ML20212A452
| ML20212A452 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | 07200022 |
| Issue date: | 09/08/1999 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| CON-#399-20823 97-732-02-ISFSI, ASB-300-911, ISFSI, NUDOCS 9909170013 | |
| Download: ML20212A452 (49) | |
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UNITED STATES OF AMERIGA SEP 16 P2 :26 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION- ,
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Title:
PRElIEARING CONFERENCE PRIVATE FUFL STORAGE, INC.
Case No.: 72-22-ISFSI O ASLBP No. 97-732-02-ISFSI tg Work Order No.: ASB-300-911 LOCATION: Rockville, MD DATE: Wednesday, September 8,1999 PAGES: 1168 - 1215 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1168 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
/~\ 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 -- - - -- - - - - - - --- -x
.4 In the Matter of: :
5 -PRIVATE FUEL STORAGE, L.L.C. : Docket No. 72-22-ISFSI 6 (Independent Spent Fuel : ASLBP No. 97-732-02-ISFSI 7- Storage Installation) :
8 -- -- - - - - - -- - --- -x 9 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 10 Two White Flint 11 Room 3-B-51 12 Rockville, Maryland 13 Wednesday, September 8, 1999 14 The above-entitled matter came on for prehearing
() 15 16 conference, pursuant to notice, at 11: 30 a.m.
BEFORE:
17 THE HONORABLE G. PAUL BOLLWERK, III 18 Administrative Judge 19 Atomic Safety & Licensing Board Panel 20 21 DR. JERRY R. KLINE 22 Atomic Safety & Licensing Board Panel
~
23 24 DR. PETER S. LAM 25 Atomic Safety & Licensing Board Panel
("
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1169 1 APPEARANCES:
,O 2 FOR THE STATE OF UTAH, ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE:
V 3 DENISE CHANCELLOR, Esquire 4 FRED NELSON, Esquire 5 LAURA LOCKHART, Esquire 6 CONNIE NAKAHARA, Esquire
? Utah Attorney General's Office 8 160 East 300 South, Fifth Floor '
9 P.O. Box 140873 10 Salt Lake City, Utah 84114 11 FOR THE STATE OF UTAH:
12 DIANE CURRAN, Esquire 13 Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & Eisenberg 1 14 2001 S Street, N.W., Suite 430
() 15 Washington, D.C. 20009 16 FOR THE PRIVATE FUEL STORAGE, L.L.C.:
17 JAY E. SILBERG, Esquire 18 Shaw, Pittman, Potts and Trowbridge 19 2300 N Street, N.W.
20 Washington, D.C. 20037 21 FOR CONFEDERATED TRIBES:
22 JOHN KENNEDY, Esquire 23 24 25
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1170 i 1 APPEARANCES [ continued}
l 2 FOR THE SKULL VALLEY BAND OF GOSHUTE INDIANS:
3 DANNY QUINTANA, Esquire 4 Danny Quintana & Associates, P.C.
5 50 West Broadway, Fourth Floor 6 Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 7 FOR THE U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION:
l 8 SHERWIN E. TURK, Esquire l
9 CATHERINE MARCO, Esquire I i
10 Office of the General Counsel 1 11 Mail Stop 15 B18 12 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 13 Washington, D..C. 20555 14 MARK DELLIGATTI
'[J) 15 SCOTT FLANDERS 16 Spent Fuel Projects Office 17 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 18 Washington, D.C.
19 20 21 22
'23 24 25 i
I i
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1171 l
PROCEEDINGS l 1
() 2
[11:30 a.m.)
l 3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Good morning.
4 Today we are here to conduct another prehearing 5 conference in the Private Fuel Stdrage, L.L.C. proceeding to 6 talk about plans for the upcoming evidentiary hearing on the 7 Group I issues.
8 With me today are Judge Lam and Judge Kline of the 9 Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel. My name is Paul 10 Bollwerk. I'm the Board Chairman for the Licensing Board.
11 Also in the room with me is Jack Whetstine of the ASLBP 12 administrative staff.
13 Let's have the parties identify themselves. Let's 14 start with the applicant Private Fuel Storage, please.
( f 15 MR. SILBERG: This is Jay Silberg with the law 16 firm Shaw, Pittman, representing the applicant Private Fuel 17 Storage.
18 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Anyone else you need to identify 19 as being there with you?
20 MR. SILBERG: I'm all alone.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: NRC staff, please.
22 MR. TURK: This is Sherwin Turk. With me are 23 Cathy Marco from the Office of General Counsel; Mark 24 Delligatti, who is the Project Manager with NMSS Spent Fuel 25 Project Office; and Scott Flanders, also with the Spent Fuel l
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1 1172 1 Project Office. Mr. Flanders will be joining us for part of I
() '2 3
the conference today.
JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let's have the State of Utah,
- 4. please.
5 MS. CHANCELLOR: Denise Chancellor. Attorneys
'6 . with me are' Fred Nelson, Laura Lockhart, and Connie 7 Nakahara.
8 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Ms. Curran.
9 MS. CURRAN: This is Diane Curran. I'm calling 10 from Washington, D.C., and I'm also with the Attorney 11 General's Office.
12 JUDGE BOLLWERK: For Confederated Tribes.
13 MR. KENNEDY: John Kennedy.
14 JUDGE BOLLWERK: For OGD we had contacted Joro 15 Walker. You are representing her interest; is that correct, 16 Ms. Chancellor?
17 MS. CHANCELLOR: That's correct.
18 JUDGE BOLLWERK: For the Skull Valley Band, 19 MR. QUINTANA: Danny Quintan 3.
20 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Is there anybody else that we 21 haven't covered at this point?
22 [No response.]
23 JUDGE BOLLWERK: We have several things that we 24 need to talk about this morning. Why don't we go ahead and 25 start with the question of scheduling of the evidentiary O ANN RILEY &. ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1173 1 hearing.
, 2 Mr. Silberg, there is a suggestion on the table 3 that the hearing which we have scheduled to start 4 approximately November 1 on the Group I issues be delayed.
5 Why don't you go ahead and present your position on that.
j 6- MR. SILBERG: That was after we rcceived the L 7 Board's orders on summary disposition motions and took a 8 look at'the issues that were available for litigation, those 9 that were still in the process of being resolved because the i 10 staff had not yet taken a position, and the schedule for 11 further hearings and other work that the parties, )
12 particularly the applicant and the staff, had in front of 13 them. It occurred to us that the process could be on an 14 overall basis expedited if we were to defer the November 15 hearings back to the hearings on the Group II issues.
16 The reasons are as follows. There are a fairly l 17 small number of issues which would be ready for litigation..
18 The very limited portion of issues on Utah K would be 19 available, cruise' missiles and offsite conventional arms 20 testing, and that is the subject of a motion for 21 reconsideration that we have filed, which we believe will 22 hopefully result in that issue being resolved as well.
23 The aircraft crash issues generally are not 24 available. The staff had informed us that they would not be 25 prepared to take a position on those by October 15, and O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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[1 L
1174 1 since testimony was due to be filed by October 1 and there l
() 2 3
would be no opportunity for whatever discovery might be required,~those issues weren't: going to be ready in November 4 in any event. That also left Utah R a fairly narrow issue.
l 5 And there just weren't going to be that many issues that we -
6 would go to hearing on. And Security C.
l 7 Looking at the overall schedule, it seemed to us 8 that if you could combine those issues with the issues that
! 9 would be due for resolution in the Group II hearings that we 10 probably could save time by not having a November hearing, 11 that because of the time necessary to get ready for that 12 hearing, the post-trial briefs, that would in fact interfere i
L 13 with the schedule for the Group II issues; that in fact l 14 staff and the applicant believe that if we were to defer the
() 15 November 1 hearing, we might well be able to advance the l 16 timing of the Group II now combined with Group I hearings.
l 17 That is an issue which we briefly touched on with 18 the State of Utah. The State of Utah has not agreed with 19 that position. They haven't rejected it, but we have agreed l 20 to discuss that further and try to work out a specific l
21' schedule that would be then proposed to the Board.
! 22 Hopefully that would be something we could accomplish in the l l 23 next several' weeks.
24 Allowing this to go forward, the staff would still j 25 be issuing its safety evaluation report sometime in October.
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We would then be able to devote our resources in the near
() 2 term to resolving some of the outstanding issues where the 3 staff is asking us for additional information, and those are 4 issues the resolution of which between the applicant and the 5 staff would probably be postponed were we to go to hearing 6 that could now be done on a more expeditious basis with a 7 higher assurance that those issues would be ready for 8 resolution in the combined Group I/ Group II hearings 9 sometime late spring or next summer.
10 We also hope that there will be opportunity for 11 resolving some of the issues in that category through 12 settlement or summary disposition.
13 On balance, we believe that it would be more 14 efficient use of the parties' time and the Board's time were
() 15 we to defer the hearing on the few Group I issues that are 16 available to the next hearing session.
17 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Anything else at this 18 point?
19 MR. SILBERG: I think that pretty well summarizes 20 our position.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: I will go a little bit out of 22 order. Let me ask the staff first for their responses on 23 this and then I will move to the intervenors.
24 Mr. Turk, is there anything you want to say in 25 addition to what Mr. Silberg said or different from what I O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 1176 1 Mr. Silberg said?
() 2 3
MR. TURK: Nothing different from what he-said, Your Honor. We heard Mr. Silberg's proposal, and we felt 4 that it was a good idea. There are a number of issues that 5 the staff is not ready to go to hearing on in Group I 6 dealing with the military aircraft crash hazard and the 7 cumulative aircraft hazard.
8 We would be ready on other issues, but given the 9 fact that there would be only a limited number of issues to l
10 go forward on in the same time period that we are going to l i
! 11 be trying.to wrap up the SER, we thought there might be less i 12 conflict in the demands for our time if we did not have to i
13 go to hearing immediately.
14 Also, we think that the way the schedule has been
() 15 derived until now, the Group II litigation has more or less l
16 -been pushed back a little bit to allow completion of all the l 17 Group I litigation items. l 18 As you know, if we go to hearing on Group I before' 19 Group II, we'd have to file testimony, go to hearing, do l 20 proposed findings, and work towards a Board decision, and i 21 then really get into the filing of testimony and going to 22 hearing on the second set of issues, the Group II issues.
23 We felt that given the limited number of issues 24 that would be ready for hearing for Group I, we could 25 conserve resources and advance the schedule if we simply ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I Os Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l
p 1177 1 slide the two groups together and try to go to hearing j) 2 somewhat earlier than we would have gone otherwise on Group 3 II, and that would lead to a more efficient resolution of 4 the proceeding.
5 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Just to update us, the staff SER 6 is now due out when?
7 MR. TURK: We are aiming for October. It will 8 probably be around the end of October. That would be 9 issuance of the safety evaluation report. There will be 10 items that will not be ready for presentation in that SER, 11 where we have outstanding requests for information from PFS 12 or where the information that we are expecting from them 13 will be too-detailed for us to complete our review and 14 publish the results of our evaluation within that schedule.
() 15 As an example, the seismic information that was 16 requested from PFS is not entirely in yet. We are expecting 17 a fairly large submittal and then we are expecting there 18 will be a significant amount of time needed to go back 19 through the seismic information before we can take a 20 position. At this time, although we are issuing the SER by 21 the end of October, we are expecting that to be an area that 22 is not going to be identified in the SER or discussed in the 23 SER. There may be some other issues like that.
24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: That affects a potential Group II 25 issue, though, doesn't it?
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l 1 MR. TURK: Yes, it does.
L 2 JUDGE BOLLWERK: That means that may slide; is
(}
3 that right?
4- MR. TURK: That's right. We were required to take
! 5 a position on Group II contentions by October 15. Based on 6 my understanding of where the review is now, we would not be 7 able-to take a complete position on Contention L, which is a 8 Group II issue, the geotechnical issue, by October 15 9 because we are still waiting for information. We will then-l 10 have-to digest that information.
11' Also, Contention GG, which conccrns the TranStor 12 cask. We would not be ready on that by October 15 because 13 the British Nuclear Fuels Company has not completed its 14 submittals to us.
15 So we would have to defer that to the Group II 16 issues even if we go forward with Group II under the current 17 schedule.
18 JUDGE BOLLWERK: What do you think you are looking 19 at in terms of slippage on, for instance, Contention L?
20 MR. TURK: We are expecting approximately a l
l 21 two-month slippage. This may be more advanced and we will l
l 22 know better when we see the information that PFS is i
23 submitting to us this week, but we are expecting that we may 24 have to take our position in December rather than October.
25 JUDGE BOLLWERK: What about the TranStor cask, l
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1179 1 Contention GG?
2 MR. TURK: Let me have one minute, Your Honor.
I 3 We can't project a time for that yet, Your Honor.
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right.
5 MR. TURK: You may be aware that the original l
6 manufacturer of that cask has sold the company. I think 7 that was the Sierra Nuclear Corporation. They sold to 8 British Nuclear Fuels. British Nuclear Fuels took over the 9 project and they have been evaluating where they stand and 10 making additional submittals. I think their schedule has 11 slipped in part because of that transfer and for other 12 reasons.
13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Quintana, your client 14 generally supports the application. What are your feelings
() 15 16 about this?
MR. QUINTANA: Regarding?
17 JUDGE BOLLWERK: The schedule changes being 18 proposed.
19 MR. QUINTANA: I would like to see the hearings go 20 forward as expeditiously as possible. We would object to 21 having any delays in the schedule that would make it so that 22 this thing would be dragged out. I'd like to see this thing 23 get done as fast as possible. What I am afraid of is that 24 as we get into a presidential election, this thing could 25 turn into a campaign issue.
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-n 1180 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let me go to the different
( 2 intervenor groups that generally' oppose the application or 3 are challenging it. 'What about_the State of Utah?
4 MS. CHANCELLOR: Your Honor, I would add to Jay 5 Silberg's presentation that we really aren't ready to go to 6- hearing on the cruise missile crashes. We still don't have 7 information from the Air Force on the latest cruise missile 8 crash and that probably won't be available for another month 9 or two. That is presently in the Air Force's hands.
10 We are in agreement with the time and efficiency 11 of moving "he Group I contentions into Group II, but there 12 is a significant amount of work that still needs to be done 13 with respect to Group I contentions. PFS has identified at 14 least one new witness for Contention K. We would want to
() 15 depose that witness.
16 Also, the staff has not taken a position on the 17 military aircraft crashes. We would want some discovery 18 against the staff.
19 So from our point of view it really doesn't make 20 sense to go to hearing for the limited number of contentions 21 that remain in Group I. What we would like to suggest is 22 that the state and the staff and PFS work together to see if 23 we can come up with a workable schedule. A lot will depend 24 on when the staff can take a position both on Group I
'25 contentions and Group II contentions. The timing of their ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1181 1 being able to take a position in essence will drive the 2 schedule.
3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Kennedy.
4 MR. KENNEDY: I don't have anything to add. I 5 agree with what Ms. Chancellor just said.
6 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let me ask a couple questions.
7 It sounds like Contention Utah K and Confederated Tribes B B is somewhat problematic because of the issues that were 9 deferred basically because the staff hasn't taken a position 10 generally. If Contention R were to go forward for hearing, 11 how much trial time do you think we are looking at?
12 MR. SILBERG: I think our case, if we were ready 13 to put it on, would not take more than half a day. I don't 14 know what kind of cross-examination the state would want to
) 15 have.
16 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Is there anything the staff wants 17 to say about Contention R in terms of hearing time?
18 MR. TURK: I would think the total amount of time 19 for all.three parties' cases would be on the order of two 20 days. The direct, as the Board is aware, takes generally 21 about a half an hour. It merely consists of swearing the 22 witness and presenting the testimony, having the witness 23 confirm that that is the testimony that they wish to present 24 and that it's true, and then it's all cross-examination time 25 plus introduction of documents. I would expect a total of
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e 1182 1 roughly two days.
/T 2 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Ms. Chancellor, anything you want Q
3 to say'on that subject in terms of Contention R?
4 MS. CHANCELLOR: I would be more inclined to say a 5 day rather than two days.
6 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Turk is saying two days; 7 you're thinking a day?
l 8 MS. CHANCELLOR: Half a day to a day, yes. It l 9 depends on what the other side presents.
l 10 MR. SILBERG: Judge Bollwerk, my experience has 11 also been that whenever you start a hearing that the first 12 couple of contentions take a long, long time. .It's kind of l 13 the getting up to speed process, and it's kind of not 14 related to what the issues are, but my experience is the
() 15 first couple of contentions seem to drag on forever, and
.16 then once' people get into the swing of the hearings, the 17 later contentions proceed in a much more expeditious
'I i 18 fashion. So I would not underestimate the time for the 1 l
19 first contention or two, whatever they are. !
l 20 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let me ask you a separate
! 21 question about Security C. Mr. Silberg, anything about how 1
! 22 - long that will take to try?
l l 23 MR. SILBERG: I think that could be longer. .I 24 think there is a lot of work on that that needs to be done. ,
25 I know Sherwin has informed us that there are aspects that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1183 1 will require closed hearings. He would like to discuss some
() '
-2 of that with me, but we can't even do it on the phone. So 3 some of that we have not yet scoped out.
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Turk, anything you want to 5 say about how long Security C might take to try?
6 MR. TURK: ' Security C is a very narrow issue at 7 this time.
8 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Basically response times, 9 correct?.
l 10 MR. TURK: It's the response time and what 11 constitutes timely response. That is why I believe that we 12 may have to go into closed hearings, because that would get 13 .into matters that we do not discuss publicly. I think that 14 hearing should not take more than about a day.
() 15 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Ms. Chancellor, anything you want 16 to say in terms of Security C?
17 MS. CHANCELLOR: It's difficult to predict because 18 PFS hasn't named any witnesses yet. So we don't even know 19 who their witnesses are going to be. If they are only going 20 to have a couple of witnesses, I guess a day or so.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Having received what you have 22 sent us and looked at it, we thought perhaps with respect to I 23 lK,yes, that may need to be put off; it would be more j 24 l efficient to try that later. But we weren't clear as to why j l
25 we couldn't go forward on R and Security C to at least, as ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1184 1 you say, Mr. Silberg, get things rolling and get something
() 2 3
before the Board that we can move forward on.
MR. SILBERG: The reason I would put forward why 4 we shouldn't do that is the logistics of starting the 5 hearing will occur for each session. If we gear up for a 6 hearing that covers two limited issues, I think there-is 7 going to be a lot of duplicative time spent now and then 8 when the next hearing session starts to gear up for that 9 hearing session.
10 If you go out there and you take care of a 11 significant number of issues at the same time, I think there 12 is a greater benefit, a much more efficient process than if 13 you try to do them in very small bites. This, I would 14 think, would be a very small bite. You have to bring all
() 15 the parties out there; the staff would have to come out 16 there; you'd have to get the reporters out there. It just 17 seems like we would be spending a lot of time and effort for j l
18 a fairly small step in the process.
19 If we defer these to later times, then you will be 20 able to do a larger number of issues at the same time. You 21 will be, in essence, amortizing all the logistical effort 22 over a much larger base. You also won't have to take on the 23 proposed findings process at a time when we are trying.to 24 get ready for Group II issues.
25 It just seems to me to go to hearing on those two
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1185 1 issues at this point.is not an efficient use of the parties' l 2 or the Board's time.
3 MS. CHANCELLOR: Judge Bollwerk, I forgot to I
4 mention that because PFS-hasn't named any of their experts,
- 5. we haven't had a chance to depose them. So I doubt that we 6- would be ready, either us or PFS, to file testimony by g 7 October 1 on Security C.
i 8 JUDGE BOLLWERK: I guess I'm a little confused. I 9 thought given the issue was there, whatever was supposed to ,
10 be done in terms of discovery had been finished.
11 MR. SILBERG: We have not identified our 12' witnesses. In fact, we are talking to peuple as we speak on 13 that topic.
i 14 MS. CHANCELLOR: We have general interrogatories
() 15 out requesting PFS and the staff to name their witnesses.
16 That is the only one that is outstanding today. I
- 17. MR. TURK: We'have answered that interrogatory.
18 We did name our witness.
19 MR. SILBERG: I think we named one, if I remember i 20 correctly. I mentioned that name to you, Denise, but there 21 may be additional ones.
22 JUDGE BOLLWERK: I take it that you are not going
-23 to object to Ms. Chancellor wanting to take depositions at 24 this point when you name those witnesses.
25 MR. SILBERG: That's right.
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L 1186 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: I was assuming that given these
) 2- were Group I contentions that everything had been done and 3 they were ready to go to hearing once we rule on the summary 4 disposition motions, but I take it what you are telling me 5 now is that is not correct.
6 MR.'SILBERG: I think that is a fair 7 characterization.
I 8- JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. I guess the Board is 9 going to need to take this all under advisement. l 10 I am a little disturbed to hear that we are 11 setting contentions in groups and then there are things that l 12 are outstanding that are going to push those into a 13 different group. When we set this up, my-understanding was 14 that the issues within that group were going to be tried and
() 15 then when discovery was over, that was it, and we would move 16 forward. Apparent ly that is not happening. I just want to 17 make the parties aware of the fact that if there are issues '
18 in a group and discovery has been had, that is the end of 19 it.
20 MR. SILBERG: I think the issue here is that the 21 technical review on some of these issues is not yet 22 complete. It wasn't that the staff and the applicant didn't 23 try to complete it on time; it's just that the staff ,
24 determined that additional information was necessary. We 25 have been gathering that information and sending it to them, l
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l 1187 1
'and we have done that on an iterative basis. As Sherwin 2
said, there is a lot of seismic information that has yet to 3 be evaluated or the staff is beginning now to evaluate.
4 As the Board knows, we have done a significant s
5 amount of additional seismic work and seismic analysis which 6 has been'provided to the Board and the parties and staff. I 7 don't think that was anticipated at the time that the Board 8 grouped the contentions. The grouping was fine, but I think 9 subsequent events made that grouping questionable in some 10 cases because of the need for additional analysis.
11 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let me just say this. I don't 12 have a problem if the staff has a problem getting its 13 position out changing things around, moving issues from one 14 group to another if we need to do that. Using Security C as
'IT 15 an example, I wasn't aware there was any problem with the V
16 staff's position on Security C and any reason to move it out 17 of Group I into Group l[I. I guess that is the concern that 18 I have. I don't have a problem, assuming everyone has 19 sufficient notice of problems with staff's position. That 20 may mean things are going to be moved back, although I 21 obviously want the staff to move forward; we need to get 22 this hearing on its way. But if things are going to move, I 23 the Board needs to know what the problems are up front l 24 rather than hearing it kind of offhandedly that an issue, l 25 even though it's in a group, really isn't ready to go to
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1188 1 hearing.
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U 2 MR. SILBERG: On things like seismic and the 3 aircraft crash, some of these are just unavoidable because 4 of the factual development. Had there been enough issues to 5 go to hearing on, I think these other issues would have been 6 ready or could be ready on the currently set schedule. For 7 the reasons that I went into at the beginning, I think it's 8 a more efficient process if we defer those. I really think 9 having a very limited hearing particularly at the beginning 10 of the process is not going to allow us to complete the 11 process any quicker and may slow it down.
12 MR. TURK: For the staff, let me note that we are 13 ready to go forward on Security C. We took our position as 14 required back in June. This summer we identified our
() 15 witness, and we could go forward on that. Like Mr. Silberg, 16 I believe that's a very limited issue and I don't see the 17 benefit of going forward on that and possibly R while we are 18 busy trying to close the other issues. Where the staff has 19 not completed its review for Group I, that issue involves 20 military aircraft.
21 I'm not sure if the Board is aware that PFS in its 22 response to our request for additional information did not 23 use the NUREG-0800 approach in estimating the hazard 24 presented by military aircraft. After the staff received 25 that response from PFS, we then went back to them and said, O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 11891 1 well, we'are going to need more information, and that's the j
[~N 2 information that we are now digesting and trying to close Q '
3 our review on.
4 So those things could not have been anticipated 5 back when we set the schedule approximately a year or more 6 ago, when we decided which issues could go forward in Group 7 I and which could go. forward in Group II.
8 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Ms. Chancellor, anything else you 9 want to.say at this point? Or Mr. Kennedy or Mr Quintana?
10 MS. CHANCELLOR: No, Your Honor.
11 MR. KENNEDY: No , Your Honor.
4 12 MR. QUINTANA: No , Your Honor.
13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let me clarify one thing. In 14 terms of security issues, as long as I'm hearing that there
() 15 is a possibility we are going to need to discuss safeguards 16 information, the Board's preference is probably going to be to- try that issue here in Washington at our headquarters 17 18 facility simply because the security is here; we are not i 19 going to have to in theory take security guards out to Utah 20- to monitor goings and comings from the proceeding, and also 21 we are not going to have to have special safes and all the 22 kind.of security devices that go along with one of these.
'23 So one thing we are definitely looking at in terms of trying 24 .the security issue is having it here in Washington.
25 MS. CHANCELLOR: Does that mean that we have to O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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F 1190 e
1 bring our witnesses to Washington, or is there any way to 2' get a secured teleconference transmission?
3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: I would say that is pretty 4 problematic. How many witnesses are you talking about?
5 MS. CHANCELLOR: We have'one identified at the 6 moment. We may have others, depending on what PFS does.
l 7 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Understanding that we are talking 8 about one. witness in one day, I.just heard basically one day 9 of trial on this. Overal) in terms of security of the 10 proceeding, which is what I'm concerned about with 11 safeguards information, it makes a lot more sense to have 12 that person come here for a one-day hearing or a two-day 13 hearing, however long it takes, rather than to take 14 everything else out to Utah. That still would be my
() 15 preference. ,
16 MS. CHANCELLOR: The big question is whether the 17 information that we will present will'actually be safeguards 18 .information. That is an issue that we haven't resolved with 19 the staff.
20 JUDGE BOLLWERK: This may be something that you i
21- need to talk about further. If you all can come to us and 22 tell us now we are going to be able to do this without using 23 safeguards information, that is fine with the Board. I. .l 1
'24 don't want to get in a situation where we ,e out there with
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3 1191 )
1 information that begins to slip in. If you can't come to a ;
)
( 2 resolution on that, I'm simply going to have to assume that 3 safeguards is going to be involved and we will probably act 4 accordingly. So bearing in mind any further discussions 5 that you have with the staff or with PFS about that, that is 6 sort of our general take on the_ security portion of this.
7 Let me raise a separate question. One of things 8 that we had thought about doing if we came out in November 9 was doing limited. appearance statements. Is that something 10 that the parties prefer to see us put off if we decide to 11 put the proceeding off, or is that something we should go '
12 ahead with?
l 13 MR. SILBERG: I would prefer that we push those 14 off. Logistically, to do that in November I'm not sure 1
I () 15 makes a lot of sense.
16 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Turk, anything you want to 17 say about that? !
l l J18 MR. TURK: I would not want to make a special trip 1
19 for the purpose of limited appearances. I think once we 20 finally do go to hearing, setting aside a day or a couple of 21 evenings or a day and an evening as part of that schedule is 22 probably the most efficient way to go in terms of using our 23 time and our travel resources.
24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Ms. Chancellor?
f 25 MS. CHANCELLOR: I'm not very familiar with O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1192 1 limited appearances. 'Will there be only one opportunity for
() 2 limited appearances, or will there be limited appearances 3 available prior to Group II and Group III hearings?
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: My preference would be to do it l 5 once and perhaps a second time, not necessarily three times.
6 Generally, limited appearances, in terms of what people can 7 raise or talk to the Board about, are not necessarily 8 limited to the issues that the Board is actually hearing.
9 They basically are an opportunity for people to come before 10 us and bring to our attention any matters relating to the i 11 proceeding that they want the Board to hear about. It isn't l
12 like the Group I issues can only be spoken about or talked 1
13 about when we have limited appearance statements if we did 14 it in conjunction with Group I or Group II.
, 15 MS. CHANCELLOR: How would you publicize that l
16 these limited appearances would be available?
l 17 JUDGE BOLLWERK: We put a notice in the Federal
! 18 Register. We put out press releases. The usual ways that l
19 we make these things public. Generally we would invite 20 folks to come in and interact with the Office of the 1
1 21 Secretary here, to get a list together of people that want l
22 to reserve time.
l l 23 Generally it's three to five minutes to make a 24 presentation. We would hopefully have a list of l
25 pre-registered folks. Then if there,is 7.dditional time, we l
l 1
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1193 1~ would take individuals that happen to show up that day.
I i 2 Generally they are done in the afternoon and the V
3 evening. I would anticipate doing several sessions at Salt 4 Lake City as well as out in the Tuella area, or anyplace l 5 close to the facility that we can find suitable arrangements l
6 in terms of a building.
7 MS. CHANCELLOR: Given what you have just told us 8 and without talking with anybody else.just sort of off the 9 cuff, I would think that we would want limited appearances l 10 sooner rather than later so that the issues of concern to l
l 11 people in the state can be placed before the Board so the 12 Board knows some of the issues that are of concern to the 13 general public.
14 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Kennedy, anything you want to
() 15 say on the subject?
16 MR. KENNEDY: No. I don't think I have anything i
17 further to add. I'm hearing from you, Your Honor, that you 18 are thinking of several sessions. Does that mean we would j 19 have more than one in Salt Lake and more than one out in l
20 Tuella, or we would have one in each of these various '
21 locations? I'm not quite clear on what you are thinking. l 22 JUDGE BOLLWERK: It is going to depend on a couple 23 things. In part it depends on the interest. If we have a j 24 set of sessions that we set a certain time for, let's say an 25 afternoon and an evening and another evening perhaps, and we l
l
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() 2 3
accommodate them, we might then look for additional sessions. On the other hand, if we are basically able to take care of everybody that wanted to speak, then in theory 5 we may not need to do it again. To some degree it mirrors 6 the interest of the public in the proceeding.
7 We try to go different place. For folks out in 8 the Tuella area, it would be difficult for them to get into 9 Salt Lake City, and vice versa. That's why we try to choose l 10 a couple different locations.
11 Anything else you want to say on the subject?
12 MR. KENNEDY: No.
13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Quintana.
14 MR, QUINTANA: I'm in good shape, Your Honor.
() 15 MR. SILBERG: Judge Bollwerk, one thing you might 16 clarify for Denise and for John is my understanding is that 17 parties generally are not allowed to make limited appearance 18 statements. I know that has been an issue in some cases and 19 not in others. That may not be something that John and 20 Denise are familiar with. I i
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: It is generally for members of 22 the public. The parties have access to the Board to raise 23 issues any time they want to in terms of initially or late l
24 filed issues.
25 MS. CHANCELLOR: Given that we are talking about l l
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1 the State of Utah, there are many arms of the state that are 1
( 2 not involved in this proceeding, and there may be issues 3 that we are unable to get before the board where certain 4 agencies may want to comment. I guess we can cross that l
l 5 bridge later.
6 MR. SILBERG: The state is the party.
7 MS. CHANC3LLOR: I don't think there is any need 8 to argue it now. I'm just saying that in depends how you 9 define who the state is.
10 JUDGE BOLLWERK: As you say, we will cross that 11 bridge when we come to d
- t. If there is going to be an issue 12 there, you will need to let us know about that sooner than 13 later so that we can deal with it. We don't need the night 14 of the limited appearance statements having a dispute about
() 15 who is going to be speaking and who isn't.
16 MR. TURK: Your Honor, I think the answer may be 17 found by reference to the regulations under 2714 and 2715 as 18 to who has a right to participate and who is represented by 19 counsel and who has a right to make a limited appearance 20 . statement.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let me just ask the staff also.
22 In terms of the DEIS and the FEIS, the draft and final 23 environmental impact statements, are we still on track with 24 the dates we have been given most recently, or has that
-25 changed as well?
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1196 1 MR. TURK: We are still on track. Those dates as 2 reflected in your order of May 18 are the draft EIS, March 3 2000, and the final EIS, February 2001. We are still on i
4 track for that.
5 JUDGE BOLLWERK: I would like to go through the 6 order that we issued setting out some of the administrative 7 processes that we have used in a hearing.
8 Does anybody have any problems or concerns with 9 any of the things that I set out there. Let me start with 10 the use of pre-filed testimony, pre-filed exhibits, 11 stipulations. Let's start with the applicant again.
12 MR. SILBERG: Those are fine.
13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Staff.
14 MR. TURK: We're fine with that.
() 15 JUDGE BOLLWERK:
MS, CHANCELLOR:
Ms. Chancellor.
16 We're fine, Your Honor.
17 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Kennedy.
18 MR. KENNEDY: No problem.
19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Quintana.
20 MR. QUINTANA: We're fine.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Any questions about the use of in 22 limine motions or stipulations about admissibility?
23 Mr. Silberg.
24 MR. SILBERG: No.
25 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Staff.
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1197 1 MR. TURK: We're all right.
'2- JUDGE BOLLWERK: Ms. Chancellor.
3 MS. CHANCELLOR: We're fine.
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Kennedy.
5 MR. KENNEDY: No problem.
6 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Quintana.
7 MR. QUINTANA: No.
8 JUDGE BOLLWERK: The other subject we raised was 9 the order of presentation.
10 Mr. Silberg, 11 MR. SILBERG: I have no problem from the 12 standpoint of the applicant, but normally the staff goes 13 last. That has been my experience, and I think that is 14 appropriate.
() 15 16 point.
MR. TURK: I thank Mr. Silberg for raising that We would prefer to go last. The reason for that is 17 that the staff always likes to have the prerogative to 18 change its position if it sees something or hears evidence 19 that causes it to rethink its position. I would not want 20 our witnesses to feel locked in if more information comes up l 21 later through the presentation by the state or some other 22 party. So we would prefer to come after the applicant and 23 state have made their presentations. . l 24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Ms. Chancellor, anything you want 25 to say_on the order of presentation?
l
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1198 1 MS. CHANCELLOR: We would prefer to go last and to 2 leave the' order of presentation as you have it in your 3 order. Because the applicant and the staff basically have y 4 the burden, we think they should go first.
l 5 MR. SILBERG: The applicant has the burden, not l 6 the staff.
1 7 MR. TURK: That's correct.
l 8 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Kennedy.
l 9 MR. KENNEDY: I don't want to make a comment on l
l 10 that'.
. 11 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Quintana.
l 12 MR. QUINTANA: We're okay.
13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Anything else anybody want,s to 14 say on the order of presentation?
() 15 [No response.]
16 JUDGE BOLLWERK: In terms of the use of 17 cross-examination plans?
18 MR. SILBERG: I don't have a problem. My general l
19 experience is I'm not sure how useful those have been from 20 my standpoint, but I'm not the judge. If the Board thinks 21 that those in its experience have been useful, we certain
22 don't object to them. 1 23 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Turk.
24 MR. TURK: I have no problems with it, Your Honor.
l 25 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Ms. Chancellor.
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1199 1 MS. CHANCELLOR: This is foreign to us, Your 1
2 Honor. We'll do the best we can.
3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: It doesn't have to be extensive.
4 It's generally an hour. I've seen different people use them 5 for different purposes. Some people make them quite 6 detailed because they actually use them as the basis for 7 putting together their cross-examination and they give them 8 to the Board in that form. Some people give us more of an 9 outline. It's really up to you so long as we can sort of 10 follow what is going on.
11 Mr. Kennedy?
12 MR. KENNEDY: Just one question. Is the 13 cross-examination plan disclosed to all the parties or just 14 to the Board?
15 O- JUDGE BOLLWERK: It is only given to the Board. I 16 think, as the rule indicates that I cited it in the order, 17 when the Board issues its initial decision, we then put them 18 on the public record, but not until then.
19 MR. KENNEDY: I have one matter that doesn't 20 relate directly to cross-examination plans. Does the Board 21 anticipate that each intervenor will have separate 22 cross-examination or only the lead intervenor will have 23 cross-examination rights?
24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: At this point I think we would 25 anticipate that the lead intervanor is going to take the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1200 1 bulk of the questions, but I'm not going to necessarily 7
2 preclude others from asking questions so long as they are 3 not repetitive and'they are not going places that had 4 nothing to do with the contention or what is at issue.
5 MR. TURK: Your Honor, I also recall a previous 6 order where I believe you had stated that you expected the 7 parties on one side of the table to work together to try to 8 come up with a common cross-examination plan, but if there
- 9. were disagreements, then you would expect to see another 10 intervenor go forward with additional cross-examination 11 beyond what the lead party was doing.
12 JUDGE BOLLWERK: That's exactly right.
13 Any questions about that from any of the )
l 14 intervenors?
() 15 MS. CHANCELLOR: I have one question that relates 16 indirectly to that. In your order you mention a 17 cross-examination plan for a witness or a panel. Is it 18 possible to have a panel of witnesses?
19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Yes, and in fact that is often 20 done. For instance, I think Mr. Silberg had mentioned that l 21- they may have three witnesses on a particular issue. Is 22 that correct?
l l
23 MR. SILBERG: That's certainly possible.
! 24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: We will put it hypothetically.
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-1 reflect the testimony of all three of those witnesses, each l .
one of them suberibing to whatever questions and answers 2 .
,(
3 : they are answering, and then.the panel would be put there at 4 :
the same time and they would be cross examined as a panel.
1 5 ;
MR. SILBERG: Our experience is that, depending on 6 the issue of course, and it really is very issue specific, 7 l there are times when testimony of two witnesses or three 8 lwitnessesissointerrelatedthatitjustmakessenseto 9 have them all on the panel so you don't ask questions and 10 then one witness is going to say, no, that's a question for l 11 the other guy, and he has already been on and off. It just 12 makes the process go a lot easier.
13 MS. CHANCELLOR: So the person doing the 14 cross-examination, if.they are cross examining a panel, I O 15
( ) assume that they target their question at a specific member j l
16 1 of the. panel and that another member of the panel could not 17 answer that question.
l l 18 JUDGE BOLLWERK: It depends on how you want to l
l 19 frame the question. You can direct it to a specific witness l
20 or in theory you can ask any of the members of the panel to y 21 comment.
! 22 MR. SILBERG: Generally these are fairly informal.
, 23 i My experience has been that if a cross examiner directs a 24 question to one and only one witness and the other witness 25 has something that is directly relevant to that answer, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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r-1202 1 generally the Board will allow that other witness to speak
(~') 2 up at that point as opposed to holding or. ontil redirect and L-)
3 then trying to bring it all in. You wind up with a much 4 more coherent record that way. Again, that's question by 5 question, issue by issue.
6 MR. TURK: Let me add also that one thing we 7 typically do will be at the beginning of each answer to a 8 question in the written testimony we will indicate in 9 parentheses which witness on a panel is responsible for the 10 following statement. That would help the cross examiner who 11 to direct the questions to. But if a question comes up that 12 another member of the panel feels they would like to comment 13 on, that typically is allowed also.
14 Also, I should mention from my experience that,
,- s l 15 depending on the question that is posed during 16 cross-examination, the witnesses may wish to confer, and 17 licensing boards typically allow that to happen, although 18 that is certainly something that the Board would have the 19 authority to rule on in any particular case.
20 JUDGE BOLLW1RK: If you want an answer from a 21 certain witness and that is the only witness, you can direct i 22 it to that witness, and then if another one tries to answer, 23 make whatever objections you want to subject to what you 24 just heard. Generally these are fairly informal and the 25 object is to get the information into the record.
1
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1203 1 MS. CHANCELLOR: Thank you very much.
2 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Kennedy?
! 3 MR. KENNEDY: Nothing further.
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Quintana?
5 MR. QUINTANA: I think what we are going to do on 1
6 our cross-examination is just follow the lead of the '
7- applicant Private Fuel Storage, and unless there is 8 something that is absolutely earthshaking, at that point we 9 would consult with Private fuel Storage first and only then l 10 would we make a separate motion or a separate notice on 11 questions that we think needed to be asked.
12 JUDGE BOLLWERK: The point is that the lead party 13 bears the brunt of the work here in terms of getting the 14 questions together and interacting with the other parties.
15 If there is something you just can't agree on, we are not 16 going to preclude a party from asking a separate question, 17 assuming that they can explain to the Board why they ,
i 18 couldn't resolve this and it's necessary to go forward with 19 some kind of separate cross-examination. l 20 I'm going to put us on mute. I want to confer 21 with the other members of the Board for a second. Remember, 22 we can hear you; you cannot hear us, however.
23 (Discussion off the record.]
24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let's go back on the record.
25 We have been discussing the proposal about the 0
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r 1 1204 1 evidentiary hearing. Let me present you with two concerns l
2 we have.
3 The first one is we want the proceeding to move 4 forward. Recognizing the efficiencies involved, I am also 5 concerned about this proceeding becoming back loaded, as it 6 were, with everything at the end while it continues to be 7 put off. So.from my perspective at this point, anything we 8 can begin to try is all to the. good.
9 Having said that, I've heard a lot of problems 10 here today with Contention K. Also with Security C in terms 11 of the readiness of the parties to go forward with that. It 12 sounds like R probably is ready. For us to defer this at 13 this point, at least going ahead with Contention R, we would 14 like to see something concrete from the parties in terms of
- 15 a schedule that will show "s exactly where they are planning 16 on placing this. We would need that in fairly short order.
17 The second thing I want to mention to you is what 18 we mentioned to you before, and you interacted with Jack 19 Whetstine of our office about getting hearing space. It's a 20 problem in Salt Lake City right now for us to find dedicated 21 space because of everything that is going on there with the 22 olympics and other things as people get geared up.
23 We originally were looking at as much as 30 days 24 of hearing time in the Hilton. We are now looking at going 25 back to them and telling them, sorry, no dice, guys; we may ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1205 l 1 be back later. That may make it very hard for us. In fact,
) 2 that is one of the few hotels we've been able to interact i 3 with that could give us any hearing space at all. I'm not 1
4 sure how that is going to work out.
5 That concerns me, because I do want to hold as 6 much of the hearing in Salt Lake City as we can, but we are 7 having a difficult time finding space that will meet all the 8 needs of this proceeding in terms of having sufficient size i 9 as well as being able to have dedicated space for 10 significant periods of time.
11 So frankly, a large concern of ours is finding 12 someplace where we will be able to hold this hearing for a 13 month, if that is what we are looking at, in the next round.
14 I make you aware of that, because that gives us a reason to l 15 go out there and at least do something in November in terms 16 of limited appearances and beginning to move forward on 17 Contention R.
18 With that having been caid, how quickly do you 19 think you can get back to us with whatever revised schedule 20- you want to propose.
21 MR. SILBERG: You are talking about an overall 22 schedule, not just for R?
23 JUDGE BOLLWERK: That would be for R. I'm hearing 1'
24 that Security C is not going to be ready even if we were to 25 set a. schedule and you could agree on the fact there is no f ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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() 2 3
MR. SILBERG:
Salt Lake City in any event.
That wouldn't be on your proposal in !
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Again, I would love to go forward 5 with Security C if we could, but I'm hearing that you '
6- havent identified your witnesses and Ms. Chancellor needs _
7 to take some depositions. I think from the Board's 8 perspective we are kind of stuck. '
9 MR. SILBERG: Again, I want to understand what you 10 need on R. Do you want to know when we would be ready to go 11 forward with R or when would we propose to have the hearing 12 on R and Security C and all the other issues?
13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: What I am asking is, when can you 14 come back to us with a revised schedule which would, es you 5(~%3 15 have suggested, defer these matter? We need that quickly V
16 because we are kind of dealing with the possibility of still 17 going out and hearing limited appearance statements and 18 doing Contention R.
I 19 MR. SILBERG: I would think by the middle of next !
20 week. I guess it's up to all of us, Denise and Sherwin as I 21 well as John and Danny. We will certain begin to consult 22 immediately on what makes sense. ;
I 23- JUDGE LAM: This is Judge Lam. If the Board . !
24 defers the Group I contentions, what would the Group II 25 trial schedule look like?
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1207 1 MR. SILBERG: I guess I'll let Sherwin speak to (9
%)
2 that, because he at least expressed some opinions on that 3 this morning.
4 MR. TURK: I did a very rough cut at the schedule, 5 Your Honor. It would depend on when the staff is able to 6 get all the information that is requested from PFS and to 7 review it. I am thinking now primarily of the seismic 8 information. I'm leaving out the TranStor issue because I 9 cannot project when we would get Transtor's submittal and 10 when we would be able to go to hearing on that. That one 11 may have to slip into Group III. That is a unique 12 situation. It has to do with the timing of the Transtor 13 application and the review of that application.
14 JUDGE LAM: All right. !
i 15 MR. TURK: If the staff was able to take a 16 position by mid-December on all Group II issues, then I 17 would think we would be able to go to hearing approximately 18 45 days to two months sooner than the current schedule. My 19 rough projection is we would be able to go to hearing 20 mid-May or June.lst as opposed to the August hearings that 21 were previously set for Group II.
22 I guess I would be more comfortable with the June 23 1st than the mid-May, but I see a savings of approximately 24 two months.
l 25 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Turk, when do you think you ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1208 1 can all get together and get back to us? Is it possible to 2 do it by next Monday?
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3 MS. CHANCELLOR: Your Honor, I have one comment.
4 With respect to the seismic issue, one thing that is still 5 out there that we don't know the resolution of is the l
i 6 seismic exemption request. I don't know when the staff will 7 be taking a position on that and whether we will need to ll l 8 amend our contentions.
1 9 I'm a little concerned with pushing to get a 1
10' schedule put together without knowing what the staff's 11 position is. If we go forward and devise a schedule and 12 then have to keep on revising it, it may be better to give 13 us some time in which to work this through so that we only 14 have to do it once.
() 15 16 MR. TURK: It's always going to be a moving target because there will always be the possibility that some 17 issues will either come up or issues that are in resolution i l
18 may still be in resolution that we can't predict now. It's 19 possible that some issues may have to slip to the Group III 20 hearings. We certainly don't want that to happen, but I 21 think if we wait until everything is known before we come up 22 with a schedule, then we will wait for a long time.
23 JUDGE BOLLWERK: When I spoke about back loading, 24 obviously, Ms. Chancellor, you are well aware of the 25 procedures for filing late filed contentions. Those can l
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/ 1209 1 come up at any time, and that-is one of my concerns. I ll 2 ' don't know how that is going to play out, and I don't want O
,. 3 -us to'end-up with everything'at the end.
4 MR. TURK: We share that concern and we are trying 5 to. accommodate that as.well all the other concerns.
6~ -MS.' CHANCELLOR: Of course late filed contentions 7 have to be weighed against summary disposition motions. So 8 it almost turns out to be a wash or probably a black. mark 9 -
against us.
l 10 JUDGE BOLLWERK: The original question I had asked 11- was, how quickly.do.the parties think they can get together 12 and discuss a revised schedule taking'into account all the 13' information we have heard here, and changing some of the 14 contention groupings? If that looks like it is going to be
() 15 16 tin the scheme of things, it is something we can do now rather than later if we have enough information.
17 Also, dealing with this question about Security C 18 and whether the parties believe there is going to be 19 safeguards information involved such that the hearing would 20 be closed.
21 How quickly do you think you can get back to us?
22 Is Monday a possibility?
23 MR. SILBERG: It's certainly a possibility from
.241 our point.
l 25 MR. TURK: Friday may be a little bit tough for l
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F 1210 1 us. I personally will be out of the office most of the day
() 2 Friday. That leaves us the afternoon on Thursday. I would 3 say if it's all right with you, we will try for Tuesday.
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Ms. Chancellor?
5 MS. CHANCELLOR: Why don't we shoot for Thursday?
6 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Part of the problem here is we 7 need to interact with the Hilton and tell them what is going 8 on. I don't want to cancel this space until we have decided 9 what we are going to do. On the other hand, they are 10 expecting to hear back from us about how much time we are 11 going to be spending there.
12 MR. SILBERG: Clearly it wouldn't be 30 days.
13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Recognizing that, are we going to 14 be spending any time there at all? We also have to
() 15 recognize in dealing with them, frankly, if we want to 16 reserve space for June, we need to be in a good position in 17 terms of interacting with them promptly and letting them 18 know what is going on. I don't want to have them simply 19 saying, sorry, don't bother to come back here again. They 20 may say that anyway.
21 MR. SILBERG: I'm happy to get on the phone with 22 Sherwin and the intervenors this afternoon and at least 23 start a dialogue on schedule issues. I don't know what.
24 people's schedules are.
l
[ 25 MS. CHANCELLOR: This is Denise Chancellor. 1 t
I O
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1211 1 Sorry. I thought I hit the mute button. I cut us off.
(' 2 JUDGE BOLLMERK:
) I just expressed a concern that I
, 3. don't want this to drag on too long because we need to get 4 back with the Hilton in Salt Lake City and let them know 5 what the status is, if we have any hope of getting them to 6 give us some space, assuming we do move this into June or 7 May, or whatever.
8 MR. SILBERG: And I said, Denise, I would be happy
.9 to get on the phone with Sherwin and you all this afternoon 10 .and start the process.
11 MS. CHANCELLOR: Certainly I'm willing to work the 12 process as quickly as possible, but I still think we need to 13 .try and confer with some of our other people as well. It's 14 rather complicated.
() 15 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let me make a suggestion. Why I 16 don't you all confer this afternoon and delegate someone to 17 give me a phone call and give me a date when you think you 18 can get back. I would hope at this point no later than next 19 Tuesday but hopefully maybe Monday, if that is possible.
20 Talk about that among yourselves, and someone can give me a 21 call back this afternoon. How's that?
I 22 MR. SILBERG: That's fine.
23 MS. CHANCELLOR: Fine.
l 24 MR. SILBERG: Sherwin and Denise, what time do you 25 want to try to get each other on the phone?
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I 1212 1 MS. CHANCELLOR: I'll be here all day.
() 2 3
MR. SILBERG:
MR. TURK:
Sherwin, what's a good time?
Any_ time after 1:30 our time.
4 MR. SILBERG: Let's make it two o' clock.
1 5 John and Danny, do you want to be on this call?
6 MR. QUINTANA: Yes. I'll be around all day.
7 JUDGE BOLLUERK: It sounds like you are going to 8 try for two o' clock eastern time, which is noon mountain 9 time.
10 MR. SILBERG: Right.
11 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Why don't you all plan on getting 12 together. Then you can give me a call or let me know when 13 you think you can get back to us with a schedule, 14 recognizing that sooner is better than later.
() 15 MR. SILBERG: John Kennedy, do you want to be on i
16 that call?
17 MR. KENNEDY: Yes.
18 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Okay. Then it's 1:30 mountain 19 time, 3:30 eastern time.
20 Let's finish up the hearing and then I will leave
- 21. you guys on the line and you can finish this up.
22 Anything else that anybody wants to raise with the 23 Board at this point? .
24 MR. TURK: I have one comment, Your Honor. I just 25 want to say that I found the summary disposition procedure ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 1213 1 to be especially useful in this case. I know that the
\
[w ']' 2 Commission in its policy guidance had felt that summary 3 disposition is not necessarily a useful procedure, but if l
4 you look at Contention G and M, for instance, in this case, 5 which dealt with quality assurance the maximum probable 6 flood, because of the summary disposition procedure, I think 7 the parties were all able to focus their thoughts and get 8 their views on paper ahead of hearing and we were able to 9 save ourselves from having to put on live witnesses and go 10 through cross-examination and proposed findings. So I think 11 the process has been very useful and I'm grateful that the 12 Board included the summary disposition procedure in this 13 proceeding.
14 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Anything else any of q,) 15 the parties want to raise with the Board at this point?
16 MS. CHANCELLOR: Your Honor, can we assume that we 17 do not have to file pre-filed testimony on Group I 18 contentions by October 1 because that deadline is coming up 19 very quickly?
20 JUDGE BOLLWERK: I recognize that. We are still 21 holding out until we hear back on this revised schedule the 22 ,
possibility that we may at least go to hearing on Contention 23 '
R.
24 MS. CHANCELLOR: Would there be a possibility of 25 putting that pre-filed testimony date back?
i
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1214 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: If that is necessary. In theory,
% 2 if you can get back to us within the next several days about
' (J '
i\
3 a new schedule, we will give you a ruling as promptly as we 4 can of what we are going to do with the schedule. Right now 5 we are still saying it's possible that R and the limited 6 appearance statements may go forward in November, and we are i
7 waiting to hear from you all on a revised schedule.
l
! 8 Is that clear to everyone? Have I left any doubts 9 in anybody's mind about that?
10 [No response.]
l 11 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Anything else anybody wants to 12 raise with the Board?
13 Mr. Silberg?
14 MR. SILBERG: No.
[}
l \_/
15 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Turk, anything else?
l 16 MR. TURK: No , Your Honor.
17 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Ms. Chancellor?
18 MS. CHANCELLOR: No , Your Honor.
19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Ms. Curran?
20 MS. CURRAN: No.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Quintana?
l 22 MR. QUINTANA: I think we are straight on 23 everything, I was curious whether there were any filings i
24 that the court is in need of from the Skull Valley Goshutes, 25 because basically we are following the lead of Private Fuel
/' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1215 1 Storage. We should be in good shape.
(h 2 JUDGE BOLLWERK: The only thing that I know that V
3 is outstanding is a response to a motion for clarification i
4 or reconsideration that PFS filed.
5 MR. QUINTANA: I don't.need to make a response to 6 that.
]
7 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Mr. Kennedy?
8 MR. KENNEDY: No.
9 All right. We thank you for your time. Again, I 10 would expect to hear back from someone late this afternoon 11 concerning timing for a revised schedule. I thank you.
12 If you have any problems with the electronic 13 document interchange project that we talked about earlier 14 prior to the prehearing conference, feel free to call Mr.
] ) 15 Skoczlas. If there is something I can do for you, let me 16 know. Again, Mr. Skoczlas is probably the person that knows j i
17 more about it than anybody in this agency at this point. l l
18 I would again urge all of you if you can 19 participate to do so. I think it will be useful to you and 20 to the agency as well to sort of expedite the proceeding 21 over all and make it more efficient.
22 Again, thank you.to the parties. We expect to be 23 hearing from you this afternoon at some point.
24 [Whereupon at 12:43 p.m. the prehearing conference 25 was concluded.]
(]
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NAMF OF PROCEEDING: PREHEARING CONFERENCE PRIVATE FUEL STORAGE, INC.
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() Regulatory Commission taken by me and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
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