and nicconiue " *es igniting apontaneously in the presence of a hodgepodge of radiolyticouy-generated geese and cover gemeef for esemple, to cpsete from the ebove Rockwell Intl. reports "If the defueling process (et TMI-2) crestas fresh motel surfaces and particularly if it creates very aseu chips and fines such as fras sewing and grinding operatione, the pyrophorietty potential would be incrossed." (GE8ELOS1, page 4 Additional related concerne oppear en pp. 2, 3, 26 and 30, and in Appendia A.)
- b. Although the above Rockwell repert mentions that " wet airconium burne violently,' it else suggeste that airconium powder in some situatione should be kept submerged
- ~~ ..
/.
/
completely. Un the other hand, it is apparently imperative that the recombiner
/ catelyet bede inside the canisters (needed to control the formation of commuotible, radiolytically-generated ges mixtures) not be st1= -8 to besses submerged. Which of the many conflicting, wet-vereue-drv conditione did you decide should proveilf S. About the deciaton to parait the shipment of too cooke slaultanonutiv, se occurred on g
Leber Dey weekende
- e. would you plesee tell as when and whv the IdlC desided to change the Certificate to allow this doubling up? That is, the change on pogo 3 frees
... April its "Menimas nus6er of packages ser obisonnt == one' tos
.., July 11a 'Mosimen number of pockeges mer shi---et (wht-1 one'
- The DE's contractor, Nuclear Pechoging, Inc., had roupsested a less cryptie wording change in ite June 11 letter to the 9dIC == that is, for the Certificate to reeds
- Menimum numeer of packagee per vehicle (railcar) -- one" (Attachment al. NuPac soplained the rationale for the wording change se fo11eems *C of C (Certificate of Compliance) Section S(c) states the mealmso maeor of paceeges per ehisment le one.
While it is understand that this scene one peakage per vehicle (rail cer) and allows two pechages en the same trein, e change to the wording may clarify this for othere. This roepsested change unald establish the r: t: r reistionehte betiseen the pechoge end its reil car but would not preclude making a rail ehisement contain-ing two pochegos.' (Attachment C, p. S)
It wee a creet eurories to find out that two railroad cert, each with a eask. had been shipped through St. Louis on one train at the cloes of Labor Oey weekend. In the event of en accident and a long-duration, high-intensity fire, two cooks could have felled instead of one, potentially cousing the rolesse of twice the enount of radioactivity we'd already been worrying about.
- b. Regarding that enount of radioactivitys according to the leAC's Safety Evaluation Report, April it, page 16, each of a cook's seven cenieters 'et 4- la-d4a was calculated to cantain 11,0C0 curies of mimed fission products (4,400 curies of strontium-90s 5000 curiae of cesium-137) plue 300 curies of activation producte (cobalt-60).* Would you plaese tell me why the contents of one of the cenisters that case through St. Louis on July 22 SESElag that estimated 11.300 curies? That is, fuel Canister No. D-154 reportedly contained E,gg curies. Knoeing that the g
h personnel are wery of contact with even tinv fractions af one aueda.
levels of radioactivity present in nuclear power westes have 81were been mind.
boggling to me.
- c. All early announcogente, filme and puelicatione bed projected that "there will be only one cask on a trei.n.' (Neil Cons "Radiologicei !=pects of Transporting TM1 Core Dobris,' EGLE Idaho. Jan.1986, p.1) An additional esemple: "While one cook is being loaded at TMI another will be being unloaded at the IfCL.'
(EGLG Idahos Modete. April 1996, p.101 If there is any documentation (correspondence and/or studies) to explain the deci.
elon to permit the shipping of two coche on one train, I would appreciate a copy,
- d. The NpC's agreeing to expedite the shipping schedule to Idaho oesus all the more surprising in light of the variety of cenieter loading probleme in Penney 1venia -
such es, the many nochenical probleme, and the operodic chutdowns eterting in April due to visibility problems caused by organisme within the reactor vessel. I found the folloning description in the Octaher T how Yamh T of the radiation-ersenced ensemanities of alpes, yeast, bactorie end fungi to be particularly chillings they are apparently " thriving in en envirorument that would be deadly to husene or any other higher life fann." (p. 21) It almost inspires me to sek this rhetorical agueetion s will the NRC et eene point need to revise the cask Certificate of Com-pliance to give the DK permission to add its mutant non-fuel cargo?
- 6. About the decision to change the Certificate to include the follosing cargos 'ggg.
dieted ease structural -
.=e. contaminated defueling espaissent, and filter-sid meteriale" == in addition to the deneged fuel cores i
~
- e. Hoe the Department of Cnergy provided ggi of the radioactive componente and espJipment. including their description, weight, volume, thermal heat, radioactive decay heet, and curia esatent? If so, may I please have e copy?
- b. Would you eleo send me e copy of a description of the seconderv containero you have l
~.. - . . . ~ ,
appewed for trenoporting this non-fuel corne, as well se the gggggg (pseding meteriale) chosen in order to protect the integrity of the inner vessel and
- outer cook under accident conditione (se per Section 5(b)(1)(iil of the revised I Certificate)?
k e. Which company or companies hoe designec and ' abricated the secondesy containere, inclueing those to be used to tronoport the radioactively-esturated distruscemas earth (chelh-like filter odeorbente)?
- d. Apparently the fuel canistere are to be stored in a fuel pel (meter pit) et the DOC's Idaho National Engineering Leberstory. Where will the non fumi W-d f =
be etered?
e 7, A final spasetion and cessants
- e. Did the apsetter-seele endel of the seuPee cask that wee daup- and punctuee-tested on Aertl 23-24 and May 7-0, 1905, et Sandia National Leberstory have zusture dieke in the lide of the inner veeeel and/or outer cook? If so, and if lashege teste
- wers perfosued en the diske, any I please have e copy of the soeulia. (I couldn't locate any rupture diake on the dresings of the spaarter-ocole sedet in the Safety Analyste Report's cook test reonite Appendia 2.10.6.)
- b. I have written to EG&fe Idaho to receaset a citation and/or espy of the specifie (TMI fuel) and generic criticolatv studies used in designing the cooks Iand conistere =
submit my which I espect may won generate even more quentiene in my mind.
ecologies in advance.
The word we're beginning to hear lately is that the real reason the demoged TMI fuel hoe to be moved to the Idaho fuel peal is not so that the epocial cadre of scientists and technicione out there con de resserch en the fuel, tout so that they can keep en eye on it -- that it's in too unpredictable e otets te leave it stored, even tempererily, in the TMI fuel pool. The first hint we'd had of that concern wee a sentence on the DOC video about the TMI fuel trenoport project, shown to the St. Louis Board of Aldersen on July It, 1996: 'The demoged fuel would be esfely removed from the TM1 site unich was previously determined to be unsulteele for longtese storage for fuel in this canditian."
(br ecocorn seems to fo11ms logically if the fuel is too unpredicteele to be koht
( sofoly et ihree Mile Island, has predicteele will it be es it posses through Pittseurgh, Centen, Indienopolis, Esot St. Loais, St. Louis, Konees City, Topeka, Cheyenne....?
Romandsering that each chipped-out collection of valet 11e westes in each cenieter is unious, I eleo keep wondering if there really are enough octantiste and technicione even in Idaho to be ecle to forecent which cenister le apt to burst firett four response to the above requeste for information will be greatly appreciated.
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m TunEE McLe 18 Lana ALERT, MC.
m 315 PeHor St Harrisburg, Puesa.17182 (717)233 7037
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CONTACT: Eric Epstein QUESTIONS CONCERNING POST DEFUELING MONITORING STAGE j QUESTION 1: In the event GPU becomes insolvent, or bankrupt, j what contingencies are in place to ensure this " final stage" will 8
be implemented and carried out?
QUESTION 2: How long is this stage projected to last? Is PDMS q analogous to decommisioning? Why or why not?
QUESTION 3: Since you won't be utilizing control room personel, does this imply you've ruled out restarting Unit-2?
QUESTION 4: How many employees will be utilized during this stage, in what capacity, how long will they be on the Island and how much of the work during PDMS will be sub-contracted out or perf ormed by non-GPU employees?
QUESTION 5: Will the Japanese or any other representatives of foreign governments / utilities play a role in PDMS?
. QUESTION 6: There are a number of assumptions in GPU's
( presentation, but I'm just going to focus on two:
- 1. GPU maintains," The program (PDMS) will be underway for the disposal" of 2.1 million gallons of radioactive water. What if it 's not? What bearing will that have on post monitoring defueling?
- 2. GPU believes that during PDMS there will be allowable time "f or the resolution of current limitations on national waste disposal capabilities so that selection of processes may be less dependent on volume reduction". Anybody who has been involved with the waste disposal issue knows that it is unpredictable, volatile and burdened with endless delays. How much time is GPU " allowing" for this national issue to be resolved? What if waste disposal becomes delayed indefinitely?
QUESTION 7: If the plant will be in a condition of " inherent stability", what was it's condition before?
QUESTION 8: In that the utility will be utilizing " positive monitoring and control", is there any major differences in this approach compared to the current monitoring system? Is there a concept known as " negative monitoring"?
QUESTION 9: How can the public be assured that waste f rom Unit-1 or Oyster Creek won't be stored at Unit-2?
k QUESTION 10: What will be the role of the NRC, EPA and the Advisory Panel during this stage? ,
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QUESTION 11: Will there be backup power and redundant safety systems employed during this stage?
QUESTION 12: Could GPU be more specific on their plans for flood protection and seismic qualifications?
. QUESTION 13: Where exactly will the residual fuel be stored, where will the fuel that is not enclosed be stored and what will the" aggregate quantities" be?
QUESTION 14: How exactly will radioactivity be " fixed or
, contained"?
QUESTION 15: What will the criteria be for offsite radiation doses that will purportedly be "substantially lower than the limits permitted for an operating nuclear plant"? Who will enforce these limits?
QUESTION 16: Who will be conducting the inspections of the reactor building and the auxillary building?
QUESTION 17: What's the difference between PDMS and making Three Mile Island Unit-2 an indefinite low-level /high-level waste j disposal site?
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DISTRIBUTION LIST FOR MATERIAL TO THE ADVISORY PANEL FOR THE DECONTAMINATION OF THREE MILE ISLAND UNIT 2 Chairman Zech H-1149 Mr. Thomas Magness
- Commissioner Roberts H-1149 Council on Environmental Quality Commissioner Asselstine H-1149 722 Jackson Place, NW Commissioner Bernthal H-1149 Washington, DC 20006
) Conmissioner Carr H-1149 f H. R. Denton, NRR P-428 PANE W. D. Travers (5 copies) TMI Site Mail Pouch P.O. Box 268 M. Masnik P-320 Middletown, PA 17057 J. R. Hall P-320 F. Congel 244 Mr. Frank D. Davis J. Zerbe H-1013 200 Gettysburg Pike M. Libarkin, ACRS H-1016 Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 T. Major H-1016 J. Fouchard MNB-3709 Ms. Beverly Hess , TMI-PIRC R. 3rowning, NMSS SS-623 1037 Maclay Street Docket; File,50-320+ 016 Harrisburg, PA 17103 PDR 016 LPDR 016 Mr. Edward Charles DCS 016 90 Nittany Drive F. Miraglia P-202 Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 Director Mr. John H. Murdoch Power Plant Siting Program 44 Kensington Drive Departn:ent of Natural Recources Camp Hill, PA 17011 Tawes Building B-3 Annapolis, MD 21401 TMI Alert - c/o Kay Pickering 315 Peffer Street Ms. Ruth Gentle Harrisburg, PA 17102 1 Virginia Circle Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 Dr. Frank Parker School of Engineering Susquehanna Valley Alliance Nashville, TN 37203 P. O. Box 1012 Lancaster, PA 17604 Ms. Michelle Voso Society of Nuclear Medicine Dr. Sid Langer 475 Park Avenue, South P.O. Box 1625 New York, NY 10016 Idaho Falls, ID 83415 Mr. Dave Janes Mr. E.E. Kintner Analysis and Support Division Executive Vice President U.S. Environmental Protection Agency General Public Utilities Nuclear Corp. 401 M. Street, SW (ANR-461) 100 Interpace Parkway Washington, DC 20640 Parsippany, NJ 07054 Mr. Kenneth L Miller, Director Division of Health Physics and Associate Professor of Radiology Milton S. Hershey Medical Center Pennsylvania State University Hershey, PA 17033
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2 Mr. Bob Leyse Dr. John luetzelschwab EPRI-NSAC Professor of Physics 3412 Hillview Avenue Dickinson College Palo Alto, CA 94303 Carlisle, PA 17013-2896 Mr. Willis Bixby Mr. Thomas Gerusky, Director U.S. Department of Energy P.O. Box 88 Bureau of Radiation Protection 3
Dept. of Environmental Resources L Middletown, PA 17057 P.O. Box 2063 Harrisburg, PA 17120 Mr. F.R. Standerfer, Director Three Mile Island Unit 2 Elizabeth Marshall GPU Nuclear Corporation 736 Florida Avenue P.O. Box 480 York, PA 17404 Middletown, PA 17057 Mr. Thomas Smithgall Mr. J.J. Byrne 2122 Marietta Avenue Three Mile Island Ur.it 2 Lancaster, PA 17603 GPU Nuclear Corporation P.O. Box 480 Niel Wald, M.D.
Middletown, PA 17057 Professor and Chairman Department of Radiation Health The Honorable Arthur E. Morris University of Pittsburg Mayor of Lancaster A512 Crabtree Hall P.O. Box 1559 Pittsbt.rgh, PA 15261 120 N. Duke Street Lancaster, PA 17605 Dr. Gordon Robinson Associate Professor of Mr. John Minnich Nuclear Engineering Dauphin County Corrmissioners 231 Sackett Building P.O. Box 1295 University Park, PA 16802 120 N. Duke Street Harrisburg, PA 17108 Jim Detjen Philadelphic Inquirer Dr. Henry Wagner 400 N. Broad Street Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene Philadelphia, PA 19101 J
615 N. Wolfe Street Room 2001 Dr. William Kirk Baltimore, MD 21205 Environmental Protection Agency TMI-2 Field Station l Mr. Ford Knight 100 Brown Street Westinghouse Electric Corp. Middletown, PA 17057 P.O. Box 286 Madison, PA 15663 Mrs. Ann Trunk 143 Race Street Frederick S. Rice Middletown, PA 17057 Chairman, Dauphin County Comm.
P.O. Box 1295 Mr. Joel Roth Harrisburg, PA 17108 RD 1, Box 411 Halifax, PA 17032 Mr. Glenn Hoenes Pacific Northwest Laboratory P.O. Box 999 Richland, WA 99352
3 Pro-Women Ms. Lesife Kleinn c/o Judy Branett Intelligencer Journal 320 Elm Court 8 West King Street Middletown, PA 17057 Lancaster, PA 17603 Joyce Corradi '4arjorie and Norman Aamodt Concerned Mothers and Women on TMI 180 Bear Cub Road 2 South Nissley Drive P.O. Box 652 Middletown, PA 17057 Lake Placid, NY 12946 Mr. Joseph DiNunno Francine Taylor 44 Carriage Lane 151 Hamilton Rd.
Annapolis, MD 21401 Lancaster, PA 17603 Mr. Ad Crable Jane Lee Lancaster New Era 183 Valley Rd.
8 W. King Street Etters, PA 17319 Lancaster, PA 17603 Pepper, Hamilton and Sheets Dr. Frederick J. Shon P.O. Box 1181 Administrative Judge Harrisburg, PA 17108 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel c/o Debbie June U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C. 20555 Rep. Alan Kukovich US Environmental Prot. Agency House of Representatives Region III Office Harrisburg, PA 17101 ATTN: EIS Coordinator Debra Davenprot Curtis Building (Sixth Floor) 1802 Market Street 6th and Walnut Streets Camp Hill, PA 17011 Philadelphia, PA 19106 Dr. Ranold R. Bellany, Chief Radiological Protection Branch U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region I 631 Park Avenue King of Prussia, PA 19406 Ms. Mary Osborn 4951 Highland Street Swatara, PA 17111 I
Robert L. Vree Box 72 Middletown, PA 170 John Kabler, Director Chesapeake Division Clean Water Action Project 2500 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218