ML20236K718
| ML20236K718 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | La Crosse File:Dairyland Power Cooperative icon.png |
| Issue date: | 05/13/1998 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML20236K712 | List: |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9807100054 | |
| Download: ML20236K718 (62) | |
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$- UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
PUBLIC MEETING - LACROSSE BOILER WATER REACTOR Location: Viroqua, Wisconsin Date: Wednesday, May 13,1998 Pages: I - 60 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
! 1250 I St., N.W.. Suite 300 i
Washington, D.C,20003 (202) 842-0034
~
9807100054 980706 PDR ADOCK 05000409 T POR
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1
, 1 UNITED. STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2 ***
13 PUBLIC MEETING.
.]
4 l LACROSSE BOILER WATER REACTOR 5 ***
'6 Viroqua'High School-7 Middle School Complex 8- .Viroqua, Wisconsin
- 9. '
10' -Wednesday, May 13, 1998 11 121 The public meeting commenced pursuant to notice at 13' 7:00 p.m.
3 14' APPEARANCES:
15 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA, Moderator
'16- . PAUL HARRIS, NRC Project Manager 17- DR. SY WEISS, Director for Non-power Reactors 18 ETOY HYLTON, NRC Licensing Assistant 19 ANGELA.GREENMAN, .Public Affairs-Office, Region 3.
-20 RICHARD DUDLEY, Senior Project Manager, Rancho
,21 Seco 1
22 MARIAN ZOBLER, NRC Office of General Counsel 23 ROGER CHRISTIANS, Dairyland Power 24 STU BROWN, Division of Waste Managements.
- 25. BRUCE JORGENSON, NRC Regional Office Branch Chief 1.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I. Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
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2 1 PROCEEDINGS
- 2 [7:00 p.m.]
3 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Good evening. As many of 4 you here already know, my name is Geoffrey Banta. I'm the scw.v 5 Sherif f of )4Pr-6Le County. And tonight I'm going to remove 6 my Sheriff's hat to moderate this public meeting at the 7 request of the NRC on the decommissioning of Lacrosse Boiler 8 Water Reactor, which is located in Genoa. As many of us 3
9 know, the Lacrosse facility has been with us for some time
\ 10 now. But the operation of this plant was shorter than the 11 Federal license would allow. The unit started up in late 12 1960 and the operation ceased in 1987. Since that time, the b 13 facility has been in a long-term storage awaiting final 14 dismantlement and decontamination.
15 We're here tonight to hear from Dairyland Power 16 about their plans for dismantlement and decontamination of 17 this facility. We also are going to hear from the Nuclear 18 Regulatory Commission, who will describe the Federal Rules 19 and Regulations governing the decommissioning of power 20 plants.
21 Tonight's meeting will conduct -- will be 22 conducted in the following format: Firut of all, we're 23 going to hear from Mr. Paul Harris of the NRC who will 24 discuss the rules and regulations associated with the 25 Lacrosse decommissioning. Then we'll hear from Mr. Roger ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
F-3 1-Christians of Dairyland-Power who will describe their plans 2.
9 on the decommissioning of their facility. Finally, Mr.
i 3
- Bruce Jorgensen of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who 4'
will describe the NRC's inspection and oversight program.
5 We may then take a break, if needed, or we may go 6
directly into a question and answer period. There are two 7
' sign up sheets over on the -- on the piano. One is to 8
receive a copy of tonight's meeting transcript through the !
9 mail.
This meeting will be transcribed by a court reporter.
10 If you desire to make any comments at the end of the formal !
11 presentation, please sign up on the second sheet.
12 Ms. Hylton, she'll be here to help you fill out 13 _
the sign-up sheets, if necessary. All comments and 14- questions should be held until after the formal c 15 presentation. i If you are speaking, be sure to state your 16 full name, spell it for the court reporter. If you have 17 written /
comments that you desire to place on the record, L
18 provide -- please provide them to Mr. Paul Harris, who I 19 will-introduce later, who is the NRC Project Manager for the g 20' Lacrosse facility. !
- I would like to ask the members of the 21 media that any views -- any interviews be done at break or 22 after the meeting.
23 j <
At this time, I'd like to ask if there are any 24 State or local officials that are represented here tonight?
3 25 Yes. Would you mind introducing yourself?
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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4 1 DEL BUTTERFIELD: My name is Del Butterfield,
- 2 Village Trustee for the Village of DeSoto, Wisconsin.
3 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Welcome.
4 DON HENDRICKS: Yes, I'm Don Hendricks. I'm with 5 the State of Wisconsin, Radiation Protection.
6 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Welcome. This is a 7 public meeting to present -- to present you with the 8 information regarding the decommissioning of the Lacrosse n~A 9 Boiler Water -- Water Reactor kW the Federal Regulations 10 associated with the decommissioning of this site. I want to 11 encourage you to feel free to talk to the NRC and the staff 12 from Dairyland Power during the break or after the meeting.
13 I'm sure they all would be happy to hear from you. At this 14 time, I would like to introduce our first speaker from the 15 NRC, Mr. Paul Harris.
16 MR. HARRIS: Good evening. I want to thank you 17 for showing up tonight and showing your interest in the 18 decommissioning of the Lacrosse Boiling Water Reactor. A 19 major portion of tonight's meeting will be devoted to 20 answering your questions and receiving your public -- and 21 receiving your comments, but first we need to get through 22 some preliminaries. As Sheriff Banta said, I'm Paul Harris.
23 I'm the NRC Project Manager for the licensing of the 24 Lacrosse Boiling Water Reactor. I work at the NRC 25 headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, which is near ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
5 1 Washington, D.C.
And we have some information on one of our 2
slides here on how you can get -- plus some information here 3
on how you can get ?" touch with me after the meeting if you 4
would like to ask some fu-ther questions and then make more 5 comments. Okay. Prior to joining the NRC in 1990, I 6
completed my Nuclear Engineering degree out of Penn State 7
University, and I joined the U.S. Navy as an enlisted --
B enlisted personnel and as an officer I served in the
, 9 Nuclear Navy for about five years. After that, I joined as 10 a civilian the shipyard, and I designed some refueling 11 piping systems for nuclear submarines.
12 In 1990 I joined the NRC and I worked as a 13 resident inspector for five years at a boiling water reactor 14 in Vermont -- in the State of Vermont. And then I received 15 a promotion to come down to NRC headquarters where I took my 16
-- my current job as project manager for the Lacrosse 17 facility and for Big Rock PointpI which is a boiling water 18 reactor plant that's across Lake Michigan. As a project 19 manager, I'm the principal point of contact for the NRC for 20 the decommissioning of Lacrosse. However, I don't work 21 alone.
I'm part of a team here tonight that is chartered by 22 Federal law to protect the environments and to ensure your 23 safety.
I brought part of this team here with me tonight.
24 On first, I have Dr. Sy Weiss. He's the director 25 for the non-power reactor -- non-power reactors and the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
6 1 decommissioning project directorate, besides the senior -
2 manager responsible for nuclear power reactor 3 decommissioning. Dr. Weiss is also the manager responsible na 4 for regulatory oversights of tests.-in research facilities --
5 research reactors at colleges and universities. Working for 6 Sy is my immediate supervisor, Mr. Richard Dudley. Richard 7 is senior project manager for the Rancho Seco Nuclear Plangt' 8 in California. And Richard is currently acting as our 9 section chief in our group of ten project managers. Also 10 here with us is Etoy Hylton in the back of the room. Etoy 11 is our licensing assistant, and she not only helped 12 coordinate tonight's meeting, but she's our -- she provides 13 invaluable assistance to the administration of our 14 regulatory actions, such as public meetings, hearings, 15 process of exemptions and amendments. We also have Mr. Stu 16 Brown with us here. He's from the Division of Waste 17 Mana gement,s'. And he's part of the group that's responsible 18 for reviewing license termination plans. And this plan is 19 what Dairyland Power will be required to submit to us for 20 review and approval prior to the license being terminated.
21 And finally from NRC headquarters, we have Ms. Marian 22 Zobler. She's the attorney from the office of General 23 Counsel. Marian is one of our legal specialists in 24 decommissioning and assigned to several decommissioning 25 power plants. Perhaps the most important element of our ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
7 1
team, however, is represented by the persons from Region 1 2 -- correction, from Region 3. They independently assess and 3
inspect decommissioning power plants, such as Lacrosse.
4 These people provide a reasonable level of assurance that 5 activities are conducted safely in accordance with 6 regulations.
From the NRC regional office located in Lisle, 7 Illinois we have Mr. Bruce Jorgensen. He's a branch chief f
8 1 in the Division of Nuclear Material Safety, responsible for f 9 I managing an inspection p ogram that will be implemented at i
10 the Lacrosse facility. Bruce will be given a presentation a 11 little bit later on. We also have seated next to Bruce, Mr.
12 Dave Nelson. Dave is a senior radiation health specialist 13 who performs the actual inspections at these facilities.
14 Dave's part of our team that inspects occupational radiation 15 exposure, environmental monitoring and transportation 16 issues. And finally, we have Ms. Angela Greenman. She's 17 representing the Public Affairs Office in Region 3.
18 Before going any farther, I'd like to point out 19 the availability of certain documents we brought with us.
20 In particular, this blue book here called Staff Responses to 21 Frequently Asked Questions Concerning Decommissioning of i'
- 22. Nuclear Reactors. This is our effort to try to get i 23 information out to the public to try to answer some 24- questions in writing. And we also have copies of tonight's i
l l
25 slides if you didn't pick them up. Th'ey're on the piano and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
8 1 on the desk in the back. -
2 As Sheriff Banta said, the purpose of tonight's 3 meeting is to inform you of Dairyland Power's plans to 4 decommission their facility and to give you an overview of 5 the decommissioned -- decommissioning regulations regarding 6 this activity, but first a little background. Next slide 7 please. Decommissioning is the last phase in the life cycle 8 of nuclear power plants. Its purpose is to safely remove a 9 facility from service and to reduce residual radioactivity 10 to levels that permit the lease of the sites in termination 11 of the license. This definition is important for what it 12 says and for what it doesn't say. What it says is that --
13 is that the NRC's focus is solely limited to the rate -- the 14 removal of the radiological hazards resulting from reactor 15 plant operation. It does not concern us with 16 non-radioactive portions of the facility that might exist.
17 Therefore, once the residual levels of radioactive 18 materials are reduced below certain regulatory limits, 19 either by decontamination or disposal off-site to a burial 20 facility, then the NRC can go in and terminate the license 21 for that site. Whether or not the licensee chooses to spend 22 extra money to remove uncontaminated buildings or restore 23 the now to clean sites to a green field condition is a -- is 24 outside our regulatory authority.
25 Now before we terminate the license, Dairyland ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
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Power will have to perform an extensive radiological survey 2 with sensitive detection equipments to prove to us that the 3 site is radioactively clean enough as required by our 4 regulations. To verify this, we will perform inspections 5 during this time. And if needed, we will do an independent 6 survey of portions of their sites to check their results.
7 L Once we technically prove that the site is clean enough, we.
8 could go forth with license termination activities.
, 9 The highest levels of NRC management will become 10 involved and either conform or not accept our 11 recommendations for license termination. We will then 12 terminate the license as I said, and that will cease our 13 regulatory oversight of the facility. And this by the way 14 is the ultimate goal of decommissioning, which is 15 termination of the license.
16 But there's a third element in this small 17 definition that's important, and that's the safe removal of 18 the facility safely from service. Even though -- even 19 though Lacrosse shut down in April of 1987, there is still a 1
20 number of important systems at the facility. These include 21 systemsnecessary[relatedtothesafestorageofthespent 22 fuel, radioactive waste processing, effluent controls and 23 monitoring and radioactive waste transportation.
24 Regarding the disposal of spent fuel that was 25 generated during the operation of this facility, Lacrosse --
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.H., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
l 10 1- or, pardon me -- Dairyland Power continues to maintain the
- 2 fuel in wet. storage in the spent fuel pool which is located 3 inside their cylindrical containment building. And this 4 fuel-is going to remain there until one of three things l 5 happen: First, the licensee can maintain this wet storage 6 of fuel on site until the Department of Energy accepts the 7 fuel; or they can transfer'the fuel to another licensed 8 interim storage facility; or, Dairyland Power can construct 9 an interim storage facility on their site, and this is 10 commonly referred to as an Independent Spent Fuel Storage 11 Installation or ISFSI.
12 Unfortunately, this doesn't represent many options 13' for the licensee. In the first case, although the 14 Department of Energy plans to utilize a geological 15 repository operations area at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, that 16 permanent waste depository.still has yet to be licensed and 17 is still not ready for use. And even after that facility 18 opens, there may be many more years until Lacrosse can --
19 . pardon me, until DOE, the Department of Energy, can accept 20 the Lacrosse fuel for burial.
21 Regarding Option 2, there are few sites currently
-22 being evaluated by the NRC for interim storage. However, 23 these sites are still in the licensing phase and not ready 24 to accept fuel. And finally regarding the construction of 25 an independent spent fuel storage installation at the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
t 11 1 Dairyland Power site, that --
that option remains for 2
Dairyland Power, and if they choose to pursue it, they can 3 do that.
4 Before I go any farther, though, I'd like to talk 5 a little bit about safety. Next slide. The Lacrosse 6 facility operated for approximately 20 years. And the 7
facility has been in safe storage, long-term safe storage 8 for the subsequent 11 years. This has reduced -- this has 9
resulted in a significant reduction in the decay heats 10 generated by the spent fuel. It has also resulted in the 11 significant reduction in the radioactivity of efficient 12 product gases encased within the spent fuel pool clad --
13 within -- encased within the clad of the spent fuel.
14 Unfortunately, however, the spent fuel itself does remain 15 highly radioactive and will remain this way for many more 16 years. This is why there must'be appropriate structure 17 systems and components to protect the public and the 18 environments from radiation and radioactive contamination.
19 Next slide please. Whether Dairyland Power chooses to 20 maintain the current wet storage condition or pursue another 21 storage option, such as Options 2 and 3, any such action is 22 thoroughly reviewed by the NRC staff and open to public 23 Ivolvement. In addition, we assure that this is the 24 licensee's decision, because this is their plantp$ this is 25 their fuel and it's their responsibility to properly dispose I
t IJRJ RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300
} Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
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12 1 of that. Similarly, it's a licensee's decision on how and 2 on what schedule to der:ommission their power plants.
3- Next sl:fV, please. I'd like to talk now about 4 some of these decommissioning options next. The United 5 States has 21 nuclear power plants that have permanently 6 ceased operation and have begun decommissioning. These 7 include all types of plants; large plants and small plants, 8 boiling water reactors and pressurized water reactors.
9 Notice that some of the plants are in long-term safe 10 storage, which is that line_in through there, nine 11 facilities in long-term storage, while other plants are 12 currently being dismantled. Again, our regulations allow 13 the licensee to make this determination themselves.
14 This table also indicates that we have a fdir 15- amount of experience in the decommissioning of power 16 reactors, and that there is quite a bit of experience in the 17 industry and expertise to accomplish decommissioning safely.
18 Our regulations again require the licensees to choose a
'19 decommissioning option and to submit this decision to us.
.20 And these regulations have been developed in part from the 21 ' lessons learned we have accumulated from the conduct of 22 . decommissioning, input from the public and from the 23 industry, and from a generic environmental impact statements 24- :that we perform to evaluate the impact of decommissioning on 25 _the public and on the environment.
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13
, 1 So we have some reasonable confidence that the 2
regulations are appropriate to ensure that decommissioning 3 can be conducted safely. Regarding this gencric 4
environmental impact statement, it is commonly referred to l 5 the GEIS. And it documents our determination that as long 6
as a licensee complies with her regulations, any option for 7
decommissioning or combination thereof is acceptable. One 8
of the principle reasons for this, as I previously alluded 9
to, was that the risk to the public and to the environment 10 due to decommissioning is significantly less than when the 11 plant was operating. This risk continues to decrease over 12 time due to radioactivity decay and the reduction in the 13 heat load in the spent fuel pool. In addition, this risk is 14 so significant that following appropriate technical 15 evaluations conducted both by the licensee and reviewed by 16 the NRC, certain regulations associated with operating power 17 reactors can be reduced for the licensee.
18 Now we just don't allow the licensee free reign.
19 Our regulations require that decommissioning be completed 20 within 60 years following the cessation of power operations.
21 And for Lacrosse, the 60-year date would correspond to April 22 30, 2047.
Our other regulations, though, aren't so simple.
23 When Lacrosse shut down in 1987, they submitted to us and we 24 approved a decommissioning plan. We then ordered the 25 licensee to conduct decommissioning in accordance with that IJRJ RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
14 1 plan. We then amended their license, in effect, to preclude '
2 the licensee from returning to power. And this was the 3 status quo until August 28, 1996.
4 In August of 1996, we amended our regulations l 5 changing the regulatory decommissioning process, and this i
i
! 6 impacted the Lacrosse facility. And these changes were l
L 7 based upon the experiences that we've gained decommissioning l
8 the other power plants. First, the regulations no longer 9 require a decommissioning plan. The regulations also 10 mandated that the decommissioning plant heretofore be
( 11 referred to and called the Post Shutdown Decommissioning 12 Activities Reports. This is the case for the 13 decommissioning plan for Dairyland Power. Their 14 decommissioning plan now is called the Post Shutdown l 15 Decommissioning Activities Report. Now what is this Post 16 Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report? Our regulations i 17 require that this Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activities 18 Report include a description of their plan decommissioning 19 activities. It provides a schedule for their 20 accomplishment. It provides an expected estimated cost for f
( 21 the conduct of decommissioning. It provides a discussion 22 that provides the reasons for concluding that the 23 environmental impactt- of their site specific decommissioning 24 are bounded by our generic -- our bonded by our generic 25 environmental impact statement that we performed.
IJN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 l Washington, D.C. 20005 i 1 (202) 842-0034 l
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The purpose of the Post Shutdown Decommissioning 2 Activities Report is relatively simple. It informs the NRC 3 staff of the activities the licensee plans to do, such that 4
we can plan our inspections of their facility. It does one 5 other item, too. It requires the licensees to assess their 6 decommissioning activities, to review the costs associated 7 for those other activities, and to determine whether or not 8
those activities are bounded by previously issued 9 environmental impact statements. The regulations do not 10 require NRC review and approval of the Post Shutdown 11 Decommissioning Activities Report. However, the regulations 12 do require that a public meeting be held, and that's what 13 we're doing here tonight. We're holding a public meeting 14 tonight, because we want to share with the public 15 information on the regulatory decommissioning process and to 16 hear from the licensee their plans on decommissioning the 17 facility.
18 Next slide, please. Other requirements include 19 that the licensee is required to periodically update their 20 Post Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report when there 21 are significant changes to their decommissioning plans or 22 the costs incurred. Now should the licensee significantly 23 change their plans, the NRC staff retains the option of 24 conducting another public meeting to inform the public of 25 the licensee's change in plans and to provide another ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
16 opportunity for public to make comments and asks questions.
1 2 Another regulation is that the licensee is 3 prohibited from performing any decommissioning activity that 4 forecloses release of the site for possible unrestricted
.5 use, or result in a significant environmental impact not 6 previously evaluated, or result in here no longer being 7 reasonable assurance that adequate funds will be available 8 to decommission the plans. The NRC staff will be looking to 9 assure that these requirements are part of the licensing 10 screening criteria whenever they plan to make changes to 11 their facility.
12 Next slide, please. As I mentioned earlier, it's 13 a licensee's responsibility to choose their decommissioning 14 option. For example, they could place it in a long-term --
15 long-term safe storage or immediately dismantle and 16 decontaminate-the facility, or they can do a combination of 17 the two. However, sometime prior to the end of the 60-year 18 limit on decommissioning, Dairyland Power will have to 19 submit to us a plan that describes their license termination 20 activities. This plan is called the License Termination
.21 Plan. And it's to include a site characterization 22- identifying the specific locations where decontamination
>23 efforts are required and need to be focused. It needs to 24 identify the remaining dismantlement activities and the 25 plans for site remediation, which would consist of those ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 j (202) 842-0034 1
17
, 1 activities necessary to reduce the radiological hazards to 2 ' safe levels. They must provide us detailed plans on their 3 final radiation survey, and provide the description of the 4 end use of the property if it is not unrestricted. They 5
have to give us an estimate of the remaining decommissioning 6 costs. And then they also have to provide us supplements to 7 their environmental report describing any new environmental 8 information associated with the proposed termination 9 activities.
10 Next slide, please. When we receive the license 11 termination from the -- from Dairyland Power, we'll make it 12 -- we'll publish it in the Federal Register, and we'll also 1 l
13 make the license termination plan available to the public l l 14 for public comments. We will also provide an opportunity 15 for a hearing on licerse termination.
l And we will conduct 16 another.public meeting in the vicinity of the plants so that i 17 the licensee can again explt.in their li. cense termination l
l 18 activities to provide the public another opportunity for 19 questions and answers, and give the NRC staff an opportunity 20 to discuss the remaining regulatory activities associated 21 with license termination.
22 As I said previously, the NRC approval of license 23 termination plan will be by license amendments, which will 24 authorize implementation of the plan. And during this 25 period, the licensee will continue to clean up their site ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington., D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
18 1 and perform the final radiation survey. The NRC staff will
- 2 continue to provide inspection oversight during this 3 process. The NRC Commission will terminate the license if 4 it determines that the remaining activities have been 5 performed in accordance with this license termination plan, 6 and that the final radiation survey demonstrates that the 7 site is suitable for our release.
8 Clearly, there are a number of significant 9 activities that will occur when the licensee nears 10 completion of their decommissioning activities. However, 11 our primary concern right now with respect to public health 12 and safety, is a continued safe storage of the spent fuel 13 that they have in their spent fuel pool. And after the --
14 and after the licensee's presentation, Mr. Bruce Jorgensen, 15 our branch chief from NRC Region 3, will briefly describe 16 our inspection process for the Lacrosse facility. With that 17 in mind,.I'd like to thank you for listening to my 18 presentation and hope it improved your understanding of the 19 regulatory decommissioning process. For your information, 20 here's a list'of contacts, including myself, Bruce and Ms.
21 Angela Greenman, our public affairs officer. And that's all 22 I have. Thank you.
23 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Thank you, Mr. Harris.
'24 At this time I'd like to introduce our next speaker ,
25 representing Dairyland Power and the Lacrosse facility, ANN RILEY.& ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 1
e 19
, 1 Rogar Christians.
2 ROGER CHRISTIANS: Thank you, Sheriff. As 3~ Geoffrey.said, my name is Roger Christians, and I'm the 4
. plant manager-at LACBWR, and we're happy to participate in 5 this educational meeting tonight. We've been doing things 6
like'this, educating the public to the degree we can through 7- -plant tours.of high school and college physics classes and 8 public civic-organizations, news media and so on. But we're 4-particularly happy ~to be here to help educate everyone on 10- what decommissioning means. And we have a handout for 11 everybody. If somebody came in late-and didn't get one, you 12 can hold up your hand and we'll get one to you. In that
-13 handout there will be most of the -- the overheads we're
~14 going'to show. There are other things in there that you 15 would need possibly. We have the names of the Dairyland 16 Power personnel from the main offices and the plant, that if 17 you have a question and you're not comfortable coming down 18 to the microphone tonight or during this meeting, you can 19 talk' to any of tus later and we'll hopefully answer your 20 questions. I.think we have a slide here with the people
- 21. 'that you may wish to contact. There are different areas 22 . represented here. If you have questions along radiological 23 : control lines or mechanical or whatever it might be, you can l 24 . identify a person here and we'll -- we'll ask each one to 25 raise their hand as I announce them here if you would, so ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 L _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ - - - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
20 1 that you can associate a face with a name here and possibly '
2 talk to these, people either tonight, or if you have 3 questions that come up in the next weeks, months or year, 4 you can call us. And if you can't get through to someone, 5 you can call me and I'll get to you.
6 But first we have Jack Lefier is my immediate 7 boss, assistant general manager of the Generation Division.
8 Back here, Don halsh is the manager of communications in the 9 back. Bob Wery is the director of Quality Assurance. Mary 10 Lund, director of human resources. Dave Riberick is the 11 manager of general maintenance. And I don't know if he's on 12 here, but he's here tonight. There he is, right there, 13 generation maintenance manager. Dr. Seymour Raf fety, 14 reactor engineer, radiation protection engineer. Larry 15 Nelson is the health physics supervisor. Mike Johnson, 16 technical support engineer. Richard Cota, training and 17 security. And I -- I'm Roger.
18 When we begin discussing the -- begin discussing 19 this public meeting, we find out that a lot of people in the 20 area simply weren't knowledgeable of what LACBWR was, where 21 we were, and so we have a picture here. People have asked 22 the question, where do you burn that coal in the nuclear 23 plant? Other questions are, they thought this whole '
24 facility was simply coal. And so we have a picture here to 25 show you that the part right there is LACBWR if you're ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
4 1
21 t
, 1- driving down Highway 35 south of Genoa. Because there are 2
people that didn't know anything about us, I'm going to give 3
you a brief one minute history of the plant to tell you how 4 we got to where we are.
5 The plant was built by the Atomic Energy 6
Commission, which is the predecessor to today's Nuclear 7 Regulatory Commission. And it was built by Allis-Chalmers B
as a demonstration reactor along with several others around 9
the country, the purpose for which was to test new designs, t 10 materials, systems, procedures and so on. And whereas mott 11 of the demonstration reactors proved not to be so viable, 12 LACBWR's design proved to be very workable. And as 13 testament to that, we operated just short of 20 years, from 14 1967, even though we had a 40-year license, we operated just l L 15 short of 20 years shutting down in 1987. And, of course, i
16 the reason we shutdown was just economics. We were 50 17 megawatts. Some of the new plants are 1185. i And we had the !
18 same regulatory -- I don't blame the NRC or anything -- just 19 that we had the same regulatory compliance and the
, 20 associated costs with that, and it simply didn't pay the i
1 21 bills, 50 megawatts. So, we did shut down the plant. The 22 plant was running as well as it ever had right before the
' 23 shutdown. So, it was purely an economic decision.
24 When LACBWR shutdown, we entered into safe store.
25 And that means that we store the fuel in the plant, in the l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
4 22 1 storage pool, and operate the systems necessary to store the -
2 fuel. And that.was chosen for a variety of reasons. We i 3 could.have taken safe store, or we could have done immediate 4 dismantlement and decon if we couldn't ship the fuel or got 5 an ISFSI. We were one of the first plants to shut down 6 after, permanently anyway, after having run for an extended 7 period of time and having all the emergency plans, fire 8 protection plans and those things in place. And the 9 industry was not really ready for how decommissioning is 10 going to be done when we shut down. It just wasn't -- there 11 wasn't a lot of' industry guidance, nor experience on how 12 best to complete the decommissioning process.
13 By waiting, we also had time to finish 14 accumulating.the necessary funds for decommissioning. We 15 are getting close to accumulating the total amount 16 necessary. We also allow for radiation levels to decrease 17 significantly,'as Paul talked about earlier, which will 18 reduce exposure to the employees performing dismantlement.
19 We are also waiting'for the ultimate fuel -- spent fuel 20 repositery to be built and become operational. That's yet 21 to be realized.
22 Throughout.the 11 years since our shutdown, the 23 industry has gained valuable knowledge and experience on how 24- the decommissioning process should work, and we are now 25- confident that we can accomplish that final decommissioning ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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mai.--i-23 1
and dismantlement' phase in the safest and most 2 cost-effective manner possible. In order to effect the 3
final stages of dismantlement of the facility, we must 4 decide on the final fuel disposition. And currently, as 5
Paul Harris mentioned earlier, there are very few options 6 .available to us. However, the Federal Government is still 7
continuing its work in Nevada in siting and in getting their 8 facility ready. And there are also some private fuel 9
storage initiatives underway for developing dry fuel storage 10 at any of several sites. And another option is, it was 11 mentioned earlier, we may someday look at a dry cask fuel 12 storage facility on the site, if the other options don't 13 become available.
14 Until one of these fuel storage options becomes 15 available, we'll continue to store the fuel in the storage 16 i pool on the site, continue a limited dismantlement program, l 1
17 which is what we've been doing for the last 11 years. And 18 this. involves removing systems and equipment that are in no 19 way useful for the purposes of storing fuel. These systems 20 'and equipment are disassembled and packaged for disposal 21 only after a rigorous review and approval process where 22 questions of safety, radiological exposure, environmental 23 ' impact, effects on the rest of the plant and so on are 24 l adequately addressed. All of our activities receive 25 . oversight from our Quality Assurance Department, on-site and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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24 1 off-site review committees, Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
2 And by performing these limited dismantlement activities now 3 with the staff that has to be there anyway, we have to 4 maintain a minimum crew, we avoid those expenses in the 5 final decommissioning dismantlement phase.
-6 This will reduce the total decommissioning funding 7 requirement when we get to that final phase, so that's --
8 that's one of the reasons we're continuing the 9 dismantlement. Because the storage options being' reviewed 10 involve dry cask storage, and you've heard this term and may 11 not know exactly what that means, we have a couple of 12 overheads here just to show you what a typical dry cask 13 storage system looks like, how it works. This first slide 14 is a typical fuel basket inside of a canister. The fuel 15 canister, you'can see right up here is the -- the squares up 16 here is where the fuel assemblies would be dropped into to 17 fill this canister. When that gets filled, it's -- it's 18 installed in the -- the shield -- the shield around it and 19 that is then stored.
20 The next one, if we went to dry cask storage, 21 operations similar to this would take place. We would put 22 the multi-purpose canister into the transportation cask, and 23 then that cask would be lowered into the fuel storage pool.
24 And here this slide here -- this picture here, rather, shows 25 the fuel assembly being hoisted and dropped into the~-- I I
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L
25 1
should say installed in the multi-purpose canister. And 2
after that is loaded under water, this shield plug would be 3 installed. l We would take the whole thing out and weld the {
4 top on and then place it into either a transportation or a 5 1 storage cask, depending whether they're going to store it on !
6 the site or ship it to an off-site facility. If we ship it, 7
l we would package it like this on either a rail car or a 8 truck transport. And they would install the tie downs and 9
the impact limiters and the personnel barriers and so on, 10 and ship it to whatever off-site facility becomes available.
11 At the off-site facility, they would re.nove the 12 multi-purpose canister fror.the transportation cask, 13 transfer it to the ultimate storage cask, and that storage l 14 cask would then be moved to a storage area. And this is the 15 depiction of a heavy haul -- hauling equipment moving one of 16 these canisters to the storage pad. So this -- this could 17 be what we will do if it's an off-site, or we might end op 18 doing this on-site someday. Those options are still being 19 discussed. Eventually, we will be able to decide on what'r 20 best for us and, of course, that depends on what options ara 21 available.
22 REPORTER: Roger.
23 ROGER CHRISTIANS: Yes, Ma'am.
24 REPORTER: I'm sorry to interrupt you. When 25 you're reading from your manuscript, could I ask you to slow l
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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26 1 down just a little bit,.because I'm going to have to '
2 transcribe it.
i
~
3 ROGER CHRISTIANS: I just -- that's all right. I 4 thought people were going to be going to sleep when I read 5 it.
6 REPORTER: No, no, no.
7 ROGER CHkISTIANS: It's -- just wanted to get done 8 in a hurry. I'll go slower.
9 REPORTER: You'have me on the edge of my seat.
'10 ROGER CHRISTIANS: Oh, boy. There are several.
11 possibilities for one of the different elements of LACBWR 12 decommissioning will be accomplished. The most optimistic 13 timeline is shown here. We're currently doing the 14 dismantlement, and this could continue on out into years 15 past-where we have here depending on the availability of a 16 siting of a dry storage facility. But if.one of the 17 off-site options becomes available, the earliest it appears 18 that that could happen is possibly 2002 or --3, I believe.
19 And if that happened, we would begin shipping fuel at that 20 point, and that might take a year or longer, maybe, maybe 21
~
not, but in that' neighborhood. We would have to begin the 22 vendor cask license and shipping approval and all of that 23 before that, of course. Then we would ship the fuel and in, 24' .I say optimistically speaking again, the year 2004, prepare 25 : final decommissioning dismantlement plan as Paul talked ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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27 ,
1 l about earlier. When we get that approval, we begin the
{
2 final dismantlement. And that might include, or would l
3 include, eventually anyway, shipping of the reactor vessel, l
4 and that would be a more involved project. Nuclear t-5 Regulatory Commission folks would be on-site for that, as 6 well as the shipping of the fuel. We'll have a lot of NRC 7 scrutiny when we get to that point. And they'll be on the 8
. site, probably a resident inspector of some kind possibly.
9 PAUL HARRIS: Bruce was going to talk about that.
10 ROGER CHRISTIANS: Okay, we'll talk about that. !
! 11 Anyway, so during that phase, we would probably include.
i 12 shipping of the reactor vessel, and that's going to be a 1
13- major proj ect. You may see this vessel either placed on 14' barge, rail transport. We're not sure yet how we're going 15 to do that. And eventually, I say optimistically speaking, 16 the year 2007, -- 8, somewhere in there, we would look at
[
17 termination of the Part 50. license, site restoration. And 18 during this time at any time in here, we may gain some l
19- experience from other plants. Other plants have started a l 20 community advisory board. So, we'd get input from the 21 general public on how best to do this, or at least involve 22 people in what we're doing, and so we can get feedback and 23 input from the public. Other -- if the options that we talk 24 about don't become available to us on.the timeline we're 25 talking, of course, everything here can be shifted to the IJR7 RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
28 1 right, we're still going to consider then or continue, 2 rather, to perform limited dismantlement, which will reduce 3 our final decommissioning funding requirements. When we get 4 to the final dismantlement phase, we would probably staff up 5 to some degree for that and get that done in a shorter 6 period of time. But right now, we have to have a minimum 7 crew anyway working on the plant. So, that probably 8 concludes our discussion. We thank everybody for being 9 here. And we will be available for questions, all of the 10 LACBWR and uptown Dairyland folks are going to stick around 11 for awhile after the meeting. And if you have any 12 questions, feel free to talk to any of us. Thank you.
13 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: At this time I'd like to 14 call on Mr. Bruce Jorgensen. Mr. Jorgensen is representing 15 the NRC.
16 BRUCE JORGENSEN: Thank you. Besides being 17 responsible for specific license project management, Sy 18 Weiss's organization.is the program office as well. So, 19 they develop the regulations and they develop the inspection 20 program. In fact, Paul Harris had a pretty central hand in 21 writing of the book on inspection for decommissioning 22 reactors, and we're a Federal Regulatory Agency. I think 23 Roger earlier said regulatory burden. I've been called a 24 lot worse than that in 25 years in the inspection field.
'25 I'll be talking in general terms about the IJRJ RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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29 1
1
., inspection program for decommissioning reactors, how it's 2
put together, what areas we look at, what kind of factors 3-weigh into increasing the amount of inspection or decreasing 4 it and so forth. So, the book is Manual Chapter 2561. It 5
defines our inspection program in four major areas and 6 they're listed there: Facility Management and Control.
7 Decommissioning Support, Spent Fuel Safety, and Radiological 8 Safety. We write reports when we do inspections.
t And on 9 the piano'as you came in, there are copies of the most
'10 . recent inspection report.
11 The lead inspector from the Region 3 office is 12 here tonight, and we'll be talking in a couple of minutes
- 13. about the specific. inspection conducted at LACBWR and the
'14 specific results, once I cover sort of the general approach.
15 There are several purposes that apply to all inspection 16 activities in NRC, and those are also applicable for 17 decommissioning reactors. We want to directly observe and L 18 satisfy ourselves that activities are being conducted 19 safely. We want to see that the systems that-the licensee 20 puts in place and'that the techniques they. employ are 21 appropriate to the circumstances adequate to protect safety.
22 We want.to identify any change for the worse in performance 23- early on, so that if necessary,' we can be involved in 24 management meetings or enforcement to correct any adverse 25 trends and get problems identified and resolved. And we ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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30 1 want.to factor in the right types of information collected -
2 during inspection so that we can assign resources the right 3 way.
4 We're a small -- a small agency. Like much of 5' Government, we're a shrinking agency. And we want to invest 6 our inspection resources wisely considering what the 7 specific licensee is doing in this case, exactly what's 8 going on at Lacrosse Boiling Water Reactor, and how well 9 they're doing it. There are other areas covered by the 10 Manual Chapter, it provides for a master inspection plan for 11 each facility. There is a master inspection plan for 12 Lacrosse. We're a public agency and -- and do things in the 13 open. The. master inspection plan is available to the 14- public. We revise it at need and inform the company 15 approximately twice a year what our master inspection plan 16 consists of. We have the authority to perform inspections
'17 at any reasonable time. But for the most part, they're 18 informed when we're going to do an inspection and what areas 19 we're going to look at.
20 Management visits and meetings are covered in the 21 program as necessary. There's a discussion on whether you 22 leave an inspector at the site, or you inspect from the 23 regional office, or you involve headquarters inspection and 24 the factors that go into that. In the specific case of 25 Lacrosse, the inspection program is being run from the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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1 31 1 regional office by inspection visits. And lastly, 2 inspection reports. As I mentioned, we do things pretty 3
much in the open and all of our reports are publicly 4 available.
There is a local public document room where you 5
can go and read those reports, if you're interested.
6 Let me talk a little bit then about the inspection 7
areas and what kind of things are covered. The first one is 8 Facility Management and Control. And the numbers down the 9
left-hand side are inspection procedure numbers, and the 10 numbers down the right-hand side show a range of how many 11 hours1.273148e-4 days <br />0.00306 hours <br />1.818783e-5 weeks <br />4.1855e-6 months <br /> we might spend performing that procedure. For 12 example, the second item listed there, Safety Reviews, 13 Design Changes and Modifications at permanently shut down 14 reactors.
If there's very little going on, basically no 15 work involving taking the plant apart or changing any plant 16 systems, we might invest as few as four hours of inspection 17 effort to perform that procedure. If there's a lot of 18 activity going on, a lot of changes, a lot of systems being 19 torn out, we might inspect as much as 32 hours3.703704e-4 days <br />0.00889 hours <br />5.291005e-5 weeks <br />1.2176e-5 months <br />. Thirty-two 20 hours is not an upper limit. This list of procedures is 21 what we call our Core Inspection Program. And if it's 22 warranted, if a great deal of activity is going on, and 23 especially if it's not being done particularly well or we 24 have some reason to be concerned about it, we can do more 25 inspection to focus and refine our understanding of the i
f ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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32 l' issues. We would just call that regional initiative and
- 2 we'd use the same inspection procedure.
3 The titles of the inspection procedures are fairly 4 self-explanatory. So, I'll just kind of walk through each 5 area here and let you read the kinds of areas we look at. I 6 guess the big picture on this area is, are the right people, 7 the right resources, the right amount of attention being 8 given to what's important in the plant, and is the company 9 good at seeing'its own problems before we find them and 10 getting them fixed, so that we can build up a confidence 11: that things will remain on track when we're not present.
.12 The next area is Decommissioning Support 13 Activities. Again, this is just our so-called Core 14 Inspection Program. And, again, the titles of the-15 inspection procedures are fairly self-explanatory. There is 16 _one number there that isn't quite a number yet. We're still 17 writing this specific procedure to look at physical security 18 for permanently shutdown reactors. There is an existing
. 19 procedure for operating reactors that we may use in the 20 short term, because it's very similar to what we're going to 21 do. There is one at the bottom here that's not currently 22 . applicable for Lacrosse, because they got the fuel in the 23 original designed fuel storage pit. There isn't a separate 24 independent fuel storage area.
25 Next area is Spent Fuel Safety. This has a number ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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- 33 1
of inspection procedures that are asterisked to show that if 2
that particular activity isn't going on, we're not going to 3 be doing that inspection.
Several of them relate to an 4 independent spent fuel storage installation. Others relate 5 to handling of fuel. I don't think any of the fuel has been 6
handled at LACBWR anytime recently. Should the occasion 7
arise when they're going to be moving fuel out of the pool 8
into storage casks, there would be a fairly obvious increase 9
in the amount of inspection that we would be doing because 10 of the significant potential associated with handling the 11 radioactive fuel compared to other activities at this plant.
12 And the last area is Radiological Safety. In a 13 way, this probably should be listed first. It's the reason 14 that there was an Atomic Energy Commission and there is now 15 a Nuclear Regulatory Commission is because the one thi.ng 16 that's unique about making electricity with a reactor is the 17 radiation. And if plans develop as they might on LACBWR, 18 and the fuel is moved out of the facility to some 19 independent storage location elsewhere, that plant becomes 20 just a contaminated site of which there are many at various 21 locations around the country from various applications of --
22 of industry, aerospace, aeronautics that are in the process 23 of being cleaned up. And when the facility is -- is in a 24 state of being just a contaminated site, most of the 25 inspection that we do will be related to radiological I
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1 safety. With that as an overview of the -- the approach 2 that we take, I'm going to ask the lead inspector for 3 LACBWR, Dave Nelson, to step up and -- and discuss specifics 4 of his most recent inspection out here two or three weeks 5 ago.
6 DAVE NELSON: I have a question before I go. I 7 found out last Thursday I was going to give a presentation, 8 so I don't have any fancy view graphs unfortunately. The 9 people from the public, do all of you have a copy of the 10 last Inspection Report? It's the one that's got Routine 11 Safety Inspection at Lacrosse. Because if you do, what I'd 12 like to do is sort of'go through this report and give you an 13 idea of what we look at when we go out and conduct 14 inspections at this facility. So if you've got one, that 15 would be great.
16 Bruce asked me to sort of step through the 17 reports. These are public documents. So, if anybody in the 18 public is curious about the kinds of things that we look at 19 and kinds of things that we find out of Lacrosse, then they 20 have access to these reports. But what I'd like to do is 21 very quickly go through the last reports, sort of step it 22 through and see how it ties in to what Bruce said about our 23 inspection activities.
24 So, in the opening page in the cover letter, it's 25 a basic summation of the report findings, both good and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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35
-.. 'l
-negative if we find anything that's' negative. On Page No.
2' 3, it's the list of the inspectors. And one thing'I'd like 3'
to -- one thing I'd like to point out on the inspectors,'the 4
last time.-- the first time I came to Lacrosse to conduct an
'5 inspection was last December. The other inspector I brought 6
with me was Dr. Ross Landsman whose got a Ph.D. in -- in 7
! Engineering and many years experience working in power B . reactors.
The last time.I did an inspection, I brought Dr.
9.
Peter Lee with me'who's a specialist in health physics and 10 also' nuclear engineering. So, we take safety here at LACBWF.
11- very seriously. And typically, we have'two-man teams, and 12 1
we spend typically about three or four days to five days 13 conducting inspections.
14
.. On the next page, the Executive Summary, is the 15- summation of our findings at the facility. And you'll note, E16 ' 'if you.take a look at the, I guess I don't need them. If ;
,l 17:
you take a look at each of the sections that Bruce talked i 18 about, Facilir Management and Control, we sort of sum up 19 .our findings in each one of those areas. For instance,
! 20 Facility Management and Controls, the summation is, "The
' i
'21 licensee performed appropriate safety evaluations prior to 22l conducting limited dismantlement." They dismantled the 23 1mndaer of -- of systems in the last six months to a year.
24 We-looked at the safety evaluations for those. systems and 25- concluded that they were adequate. The licensee's ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I-Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034
36 -
l 1
1 deficiency reporting system, we looked at that and we 2 determined that it was adequate by taking a look and seeing 3 if they had findings and whether they corrected them. ,
4 Spent Fuel Safety, which is by the way the area )
i 5 that we concentrate the most on when we come out and do l i
6 inspections. That's the thing that we're the most concerned ,
1 7 about, that the level and the temperature of the water in j 8 the pool stays consistent, constant to protect the public.
9 So, we concentrate in that area. So that's why the last two 10 inspectors have both been -- had many years' experience in 11 reactors and looking at spent fuel pools. Radiological 12 safety, that's my area of specialty. And, again, I looked 13 at the effluent end of environmental releases, determined 14 that they were in compliance with the regulatory 15 requirements. I looked at the RAD protection program and 16 determined that they were implementing per the 17 decommissioning plan and quality assurance plan and the 18 license. So, this is the summation of my findings. When 19 you go on the bottom of the report, it comes in and it goes 20 into each of the area that Bruce talked about and each 21 module that we used to conduct inspections. And it lists 22 the module numbers. For instance, under Organization, 23 Management Costs Controls, you'll see the inspection rescope 24 reference and inspection module that we used to conduct the 25 inspections. And below that would be the areas that we look ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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37 l
. 11 at while we conduct the inspections.
j)7 : 2. For , instance, we looked at their organization 3, staffing per~the requirements of the various. regulatory [
. '4 . documents. We looked-at.their corrective action program .j 1
1 5 tracking. And.then below'that are the observation of l l 6 -findings that'we'had about the areas that we' looked into.
7- And then1on the next page, you'll see C is the conclusions 8 that'we have for that area. So, Bruce comes up -- Bruce was l -
L91 . talking about each individual inspection area, a' set of 10 . modules that we use to' conduct inspections. And the format L 11 of report is that'we conduct the inspections, we document
- 12. our findings,-and then we can come up with conclusions. For 13' instance, in that area' licensee states or organizations I
L 14' that,~et cetera,Eappeared to have met the requirements of
-l; E 15 l quality assurance ~, which is the same. thing I said in the' 1
j 16 L ,
_ Executive Summary. So that's essentially how the report is j
\
i l
17 Lwritten. It's fairly straightforward. You can go into'the
'18' section, take a look at the module. These are all public l
- 19 documents, and you can see the conclusions that I've 20 reached. !
L i 21 And'that goes for each one of the separate areas -l
..22. that'we're required to inspect when we conduct inspections.
23: So,.if you step through this self-assessment out of 24- corrective actions, inspection scope was inspection of 25 ' module 40801, our findings and our conclusions. Spent fuels !
L I L '
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38 1 -- Spent Fuel Safety, during this inspection, we took a look -
2 at the level monitors, the temperature monitors to see if 3 those were operating properly transmitting to the control 4 room. If there were any problems identified, we didn't see 5 any. We documented in the inspection report.
6 And finally in the last section, Radiological 7 Safety. We looked at staffing. We looked at the records.
8 We looked at RAD shipments that they had made off the site.
9 We looked at the surveys that they conducted in the 10 facility, direct survey smears, any kind of alarming 11 monitors, calibrations of that. And then a section that I 12 looked in and concentrated on this last time was to take a 13 look at their environmental releases, the way they monitor 14 it, calculate the off-site doses, and determine whether that 15 area is in compliance with the regulations. And I concluded 16 that it was, and that's documented in the report.
17 And finally, the last area was Solid RAD Waste 18 Management Transportation. We had a finding last time, some 19 questions about their RAD waste transportation training 20 course. We documented it as the concern in the last 21 inspection report, took a look at the training requirements 22 and concluded that now they're in compliance with the 23 regulations. So that gives you a feel about how I conduct 24 an inspection. And I think it's pretty straightforward to 25 take a look at the Inspection Report, take a look at the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. f l
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a 39 1
requirements, take a look at the modules, and that will give l 2
you an idea of how we're doing our inspections and our !
3 conclusions. Thank you.
4 I BRUCE JORGENSEN: I guess would sum up by saying l 5
that the bottom line on our most recent inspection, and it's 6
consistent with our earlier visit, is that there is not a i 7
great deal of activity going on at LACBWR right now. The 8
plant staff is very experienced, very knowledgeable, been 9 around a long time. They know the plant exceedingly well.
10 And we're finding that in those areas that we're inspecting, <
l 11 they're meeting the requirements. That's the situation that 12 we hope obtains from this point forward. Because activities 13 will pick up in the future, we will be interested in 14 retention of a qualified staff or replacement in training if l
15 it's necessary to bring in new people to prepare for more ;
16 significant activities which are coming down the line.
17 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Very interesting. Ms.
18 Hylton, do we have anybody signed up to speak or make any 19 comments? We have -- I think in the interest of a nice 20 evening like this is and it's moving along as quick as it 21 has, I think we'll try and wrap this up. We have one 22 request to either make a comment or two. Okay. I think i 23 I'll have Paul Roger come down and we'll open it up.
24 Questions? Again, if you have a question, please state your j 25 name and spell it for the court reporter. You'll have to --
I i
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40 i l
1 you'll have to speak -- you'll have to speak so she can be ]
l 2 able to hear it down here. Okay.
3 LAWRENCE DELMONT BUTTERFIELD: My mane is Lawrence 4 Delmont Butterfield, L-a-w-r-e-n-c-e, D-e-1-m-o-n-t, l
5 B-u-t-t-e-r-f-i-e-1-d. I reside at 26 American Heritage, l 6 DeSoto, Wisconsin. My question goes to the NRC. I have a l
7 background as a nuclear engineer working for a company of 8 utility prior to my retirement. I'm well aware of the 9 monies that.have been put into the Federal Government, the 10 requirement that Congress gave the Department of Energy to 11 take this fuel by the year 1998. From Mr. Christian's 12 presentation tonight, his earliest hope is that somebody 13 will be able to take it by the year 2003, whether that was 14 for interim storage or for permanent, who knows. My 15 question is, what is the NRC's opinion, and what are they 16 doing to try and encourage DOE to fulfill a law? Because I 17 as an individual citizen or in my public responsibilities 18 did not follow the law, Sheriff Banta would have me in his 19 facility tonight. And yet DOE has no responsibility, does 20 not seem to have any responsibility to the public or to 21 Congress.
22 PAUL HARRIS: That's a fair question. That's a 23 very fair question. The NRC does the environmental reviews 24 and on safety reviews associated with Yucca Mountain site, 25 and we have a whole organization that is reviewing that --
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1 41 '
1 that activity.
We are under the Atomic Energy Acts
{ 2 responsible for assuring public health and safety by 3
monitoring -- by. inspecting and providing regulatory 4 oversight of operating power plants. It'is, you might want 5
to say, unfortunate that that is our mandates and that is 6 required.by law.- We don't have the authority, nor the legal 7
responsibility to help the Department of Energy direct their 1 l
{
8 activities at that-facility, and that's the answer to your I l
9 question. l 10 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Okay, Doctor?
i 11 KATE RUTHERFORD:
Kate Rutherford, K-a-t-e, i 12 R-u-t-h-e-r-f-o-r-d. Do you want an address, too?
13 l
PAUL HARRIS: No, it's not necessary.
14 KATE RUTHERFORD: Okay, I have four questions.
15 COURT REPORTER: Dr. Rutherford, would you do me 16 the favor of coming a little bit closer? You could stand in
'17 the' aisle and-that would be fine, I can hear you. But when l 18 you're sitting down, it's a little difficult. Thank you. i 19 KATE RUTHERFORD: Why such a long decomposition 20 time of 60 years? We've lost _all the people that started 21- it, the investment is lost, why? Is it --
and is it because 22 you're waiting for a safe place to take it to?
23 PAUL HARRIS: Well, your first question is in 60 24 years. When we proposed rule making for 60 years, we 25 determined that to be reasonable date based upon probably a ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 l
42 1 number of considerations. The first of which is it's ten 2 half lifes for cobalt 60, which has a half life of 5.27 3 years. So that, in fact, gets rid of a large gamma emitter, 4 which is a primary component of the occupational exposure.
5 Sixty years is also determined to be reasonable in that 6 initial short-lived isotopes have decayed away. And that's 7 the marginal return on waiting any longer, is the not 8 resulting in that benefit. Our generic environmental impact 9 statements, which I've showed on my slide, we did take a 10 look at that 60 years from the ability of a licensee to 11 retain qualified individuals, decommission plants, and we 12 determined that that was not a significant factor that would 13 have us reduce that time table to within 60 years.
14 KATE RUTHERFORD: And the second part, do you have 15 a safe place yet to take what's here to store it away from 16 here?
17 PAUL HARRIS: There is a number of safe facilities 18 in the United States for safe storage of spent fuel. Those 19 facilities are interim storage facilities. If we went 20 through our licensing process with Lacrosse, Lacrosse could 21 transfer their fuel to another licensed storage facility.
22 However, that again would be an interim storage facility and 23 not a long term geological depository, such as Yucca 24 Mountain.
25 RICHARD DUDLEY: And also the -- low level ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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I 43 1
radioactive waste that would be generated by the 2
decommissioning at the Lacrosse reactor, there are licensed 3
safe facilities available today for the shipment of that low 4 level radioactive waste. And my name is Richard Dudley.
5 I'm with the Regulatory Commission. I'll spell my name for 6 you later.
7 COURT REPORTER: I have it. Thank you.
8 PAUL HARRIS: Okay. You had two more?
9 KATE RUTHERFORD: Yeah. The statement on your 10 GEIS Report, I think it was Mr. Harris. When you say, 11
" generally decomposition -- decommissioning has a positive 12 environmental impact." What isn't safe about it? Could you 13 specifically say why you use the term " generally"? l 14 PAUL HARRIS: I wish life was black-and-white in 15 that I could say, for all intents and purposes that most of 16 your statement was generally in a positive environmental 17 impact. In the aggregate, yes, it is a positive 18 environmental impact. We're removing radioactivity from the 19 sites, processing it, disposing of it in a licensed burial 20 facility. That is a better outcome then leaving it at a 21 facility such as Lacrosse. We're generally there because 22 there are benefits and costs associated with any 23 decommissioning. If a licensee were to pursue 24 decommissioning on a very accelerated scale, their costs 25 might be a little bit higher. And that would be considered ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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44 1 in'the generic environmental impact as something not as 2 ' positive as getting rid of long term radioactive waste.
3 Another negative attribute might be that radiation exposures 4 -to the workers would be somewhat higher if they immediately 5 shut down and started dismantling the facility, and they did 6 not allow the short lived isotopes to decay. So, that would 7 be a negative attribute. And that's why the word 8 " generally" is there.
9 KATE RUTHERFORD: Okay. I guess that makes me a 10 little uncomfortable " generally." .
i 11 PAUL HARRIS: Generally?
t 12 KATE RUTHERFORD: The other ones. My first
'13 - question here was, do you actually report the radiological 14 levels on site and at the storage site? And then I read on, 15 let's see, Page 7, I think it was Jorgensen's report, Page 7 16 when you say, "As low as reasonably achievable alara." Then .
17 down on the second to the last paragraph you said, "Of the 18 approximately 50 personnel who were issued external 19 desymmetry film badges, 40 percent received no dose, 90 20 percent received a dose of less than 50-something, MREN, and 21 only one individual received a dose of greater than 90."
22 Can you tell me what's dangerous? What's the dangerous 23 dose?
24 PAUL HARRIS: So your question is, based upon 25 those numbers, you'd like to know whether or not that was ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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45
. 1 acceptable or-dangerous?
)
2 KATE RUTHERFORD: Yeah. i' How -- I.mean, how 3;
. uncomfortable would you be with 50?
4 PAUL HARRIS: Dave?
5 DAVE NELSON: Yeah, Dave Nelson. The people that 6
work at the plant have to work around radioactive material.
7
- The annual limit.by.the way'is 5,000 milligrams. So if you 8
take these~ numbers, these numbers are way below the annual 9 Llimit. It's almost'significant - significantly below the 10' annual limit. But we're required to report those doses. l
! 11 They report them for us and I have to. report them in the
.12 ' report. It might have been clearer if I had said that these 13 were extremely low doses reflected in the activity of the 14- . facility. I mean a couple years ago they were doing some
~ 15
'vork and there the doses were considerably' higher, because, 16 as' Paul said, when you do decommissioning activities or 17 . dismantlement, you are working with radioactive material.
l I '18 That means'that the workers are being exposed. And I think l- '19 these doses reflect the fact that there was very little l-20 activity going on in Lacrosse last year.
?21. KATE RUTHERFORD: So if you had a dose of 90 --
22 DAVE NELSON: Yes.
'23 KATE RUTHERFORD: -- you'd be okay with that?
24 DAVE-NELSON: Oh, absolutely.
25 KATE RUTHERFORD: Okay, thanks.
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1 46 1 DAVE NELSON: I -- I routinely get about that kind 2 of dose, l
! 3 ROGER CHRISTIANS: I'd just like to respond to one 4 part, if I may. The question, I don't know if it got 5 answered or not, but you made the comment was, if we waited 6 60 years, the people that would be knowledgeable wouldn't be 7 there. But we have a constant turnover. And we have a 8 training program that is actually approved by the NRC and so 9 on, that we have a training manager here, and we 10 continuously have this exchange of information and knowledge 11 that gets transferred to the new people. And so, in 10 l l
12 years from now or 20 years from now or whatever, we woule i 13 hope that that training program would assure that we still l 14 have people knowledgeable of how the plant works and how we i
15 do these things. !
16 KATE RUTHERFORD: Oh, I'm glad for the -- the 17 expertise.
18 ROGER CHRISTIANS: Mm-hmm.
19 KATE RUTHERFORD: I guess I'm uncomfortable with 20 people that cause a potential health hazard in the' area that 21 they aren't the ones to have to clean it up. It's the next 22 people that come by, you know, like you didn't developed, 23 but you're going to have to train them. And I usually find 24 people are more vested if they're the ones who -- just 25 something.
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47 1
SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Thank you. Jim?
2 JIM MILLIREN: Yeah, we --
3 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Name and --
4- JIM MILLIREN: My name is Jim Milliren and I'm a 5 resident of Bricebury. The reason that I'm down here is 6
because I worked on this here nuclear boiler reactor, on the 7
tail end of it, and I worked on the conventional down here, 8
and I'm sincerely interested in this monstrosity. This was 9 perpetuated on the public, and we've suffered ever since and 10 we re still suffering, and they still don't know what to do i i
11 with this nuclear waste material, period. They still don't 12 have the answers. And this is a good many years involved 1 31 here. The plant itself lasted, what, 20 years.
14 Now, my dad worked for the Northern States Fower l 15 Company in Chippewa, which is powered by water, and he 16 worked there for 43 years. That plant is way over 70 years i 17 old. And as far as I know, the only money that was stuck 18 into that plant was to automate it, so that they could get 19 rid of-the people working there, and that's what the 20 situation is today. It's automated. Now, we've got a 21 situation here where it's nothing but a problem, and you've l
22 got an awful lot of high paid people coming here and telling 23; you that it's a problem, and none of them know how the hell
.24 this is going to work out in the end.
None of them. And 25 that's where we're at right now. That stuff down there is ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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48 1 potent. You better believe that. Now, I'm going to bring 2 this up and -- and I don't want it to sound like I'm 3 bragging, because I'm not. I'm a loud mouth, and you're 4 going to find that out. I'm a loud mouth, okay.
5 I went to a birthday party for Norm Jamboys over 6 here in Genoa. And because I've worked at the plant, I was 7 sincerely interested in anything that went on there. And 8 while I was at the party, there was a bunch of guys that 9 worked at the plant that were there at the party, and they 10 brought up the fact that they almost had a meltdown. If one 11 of the valves in that plant would have worked properly, we ,
12 would have had the meltdown. But the valve malfunctioned, 13 so they didn't have a meltdown. Thank God. Thank God.
14 All right. Now, Dairyland Power had an engineer 15 on a talk show in Lacrosse, and I called him up and I 16 mentioned this fact to him. Well, of course, this engineer 17 didn't know. He hemmed and hawed and stuttered and the 18 whole dang nine yards, but he claimed he didn't know 19 anything about it. The plant was closed down shortly 20 thereafter. Thank God. Thank God for that.
21 Now how they're going to get rid of this stuff, if 22 they take any of it by barge, I'm going to be there with a 23 gun. I'll tell you that. Any of it -- if it's removed on a 24 barge, I'll be there with a gun. I don't know how they're 25 going to transport this stuff safely, but you better believe ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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_ _ _ _ _ _ _ , _ _ , _ _ _ , _ . _ _ _ _ _ - - , - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ' - - - ~ - - - ' '- ' - - '
49
. 1 it's going to be done safely, or there's going to be 2 something done about it. And where they're going to put it, 3 they don't know. They damn sure don't know. And this is a 4 major problem. And it's a problem that's costing each and 5
everyone of us humongous amounts of money.
5 6
Now I want to relate a little story here just for 7 public mention. The 50-year celebration of the war, we had 8
veterans from Russia come over here, and I put up to these S veterans for two weeks. It was supposed to be a few days.
10 It ended up it was two weeks. Neither one of them could 11 speak a work of English, not one single word of English.
12 Try that sometime, it's real fun. Anyway, one of them was a 13 very educated engineer, very educated. And we took him to 14 all different spots in the area to show him what was going 15 on and so on and so forth, and we took him to the Dresbach 16 dam. And they seen the Dresbach dam and how big it was and 17 the whole dang nine yards. And when they found out that not 18 one single watt of electricity was produced from that dam, 19 they said you people got to be nuts. You got to be crazy.
20 Well, where was the argument? There was no way in hell I 21 could argue with him. Yeah, we are, we're nuts. We're 22 crazy. That dam could absolutely be utilized with the 23 generators that they got today to produce more electricity )
24 than that Dairyland Power Plant could ever produce. Why 25 don't they do it? You tell me why they won't do it. I l
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50 1 don't know. I don't understand it. I don't understand 2 what's going on.
3 fWe've got-a major problem sitting there and it's 4 right close to the Mississippi River. I don't want any 5 storage there for ever and ever, Amen, period. It's too 16 damn.close to the Mississippi River. They got to get rid of 7 that stuff, people. .They got to get rid of it, or it could 8' contaminate the whole damn river and then what are you going 9 to do. There's things that are very important going on 10 here. .And I wunt each and everyone of you to know that-11 something's got to be done and it's got to be right, and I 12 don't know if they're doing it right or not. I'm not there.
13 But I , damn Sure want it'to be done right, and it's going to 14: cost us all money no matter what. But this is just to give 15 you an' idea of where we're at. We're nowhere. We're 16 absolutely nowhere. It's a problem here. And if they move 17 the problem to a plant that will accept it,.it's going to be 18~ a problem the're. If we could take the whole damn plant and
~
19 send it off into space, wonderful, but we can't. So, we're 20 stuck folks, and it's a problem. And that's why they got 21 all these high paid wrinkles here telling me.of the stories, 22 but they don't. impress me much quite frankly. Thank you.
23 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Thank you for your 24 comments, Jim. Any other questions or ccmments? Yes.
25 ANNA BARTELS: Okay. My name is --
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51
. 1 COURT REPORTER: I can hear you. Stand up, 2 though. Thanks.
3 ANNA BARTELS: My name is Anna Bartels, A-n-n-a, 4 B-a-r-t-e-1-s.
5 COURT REPORTER: Thank you. l 6 ANNA BARTELS: And I 'm just curious -- I don't
- 7 know much about all of the sciantific stuff, but I'm curious 8 about when you transfer the radioactive waste. I know that 9 the half life lasts for a really long time on and on. And 10 when you put it in containers and bury it in the ground, l i
11- will the containers lasts with the half life or will they 12 decay and get old, and then will it cause a leak later on?
13 JIM MILLIREN: They last for many years.
14' PAUL HARRIS: I'm not a really qualified to answer.
l 15 that, so I ask someone else.
l 16 SY WEISS: I'm Sy Weiss.
17 COURT REPORTER: Thank you.
18 SY WEISS: Tha stuff that they are burying right 19 now is low level waste. They are burying now low level 20 waste. They're not doing anything with fuel. Fuel is 21 staying in spent fuel pools, or licensees that have gotten l 22 approval to have dry storage and there are few of those.
l 23 'The low level waste, I believe is what you're asking the i
24 question about. There are a number of places that take low 25 level waste. One, is Barnwell in South Carolina, and the l JJRJ RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
l Court Reporters t
1250 I Street, N.W., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 842-0034 i
. 52 1 other is the U.S. Ecology Site at Hanford in the State of 2 Washington. And they design their picks that they bury the 3 waste in to minimize any leakage into water aquifers or 4 flows of underground water. They also design when they 5 cover up the canisters that are concrete or steel and seal 6 them, they put on clay on top of it to divert water from 7 going into the pits. Then they put gravel on top, and then 8 they put some top soil, and they have some trees or bushes 9 to prevent erosion. In general, we have not seen any 10 problems with these facilities. I can't address these any 11 further because I don't think we have anyone here who's that 12 knowledgeable ab at it, they're not licensed by this 13 particular division of the NRC. Stu, do you have any 14 comments?
15 STU BROWN: I really can't speak to it in much 16 depth. But I will say that there's an additional site in 17 Cleve in Utah Enviro-Care.
18 KATE RUTHERFORD: That's only for low level?
19 SY WEISS: Yes.
20 ANNA BARTELS: Nothing for high levels?
21 SY WEISS: No, high level --
22 KATE RUTHERFORD: Do you have anything for high 23 levels?
24 SY WEISS: No. There is -- there is no site for 25 high level.
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1 53 1 STU BROWN: You're looking at, DOE has the l
2 responsibility to take the fuel that's high level waste.
3 That's the one that they have trouble or at least -- not 4
trouble, but it's -- they have to get it licensed, and I 5 think it's about the year 2002 now. For low level, there 6 are sites to take the waste.
7 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Thank you. Any other 8 questions or comments? Yes.
9 SPARK BURMASTER: My name is Spark Burmaster. I'm 10 from Chaseburg, Wisconsin.
j 11 COURT REPORTER: Sir, you're just a little far 12 over there. Can I have you come to this way, into the 13 aisle.
14 SPARK BURMASTER: And this is about your dry cask 15 storage you're talking about here. These, I take it, are 16 generic drawings.
17 ROGER CHRISTIANS: Those are generic drawings, 18 yeah.
19 SPARK BURMASTER: Because you're not going to get 20 a 25 assemblied cask into the building, right?
21 ROGER CHRISTIANS: Well, that's true, at this 22 point they wouldn't. There would be, possibly at our 23 facility, either a transfer cask or we may make an 24 arrangement such that we could emit.
25 SPARK BURMASTER: So you have to design something ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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4 54 1 new then?
2 ROGER CHRISTIANS: We would have to design 3 something new, or use a transfer cask system that has 4 already been demonstrated to be --
5 SPARK BURMASTER: Just use the two casks, the two 6 assembling like you used last time?
7 ROGER CHRISTIANS: Two or four.
8 SPARK BURMASTER: Well, is there a four one in 9 existence? The last time you used two.
10 ROGER CHRISTIANS: I don't know if there's a 11 licensed one. Like he said in the timeline, we'll have to 12 do licensing activities and so on on any cask that gets 13 developed that we would use.
14 SPARK BURMASTER: But as it stands now, there's 15 ncthing in existence?
16 ROGER CHRISTIANS: There's a two -- Dr. Raffety is 17 here and will be able to talk to that -- to speak to that 18 issue.
19 .DR. SEYMOUR RAFFETY: I'm Dr. Seymour Raffety.
20 COURT REPORTER: Thank you.
21 DR. SEYMOUR RAFFETY: R-a-f-f-e-t-y. Roger 22 mentioned the transfer cask. What he was talking about was 4 I
23 a system that would use a small cask that we could handle 24 with our equipment, that would move two to four assemblies 25 at a time into a large cask outside the containment l
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1
.. l 55 1
building. And we are looking at loading a rail-sized cask 2 with this kind of a system. There's'always also.the 3-possibility and most any of these possibilities mainly 4
require, probably will require some additional engineering 5
work,'potentially design and construction of new heavy cask 6 handling systems. -But we are starting to look at the 7
possibility of putting a single failure-proof crane system 8
rin the containment to handle cask systems possibly up to the 9
size of a canister and the shield that would let us move a 10 multi-purpose canister out to a rail cask. This -- the 11 system certainly can be done. They can be designed and 12 fabricated to handle the fuel safely. The engineering work 13 is in the process, in an early stage. And there's not much 14 more I can tell you about now, but there really is no 15 question but'what --
they can be engineered, they can be 16 built, and they can get that fuel out of there and shipped 17 off-site safely.
18 STU BROWN: Could I speak to that a little bit?
'19
.There are a number of vendors -- there are a number of 20 vendors currently trying to go through the licensing process 21 of having the shipment -- the canisters approved. We have a 22 special projects office in amongst this in the process of 23 reviewing them. There are a number of facilities that are 24 looking at.trying to get them approved and to purchase them 25 in the near future. So, it is a very active part of the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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4 56 1- industry. And,.yes, it looks like there will be these sorts
.2 of casks in the near future that will be approved.
3- SPARK BURMASTER: When you're referring to this 4 multi, you're referring to some cask that -- are we 5 referring to casks, shipping casks, or are we referring to 6 dry storage cask that can be used on-site permanent to the 7 end of time. type mentality?
8 ROGER CHRISTIANS: Right now, those options are 9 there. We don't know which one we're going to use.
10 . SPARK'BURMASTER: I mean is it -- is -- is 11 shipping -- if it's licensed as a shipping cask, it's not 12- necessarily licensed as a dry storage cask on-site; is that 13 not true?
14 ROGER CHRISTIANS: There will be those that are 15 licensed for both purposes.
16 STU BROWN: There are licensed -- there are 17 vendors that are looking at the possibility -- well, 18 licensees do not want to load these things, then unload them 19 for shipping.
20 SPARK BURMASTER: So it would be one license -- ;
21 STU BROWN: Storage and then a transfer. What 22 they are looking at right now and what they're hoping to 23 license is a canister that is suitable for storage and then 24 suitable to meet all the requirements to go over the road or 25 suitable for drop accidents. In other words, license for ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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57 1
transference. And, yes, that's what we're looking ar, 2 storage and transfer.
It's being done, and the licensing 3
process is working out, we will expect to see it in the near j 4 future more of them being licensed. "
5 SPARK BURMASTER: But anything -- anything that 6
-would be designed for this plant would have to-be some 7
unusual thing, because this is an unusual plant with 1 8
extremely small doors and extremely small everything.
9 STU BROWN: Not necessarily. Not necessarily. '
10 But, again, there are vendors and they would have to do 11 certain engineering. But there are vendors that are coming i 1
12 up with license to hold cask. The engineering will have to 13 be done, but.--
14 3 SPARK BURMASTER: There will have to be a special 15 one for this plant.
16 ROGER CHRISTIANS: Well, you -- you might be i 17 referring to the fact'that in the days that have gone by 18 when we transferred fuel, we had to go through our airlock.
19 And now that we don't have the requirement to have 20 containment integrity, we can use the freight door or 21 whatever else to allow for larger --
1 22 SPARK BURMASTER: Oh, okay. So, you'd go to a j 23 whole different thing? i l
24 ROGER CHRISTIANS: Exactly. Exactly. If we get a 25 larger casket, we'll go through either a larger door or even I
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58 1 another opening that we might manufacture. '
2 SPARK BURMASTER: You might just cut a new hole if 3 --
4 ROGER-CHRISTIANS: If we do it, we'll be done with 5 -- with all the reviews that I spoke of earlier, and with 6 the-concurrence of the NRC and whatever for safety reviews 7 and so on.
8 SPARK BURMASTER: Okay. Well, that's a new twist 9 on it then. !
10 ROGER CHRISTIANS: There's a lot of things that 11 will have to be looked at. Some are new.
12 SPARK BURMASTER: Because you had quite a time 13 squeezing it through the last time.
14 ROGER CHRISTIANS: It was put through there 15 safely, so.
16 SPARK BURMASTER: And it was only two assemblies.
17 ROGER CHRISTIANS: And it was two assemblies. And
- 18. that was a combination. That was a shipping cask also, so.
19 If we have something new, it very possibly could be a 20 transfer' cask system for loading a larger cask in the 1 21 containment building, so that's still to be decided.
22 SPARK BURMASTER: And then Dr. Raffety was talking 23 about some sort of transferring outside of the plant?
24 ROGER CHRISTIANS: There's a -- one design that 25 would have a cask with perhaps four assemblies in it that ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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59 1-would come out and mate up with a cask outdoors, or we might
-2 ~ build a building'around it temporarily, and that would then _
3 mate with this and -- and deposit the four in there and 4
cover would rotate and so on and so forth.
5- SPARK-BURMASTER: So you'd need some kind of 6-concrete building'for gamma shielding if you're talking i
7 about --
l 8
ROGER CHRISTIANS: .The shielding is -- is'part of t
- 9. the. design of the transfer cask, and so it wouldn't need a
'10 shielded building, no, i i
11 SPARK BURMASTER: It sounds expensive.
12 1.
COURT REPORTER: Sir, could I get you to spell 13 your name for me, please?
l 14~ SPARK BURMASTER: B-u-r-m-a-s-t-e-r.
! 15 COURT REPORTER: Thank you.
1 And your first name?
.16- SPARK BURMASTER: Spark.
17 COURT REPORTER: Spark, okay. Thank you.
j 18 KATE RUTHERFORD: Sounds like we have gotten 19 'ourselves in'a hell of mess and I hope you can get us out of 20_ this safely, i
21 ROGER CHRISTIANS: There are plants that have 22 completed dismantlement, decommissioning successfully, and l
23 so the industry is getting experience in this, and -- and, L 24 yes, I think we can -- we can do that.
l 25 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Thank you. Any other l
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e 60 1 comments or questions? *
-2 JIM MILLIREN: I --
it was rumored to me that they 3_ fwere going to put another generator in the nuclear plant and 4 operate them both with gas power.
5 ROGER CHRISTIANS: At one time we had looked at 6 . repowering the facility with a gas -- the exhaust heat 7' actually from a gas turbine. And using the. exhaust heat to 8 generate steam for our turbine, and that has not been 9 pursued much beyond just looking at it. At this point, it's 10 on the -- the furthest back burner if it's at all alive.
11 SHERIFF GEOFFREY BANTA: Any other questions or 12 comments? If not, I want to thank you all for taking the 13- time to come. It's such a beautiful evening. We probably 14 .should have all been out golfing somewhere. And, again, I 15 encourage you to stick around. The NRC people will be here 16 for awhile and'Dairyland people should be here if you want 17 to ask them any questions. I'm sure they'll be glad to see 18 'you. Thanks again for coming.
19 (Whereupon, at 8:40 p.m., the meeting was 20 concluded.]
21'
'22 23 24 25 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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O CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached description of a i.
meeting of:the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:
TITLE OF MEETING:
PUBLIC MEETING - LACROSSE BOILER WATER REACTOR PLACE;OF MEETING: Viroqua, Wisconsin DATE OF MEETING: Wednesday, May 13, 1998 was held as'herein appears, is a true and accurate record of
- the meeting, and that this is the original transcript thereof taken. stenographically by me, thereafter reduced to 1
typewriting by me.or under the direction of the court !
,2 porting; company.
Transcriber:
Reporter: Janet B. Harris i
t l
_ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ______.___________________;