ML20214P814
| ML20214P814 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Humboldt Bay |
| Issue date: | 09/17/1986 |
| From: | Bosco D, Fielder S, Hauser D, Keene B CALIFORNIA, STATE OF, FIELDER, S.L. |
| To: | NRC COMMISSION (OCM) |
| References | |
| CON-#386-788 OLA, NUDOCS 8609240065 | |
| Download: ML20214P814 (10) | |
Text
e
. 7pp-1 SCOTT L. FIELDER UNC Attorney at Law 2
517 Third Street, Suite 14 Eureka, California 95501
'86 SEP 22 P3 :28 3
Telephone:
(707) 444-3031
~
4 Attorney for Petitioners, DOUGLAS H. BOSCO' (C
r
-i' WESLEY CHESBRO, DANIEL E.
HAUSER, BARRY E P /M -
5 KEENE and the REDWOOD ALLIANCE 6
8 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 9
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION l
10 In The Matter Of Pacific
)
l Gas And Electric Company
)
11 (Humboldt Bay Power Plant,
)
Docket No. 50-133 -Od Unit No. 3)
)
12
)
13 Supplement To The Petition To Intervene In License Amendment 14 Proceedings, Request For
- Hearing, And Request For Further Releif l
16 Pursuant to the Commission's Rules of Practice, 10CFR 1
l 17 2.714(b), and the Commission's Notice of Proposed Issuance of 18 Amendment to Facility Operating License (51 Fed. Reg. 24458, 19 July 5, 1986) petitioners filed a petition on August 2, 1986, 20 to intervene and requested a hearing on the proposed issuance 21 of an amendment to the subject facility operating license sought 22 by the licensee's Application and Environmental Report (ER) dated 23 July 30, 1984, as revised February 28, March 20, April 3, July 24 11 and 30, October 7, and December 13, 1985, and March 13 and 25 14, May 14, 16 and 23, and June 12, 1985.
26 On September 3, 1986, the petitioners received a Notice 1
27 of Pre-Hearing Conference from the Atomic Safety and Licensing 28 Board of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
In that notice, the 8609240065 860917 PDR ADOCK 05000133 i'
G PDR ffo3 --
S 9
1 petitioners were directed to file on or before September 17, 2
1986, a supplement to the Petition for leave to intervene which 3
must include a list of the contentions which petitioners seek to 4
have litigated in the matter and the basis for each contention 5
set forth with reasonable specificity.
The following information 6
is in response to this directive.
7 The petitioners have numerous concerns about the 8
adequacy of the Draft Environmental Statement (DES) relative to 9
the decommissioning of Humboldt Bay Power Plant, Unit No. 3 and 10 the proposal to place the facility into SAFSTOR for an extended 11 period.
12 A.
Petitioner's Contentions:
13 1.
There is little discussion or analysis of 14 the impact on the local environment and biota of the 15 proposed activities.
Humboldt Bay is the largest 16 wetland and estuarine habitat in the California coastal 17 zone, containing approximately 23 percent of the coast-18 al wetlands in California.
The DES does not document l
19 the potential significant environmental impacts on 20 these coastal wetlands of long term storage of nuclear i
l 21 materials as is required by the National Environmental 22 Policy Act (NEPA) and the California Coastal Act.
23 2.
There is inadequate discussion and analysis 24 of the storage of spent fuel rods in a spent fuel pool 25 which is already plagued by leakage.
The leakage of 26 the pool has persisted since 1966 and continues to this 27 day.
The DES states that, " Pumps keep water level in 28 the liner gap lower than the water level in the pool 1
and ground water level...the water from the liner gap 2
is pumped to the radwaste system."
However, such mech-3 anical~means of controlling the leak are subject to 4
malfunction and potential impacts of increased contam-5 ination have not been discussed.
In addition, there is
'6 some information in the ER to indicate-that there are 7
elevated and trace levels of certain radionuclides in 8
surface soils at the plant site.
9 3.
There is inadequate treatment of the seismic 10 hazards to the site.
The DES contains virtually no 11 analysis of relevant seismic factors and only cursory 12 consideration of those hazards' interactions with 13 hazardous materials stored on site.
This is unaccept-14 able given the fact that:
a)-the Little Salmon Fault, 15 Bay Entrance Fault, and Buhne Point Fault are located 16 within 2 miles of the facility (the subsurface trace 17 of the Buhne Fault comes within 600 feet of the plant l
18 foundation); b) these faults are capable of generating 19 major earthquakes (with magnitudes up to 7.5) that 20 possibly-could destroy the Humboldt facility; and 21 c) the close proximity of the plant to the city of 22 Eureka could contribute to the severity of any emer-23 gency in the event of a large earthquake.
24 4.
There is no discussion of evacuation plans 25 to be implemented in the event of a worst case type of 26 accident.
For instance, a 1980 earthquake toppled a 27 freeway overpass less than two miles from the plant, 28 despite the epicenter's location being nearly 40 miles.
r-Y+
c
-+
-m w
a e-
1 away.
If a similar earthquake occurred on the adjacent 2
faults, Highway 101 would probably be closed which 3
would hamper emergency support activities and evacua-4 tion plans.
5 5.
Viable alternatives such as shipping spent 6
fuel to locations other than Diablo Canyon were not 7
discussed.
It is possible to build an interim facility 8
in a safer and more appropriate place until a perma-9 nent repository is constructed.
Spent fuel could also 10 be shipped to Hanford, Washington or Idaho Falls, Idaho, 11 as was the case with the Three Mile Island plant.
In 12 addition, the petitioners contend that the proposal 13 that SAFSTOR continue for thirty years is inappropriate 14 in view of the real possibility that a permanent repos-15 itory will be in place by the year 1998.
Petitioners 16 submit that the license should be continued only until 17 such time as the federal high level waste repository is 18 available.
Under the petitoners' alternate proposal, 19 dismantlement would take place as soon as a high level 20 waste repository is available.
The immediate dismantle-21 ment proposal is consistent with PGandE's present pro-22 posal for decommissioning of the Diablo Canyon facility.
23 6.
The DES fails to address the impact of a major 24 flood, tsunami, or fire at the plant alone, or in con-25 junction with a major earthquake.
As was mentioned 26 in the petition to intervene, the DES failed to discuss 27 the possible impacts of any of these phenomena on the 28 people of Humboldt County or the surrounding environ-
_4_
I ment.
This oversight is significant given the fact 2
that a tsunami previously destroyed a portion of 3
crescent city in 1964.
Crescent City is 80 miles north 4
of the facility.
A 50 or 100 year flood coupled with 5
high tides could possibly inundate the Humboldt plant, 6
destroy fuel storage tanks, and cause unknown damage 7
to the containment structures, and associated buildings 8
and equipment.
A serious fire could cause similar 9
damage, particularly if caused by an earthquake.
10 7.
The DES fails to address the impact on the 11 fuel rods stored in the spent fuel pond, if the stor-12 age pool were to be emptied of water by a major earth-13 quake and/or damaged by falling debris.
During an 14 earthquake, groundwater levels around the plant could 15 fluctuate wildly and thereby allow the leakage from 16 the fuel pond to be transported out into the bay by 17 fluctuations in the water table.
In addition, the 18 DES fails to address the possible environmental impacts 19 which could occur if one or both of the natural gas 20 fired units were damaged by an earthquake.
21 8.
Irrespective of whether the license is modi-22 fled to allow for decommissioning under PGandE's 30 23 year plan, or is modified to only extend until the 21 federal high level waste repository becomes available, 25 petitioners contend that the license conditions requir-26 ing seismic investigation and analysis should not be 27 deleted.
The Humboldt facility is sited in an area 28 of great and ever-changing seismic activity.
Petition-1 ers contend that the discontinuance of the utilities 2
seismic investigation and analysis program would have 3
a detrimental impact on the health and safety of them-4 selves and residents of Humboldt County.
5 Finally, the petitioners had originally requested a 6
public hearing on the DES which was denied by the NRC, and were 7
forced to seek intervention in the present proceeding.
The 8
petitioners submit that unless a hearing is granted in this mat-9 ter, the public will not have an opportunity to review the Final 10 Environmental Statement Report (FES) or the Safety Evaluation 11 Report (SER) before the license modification is approved.
- Thus, 12 the inadequacies of the DES may still be present in the FES or 13 the SER and the public will be prevented from meaningful partici-14 pation in this important process.
15 We therefore request that a public hearing be held 16 after the completion of the FES and SER and before the license 17 modification takes place.
18
//
//
//
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Respectfully Submitted, Dated: 9[k7 [b[
/
g Wesley 1-bro, Supervisor Sc6tt'L. FielcTer/
Third D' rict Attorney for Petitioners b
Dan Hauser, Assemblyman Representative Doug Bosco Second District First California Congressional District et ^'
State Senpor Barry Keene wood Alliance Second Senate District Jim Adams, Litigation ordinator -.
Opgg M ED PROOF OF SERVICE I am a resident of the County of Humboldt; I am 4We4EP age of eighteen years and not a party to the within action;45! P3 :28 my California, Suite 14,Eureggg,fNksh[kij}((
business address is 517 - 3rd Street, 95501.
00CM BRANCH On September 17, 1986
, I served the withine SUPPLEMENT TO PETITION TO INTERVENE on the interested parties in said action (X)
By placing a true copy thereof enclosed in a sealed en-velope with postage thereon fully prepaid, in the United States. mail at Eureka, California, addressed as listed below.
(
)
By personally delivering a true copy thereof to the persons listed below.
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct.
Executed at Eureka, California, on September 17. 1986 h
(lb(Yl/
(Olf MELOPY L.
RnILL SEE ATTACHMENT 1
l
ATTACHMENT 4
Certified Mail United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Public Document Rvom 1717 "H" Street NW Washington, D.C.
20555 First Class Mail Executive Legal Director United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555 a
Richard.F. Locke Phillip A. Crane, Jr.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company Post Office Box 7442 San Francisco, California 94120 Mr. Bruce Norton C/O Phillip A. Crane, Jr.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company Post Office Box 7442 San Francisco, California 94120 Mitzi Young, Esq.
Office of the Executive Legal Director United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555 Secretary United "tates Nuclear Regulatory Commission Wash'_ngton, D.C.
20555 Attn:
Docketing and Service Section Robert M. Lazo, Esq.,
L Chairman
' Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel
. United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555
,,n..-n--
-.~.n.
,.v.,-,m.,_,,
,-,-..,n,,
F ATTACHMENT (con't)
Dr. James H. Carpenter, Member Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555 Dr. Peter A. Morris, Member Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, D.C.
20555 4
4
-~
e-p---.
e ----,, -------
,. -~
, -- -