ML20236Q841
| ML20236Q841 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Calvert Cliffs  |
| Issue date: | 07/09/1998 |
| From: | NRC |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NUDOCS 9807210080 | |
| Download: ML20236Q841 (109) | |
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Title:
PUBLIC MEETING --
ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING MEETING FOR CALVERT CLIFFS LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION (EVENING SESSION)
Case No.:
, Work Order No.: ASB-300-372 OI LOCATION: Solomons, MD DATE: Thursday, July 9,1998 PAGE I - 105 ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
1250 I Street, NW, Suite 300 .
Washington,D.C. 20005
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1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
() 2 3
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 PUBLIC MEETING 5 ***
6 ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING MEETING 7 FOR CALVERT CLIFFS 8 LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION 9
10 Holiday Inn Select 11 Cove Point Room 12 155 Holiday Drive 13 Solomons, Maryland 14
() 15 Thursday, July 9, 1998 16 The above-entitled meeting commenced, pursuant to 17 notice, at 7:08 p.m.
18 PARTICIPANTS:
19 CHIP CAMERON, NRC 20 CLAUDIA CRAIG, NRC 21 CHRISTOPHER GRIMES, NRC 22 23 24 25 i
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. j O- Court Reporters l 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 ;
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2 1 PROCEEDINGS 2 EVENING SESS ION 3 [7:08 p.m.]
4 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everybody. Could I 5 ask all of you to take your seats, and we'll get started now 6 with tonight's meeting.
7 Okay. I'd like to welcome all of you to the 8 Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public meeting on the scope 9 of the environmental impact statement on the license renewal 10 application for the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant.
11 I'm Chip Cameron, and I'm the Special Counsel for 12 Public Liaison at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and I'm 13 going to serva an 'he facilitatory for the meeting tonight.
14 Generally, that means that I want to try to help all of you 15 have an effective meeting.
16 Specifically, what my role as a facilitatory is 17 going to be is to basically make sure that all of you who 18 are interested in talking get an opportunity to speak, also 19 to make sure that the NRC clarifies anything that might be 20 unclear or ambiguous about our process, and finally, to keep 21 us relevant and focused and on schedule tonight, and in this 22 regard, the focus of tonight's meeting is the preparation of 23 the environmental impact statement for the Calvert Cliffs 24 license renewal.
25 This meeting is called a scoping meeting under the
( 7Jul RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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3 1 National Environmental Policy Act and under the Commission's l 2 regulations.
3 Claudia Craig from the NRC staff is going to be 4 going more into this shortly, but scoping simply means 5 helping the NRC to identify the scope of environmental l
I 6 impacts and alternatives for a particular action -- in this 7 case, the evaluation of the license renewal application --
8 and the whole idea is for us to get information early in the 9 process so that we can prepare a more useful environmental 10 impact statement.
11 The NRC's objective tonight is to explain the 12 license renewal process, specifically the environmental 13 impact statement process, to answer any questions that you 14 might have on this process, and to hear your comments and
) 15 suggestions on the issues that should be included in the 16 environmental impact statement.
17 We're also going to be soliciting written comments 18 in this regard, and we're here tonight to discuss these 19 issues with you in person.
20 Now, in terms of the agenda, just to give you an 21 idea of what we're going to do, we're going to start off 22 with a presentation by Chris Grimes of the NRC staff, who is 23 going to talk about the license renewal process generally.
24 Although our main focus is the environmental 25 impact statement, it's important that you understand the t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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( 4 1 context in which that environmental impact statement is
() 2 3
going to be prepared, and Chris is going to provide that context for you.
4 Next we're going to go Claudia Craig, who's going 5 to go into more detail on the environmental impact statement 6 process, and so that we can not talk at you for too long, 7 we're going to take questions after each of those I 8 presentations, clarifying questions. If there's something l
9 that you don't understand about the process, ask it, and 10 we'll try to clarify it.
11 Now, after those two presentations, we're going to 12 turn to you for comments and suggestions. We've had several 13 people who have signed up early on to speak at the meeting, 14 and others have signed on tonight.
() 15 The grcund rules here are fairly simple. What I'm 16 going to do is to call on speakers, people who have asked to 17 comment, in a particular order, and when we get to the end 18 of the evening, if there's someone who didn't sign up but 19 decides they want to speak, if you just raise your hand, 20 I'll call on you.
21 We're keeping a transcript. We have a court 22 reporter over here, so that when you do speak, if you could 23 just state your name and affiliation so that we have it on 24 the record, and we want to listen to each of you, so we 25 would ask that only one person at a time speak, so that we O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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5 1 can give them our attention, "our" meaning all of us.
2 I'm not going to assign a specific time limit to 3 comments. I would hope that we could try to be as concise 4 as possible and keep it in the 5-to-10-minute range. I know 5 that someone might go outside that range. I don't want to l 6 go over 15 minutes on a comment, though, so that we can give 7 everybody a chance to talk.
8 The final point that I would make is that I 9 realize that this is a broad issue, license renewal, and 10 even though we're here specifically to hear comments on the 11 environmental impact statement, we realize that you may have 12 other things that you want to say about process, and some of 13 those issues may be within the NRC's purview, some of them 14 may be dealt with in other forums, but we look forward to 15 hearing what you have to say, and we're going to ask every 16 speaker to come up to this microphone to make their 17 statement or ma.ke their comments, and that way, that sort of 18 facilitates the filming here.
19 Depending on how long we're going, we may take a 20 break, but right now, we're just planning on going straight 21 through. The rest-rooms are out to your left.
22 We do have a recycle box, recycle boxes in the 1 23 back of the room, if you, you know, want to throw your 24 scratch paper in there after the meeting, and don't forget 25 to sign in, too, because we are going to be preparing a O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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(
6 1 summary of tonight's meeting that we'll mail out to you and
() 2 3
also use it as a mailing list for other meetings that we have back here.
4 And what I'll do is turn it over to Chris Grimes, 5 who's going to talk about the license renewal process 6 generally for us.
7 MR. GRIMES: Thank you, Chip.
8 My name is Chris Grimes. I'm the Director of the 9 License Renewal Project Directorate at the Nuclear 10 Regulatory Commission.
11 If I could have slide two, please?
12 I'm going to describe very generally the licensing 13 process, the NRC's mission, and license renewal, and then 14 Claudia Craig will get into the very specific parts of the
() 15 process related to the environmental assessment.
16 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's mission is to 17 regulate the civilian use of nuclear materials to ensure 18 that -- adequate protection of public health and safety, to I 19 provide the common defense and security, and to protect the 20 environment.
21 The NRC's authority is derived from -- primarily 22 from the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, the Energy J
23 Reorganization Act of 1974, as well as the amendments to 24 those acts and as well as other legislation that involves 25 such matters as security, waste, and energy policies.
/' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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7 l 1 Stemming from the legislation, the NRC's 1
2 regulations are issued under Title 10 of the United Statec
(
3 Code of Federal Regulations, and you'll hear us refer to' 4 that repeated tonight as 10 CFR. That means Title 10 of the 5 Code of Federal Regulations.
6 For commercial power reactors, the NRC's 7 regulatory functions include licensing. The license is 8 based on a set of established regulatory requirements to 9 ensure that the plant design and proposed operation can be 10 conducted safely.
11 The NRC conducts rCutine inspections to ensure 12 that the plant design and operation conform to the license 13 requirements, and enforcement actions are taken in the event 14 that we find that any of the license requirements are not
() 15 being satisfied.
16 If I could now have you put up slide four, please, 17 skip over the process description and talk a little bit 18 about license renewal.
19 The Atomic Energy Act and the NRC regulations 20 limit commercial power reactor licenses to 40 years but also 21 permit the renewal of such licenses for up to an additional 22 20-year period.
23 The 40-year term was originally selected on the 24 basis of economic and antitrust considerations, not 25 technical limitations, but once selected, the design of
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8 11 several systems and structures were engineered on the basis
() 2 3
of the expected 40-year service life.
The requirements for the initial 40-year license 4 are contained in 10 CFR Part 50.
5 When the first reactors were~ constructed, major 6 components were expected to last at least 40 years.
7 Operating experience has since demonstrated that that 8 expectation was unrealistic for some major plant components 9 such as steam generators and pressurized water reactors.
10 However, research over the past decade has 11 concluded that there are no technical limitations to a plant 12 life, since major components and structures can be replaced 13 or refurbished.
14 Thus, the plant life is determined primarily on 15 economic factors.
16 The analogy that I like to use to explain the lack 17 of technical limitations is the automobile. If you care for 18 an automobile properly and if you invest in its maintenance, 19 an automobile can last for a very long time.
20 Back in 1954, when the Atomic Energy Act was first 21 formulated, automobiles were only expected to last for a few 22 years, as was evidenced by the term of your loan for when 23 you purchased an automobile, but these days, automobiles 24 last longer, because there are better maintenance practices 25 and people take better care of their equipment, because they ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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9 1 want it to last longer.
2 The same is true for a nuclear power plant.
[s.)\ If 3 you invest in it and you take care of it, it can last a long 4 time. I'm sure that people that deal with antique 5 automobiles would like to think, with proper care and 6 maintenance, they could last forever.
7 Getting back to the process, as a result, the NRC 8 established regulatory requirements under 10 CFR Part 54 to 9 provide for license renewal. The rule, which was initially 10 issued in 1991 and amended in 1995, provides that the basis 11 upon which a plant was originally licensed remains valid 12 after 40 years and can be carried over into a 20-year period 13 of extended operation.
14 A new license can be granted upon a finding by the
() 15 Commission that the licensee has adequately demonstrated 16 that plausible aging effects will be adequately managed for 17 a defined scope of passive long-lived systems, structures, 18 and components. In addition, the rule requires that certain 19 time-dependent design analysis be identified and evaluated.
20 Calvert Cliffs is the first plant to apply for 21 license renewal. A second renewal application for the 22 Oconee plant in South Carolina was received on July 7, 1998.
23 That was the day before yesterday.
24 Although these licenses do not expire until 2013 25 or later, many utilities are interested in license renewal t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
l i
10 1 today to ensure that they clearly understand what
( 2 requirements will be necessary for an extended license for
)
3 future financial planning.
4 If could I have slide three, please?
5 To illustrate the evaluation process that we will 6 go through, the licensing process consists of parallel 7 technical and environmental reviews which will be documented 8 in a safety evaluation report for the aging management 9 aspects -- that is, the Part 54 requirements -- as well as a 10 supplement to the generic environmental impact statement for 11 the environmental impact review. That's the Part 51 12 requirements.
13 The aging management findings will be verified 14 through NRC inspections and reviewed by the NRC's Advisory (G) 15 Committee on Reactor Safeguards, in accordance with the 16 usual practice for issuance of a license.
17 The public can formally participate in the license 18 renewal process in the same way that public participation 19 was provided during the original licensing.
20 Toward that end, a notice of opportunity for 21 hearing was published in the Federal Register on July 8, 22 1998, which provides that any person whose interests might l 23 be affected by the license renewal finding and who wishes to 24 participate as a party in the proceeding may file a written 25 request for a hearing and a petition for leave to intervene.
/' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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11 1 The NRC will be issuing a press release shortly 2 that will more widely. inform the public about the 3 availability of this notice for hearing.
4 In addition, for those of you who are not familiar 5 with the adjudicatory process that the NRC uses, there are 6 brochura on the tables outside this room that describe how 7 for the formal proceedings are conducted.
8 Today's meeting is not a formal hearing, but it's 9 an opportunity for the NRC to gather information about 10 potential concerns about the environmental impacts of this 11 licensing action in accordance with the NRC's 12 responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy 13 Act, as will be described by Claudia in just a few minutes.
14 The NRC staff intends to conduct additional future I 15 informal meetings, public meetings, to keep interested 16 members of the public informed about the license renewal 17 process. In short, I'll be back.
18 That completes my general description of the 19 license renewal process. Are there any questions about the 20 material that I've covered so far?
21 MR. BEDFORD: Are economic concerns part of your 22 consideration?
23 MR. GRIMES: There aren't any explicit economic 24 considerations associated with the environmental review or 25 the safety review. There are parts of the environmental l
[' ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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12 1 review that get into cocio-economics but not explici'
() 2 3
considerations about economic factors.
MR. CAMERON: Let's bring that question back up, 4 too, after Claudia is done, because it may have more 5 relevance then.
6 MR. BESA: Would you draw a better distinction for 7 me between the environmental review and the safety review?
8 Because it would seem to me that if there were safety 9 issues, they would have a direct bearing on the environment.
10 So, would you draw a distinction between those two prongs of 11 that flow chart?
12 MR. GRIMES: Yes. Well, I'll try to.
13 The safety review really gets to the plant design 14 and operation that provides for the barriers that prevent l
() 15 radioactive materials from escaping or that control them and 16 their release, and so, it's more of a review of the systems 17 and the plant operation.
18 The environmental review really gets to the 19 impacts -- that is, what does the plant operation do to the 20 environment, the aquatics, the surrounding environments, and 21 it looks at the other side of that.
22 MR. BESA: Is this a distinction that's new l 23 relative to your new regulations, or has this always 1
24 existed?
25 MR. GRIMES: This has been -- this is the same ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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'l practice that we used during the original licensing.
2 MR. CAMERON: Yes, sir.
{}
3 MR. RUSSO: What about the public health impact?
-4 MR. GRIMES: In what way, sir?
5 MR. RUSSO: In your safety, your environmental 6 considerations, what about the impact to public health of 7 ' running a nuclear reactor?
8 MR. GRIMES: We look at public healrh primarily l 9 from the standpoint of whether or not there are adequate 10 standards that have been identified to control the release 11 of radioactive materials.
12 MR. RUSSO: You do release radioactive material.
13 MR. GRIMES: Yes. And between the NRC and the 14 EPA, we 1cok at whether or not those standards are
() 15 satisfactory for public health, but we don't address the 16 standards on a plant-by-plant basis.
17 Those are addressed as part of rule-making where 18 we establianed what the thresholds are for allowable release l
19 limits. l 20 MR. CAMERON: Any other questions? When we get 21_ through the presentations, some of this may become clearer, 22 and if we need any clarifying, we'll do that. Any other 23 questions before we go on to the environmental side of 24 things? And then you'll have a chance to ask questions on 25 that part.
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14 1 [No response.)
MR. CAMERON: Okay.
( 2 Well, let's go to Claudia 3 Craig for the environmental impact statement process.
4 MS. CRAIG: Good evening. My name is Claudia 5 Craig. I'm the Environmental Project Manager for the 6 Calvert Cliffs license renewal project. I work in the 7 Generic Issues and Environmental Projects Branch within the 8 Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
9 First of all, I'd like to thank you all for coming 10 out this evening and sharing part of your evening with us.
11 I know it's taking time out of your personal time, but we 12 appreciate your interest and comments in the process.
13 What I'm going to do tonight is go through the 14 NEPA process, the National Environmental Policy Act process, 15 what it requires us to do as a Federal agency, how that 16 translates into the NRC's regulations in 10 CFR Part 51, and 17 then how that relates to the Calvert Cliffs license renewal 18 application.
19 Slide number five, please?
20 NEPA was enacted in 1969. NEPA requires Federal 21 agencies to use a systematic approach to consider 22 environmental impacts in its decision-making.
23 It's important to note that NEPA is a disclosure 24 statute. It requires Federal agencies to disclose 25 information to help it make a better decision. It's not the l
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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15 1 sole decision factor in license renewal. It's not the solt
() 2 3
decision factor in other Federal actions.
of the decision-making process.
It's just a piece 4 A NEPA review would result in a number of 5 different kinds of documents. Environmental assessments are 6 limited-scope environmental reviews that look at the impacts 7 of a proposed action, and they determine whether you need to 8 move on into a more detailed environmental impact 9 statements.
10 There are generic environmental impact statements 11 written for generic issues that can be used in a wide 12 variety of cases.
13 There are supplemental environmental impact 14 statements, where maybe an environmental impact statement Q'
\ ,/ 15 was written several years and then there's new information 16 that they need to add to it. They will supplement that 17 environmental impact statement.
18 EIS's are required for major Federal actions.
19 License renewal is considered a major Federal action.
20 Next slide, please.
21 There are certain steps and processes that we need 22 to follow as a Federal agency every time we go through an 23 EIS process, and these would be the same for the NRC when 24 they write an EIS or the FAA or Department of Energy or any 25 Federal agency that goes through this NEPA process.
O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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16 1 The first step in it is the notice of intent, and l
() 2 3
this is a public notice that's noticed in the Federal Register that lets the public know that the Federai agency 4 is going to write an EIS on a proposed action.
5 It identifies what the proposed action is, points 6 of contacts, whether public meetings such as this will be 7 held, where and when, it identifies points of contacts and 8 identifies how the scoping process is going to be laid out.
l 9 The next step is the scoping process, which is 10 what we've started here tonight, and that's -- this will 11 help identify issues that need to be reviewed curing the EIS 12 review, and it allows the public to start participating in 13 the NEPA process, and I'll get into that in more detail as I 14 go through my discussion.
() 15 The next step is the actual environmental review.
16 Each environmental review will consist of a review of the 17 environmental impacts of the proposed action, a look at the 18 alternatives to the proposed action and those impacts that 19 would result from the alternatives, and also mitigation 20 measures, those measures that may be able to be taken to 21 decrease the impact of that proposed action.
22 Next slide, please.
23 As as result of the environmental review, we would 24 issue a draft EIS for public comment. The public comment 25 period has a minimum of 45 days. We would put out a public ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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17 1 notice that makes the draft EIS available to the public. We
() 2 3
would hold public meetings to solicit written and oral comments on the draft.
4 We'd take those comments back, evaluate them, 5 maybe make changes to the EIS based on them, and in every 6 EIS, we would at least write down each comment and how that 7 comment was dispositioned.
8 As a result of that activity, we would issue the l 9 final EIS.
10 Next slide, please.
11 So, I guess, why are we all here tonight? We're 12 here to start the scoping meeting. These next two slides 13 outline the things that we'd like to get out of scoping, and 14 hopefully, by the end of this discussion, we'll have
() 15 addressed all of them.
16 Scoping is a process that's used early on in the 17 NEPA process to help the Federal agency decide what issues 18 should be discussed in the EIS. It's sort of how big and 19 what's the shape of the box that we need to look at.
20 It helps determine peripheral issues that may not 71 be associated with the proposed action or may be outside of 22 the proposed action's realm.
23 It's used to identify other environmental 24 assessments or other EIS's that are being performed maybe by 25 other Federal agencies in the area that may impact the O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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18 1 activity or the proposed action that we would undertake or 2 maybe that we could coordinate with other Federal agencies
[}
3 on.
4 Next slide.
5 The scoping process also identifies other review 6 and consultation processes.
7 In addition to NEPA, Federal agencies are required l
8 to comply with a number of other statutes, such as the 9 Coastal Zone Management Act, the Endangered Species Act, the 10 National Historic Preservation Act. Each of these acts have 11 specific things that the Federal agency needs to do.
12 In order to compile all those different 13 requirements in one place, the Federal agencies usually 14 address these all in the EIS, So, the scoping process helps
() 15 us start coordinating with those other state and Federal 16 agencies to address these other requirements that we need to 17 meet.
18 The scoping process also indicates the schedule of 19 the NEPA process. Later on, I'll go through what the NRC's 20 proposed schedule is as far as issuing the draft for comment 21 and that sort of thing.
22 It also identifies other cooperating government 23 agencies. Those are agencies that may have jurisdiction 24 over the proposed action in some way or a portion of the 25 jurisdiction.
O
\_f ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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19 1 And the scoping process also describes the EIS
() 2 3
preparation, how it's going to be prepared, how it's going to be made available to the public, who will be preparing 4 the document, that sort of information.
5 Hopefully, by the end of the evening, all these 6 issues -- at least you'll understand what we're planning on 7 doing for each of these issues.
8 Next slide, please.
9 This is a flow chart of the NEPA process. It 10 shows all those steps that we just went through -- the 11 notice of intent, the scoping.
12 As you can see, those two blue boxes are the areas 13 where there's public participation, both during the scoping 14 and at the draft EIS phase, and slide number 10 is at the
() 15 back of your package. We couldn't shrink 3 and 10 down, so 16 -- if you're looking for it.
17 Next slide?
18 So, that's what NEPA requires. Once the law is 19 enacted, then it's incumbent upon the Federal agencies to 20 incorporate those requirements into their own regulations.
21 The NRC's environmental protection regulations are located 22 in 10 CFR Part 51. Copies are located out in the hall if 23 you haven't seen it before, and Part 51 outlines the 24 processes that the NRC needs to follow to comply with NEPA.
25 It outlines when we're going to do an EA, when we're going ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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20 1 to do an EIS, how we do the EIS, what needs to be in the
) 2 EIS, sort of the process.
3 Early on in the license renewal process, we 4 identified not only do we have to address the aging 5 management issues and change our regulations to address 6 license renewal, we also learned that we needed to address 7 the environmental issues associated with license renewal, 8 and to do this we developed a generic environmental impact 9 statement that we call a GEIS, and what the GEIS did was it 10 took 1,000 years of operating experience of all the nuclear 11 reactors around the site, and from that, we identified the l 12 environmental impacts associated with operation and also the l-13 refurbishment that would be done during renewal phase.
14 In the development of the GEIS and the following 15 Part 51 regulation revisions, we worked closely with states, 16 the EPA, the Council on Environmental Quality, and a number 17 of other groups to identify issues that needed to be 18 addressed and then to see those through the rule-making 19 process.
20 Based on that GEIS, we revised 10 CFR Part 51 in 21 1996, and as I said, the GEIS identified impacts associated 22 with license renewal and it limited to some extent the scope 23 of it, and I'll get.into that a little bit later. The GEIS 24 identified 92 impacts.
25 .Next slide.
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l 21 1 Those 92 issues were broken up into a couple
() 2 different categories. When we looked at them, we learned 3 that a certain number of those impacts were generic in 4 nature. They were things that would occur at all plants.
5 We had specific criteria, and the criteria were 6 that they would apply to all plants or a group of plants, 7 boiling water reactors or pressurized water reactors, the
, 8 impact would have a single significance level, meaning that l
l 9 it would have a small impact at all the plants or a moderate 1
10 impact at all the plants -- it couldn't have a small impact 11 at one plant and a large impact in another plant -- and that 12 the impact, all the mitigation measures had been evaluated 13 by the NRC in the GEIS and there were none that could be 14 taken on a plant-specific basis.
( 15 If one of these 92 impacts met those three 16 criteria, it was considered what we call a category one 17 issue, which meant it was generic and a license renewal 18 applicant could adopt that generic analysis as part of its 19 license renewal application if there was no new and 20 significant information. ;
21 An example of that would be a transmission line 22 corridor right-of-way. It meets those three criteria, and 23 if -- and a licensee could adopt that generic analysis.
24 For the impacts that didn't meet those three 25 criteria -- and there were 22 of those -- those are the
,Di#
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22 1 issues that need to be addressed on a plant-specific basis
() 2 3
in a license renewal application.
This is something like threatened and endangered 4 species. Those are impacts that are very plant-specific and 5 they'll be different at each plant, so each applicant will 6 need to evaluate those impacts at their site for license 7 renewal.
8 There were two impacts that were unassigned a 9 category.
10 The first one was environmental justice. At the 11 time we were doing the rule-making and the generic 12 environmental impact statement, the executive order came out 13 from President Clinton regarding environmental justice, and 14 we felt like we didn't have enough information to give it a
() 15 category one or two designation, but it will be addressed in 16 the NRC's review in the supplement to the GEIS.
17 The other category -- the other item that wasn't 18 given a category was the effects of electro-magnetic fields.
19 There's a lot of research out there, but it seems to be very 20 conflicting, and so, once there's a consensus in the 21 resecrch world, then we'll make a determination whether that 22 should be a category one or a category two issue.
23 I'd like to make clear that, during both the GEIS 24 and the rule-making process for Part 51, it was -- it went 25 through the public participation process, it went out for D
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23 1 public comment, it went out for -- you know, we had public 2 meetings on it, went through the rule-making phase, but
}
3 that's not to say that you can't provide comments on 4 category one or two issues tonight. Certainly, we'll listen 5 to them, and we'll take those comments back.
6 There is a threshold for reopening the category 7 one issues, and that threshold is the information has to be 8 new and significant.
9 Next slide, please.
10 As I said earlier, the applicant for license 11 renewal will need to address the category two issues and any 12 new and significant information that's identified. The NRC 13 will use its environmental standard review plant, 14 NUREG-1555, supplement one, to perform its review.
D)
(, 15 This document gives the NRC staff criteria and 16 guidance on how to do the review, how to perform the review, 17 what the acceptance criteria is.
18 Next slide, please.
19 Now, the real reason why we're here.
20 The Calvert Cliffs application was submitted on 21 April 10, 1998. There were Federal Register notices that 22 went out notifying the public of receipt of the application J 23 and also acceptance of the application for review.
24 The application had both of the pieces that Chris 25 and I are talking about. It had two volumes on the safety
(~)
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24 1 side, the Part 54 side, and it had a volume on the
() 2 3
environmental side, to meet the Part 51 requirements.
Next slide, please.
4 As we talked earlier, the proposed action for our 5 supplement to the generic environmental impact statement is 6 license renewal of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plants, 7 Units 1 and 2, for 20 years.
8 The NRC's review and the scope of the supplement 9 to the GEIS will include both category one and two issues 10 and any new and significant information that's identified 11 through the review process.
12 Next slide, please. .
I 13 As I mentioned earlier, the NEPA process requires 14 us to also look at not only the proposed action and its
() 15 impacts but also any alternatives and the impacts associated 16 with those alternatives, and that's what this slide talks I 17 about.
18 The no-action alternative would consist of 19 shutting down the plant and decommissioning it at the end of 20 operation. Once you shut down the plant and decommission, 21 you have to replace the power, so we would need to look at 22 alternative generating sources. l 23 In the original generic environmental impact 24 statement, we did look at a number of alternatives and 25 performed some analysis and evaluated the impacts of those I'\ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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25 1 alternatives, but the NRC staff did not reach any ex I 2 conclusions on those analyses.
)
3 So, in our supplement to the GEIS, we will look at 4 alternatives to the proposed action and those impacts, and 5 we'll draw heavily from that work that was done in the 6 generic environmental impact statement.
7 Next slide, please.
8 As I mentioned earlier when I was Joing through 9 the scoping process, the NRC will also identify other 10 environmental assessments or environmental impact statements 11 that are being performed; we'll go through our consultation 12 processes with those other government agencies, with the 13 State and the Federal, like National Marine Fisheries and 14 Fish and Wildlife Service for the Endangered Species Act,
() 15 the state hir,coric preservation office for the Historic 16 Preservatiott Act, and the state coastal zone management 17 people.
18 We've contracted Pacific Northwest National 19 Laboratory to help assist us with this project. We've been 20 on-site all week, reviewing documentation, walking around 21 the site, examining things, talking to the people who 22 prepared the BGE application, gathering lots of information.
23 The PNNL staff are in the audience tonight so that 24 they can hear your concerns and issues, so that they can 25 better address them in their review of the -- and writing of
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26 1 the supplement to the GEIS.
t f% 2 Next slide?
j 3 The decision that the staff needs to make as far 4 as the environmental review is that the supplement to the 5 GEIS needs to contain the NRC staff's recommendation l 6 regarding the environmental acceptability of license 7 renewal.
8 As I said earlier, this is just a portion of the l 9 decision that the Commission needs to make. It's going to l
10 combine this environmental decision along with the safety 11 side, the Part 54 decision, in order to reach the ultimate 12 decision on license renewal of Calvert Cliffs.
13 Okay. Hopefully, I've outlined why we're doing 14 the scoping and how we're going to do the scoping. Now,
() 15 let's get into when we're going to do it.
16 Next slide, please?
17 The notice of intent was issued in the Federal 18 Register June 10th, and that also notified people of this 19 meeting. The scoping comment period ends August 7th. We'll 20 be accepting written comments up until that timeframe.
21 After the scoping period ends, we're going to 22 develop a scoping summary report, which is going to outline 23 the scoping process that we've gone through, and it will 24 also identify all the comments that have come in both at 25 these meetings, the meeting this afternoon and this evening,
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27 1 and also the written comments that have come in, so that O
q j 2 everybody can see what all the issues are that are go'.ng to 3 be addressed.
4 The draft supplement to the generic environmental 5 impact statement is scheduled for March of 1999. Once that 6 draft is put out for public comment, that's going to be a 7 60-day comment period.
8 We're planning on holding another public meeting l 9 such as this to collect oral comments, and then there will 10 also be a written comment period deadline, and we're 11 scheduled to finalize the supplement to the GE1S in November 12 of 1999, and I should say, in that supplement to the GEIS, 13 we will address the comments that are brought up during the 14 draft GEIS.
15 Next slide?
16 Public participation is key to the NEPA process.
17 That's why we're all here tonight and this afternoon. We're 18 looking for comments from the public at several different 19 places, as we've talked about.
20 First of all, this evening, we'll take your 21 comments and examine them and go back and work. We'll 22 review the written comments that will be provided by August 23 7th, and you're also invited to participate in the comment 24 period for the draft GEIS.
25 Next slide.
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28 1 So, how can you provide input? I'm the point of
() 2 3
contact for the NRC.
public document room in Washington and also at the local There are documents located in the 4 public document room located at the Prince Frederick 5 Library. You can provide comments via regular mail, e-mail, 6 or provide oral comments tonight.
7 There's a single sheet back on the information 8 table that lists out all these points of contact, with the 9 addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, that sort of 10 thing. So, please feel free to take one. And there's lots 11 of other information out there in the hall, and we invite 12 you to take it and read it.
13 Next slide, slide three.
14 Again, today's meeting is in support of the
) 15 scoping process for the environmental piece of the license 16 renewal application. It's part of the overall process. The 17 process for Calvert Cliffs has just begun, so we encourage 18 you to help us by providing us information. I can't stress 19 how important it is that you get involved and let us know 20 what the issues are that are important to you.
21 Thank you for your attention. If there are any 22 clarifying questions --
23 MR. CAMERON: Could we revisit the comment -- the I
24 question -- earlier question about how economics -- how !
25 economic concerns are considered in the EIS process?
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29 1 MS. CRAIG: As far as the socio-economic impacts,
() 2 3
those were considered categccy one issues, but that's not to say that people can't provide commenta on those category one l
1 l 4 issues tonight. As far as other economic questions, I don't 5 think the GEIS addressed thoce.
6 MR. CAMERON: Yes, sir.
7 MR. BEDFORD: In the application, do they -- does 8 BG&E list what retro-fitting they are going to propose to do 9 for the 20-year license? Is there a list of steps they're 1
1 10 going to do for equipment?
l 11 MR, CAMERON: State your name, Bart, for the l
l 12 record, 13 MR. DOROSHUK: My name is Bart Doroshuk, and I'm 14 the Project Director of the license renewal project, and in (f 15 the application, we have outlined every step that we are l 16 taking with respect to the management of plant aging for 1
17 every system, structure, and component required to be 18 evaluated in license renewal.
19 So, there is a detailed list of all the activities 20 we're going to be taking.
21 MR. BEDFORD: Is there a cost associated with 22 those?
23 MR. DOROSHUK: No , there was no requirement to 24 report a cost of performing the activities in the 25 application for the NRC review.
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30 1 Thank you.
() 2 3
MR. CAMERON:
is publicly available for people who do want to see it.
And that license renewal application 4 Yes, ma'am. Would you mind coming up just so that 5 we can, you know, make sure that we all hear the question?
6 MS. EBENREH: My name is Sara Ebenreh, and I'm a 7 citizen in Calvert County. I live near Prince Frederick.
l 8 I always have a concern that the impacts focus on 9 the particular plant and the particular environmental area, 10 which is logical, but not on the issue of nuclear waste left 11 for future generations. Can you tell me whether that latter 12 issue is included in your impact statement?
I 13 MR. CAMERON: That's a good question that I think 14 Claudia will go into.
O 15 MS. CRAIG: I might add that, at the back of your
( /
16 package, there are two slides that have environmental impact 17 headings, and those are the general headings of both the 18 category one and category two impacts.
19 If you're interested in seeing the specific 92 20 issues that were addressed in the generic environmental 21 impact statement, those are contained in 10 CFR Part 51.
22 There's a whole table in the back of 10 CFR Part 51 which 23 lays out each issue and why it was either considered a 24 category one or a category two issue. !
l 25 I can't remember 92 issues, so I have to cheat and 1
[)
\_/
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31 1 use the sheet, and you can never find it when you want it.
() 2 3
There is a whole section on uranium fuel cycle and waste management at the back, and there are a number of impacts 4 that are identified, and the Commission, in going through 5 the rule-making, identified all but one of those as a 6 category one issue.
7 The one category two issue that would be addressed 8 on a plant-specific basis is transportation, and the 9 Commission is undergoing rule-making. It's going to start 10 rule-making to address that issue specifically.
11 So, if you're interested in seeing the specific 12 issues, I'd encourage you to look at the actual, you know, 13 table, and then you can pull out the specific issues you're 14 interested in, and I'd be more than happy to talk with you O
(,j 15 after you do that so that maybe we can narrow it down a 16 little bit.
17 MR. CAMERON: Waste disposal was considered in the 18 EIS process.
19 MS. CRAIG: Yes. There's the Waste Confidence Act 20 which the Commission -- I'm not sure how they -- they vote 21 on it, but they've basically stated that they're confident 22 that a repository site will be developed in the future and 23 that the waste is being --
24 MS. EBENREH; I lack confidence in that 25 MR. CAMERON: I'm sure we're going to Le-4 3re I'h ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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32 1 during the comment period, and one of our staff is notifying A
2 us that the list of issues will be available outside for
()
3 people who want to take a look at that.
4 Okay.
l 5 Now, let's get on with some more clarifying 6 questions.
7 Yes, ma'am.
8 MS. CRAIG: I think she's going to need to speak 9 into the mike.
10 MR. CAMERON: Will you come up and -- I hate to 11 have you do it, but otherwise we're not going to be able to 12 hear you. And I would just ask you -- we are going to have 13 a comment period, so if you have comments, save them for 14 then. If you have a question, let's do it now.
(_j 15 MS. DELLINGER: I have a question. My name is Kay 16 Dellinger.
17 Nuclear waste lasts for at least a half-a-million l 18 years. There is no safe way to dispose of nuclear waste.
19 There's no way for seeing in the future that will be safe to 20 dispose of nuclear waste.
21 So, I want to know how you can give any nuclear 22 power plant a license to operate.
23 MR. GRIMES: As Claudia mentioned, all of the work 24 that we do stems from the legislation that was given to us 25 by Congress, which includes a Nuclear Waste Confidence Act, I
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33 1 which concluded that there are going to be safe ways to
() 2 3
store the high-level waste from these facilities.
started from that premise, and all of the regulatory We 4 requirements that flow from that are presumed on the basis 5 that can be safely managed.
6 MS. DELLINGER: Does that mean, if Congress says 7 that day is night, it's true, or that black is white, it's 8 true? I find that to be totally absurd.
9 MR. CAMERON: I think we're getting into the 10 comment section, and I know you're signed up to speak again.
11 So, let's do this at that point. Let's bring this up again 12 and make sure that we answer any other questions that are 13 other there. Okay?
14 MS. DELLINGER: I don't think the question was 15 ever answered.
16 MR. CAMERON: Well, it might not have been, and 17 we'll try to revisit that.
18 Ted, did you have a question?
19 MR. ROCKWELL: I just had a quick clarifying 20 question.
21 Theodore Rockwell.
22 On one of your slides, you indicated that you had 23 to consider the alternative of another source of energy and 24 you consider then the environmental impact of that other 25 source of energy? Is that what you mean?
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34 1 Would you ever expect to find another source of
() 2 3
energy that has less environmental impact than nuclear power?
4 MS. CRAIG: Well, NEPA requires us to go through
( 5 that review, and then you have to weigh the impacts and, you 6 know, look at them and evaluate them.
7 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
8 Let's go to the public comment period, and 9 depending on how many people we have commenting, we may be 10 able to answer or attempt to answer more of your questions 11 along these lines.
12 We're going to start off with Bart Doroshuk from 13 the Baltimore Gas & Electric Company, and then we're going 14 to move to the local officials and then to some other 15 people.
16 Bart?
17 MR. DOROSHUK: Thanks, Chip.
18 Good evening. My name is Bart Doroshuk, and I'm 19 the Project Director of the license renewal project at the 20 Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in Calvert County, 21 Maryland.
22 I am representing Baltimore Gas & Electric tonight t
23 at these U.S. NRC meetings, which are in support of the J l
24 applications to renew the operating licenses for Calvert 25 Cliffs.
O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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l 35 1 On behalf of BGE and the nearly 2,000 men and
() 2 3
women who work at Calvert Cliffs, let me express my thanks for the opportunity to make a statement regarding license 4 renewal at Calvert Cliffs.
1 i 5 Before I go on any further, let me just give you a 6 couple of things about myself.
7 A good friend of mine came up, made some remarks 8 in the first session, and said that you spoke loud snough, 9 co I hope you can hear me, but you need to smile more. So, 10 I'm going to give you a token smile, because when I get 11 really going and excited about something, I don't smile a 12 lot.
l 13 The second thing I want to point out is, if I 14 didn't smile at you when you came in, it doesn't mean I'm
() 15 not happy you're here.
16 Now, if I saw you in the first session and I 17 didn't smile at you and then I saw you again tonight and I 18 didn't smile at you, I'm still happy you're here. Okay?
19 Good.
20 As you all have heard, BGE made history in April 21 by submitting the first ever applications requesting the 22 renewal of the U.S. operating licenses for a commercial 23 nuclear power plant.
24 These applications, available through the NRC 25 public document room in Prince Frederick, Maryland, or at ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025' Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l
L _ ___
36 1 the NRC headquarters in Rockville or Washington, D.C.,
2 represent a considerable effort.
(
3 This effort has been a result of hard work by BGE 4 and many organizations across the United States and, in 5 fact, the world. To recognize all the contributors who have 6 assisted us would take more than the time than we have 7 today. I will, however, recognize a few:
8 The significant efforts on the U.S. NRC in the 9 establishment of the Federal rules regarding license 10 renewal, the direct support and efforts of the Nuclear 11 Energy Institute and the Electric Power Research Institute 12 on technical and regulatory-related topics, the significant 13 contributions over the years by the State of Maryland, and 14 the sharing of technologies from across the U.S., Europe,
( 15 Asia, between governments and utilities alike.
16 What we have concluded from all of our evaluations 17 is compelling.
18 The continued operation of Calvert Cliffs beyond 19 the original license periods will provide the people of i 20 Maryland with a safe and reliable source of energy.
21 The continued operation of Calvert Cliffs will 22 continue to be a contributor to the environment by striking 23 a careful balance between clean air and a stable fuel 24 supply.
25 The continued operation of Calvert Cliffs will O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
37 1 provide economic stability to Maryland and to BGE.
() 2 3
The light we need at night, the heat we enjoy during those cold wintry storms, the music our children 4 listen to, and the industrial muscle that the State of 5 Maryland -- that makes Maryland a strong state -- these are 6 some of the fibers of the world around us that Calvert 7 Cliffs have contributed to.
8 The continued contributions and operation of 9 Calvert Cliffs makes good sense.
10 We're here today to look at a specific part of the 11 Calvert Cliffs application, the preparation of the 12 supplement to the generic environmental impact statement by 13 the NRC.
14 I want to provide you with an overview of our
() 15 conclusions and some of the facts surrounding our decision 16 to submit our applications, our conclusions -- some of the 17 facts that support our conclusion that it makes good sense 18 to continue to operate the plant.
19 Now, these facts fall into four categories --
20 environmental balance, safety and reliability, strong 21 regulatory oversight, and economic impact.
22 t?:w. let me start with environmental balance 23 first.
24 In our state, nuclear energy produces more than 25 one-fourth of all of our electricity, but more important for I
f
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38 1 our environment is what it doesn't produce, and let me
() 2 discuss this in terms of clean air, clean water, and the 3 health of the Chesapeake Bay.
4 Calvert Cliffs provides us with a balance for the 5 heavily relied-upon fossil fuels and the effects they have 6 relative to air quality -- for example, acid rain and global 7 warming. We've heard about those.
8 For more than 20 years, Calvert Cliffs has been an 9 environmental steward on the shores of Chesapeake Bay.
10 Years and years of scientific study and careful monitoring 11 have continued to demonstrate that the plant's operation has 12 been environmentally benign, or more simply, the water is 13 clean around here.
14 The plant's strong environmental stewardship and
) 15 record of reliable operation didn't just happen. The people 16 who designed Calvert Cliffs and the people who operate it 17 today have made a conscious effort to protect the bay, the 18 land, and the wildlife.
19 The Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant sits on 20 2,300 acres on the Chesapeake Bay shoreline. Of this 21 property, only 380 acres, less than 20 percent, are actually 22 used for plar.t facilities.
23 If you've ever been on the site, you may have 24 noticed the bobwhite quail, the pheasant, the wild turkeys, 25 the song birds, the white-tailed deer, the red and gray
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39 1 foxes, the raccoons, gray squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits,
() 2 3
all who call it home.
A pair of bald eagles live in one corner of the 4 site, and there is an osprey nest in the platforms that 5 Calvert Cliffs employees built for them. Bluebirds, too --
6 they have had special housing built on the site, as well.
7 Another creature living here is the endangered 8 tiger beetle. The tiger beetle thrives only on beaches that 9 don't get walked on very much by people. One species 10 particularly likes the base of the cliffs. That makes 11 Calvert Cliffs just the right place for these guys.
12 The 500 or so members of the two tiger beetle 13 species represent more than 90 percent of the State of 14 Maryland's population, total population. Since 1992, BGE
() 15 and the Nature Conservancy have been working together to 16 protect the tiger beetles living on the site.
17 Thousands of acres &round the plant have been set 18 aside for this wildlife habitat. Most of this scenic site 19 is just the way it was whea we found it. We think it makes 20 good sense that it stay chat way for the years to come, or 21 more simply, the land is clean around here.
22 All industrial processes have byproducts, wastes.
23 Although nuclear power plants produce far less than most 24 industries, some of our wastes require special handling.
25- Most of the waste at Calvert Cliffs produces .
)
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40 1 ordinary trash -- tools, protective clothing, wiping cloths,
() 2 3
disposal items, some of which may have small amounts of radioactive dust or particles on them.
4 We, like hospitals, research facilities, and other 5 industries, ship this low-level waste to licensed disposal 6 facilities.
7 Another by product the used fuel. This is the 8 solid ceramic material that's sealed in metal rods. After 9 it's made electricity for about four to six years, it's 10 considered spent. Eventually, we will ship this spent fuel 11 to the national repository being developed by the Department 12 of Energy. In the meantime, we store it safely at the 13 plant.
14 Most of this fuel is stored inside the plant in a (O f 15 specially designed pool resembling a large swimming pool.
16 As it cools off after use, we can also store it in a dry 17 facility, where it is simply sealed in naturally cooled 18 special containers, or more simply, these containers have no 19 moving parts. They're simple, they're safe, and they're 20 reliable. In the meantime, it will await final shipment to 21 the Department of Energy repository.
22 Looking to the future, it makes good sense to 23 continue to protect the air, the land, the bay and its 24 natural resources by maintaining the environmental 25 equilibrium established.
[ ANN RILEY & ASS 0CIATES, LTD
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41 1 The recent world summit on global warming held in r' ) 2 Kyoto, Japan, underscored the importance of continued 3 operation of emission-free nuclear power plants in 4 maintaining this balance.
5 The positive imp'Ot in Maryland from this careful 6 balance is very noticeable, or more simply, the air is clean 7 around here.
8 Our surrounding communities are, of course, a 9 vital part of our environment. Individually, Calvert Cliffs 10 employees have made contributions to the community as they 11 go about their lives here in Calvert and in the surrounding 12 counties.
13 Whether it is coaching various sporting teams, 14 sponsoring a little brother, helping out at a women's
()ps 15 shelter, or bringing residents to the safety of the closest 16 medical facility because they serve on a fire and rescue 17 squad, our environment is better for it.
18 The environment around us is a complex one, and we 19 believe change should be carefully considered. After all 20 the scientific studies and considerations that go into 21 alternative actions, BGE feels that it makes good sense to 22 maintain the equilibrium established between the plant, the 23 air, the bay, and the land, or more simply, it makes good 24 sense to continue to preserve the Calvert Cliffs option into l
25 the future.
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42 1 Let me talk about safety and reliability.
2 In 1975, Unit 1 began generating electricity, and
(
3 for the first time, Calvert Cliffs powered the lights and 4 furnaces of our homes, played the radios, and became part of 5 that Maryland industrial muscle I spoke about earlier. Unit 6 2 joined the system two years later in 1977.
7 In more than 20 years of service, Calvert Cliffs 8 has reliably and safely supplied nearly half of BGE 9 customers' electricity. Its less expensive nuclear fuel has l 10 saved customers billions of dollars.
11 Throughout these years and still today, Calvert 12 Cliffs has been instrumental in keeping customers' rates 13 among the lowest in the region.
14 The decision to renew the licenses for Calvert D.
( ,/ 15 Cliffs was based in part on this record of reliability, good 16 performance, and thorough technical evaluations.
17 Over the last eight years, BGE has evaluated every 18 facet of plant operation required for re-licensing and 19 beyond.
20 Many engineers have worked full-time to evaluating 21 the aging of the plant. They have compared it to other 22 sources of technology and energy available in our region and 23 to ensure reasonable decisions are being made, and we will 24 continue to assess this life-cycle into the future.
25 Based upon what we found, it makes good sense to l
I
- O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. I w/ Court Reporters i 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
43 1 continue to operate Calvert Cliffs.
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() 2 3
The plant's excellent track record of safety and reliability has not been built without lessons learned.
i i 4 During these times, we have acknowledged, we have corrected, ;
l l 5 and we have learned from our mistakes.
6 Even as we learned, the standards of nuclear l 7 safety were never reduced, and the public health and safety l
8 has always been maintained.
9 We will continue to be a vigilant sentinel for 10 safety, as well as a provider of reliable energy. A measure 11 of our commitment to continued reliable and safe power 12 generation is the recently-announced plans to replace the 13 steam generators in both units.
14 This $300 million commitment illustrates our
( 15 commitment to excellence and will enhance both the plant's 16 safety and reliability and support operation throughout the 17 license periods.
18 As the next century approaches and we begin to 19 plan for the future, Calvert Cliffs will remain a major 20 energy resource for Maryland.
21 Calvert Cliffs will enable the company to generate 22 electricity using a variety of fuels, thereby maintaining a 23 diverse and secure source of energy well into the next 24 century.
25 It makes good sense to ensure that our customers
, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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44 1 will have safe and reliable electric service at competitive h) 2 rates.
3 The nuclear industry is probably the most j j 4 monitored and scrutinized industry in the world. The range 5 of safety and environmental oversight covers many Federal 6 agencies, as Claudia has spoken of, primarily the U.S. NRC, 7 though, but the Environmental Protection Agency, as an 8 example, also has roles and responsibilities in this 9 oversight.
10 In addition, each state has its own requirements 11 for safe operation with which Calvert Cliffs must comply.
12 The U.S. NRC oversight programs ensure that plant 13 safety is maintained.
14 In keeping with BGE's commitment to continuous
'( f 15 improvement, modifications are made over time to reflect new 16 information on technical topics so that continued operations 17 of these plants maintain the established levels of 18 protection for the public health and safety.
19 These continuous oversight activities will 20 continue in the renewed license periods. At any time, 21 should the Commission find that additional research is l 22 needed, further changes could be ordered to be implemented 23 at the plant.
24 This oversight, combined with BGE's strong 25 commitment to operation -- to safe cperation, and a history ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Os Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 ,
I
45 1 of being able to do so, gives us the confidence that
() 2 3
continued operation is the right thing.
We continue to hold nuclear and personal safety as 4 our top goals and strongly believe that, if we continue to 5 meet these goals, then good plant performance will follow.
6 Let me get a drink of water.
7 For the rest of you speakers, it gets kind of dry 8 up here after about six minutes.
9 Let me talk about environmental impact -- excuse 10 me -- economic impact.
11 Calvert Cliffs has brought many kinds of value to 12 the residents of southern Maryland. Electric customers have 13 enjoyed low rates over the years. The plant has created 14 thousands of jobs. These jobs, combined with the low
() 15 electric rates, have contributed to an economy in southern 16 Maryland that is robust and, in fact, praised by financial 17 analysts.
18 Calvert Cliffs will continue to be a generous 19 neighbor. We have been a contributor in many ways, such as 20 the' tax bills, the charities we're involved in, including 21 the United Way and others, and in other measurable ways, or 22 more simply, besides generating electricity, Calvert Cliffs 23 continues to add value to the quality of life in southern 24 Maryland.
25 For the true economists, Calvert Cliffs, the O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 t
46 1 physical plant, has substantial worth in today's dollars.
() 2 3
The original construction cost was about $750 million.
build a viable equivalent today could take as much as $6 To 4 billion and up to 15 years.
5 As BGE and other utilities begin to transition to 6 a deregulated market and customer choice, we have found 7 through our analysis that Calvert Cliffs can continue to 8 meet all the safety and reliability requirements and still 9 produce low-cost electricity.
10 Calvert Cliffs continues to make good sense to us, 11 and I believe, when you can make customer choice -- can make 12 your own choice, it will make good sense to you.
13 In summary, some have questioned the viability of 14 nuclear power and will continue to turn their heads no
() 15 matter what the facts ray. I think that's unfortunate.
16 We believe the right thing to do is to maintain a 17 good, stable, safe, and reliable mix of energy in the 18 region. The eggs-in-the-one-basket scenario doesn't work 19 well. It never has and it never will.
20 I believe that, when you weigh the benefits of 21 nuclear technology, whether it be for the use in medicine, 22 research, or safe production of electricity and striking l 23 that balance with clean air that I mentioned earlier, l
l 24 Calvert Cliffs has demonstrated that it is an environmental 25 steward for our region and a good example to follow, i
l , ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
I \ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 L__--_-__ _ _ - - - _ _ - . - .
47 1 It makes good sense to maintain the environmental 2 equilibrium. It makes good sense to continue what
(
3 historically has been a solid, safe plant with a 4 tr'mendously successful monitoring record with the NRC and 5 o. .s, and it makes good sense to continue to contribute to 6 our way of life in Maryland.
7 Thank you.
8 [ Applause.]
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Bart.
10 We're going to go to Michael Moore at this point.
11 MR. MOORE: Good evening. My name is Michael 12 Moore. I'm a resident of Prince Frederick. I'm a former 13 County Commissioner, former Chair of the Economic 14 Development Commission, and a member of the local advisory
() 15 commission for the vo-tech at our Board of Education.
16 I am very supportive of the renewal of the 17 licensing of Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant. I'm here 18 to make comments in reference to the positive things it has 19 done for the citizens of Calvert County and for the State of 20 Maryland.
21 As a member of the Economic Development 22 Commission, I've seen the economic enhancements, the 23 partnership that Calvert Cliffs has made here in Calvert 24 County.
25 As also a former Commissioner who has participated l
[ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
48 1 in dialogue with the executive members of the Calvert 2 nuclear power plant who, when there have been any concerns 3 about the operations of the nuclear power plant day to day, 4 if they're in violation of any rules and regulations, we are 5 on the firing line or the first of the firing line to be 6 notified of any of those concerns, and in my experience and 7 also as a resident of this county for the last 20 years, j 8 when any irregularities in the operation of -- the 9 day-to-day operation of the nuclear power plant have been 10 identified, they have been immediately adhered to.
11 I do not believe that the county itself has a 12 safety problem with our nuclear power plant, because if we 13 did, I think the first who would comment would be the 14 watermen in our community, who I have dialogued with on a 15 regular basis, who would inform us if there was an impact on 16 the waterways here in the Chesapeake Bay and Patuxent River.
17 Also, comments were made about the wildlife in 18 this community.
19 If there was an environmental impact, the hunts'r.s 20 who were born and raised in this county would surely come 21 forth and complain about the environment, about how it has 22 depleted the wildlife here in Calvert they enjoy so much to 23 hunt and as a recreational activity.
24 Also, the farmers in the community -- if there was 25 any environmental impact on how they produce their crops, I
, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
\- Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
49 1 would ensure you that not just Calvert Cliffs nuclear power
() 2 3
plant here but you as a Federal agency who is the watchdog of Calvert Cliffs would be informed of those type of 4 irregularities.
5 Again, how about the individuals who live within a 6 five-mile radius, just a five-mile radius of the nuclear l 7 power plant, who enjoy the eco-tourism, the recreational 8 support that the employees of the Calvert Cliffs power plant 9 share with them and participate in partnership with them.
10 Again, with our schools, we look at the social 11 impact that having a cooperation such as Calvert Cliffs 12 nuclear plant in our midst to partnership with us in our 13 educational system with our kids.
14 If we truly felt that it was a negative to s 15 participate in a cooperative manner with Calvert Cliffs, I'm 16 quite sure you'd hear the uprising with the citizens of this 17 county and their kids would not participate with the nuclear 18 power plant.
19 The cooperative program that they have is a 20 mentoring program, interim program to enlighten our young 21 kids of job opportunities that Calvert Cliffs may have or 22 any other new technology corporation around the world, to 23 give the on-hand experience.
24 I think there are a lot of great things that 25 Calvert Cliffs provides for the citizens of Calvert County, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
( Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
50 1 1 since it's a small county, southern Maryland itself, and for 2 the State of Maryland, also the other states and counties 3 that utilize the energy that it provides here.
4 We'd be remiss, the citizens cf the county, who 5 live here, would have moved here, be in opposition of not 6 having this financial partner here. One of the incentives 7 that brought a lot of us here is the lower tax rate because 8 of the taxes that Calvert Cliffs pays to Calvert County.
9 It was stated that we can't look at the economic 10 impact, and I think it's very important to reflect back 11 where this county was first created. It was very rural.
12 When Calvert Cliffs came here, it changed the economic 13 impact of Calvert County to a very positive environment.
14 There are some concerns. There are always 15 concerns when you're dealing with nuclear waste, but the 16 positive things, the regulations, the commitment to provide 17 the safest environment that you can for the citizens that it 18 has to deal with, I think, is a priority that they have.
19 It's a total commitment, because if it wasn't a commitment, 20 they would not have survived this long here in Calvert 21 County, and I truly believe there is a total commitment they 22 will do what is necessary to provide a safe environment for 23 the citizens of Calvert, for southern Maryland, for the 24 State of Maryland, for all communities that have nuclear l 25 power plants in their midst.
1 f ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
C Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
51 l 1 If we look at statistics, we're always so fast to 2 look at statistics, but I believe here in Calvert County, we
(}
3 would be -- we would get hit by a vehicle at a stop sign 4 before we would have a nuclear catastrophe in our community, 5 and I think if we take that into consideration, that the l
6 safe procedures that we do within our community to provide l
7 safety as far as public safety, fire, police, I do believe 8 that Calvert Cliffs provides a more safe environment for 9 nuclear waste that will not impact the citizens of the State 10 of Maryland and Calvert County.
11 Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak.
12 [ Applause.]
13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Michael.
14 We're going to go to the State Government now and
() 15 hear from Fred Hoover, who is the Director of the State of 16 Maryland Energy Administration.
17 MR. HOOVER: Good evening. I'm Frederick Hoover, 18 Director of the Maryland Energy Administration. On behalf 19 of the State, I welcome the opportunity to participate in 20 this process because of the importance of this facility to 21 Maryland's present and future environmental well-being.
22 Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant is an important 23 component of this state's electrical generation mix. Our 24 assessments over its 24-year period of operation indicate 25 that it has an excellent environmental record and is
(~'\ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
's / Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
52 f
1 considered a strong candidate for license renewal.
( 2 We also know that the plant provides significant
)
3 benefits to Maryland's air quality since it does not produce 4 the types of pollutants emitted by burning fossil fuels, j 5 Since the plant produces just under 50 percent of 6 the power generated by BG&E and just over 25 percent of the 7 electricity generated in the state, it is an important 8 component in Maryland's emissions strategy and attainment 9 plan.
10 Yet, we know that there are questions that need to 11 be examined and answered carefully before its license is 12 renewed. We see this process as providing an appropriate 13 forum for addressing these questions in a comprehensive 14 manner.
() 15 For my part, the Maryland Energy Administration 16 will be working with the power plant research program of the 17 Department of Natural Resources to coordinate the State's 18 review of the license renewal for Calvert Cliffs and to 19 prepare comments as necessary for submission to the Nuclear 20 Regulatory Commission.
21 Since the power plant research program has been 22 monitoring the operation of Calvert Cliffs since 1974, we 23 have an excellent baseline of information and experience 24 from which to start our review.
25 Additionally, we will solicit information and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
O. Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
53 1 coordinate comments from other state agencies, including
() 2 3
other units within the Department of Natural Resources and the departments of the environment, business and economic 4 development, and the Office of State Planning.
5 The data and agency comments will be compared with 6 information provided by the applicant and by members of the 7 public so that each issue identified in this scoping process 8 will be thoroughly evaluated as part of our participation in 9 this renewal process.
10 With this in mind, I encourage the public to 11 participate in this process so that we will have a full and 12 vigorous review of Calvert Cliffs, and I look forward to 13 hearing the comments tonight and the questions on 14 re-licensing.
I 15 Thank you.
16 [ Applause.)
17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Fred.
18 How about Glen Besa?
19 MR. BESA: My name is Glen Besa. I'm a regional 20 representative for the Sierra Club.
21 The National Environmental Policy Act, which is 22 that statute under which wa are -- which is the statute 23 under which these proceedings are being held tonight sets 24 out two basic objectives -- preventing environmental damage 25 and ensuring that agency decision-making take environmental 1
/
l t ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
' \'- Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
54 1 factors into account.
() 2 3
When one considers the catastrophic risks associated with a nuclear accident and increased risks 4 related to the aging of this facility, the objectives of 5 preventing environmental damage'under the National 6 Environmental Policy Act leads to but one conclusion and 7 that is that you must deny the re-licensing of this 8 application.
9 [ Applause.]
10 MR. BESA: Section 101 of the National 11 Environmental Policy Act provides that the Federal 12 Government shall use all practicable means to fulfill --
13 quote -- "to fulfill the responsibilities of each generaticn 14 as trustee of the environment for succeeding generations,"
() 15 end quote.
16 As trustees, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as 17 trustees already burdened with the responsibilities of 18 disposing of nuclear waste currently on-hand, your 19 responsibilities tc future generations compels you tc limit 20 any future production of nuclear waste for which there are 21 no viable plans for disposal or re-processing. j i
22 Now, Mr. Grimes, in his comments, used the analogy )I 23 of an old car and how one keeps it up. l 24 Well, I would suggest to you that, you know, there 25 are old cars on the roads that are hunks of junk, and ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters !
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55 1 frankly, you probably wouldn't put any money into repairing
() 2 3
them at all, you'd probably just take them away to the junk-hard, unless somebody else was willing to pay the bill, 4 and what we have here is a situation where the citizens of 5 Maryland will probably be asked to pay the bill, as well as 6 the rate-payers, the customers of Baltimore Gas & Electric, 7 in the deregulation process that's moving forward.
8 The stranded costs associated with this facility 9 alone are $911 million, almost a billion dollars the 10 taxpayers or the rate-payers of Maryland will be asked to 11 pay.
12 I'd like to point something else out.
13 Between 1970 and 1980, the law in Maryland was 14 that spent fuel, these nuclear wastes, could not be stored
() 15 in Maryland for more than two years. I 16 This law was adopted at the time Calvert Cliffs 17 was coming on-line, and that was the law of the land until 18 February of 1980, when aa attorney general's opinion 19 basically said that Maryland couldn't adopt -- couldn't have 20 a statute to that effect because it was preempted by Federal 21 law.
22 The point here is that, in those 25 years that 23 this plant has operated, that nuclear waste has just 24 continued to accumulate. l 1
25 I think that's really significant in light of Mr.
l
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1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 '
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j
56 1 Doroshuk's comments where he said basically the waste is
() 2 3
there, the fuels that's there will await final shipment to a DOE repository.
4 Well, there is no repository. The one at Yucca 5 Mountain that's been proposed has got serious problems.
6 It's not clear that that's going to come on-line.
7 And so, after 50 years of nuclear history in this 8 country, there's still no viable means or plans of disposing 9 of nuclear waste.
10 Now, that just seems completely absurd to 11 re-license a plant to generate additional waste when there 12 is no plans at all as to how to deal with it.
13 I guess what's equally absurd is the fact that 14 this process tonight, as Mr. Riccio with Public Citizen said
() 15 earlier, is really a sham in the sense that these 16 fundamental issues with regard to disposal of waste and 17 other environmental impacts are not even before us this 18 evening.
19 We have a very narrow focus with regard to these 20 proceedings which I find completely absurd.
21 The Chesapeake Bay is a treasure that we have 22 here, and to basically take most of the environmental issues 23 associated with the Chesapeake Bay and also with the people 24 that-live on this peninsula out of the picture just seems to 25 me to be absurd.
O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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57 1 In summation, I'd like to say that the Nuclear
() 2 3
Regulatory Commission must address many issues with regard to the environmental impact statement. Although they've 4 taken them off the table, we hope that they'll put them back 5 on the table.
6 For example, what is the increased risk of a 7 nuclear accident due to the equipment failure from aging and 8 the worm-out components? That's not on the table tonight, 9 but it should be.
10 What are the environmental impacts from on-site il nuclear waste storage, including but not limited to the 12 impacts on human health, resident and migratory fish and 13 wildlife, ground water, air quality, and surface water 14 quality?
15 Again, I'm not sure that issue is on the table.
16 It should be.
17 What is the impact of southern Maryland's 18 phenomenal growth on emergency evacuation plans? We ha"en't 19 heard anything about that yet, but the growth that we have 20 experienced in the last 25 years is far more than what was t
21 anticipated. {
! 22 What are the reasonably available alternatives for 23 the production of cleaner, cheaper, safer power? I hope 24 that, in reviewing the alternatives to this re-licensing, 25 that we will look at renewables, that we will look at j O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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i 58 1 conservation.
() 2 3
I will point out that BGE, right now, is in the process of abandoning its demand-side management as part of 4 the deregulation process.
5 Another question I have, is the steam generation 6 -- excuse me -- are the steam generator -- is the steam 7 generator replacement viable without this re-licensing?
8 In other words, would they go forward with the 9 steam generation -- steam generator replacement if this 10 plant was not extended for 20 years?
11 Next question: Is this re-licensing application 12 actually associated with BGE's efforts to obtain approval --
13 pardon me. I just covered that. That's the last question I 14 asked.
k 15 Next question: To what extent is this 16 re-licensing application motivated by'BGE's desire to shift 17 Costs of running and ultimately decommissioning this 18 facility to its customers as BGE moves into a deregulated 19 business climate?
20 Next question: Again, we would urge you to look 21 at alternatives such as. conservation and renewables.
22 Finally, I would like to say that it's very 23 important that these proceedings also be held in the 24 Baltimore area.
25 Certainly because the power plant is in southern i \ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
's- Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
59
)
1 Maryland, these proceedings should take place here, but I
f( ) 2 because BGE's customer base is located in the Baltimore 3 area, I think it's really important that those people have 4 an opportunity to testify at a convenient venue not 5 two-and-a-half hours away.
i 6 With that, I thank you for the opportunity to 7 comment.
8 [ Applause.)
9 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Glen, and 10 you'*;e raised a number of issues in your presentation, and I 11 guess, in the regard, I would just remind people that we do 12 have copies of the environmental issues that will be 13 considered in the site-specific E.3 and that were considered 14 in the generic environmental impact statement but could be O
( ,/ 15 reopened, and I think that Glen's presentation presents a 16 nice sort of list of issues that you can compare with how 17 the NRC plans to deal with those environmental impact 18 statements.
19 So, I would just urge you to take a copy of that 20 and take a look at it.
21 We're going to go to Ted Rockwell.
22 MR. ROCKWELL: I'm Theodore Rockwell. I've been 23 involved in nuclear safety and radiation design for --
24 continuously for the last 54 years. I have a very simple 25 point I want to make.
I\ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. .
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60 1 You hear conflicting stories here. You have
() 2 3
people telling you that everything is okay and you have other people telling you that we've really got some serious 4 problems, and how do you judge this?
5 And it seems to me that there is a simple 6 criterion that you should keep in mind, and that's the 7 question, where are the victims? You know, when was the 8 last time that you read an obituary that said the died in 9 bed after a long struggle with a nuclear waste problem, you 10 know?
11 We talk about the fact -- I have this report that 12 the Union of Concerned Scientists made, and they talk about 13 the fact that they are very disturbed over the fact that 14 there is a deterioration of quality, and they arrive at this
() 15 through a lot of subjective statements, but if you look at 16 the facts, the criteria by which the plants are judged, 17 every criterion by which you can measure the plants, the 18 number of unplanned shutdowns, the total amount of 19 radioactivity produced, the amount of radiation received by 20 workers, the percentage depending on time, these are 21 continually getting better every year, they continually get 22 better.
23 So, here is a theoretical concern about 24 deterioration of quality where the performance of the plants 25 is going in just the opposite direction.
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61 1 We've heard concern about nuclear waste and what a
() 2 3
terrible problem nuclear waste is.
Now, there are all kinds of safety problems in 4 this country -- bicycles and stairs and everything else are
! 5 killing people every year. Nobody has ever been killed by 6 nuclear waste, nobody, and they never will be.
7 Now, the fact that it remains radioactive for 8 thousands of years -- your body has natural potassium in it 9 with a half-life of a billion years. This has nothing to do 10 with nuclear power; it comes out of God's good green earth.
11 The whole earth, as you know, is a radioactive 12 waste heap made up from the radioactive processes that 13 created the universe and created the earth, and life evolved 14 in a sitz bath of radiation, we're continually irradiated, O
( ,/ 15 and the fact of the matter is that there are data that show 16 that, without radiation -- this is a lot of work that's been 17 done showing that, if you shield -- this was done on mice, 18 where they shield them from radiation, they replace the 19 naturally radioactive potassium in the body with 20 non-radioactive potassium, and they find that the animals 21 get sick _and die.
22 Life is dependent on radiation, it has always been 23 here, and it's a part of our natural thing. I see people 24 laughing back there as if there was something funny about 25 this. This is a fact of life.
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62 1 So, in terms -- when you're judging these things,
() 2 3
you have to ask yourself, are we hearing about postulated hypothetical concerns or are you hearing about real facts?
4 The real fact -- there was a postulated story of 5 the China Syndrome made famous by a movie of the same name.
6 This is when a core melts and it sits down on the bottom of 7 the vessel and it melts its way down to China.
8 Well, that was a very conservative BCenario that 9 was dreamed up before we had any experience. Three Mile 10 Island -- we did exactly that. The core melted down --
11 about a third to a half of the core melted down. Tons of 12 molten core sat down on the bottom of the vessel.
13 This is the start of the famous China Syndrome 14 hypothesis. What happened? Nothing.
(l 15 It penetrated a very small f raction of an inch 16 into the metal, nobody was hurt, nobody was injured, not 17 even the workers in the plant, there was no environmental 18 impact, and that's the reality against which you should be 19 comparing these hypothetical concerns.
20 Thank you.
21 (Applause.]
22 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Ted.
23 We're going to go to Michael Smolek.
l 24 MR. SMOLEK: My name ic Mike Smolek, and I'm the 25 Director of Jefferson-Patterson Park and Museum located in O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
63 1 St. Leonard, Maryland.
() 2 3
The park property is some 544 acres of farmland, woodland, and wetlands, with two-and-a-half miles of
]
I 4 waterfront on the Patuxent River and St. Leonard Creek.
5 The property contains a wide variety of 6 archeological and historical sites dating back 9,000 years.
7 We have about 75 known Native American colonial sites and 8 American sites.
9 On the property is the Maryland Archeological 10 Conservation Facility Museum, Visitors Center, Farm Exhibit 11 Building, Public Pavilion, trails, and exhibits, and we are 12 located across the county approximately four miles southwest 13 of the Calvert Cliffs power plant.
14 We have about 25,000 people per year that visit 15 the park.
16 I believe that the re-licensing of the Calvert 17 Cliffs plant will have no impact on the archeological sites 18 at Jefferson-Patterson Park and Museum. I also believe that 19 the re-licensing will have no impact on the public 20 educational research activities that currently take place at l
l 21 the park.
22 At the power plant itself, the public historical 23 exhibits and the visitors center provide the public with a 24 valuable look at the rich heritage of the area. The outdoor 25 exhibits in the visitors center are very well done. In l
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64 1 fact, our staff has contributed time and effort and
() 2 3
artifacts to -- we have artifacts on loan at the visitors center.
4 The Patterson Park and Museum has been in 5 existence for about 15 years, and during that time, 6 Baltimore Gas & Electric have been very good neighbors.
7 Their staff has contributed valuable advice and services to 8 Jefferson-Patterson Park and Museum.
~
9 For example, their maintenance shop helped us 10 restore historic farm equipment for public display at 11 Patterson Park.
12 BG&E has taken a deep interest in the educational 13 activities at Patterson Park and has consistently provided 14 support to the Friends of Patterson Park. BG&E staff lent 15 their expertise as board members and officers of the 16 charitable non-profit Friends of Patterson Park Museum.
17 In summary, I feel that the power plant has been 18 an asset and has made significant contributions to the 19 historical interpretation and education in the region and at 20 Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum.
21 (Applause.]
22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mike.
23 I'm going ask Kay Dellinger to come up now, and 24 while sh9's coming up, I just wanted to note that Glen and 25 Kay and this woman who addressed a question to us earlier in b
\-
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65 1 the evening talked about -- raised the issue of high-level (q) 2 waste, and after Kay is done, I'm going to ask Don Cleary 3 from the NRC staff to just provide a little bit more detail 4 on what's called the Commission's waste confidence 5 proceeding, and you may not agree with the result of that, 6 but I at least want to get on the record how the Commission 7 has considered the high-level waste issue thus far.
8 Kay?
9 MS. DELLINGER: I'm speaking for two people 10 tonight. The first statement I'm reading is from Richard 11 Ochs, who is the President of the Maryland Safe Energy 12 Coalition, and after I read his statement, then I will make 13 my own comments.
14 Richard Ochs is the President of the Maryland Safe
) 15 Energy Coalition and is speaking for the members of that 16 organization in this statement.
17 The Maryland Safe Energy Coalition opposes any 18 extension of the operating license for the Calvert Cliffs 19 nuclear power plant.
20 Aside from the constant threat of a catastrophic 21 nuclear meltdown from an aging nuclear plant which could 22 make a large region permanently uninhabitable, there are 23 other unsolved problems.
24 After spending billions of dollars on research, 25 the Department of Energy has not found a safe permanent
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66 1 repository for highly-radioactive spent nuclear fuel.
() 2 3
Ventings of radioactive gases both accidental and planned from nuclear plants constantly increase carcinogens in our 4 environment.
5 Nuclear power has proved to be the most costly 6 form of power generation, even greater than wind and solar 7 power in certain regions.
8 In July of 1995, the Calvert Cliffs plant had to 9 be reduced to 50-percent power in the middle of a heat wave 10 when air conditioners were running full tilt and energy 11 demand was maximal.
12 Power was curtailed because the temperature in the 13 deep trench of the Chesapeake Emy, where the plant gets 14 cooling water, had reached 8'J degrees Fahrenheit, too hot to
() 15 cool the plant. Of course, the water flowing from the plant 16 into the bay was a lot hotter.
17 I have never seen a study published on the effect 18 of temperature increases on these spawning areas of the 19 female blue crab or migration routes of fish, but we can be 20 sure it doesn't help the health of bay ecology.
21 While burning fossil fuels is slowly destroying 22 the environment and contributing to an alarming rate of 23 species extinction, there are realistic alternatives to 24 expanding both nuclear and fossil fuel power.
25 Nuclear power is less efficient than wind and
/ ') /
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l 67 l
1 solar power in California. Even in the east, Amish farmers
() 2 3
have been pumping water with windmills for hundreds of years and still run ef ficient f arms without any electricity 4 whatsoever.
5 Solar power is competitive in Maryland for half of 6 the year. Other clean power sources include methane fuel 7 from landfills and composted bio-mass.
8 Energy conservation and population control are l 9 also important alternatives. If everyone would cut their 10 energy use in half, many power plants could be retired right 11 now.
12 Turning out lights in unoccupied rooms and 13 converting to fluorescent or halogen light-bulbs are two 14 examples of easy ways to save energy, and there are dozens
(~h q,/ 15 of other ways to conserve energy.
16 Extravagant energy users could be charged on a 17 sliding scale like a progressive tax. That would discourage 18 central electric heating and cooling of large or poorly 19 insulated houses. J 20 The profit from such a surcharge could fund 21 insulation or solar retrofits for consumers wishing to 22 conserve energy.
23 Unfortunately, most energy conservation strategies 24 of utilities have been dropped since utility deregulation 25 has been proposed. The Public Service Commission needs to
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l 68 1 r9 quire such strategies, backed up by tough new legislation.
I s--
2l4 Reducing population growth is an essential goal of 3 rational environmental and energy planning. Tax and welfare 4 policies should be reversed to encourage smaller families.
5 Public funding should be made available for free birth 6 control procedures and products.
7 Policies that create a large unsustainable and 8 tortured future population by coddling the present 9 generation is neither enlightened nor humanitarian.
10 Richard Ochs, President, Maryland Safe Energy 11 Coalition.
12 [ Applause.)
13 MR. CAMERON: Kay, can we get a copy of Richard's 14 statement to put in the record?
15 MS. DELLINGER: Yes. I can't give it to you 16 tonight, because I had to write over this one, but we will 17 submit one to you.
18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Good thank you.
19 MS. DELLINGER: Now I will speak for myself. My 20 name is Kay Dellinger.
21 For all of my adult life, I have belonged to 22 environmental organizations such as Greenpeace, the 23 Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense 24 Council, and.other environmental and peace organizations.
25 This hearing gives the appearance of a
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69 1 participatory process, but in reality it is not. It is
() 2 3
appearance only. In reality, it is not a substantive process; it is a sham.
4 Nuclear power, like nuclear weapons, has been, 5 since its inception, a moral catastrophe for this planet and 6 for all life on this earth. Every nuclear power plant in 7 this country and in the world should be shut down. Calvert 8 Cliffs should be shut down this year.
9 Not only should it not be allowed to operate an 10 additional 20 years, it should not be allowed to operate for 11 40 years. It should be closed, and so should every other 12 nuclear plant in this country.
13 Nuclear bombs and nuclear energy are a disaster 14 for mankind. The uranium mines, many of which are on Indian 15 reservations, need uranium tailings that cause cancer in the 16 people that live in the areas around the mines and in the 17 mines.
18 Unlike what this man said, there are thousands of 19 people who have died from nuclear products. Many of these 20 people are Native Americans and other minorities. They die 21 horrible deaths from cancer unknown because it is not 22 publicized in the media.
23 Chernobyl showed the terrible consequences of an 24 accident at a nuclear plant. No society has a right to 25 inflict that kind of danger on an innocent population.
ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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70 i i
1 Nuclear power is completely unnecessary. The
() 2 3
government should be spending much more money to fund research and development of solar energy, wind energy, and 4 bio-mass. Conservation programs should be funded and 5 expanded throughout the country.
6 There is no safe way to dispose of nuclear waste 7 that lasts for at least a half-million years. No society 8 has a right to produce this waste that is a danger to all 9 life on this planet.
10 Baltimore Gas & Electric is going to raise its 11 rates to charge consumers for this nuclear plant. That is 12 an outrage. Calvert Cliffs should be closed this year and 13 safe alternatives should be pursued, as well as energy 14 conservation.
) 15 After the atom bomb was made, Albert Einstein said i
16 that, unless human beings begin to think in substantially 17 new ways, we will not survive as a species. Nuclear power l
18 and nuclear weapons show that we do not deserve to survive. I 19 We must close all nuclear power plants and 20 dismantle all nuclear weapons and begin to think in new ways 21 so that our species has a right to survive.
22 [ Applause.]
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Kay.
24 I'm going to ask Don Cleary from the NRC staff to 25 come up now and just provide us with a little bit more
[)
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_ __ _ _ --__ A
t 71 1 information on what the NRC has been doing on the waste
() 2 3
disposal issue.
Don?
4 MR. CLEARY: Thank you. I'm Don Cleary from the 5 Generic Issues and Environmental Projects Branch of Office 6 of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. I'd just like to make a 7 couple of clarifying remarks relative to the waste 8 confidence rule.
9 You can find the waste confidence rule in 10 CFR 10 Part 51, Section 23. The waste confidence rule was first 11 published in 1984, and then it was revisited, looking at 12 current information, also expanding it to include license 13 renewal.
14 Basically, the Commission, recognizing the
() 15 uncertainty of the timing of an ultimate mine geological 16 repository,. undertook the waste confidence rule to see if 17 they had reasonable assurance that spent fuel could be 18 stored safely without injury to public health or the 19 environment, and if you look at 10 CFR 51.23, there's 20 citation of the Federal Register notices for that 21 rule-making.
22 This did go through a rule-making process with 23 public comment. The explanations as to the technical basis 24 can be found in those Federal Register nctices.
25 Basically, what the Commission found was that, O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 P
72 1 given the Commission's understanding of the technology of
() 2 3
fuel pool storage and dry cask storage or dry storage, that they had the technical confidence that spent fuel for any 4 reactor can be stored safely, up to 30 years beyond 5 termination of the license, either at an independent site at 6 the plant or off-site.
7 I'd also point out that there has been 8 considerable study of dry storage. The NRC does have a 9 licensing process for casks. We license the storage, the 10 independent spent fuel storage. So, it's under continual 11 licensing control.
12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks for that 13 clarification, Don.
14 We're going to go to David Hale right now.
) 15 MR. HALE: Good evening. My name is David Hale.
16 I'm a citizen of Calvert County. I've lived in the county 17 with Calvert Cliffs as a neighbor now for over seven years.
18 I want to make it clear that I don't work for BG&E 19 and I don't have any contracts with them, so I stand to gain 20 nothing personally, directly, whether the re-licensing 21 effort is successful or not.
22 The only benefits that we would receive are 23 through the improvements in our county and our state which 24 will only be possible through the continued operations of 25 the plant.
l ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
['- Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
73 1 I stand here before you in support of the l
() 2 3
re-licensing effort because of what it will mean to both our county and to our state.
4 I also stand in favor of it because I believe they 5 have a dedicated and demonstrated record of operation that 6 minimizes any risk to the environment or to ourselves.
7 I'd like to take a minute and talk about the 8 benefits that this plant brings to our area.
9 Calvert Cliffs is our number one employer in 10 Calvert County. BG&E provides nearly 20 percent of the tax 11 income to this county.
12 BG&E employees can be found in nearly every fire 13 and rescue squad in this county, BG&E employees can be found 14 in nearly every in-school volunteer program in the county,
( 15 and BG&E employees participate in nearly every form of local 16 and state government.
17 Tony O'Donnell is our sitting state delegate in 18 this area. He's an employee of BG&E. We have two county 19 commissioners who are -- candidates, I mean, who are running 20 right now, who are also employees of BG&E. They have a 21 demonstrated record of allowing people time off to go serve 22 their community.
23 The re-licensing effort has the comprehensive 24 unanimous support of our five county commissioners, which 25 is, if you read the papers, a relatively rare event. They ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
74 1 also, I believe, have the support of every elected state
() 3 2 official in the area.
As a county commissioner candidate myself and as a 4 future leader of this county, I believe that we will be able 5 to offer the continued support of our elected leadership at 6 the local and state levels as we proceed through the 7 re-licensing period.
- 8 The reason I stand before you today is I 9 understand that this is a scoping definition meeting, so 10 that I want to ask the NRC to ensure that the definition of 11 environmental impact study includes the impact to the jobs, 12 tax base of this county and tne state, the impact to our 13 local fire and rescue squads, to our local school districts 14 and school volunteer programs, and finally, I would like you
() 15 to make sure you evaluate the impact to our ability to 16 provide local and state government, and that's really all I 17 have.
18 Thank you very much.
19 [ Applause.]
20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, David. And Chris, 21 if you're -- are you ready?
22 MR. BEDFORD: Yes.
23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. This is Chris Bedford of the 24 -- who is the Chair, Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club.
25 MR. BEDFORD: Thank you.
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75 1 Well, here we are again, 20 years later, and I
() 2 3
think probably there will be bald eagles at the site even if the plant's not operating, but you know, I could be wrong, 4 and I bet you there will be volunteers for the fire 5 department even if the plant's not operating, but these are 6 the -- you know, these are the kind of -- these kind of 7 arguments when we're talking about a billion-dollar 8 operation that has serious environmental consequences if it 1
9 isn't run properly -- it's pretty amazing that you still 10 keep bringing this stuff up. I mean you did this 20 years 11 ago, you know.
12 The kids will still have baseball uniforms if the 13 plant's not operating, although there was sort of a hint 14 that maybe they might not, and then the absolute disregard (Oj 15 which I find outrageous of the deaths of the Navajo miners 16 who mine the uranium --
17 [ Applause.]
18 MR. BEDFORD: --
is just -- when I hear experts --
19 in quotes -- experts say nobody's ever died from nuclear 20 waste and they disregard the thousands of people who have 21 been made ill, I just find that outrageous, and it's so 22 outrageous, I hope you're going to reconsider saying that in 23 public, because it's almost racist.
24 Now, I want to talk about what this is really 25 about. This is really about money. This is what it's ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
( Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034 l
76 1 about. It's about money.
() 2 3 accident.
The timing of this licensing renewal is not an They obviously had a major capital investment to 4 make on those generators, and Glen's question about, well, 5 could they have kept.the plant operating without those 6 generators, that's a good question. I don't know the answer 7 to that. They know the answer to that.
l 8 And now we have deregulation coming. It's going 1
9 to be the big issue in the General Assembly next year, and 10 it's going to be painted as, like cable deregulation and 11 telephone deregulation, as a great boon to the consumer.
12 We're all going to be told how happy we should be that the 13 generating capacity, not the transmission and the local 14 service part of the electric industry, but the generating
() 15 part of the industry is going to be deregulated and 16 competitive and allow us to enjoy the benefit of cheaper 17 electric rates. That's what the rhetoric is going to be.
18 Now, where does Calvert Cliffs fit in this? For 19 the first time, I have heard a BG&E representative say --
20 and I quote -- " safe, reliable electrical service at 21 competitive rates." So, my question is, to BG&E, does that 22 mean that Calvert Cliffs is not going to be a stranded asset
'23 under deregulation?
24 Is that your commitment to us, that you're going 25 to put that plant out there with all.the new retrofits O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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77 1 you're going to have to do and have it compete in the open
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electric market?
commitment to us?
Do you want to answer? Is that your 4 MR. DOROSHUK: Are you asking me?
5 MR. BEDFORD: I absolutely am. You're the BG&E 6 guy here.
7 MR. DOROSHUK: I'd like you to go ahead and finish 8 your statement.
9 MR. BEDFORD: Okay. Well, I'd like to know, 10 because I don't think so. I don't think so. And so, I have 11 l another question I want to ask of BG&E.
12 I would like to have a total cost on the retrofits 13 that are -- and there are 54 -- section 54 -- is that the 14 correct terminology? I'd like to have a total cost of what h 15 they are going to spend to make this plant, you know, meet 16 the safety requirements, the so-called safety requirements 17 of the NRC.
18 We'd like to have the numbers on the table here, 19 okay?
20 Because if this is what I think it is, which is a 21 neat way of influencing the political process to get us to 22 pay for an aging nuclear power plant which will be taken, 23 you know, out of the competitive rate base, we will pay for 24 it regardless of all the cheap promises of electricity, and 25 this is a attempt to make this plant sort of saleable to the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
\ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
78 1 General Assembly in this deal and maybe even required to 2 keep the plant open or you couldn't make that $300 million 3 investment without this promise, the potential promise of 4 re-licensing or almost guarantee of re-licensing, given the 5 new rules.
6 So, this is really about our money. All the 7 safety stuff is fine. I want to talk about our money. This 8 could be a billion-dollar rip-off.
9 This is the beginning -- this right here tonight 10 is the beginning of a billion-dollar rip-off of the people 11 of Maryland, whether we're taxpayers being ripped off or 12 rate-payers being ripped off, and so, those are pretty 13 expensive baseball uniforms, right?
14 I would hope, in the name of your openness, that 15 you would share with us the real costs of the retro-fitting 16 that you're going to be required to do to maintain this 17 plant for another 20 years. We'd like to have numbers 18 associated with that, not just the 300 million.
19 We would like to see your studies that you did 20 internally -- you ought to share them with your critics --
21 about.what were the dangers and what were the choices you 22 could have made about this plant. That would be a very 23 ' interesting thing for you to do. It would be very opening.
24 I mean it's not required under the law, but it certainly 25 .would be like a community-minded thing to do.
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Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C.. 20036 (202) 842-0034 i'
79 1 I think these are things that you could do, and
() 3 2 this is about money, folks, so just watch your pocketbooks while they're talking about the bald eagles.
4 Thank you.
5 [ Applause.)
l 6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Those questions 1
7 are on the record, and obviously, in terms of this 8 proceeding, there's no obligation for BG&E to pursue that 9 now. There may be other forums where economic issues are 10 considered.
11 And I guess Ralph Beedle?
12 MR. BEEDLE: Good evening. My name is Ralph 13 Beedle. I'm a Senior Vice President with the Nuclear Energy 14 Institute. I live here in Maryland, but I am not related to e~
l
( ,s) 15 I that family of beetles who live on the beach down here at 16 the plant.
17 I am pleased to be here this evening to speak on 18 behalf of the Nuclear Energy Institute. The institute's a 19 Washington-based policy organization that represents more 20 than 275 U.S. and international companies in the nuclear 21 energy industry.
22 Our membership includes every U.S. utility that 23 owns and operates a nuclear power plant, their suppliers, 24 fuel cycle companies, universities, radiopharmaceutical 25 firms, research laboratories, labor unions, and law firms.
I \ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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80 1 Many of the institute's activities involve nuclear
() 2 3
energy, which provides about 20 percent of America's electricity.
4 Today's meeting is significant for two reasons.
5 First, it is a milestone in the schedule 6 established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for 7 reviewing BGE's license renewal application, and second, it 8 demonstrates that the license renewal process is moving 9 forward at a good pace, and that's certainly important for l 10 the country.
11 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recognizes the 12 importance of license renewal not just to BG&E but also to 13 the nation.
14 At a conference in May, Chairman Jackson said,
() 15 "The NRC is diligently working to ensure that a predictable 16 license renewal path exists, fair to all parties involved 17 and resting on the technical merits of the application," end 18 quote, and I repeat, " fair to all parties involved and 19 resting on the technical merits of the application," and I 20 think that's precisely what we're doing this evening, is 21 giving you an opportunity to express your opinion concerning 22 the license renewal process for BG&E, specifically directed 23 at the environmental impact issues.
]
24 BG&E is one of two electric utilities that have
-25 applied fore renewal of a license for their nuclear power
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81 1 plants.
() 2 3 . submitted an application earlier this week for the As Mr. Grimes noted' earlier, Duke Power Company 4 three-unit Oconee nuclear station in South Carolina.
5 Several other utilities have indicated to the NRC 6 that they are also considering license renewal. At least 7 one of them plans to complete that application by the end of 8 next year.
9 Today's meeting has been to discuss the scope of 10 environmental review for the BG&E license renewal 11 application. .In that context, I'd like to take a few 12 minutes and discuss license ranewal from the industry's 13 perspective.
14 The NRC, the nuclear energy industry, and the
() 15 public have worked very hard for about 10 years to reach 16 this day. I commend the NRC for developing the generic 17 impact statement for license renewal. It goes a long why 18 toward making the review process efficient.
19 As Ms. Craig described, the NRC started by 20 identifying the types and severity of environmental impaces 21 that could occur as a result of license renewal, then it 22 determined which of these issues are common to all nuclear 23 power plants. The NRC addresses those issues generically in 24 the generic environmental impact statement which each of you 25- has available to you. That allows the proceeding to focus L .[d l
^
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F2 1 on issues germane to individual plant seeking license 2 renewal.
3 I want to emphasize that the NRC did not develop 4 this generic impact statement unilaterally. It had been a 5 continuous and open process.
6 State governments participated, as did the 7 National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, 8 the public, nuclear critics, the nuclear energy industry, 9 and many others. A number of changes were made in response 10 to that input and chose comments.
11 As a result, the ground work was established for a 12 focused, disciplined review of the environmental issues for 13 nuclear licensing renewal.
14 The same is true for the more technical issues as
() 15 part of the renewal application. The NRC's license renewal 16 rule is a product of several years of hard work and numerous 17 rounds of public comment.
18 Why put so much effort into nuclear license 19 renewal? Well, I would offer three major benefits.
20 One, it allows the United States to maintain 21 economic electric generating capacity that does not produce 22 greenhouse gases or other pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, ;
23 nitrogen dioxides, and particulate.
24 Second, license renewal will preserve good jobs 25 for Americans and substantial tax revenue for the ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
O~ Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
83 1 communities where the plants are located.
() 2 3
And third, renewal of a nuclear power plant's license is much cheaper than building new generating 4 capacity.
5 On the national level, the amount of air 6 pollutants avoided each year by using nuclear energy is 7 tremendous. The hidden value of nuclear energy is being 8 recognized by Federal and state policy-makers, regulators, 9 and environmental leaders throughout the country.
10 Imagine for a moment that we shut down America's 11 100-plus nuclear plants which produce about 20 percent of 12 the nation's electricity. Were we to do that, it's 13 equivalent to putting another 100 million cars on the road 14 along with all the exhaust gases they produce.
f'\
l ,) 15 As former U.S. Senator Bennett Johnson recently 16 said, both clean air and the American citizen demand that we 17 have cleaner and not dirtier air. Dirtier air is really not 18 an option.
19 Under the Clean Air Act, states are under 20 increasingly stringent controls for emission of sulfur 21 dioxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxide, and ground 22 level ozone. As an emission-free energy source, nuclear 23 power plants already help limit the amount of greenhouse l l l 24 gases emitted through electricity generation. l l
25 Most nuclear power plants are in heavily populated !
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84 1 areas in the country that are non-attainment areas. These
() 2 3
are clean air zones established by the Environmental Protection Agency for which ozone and other regulated 4 pollutants exceed specified levels even though these areas 5 get large amounts of electricity from emission-free nuclear 6 plants.
7 Non-attainment status requires that these areas or 8 states reduce pollution in the atmosphere. The 9 Environmental Protection Agency has even proposed capping 10 nitrogen oxide emissions in 22 states that contribute to the 11 non-attainment of ozone in other states.
12 Whether you know it or not, Maryland is one of 13 those 22 states, and that's even with the emission-free 14 production of electricity from Calvert Cliffs. It is O( ,/ 15 vitally important to the State of Maryland and Calvert 16 Cliffs that Calvert Cliffs continue to generate one-fourth 17 of Maryland's electricity cleanly and safely.
18 The NRC has laid the groundwork for a fair, I l
19 efficient, and effective process to evaluate license renewal 1
20 applications. BG&E and Duke Power Company are only the 21 first applicants for nuclear plant license renewal. There 22 will be many others. The rest of the nuclear energy 23 industry will be watching closely as these applications move
]
24 forward.
25 Once again, I appreciate the opportunity to I ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
\-- Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
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L_________ i
85 1 participate in this proceeding, and I congratulate BG&E and
() 2 3
their nuclear professionals as they push forward with the license renewal process for Calvert Cliffs.
4 Thank you.
5 [ Applause.]
6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Ralph.
7 We're next going to go to Eric Jansson.
8 MR. JANSSON: I'm Eric Jansson. I'm the President 9 of the Potomac River Association, and I remember the first 10 hearing, and it was a greased skid at that time, but first 11 of all, I want to make -- correct some inaccuracies that 12 have been made.
13 First of all, this reference to a nuclear plant as 14 an automobile -- now, if you were to put an automobile under O
( ,/ 15 intense radiation for 40 years, you might have some problems 16 with your metals, and that's what you have, a problem with 17 your metals. Irradiation causes embrittlement, and so, l 18 we're not talking about an automobile.
l 19 Secondly, this idea that there have been no j 20 injuries from nuclear power. Of course, the miners have 21 been talked about, but you know, some years ago, I got 22 copies of all the air pollution reports from NRC from 23 nuclear power plants across the country, and you'd be 24 surprised how much radioactivity there is in the air.
25 These plants belch radioactivity periodically, and l
, ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. ,
A Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
(
l'
86 1 when you correlate that with infant mortality, it's 2 astonishing to see the spikes of infant mortality downwind (G)
3 of these plants. It's quite similar to what you saw after !
4 the nuclear tests in the deserts. So, there have been some S injuries, and a lot of little kids have been injured by I
6 these plants, too.
1 7 Now, this is an older plant, and you have steam 8 generators that have sort of worn out, they've got to 9 replace them for $300 million. You have lots of corrosion 10 and embrittlement of vulnerable materials, pipe blockages, 11 and you're looking also for almost a billion-dollar bail-out 12 because the plant is not really competitive with alternative 13 fuels.
14 So, what I'd like to suggest is why don't you
() 15 consider retro-fitting the plant as a combined-cycle gas 16 plant? That's been talked about the past. Why not replace 17 your aged nuclear generator with a combined-cycle 18 gas-generating plant, and throwing away all that waste heat 19 into the Chesapeake and the air -- I mean it doesn't make 20 much sense, and those plants are lot more competitive 21 economically than what you have.
22 As you may know, Emery Levens of the Rocky 23 Mountain Institute has done quite a lot of work on the issue 24 of electricity, and he finds that about 70 percent of all 25 the electricity in this country could be replaced at no cost C ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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87 1 or reduced cost with alternatives.
() 2 3
So, that's something for the future, but in the interim, for the next 20 years, why not a combined-cycle gas 4 plant retrofit?
5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Eric.
6 Next we're going to go to Michael Martin.
7 MR. MARTIN: My name is Mike Martin, and I'm here 8 to speak for a group of people who aren't very 9 well-represented here but who arguably will be the most 10 affected by the re-licensing of this plant. I'm here to 11 represent students.
12 I'm a member of the Sierra Student Coalition of 13 the Sierra Club which is run entirely by students in high 14 school and college. We are the people who will have to live O
g_j 15 with this plant during its extended lifetime.
16 I am 18, almost 19 right now, and I'll be 55 when 17 the extended license would run out. When all the people who 18 designed this plant and set the rules for its safety are 19 retired and possibly deceased, I will be trying to raise a 20 family with the threat of nuclear disaster looming in the 21 background.
22 To BGE and the nuclear industry and apparently to 23 the NRC, as well, this is a question of economics. To me, 24 it is a question of my future. Thus, I hope you will 25 understand why I feel that the standard of safety should be j ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
'd Court Peporters 1025 Connecticut At2nue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
88 1 raised and should not be limited in scope under any
() 2 3
circumstances or in any way.
Issues such as the storage of high-level waste and 4 the viability of the temporary or maybe not so temporary 5 storage methods are of vital importance to me and my 6 generation, and they're being ignored.
7 You may be able to ignore these issues and put 8 them off indefinitely, but indefinitely has a different 9 meaning for my generation. We will have to deal with these 10 wastes or face the possibility of their catastrophic release 11 into our environment.
12 There may not have been any deaths from exposure 13 to nuclear waste so far, but if these wastes are released 14 into the environment, if the temporary enclosures in which O)
(, 15 they are put right now, which there doesn't seem to be a 16 replacement for apparent, if they are released into the 17 environment, that will change real quick.
I 18 The issue of embrittlement of reactor cores which 1 19 could lead to catastrophe is also of vital importance to my 20 generation, and the threat grows as time pasaes.
21 I would also like to note that, as someone 22 studying to become an engineer, I was appalled to hear that 23 the margin of safety set of this issue has been changed, and
)
24 as it was explained to me, the date at which BGE would have 25 been required to address this issue has been moved from 1997 rh
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89 1 to 2039.
l () 2 In my first engineering course, the first 3 engineering course which all the engineering students at the 4 University of Maryland take, I was taught that tolerance 5 levels and safety margins are set first, before you design i 6 or build anything.
7 This is so these standards remain based on what is 8 actually safe and not what fits economically or 9 conveniently.
10 It seems to me that, if these standards are 11 changed, they should make the plant more safe, not less, and 12 if they're going to push back the date at which they'll 13 address this issue, that decision should be made based on 14 scientific study of the plant and of the materials right
() 15 there, which, as I understand it, hasn't been done..
16 These issues and other issues lead me to believe 17- that the current process for re-licensing is inadequate and 18 the NRC is too connected to the industry to be able to 19 conduct an impartial and comprehensive study of safety.
20 James Ricco of Public Citizen told us earlier ;
21 today about the industry -- how the industry asked the NRC 22 for certainty in the re-licensing process and got it. The i
23 process was changed after a plant up in Massachusetts vas 24 closed down during a re-licensing effort because they found 25 that it was unsafe.
O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
i 90 1 1 don't want to raise a family under any threat of
() 2 3
nuclear disaster, but if the plant is to stay, I believe it should be subjected to a complete safety audit of its 4 existing license basis and any other related issues that are 5 relevant by an independent group of experts with no 6 limitations on scope.
7 Most of the people here who support re-licensing 8 do so on the supposition that the plant is safe. If the 9 plant were completely safe, if there were no chance of me or 10 my family being exposed to deadly radiation and no chance of 11 environmental damage, then I could live with it.
12 It may be an incredible drain on my pocketbook due 13 to the de-reg bail-out, but I could live with that. Money 14 is not as important as safety for myself or my family.
'() 15 Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I think that safety has to 16 come first.
17 You could take everything I have, and as long as I 18 had myself and my family, I could live. If my economic 19 situation were depressed, if I didn't have the huge input 20 into the economy from these people, I could live, or on the 21 other hand, if I were safe and they were to pull out money 1
22 from my pocket and I were safe, it would be okay, but that's 23 not the case.
24 I don't know how safe Calvert Cliffs is for 25 ourselves or our environment, but I do know that it's not ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
k- Court Reporters 1025 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 1014 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 842-0034
91 1 completely safe, and I'm afraid that I still won't know
() 2 3
after this re-licensing process is complete, and neither will anyone else.
4 Thank you.
5 [ Applause.]
6 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Mike, for the student 7 viewpoint on that, and I hope you continue to follow this 8 issue as it moves along.
9 Tony Russo.
10 MR. RUSSO: I'm Tony Russo. I have a background 11 in both the social and the physical sciences, with two 12 advanced degrees from Princeton University, a career spent 13 at NASA, the Rand Corporation, and the L.A. County Health 14 Department.
() 15 I'm current retired but in a very active 16 retirement. I am an associate with the International 17 Institute in Toronto started by Rosalie Bertell, arguably 18 the top scientist in the world on the issue of radioactive 19 material and morbidity and mortality.
20 I want to recommend to you that you look up 21 Rosalie Bertell on in the internet. Point your browser to l 22 Rosalie, R-O-S-A-L-I-E, Bertell, B-E-R-T-E-L-L, and look 23 especially at Rosalie's speech from several years ago 24 entitled " Quietly Eating Radioactivity," which is what you 25 all for dinner, radioactivity.
1
[~ ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD. {
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92 1 The standards that you, the NRC, use in looking at
() 2 3
public health impact are not ccientific and they're very arbitrary.
4 I challenge you to do scientific studies, and in 5 particular, I want to tell you about a study that I did 6 while teaching social epidemiology and research methodology 7 at Cal State Domingos Hills.
8 Because of the work I did at the L.A. County 9 Health Department, I was invited to teach there, and I did 10 so for five years.
11 I was teaching a class when Three Mile Island 12 happened, and the students said, well, why don't we try to 13 apply these methods, this statistical methodology data 14 analysis to the situation of nuclear power in the United 15 States?
16 So, we did, and we came up with something very 17 interesting.
18 What we did is we took a time series -- set of 19 time series data on cancer death in the United States. We 20 looked at the years 1958 to 1974, a sample of 17 years, so 21 we had a list of 17 numbers, each number being the number of 22 cancer deaths in the U.S. that year.
23 That's a number that goes -- over time, just 24 shoots up.
25 We had to look at a variation of those data, so we l
('
\
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93 1 -- because when you look at time series, you want to operate
() 2 3
on the data so that your numbers go up and down over time, so that you can see what's associated with the high year of 4 growth or a low year of growth.
5 The average growth for that period in cancer 6 deaths was 6,311 each year. That is, the total number for 7 one year plus the number that equals the next year, the 8 annual absolute growth in deaths. That varied with a l 1
9 standard deviation of 1,914.
10 So, what explains that variation? Some years, it 11 was maybe over 8,000, an increase of maybe over 8,000 cancer 12 deaths, other years maybe three or four thousand. What 13 explained that variation?
14 If you correlate those data with the growth in
( 15 nuclear power generation, you find some very interesting 16 patterns.
17 What we found is that, when you lag the power 18 production -- that is, if you look at power production this 19 year and look at the impact on cancer deaths several years 20 down the road, what you find is a very high correlation 21 between nuclear power generation and cancer deaths. What 22 you find is that the growth rates in cancer deaths increases 23 by one death, approximately one death for every two 24 giga-watts of additional power generated that year.
25 These patterns in the vital statistics show that,
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94 1 conservatively, tens of thousands of people have died early
() 2 3
deaths due to cancer because of nuclear power waste, very likely much more. I challenge you to look at the patterns 4 in the vital statistics.
5 I challenge every academic, every scientist, l 6 everybody who knows a scientist, ask about it, say have you 7 looked at the patterns in the vital statistics?
8 I want to ask you, what about the public health?
9 You talk about environmental impact, but what about the 10 public health? Your standards are arbitrary. Your 11 standards are not scientifically based.
12 The only science behind them is usually a big 13 name, a big academic name who has sold out. They're not 14 based on analysis. I want you to base them on analysis.
() 15 So, I challenge you to do extensive time series 16 analysis of morbidity and mortality and correlate that with 17 your power figures, power production figures and the 18 effluent figures that you yourself publish, the different 19 kinds of effluent.
20 Low-level nuclear power, low-level radiation is a 21 threat. I urge you to look at the recent book by Petkau. I 22 think it's spelled P-E-T-K-A-U. I know there's a review of 23 that in a recent issue of the Alternative Medicine Digest.
24 And I heard a gentleman say earlier today that he 25 had children, that he lived near the plant, and he wasn't ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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95 1 worried. If we don't shut down nuclear power, if we don't
() 2 3
come up with clean sources of energy, we're gambling with our children's future.
4 Remember, the sperm count's going down with time, 5 and when it reaches zero, you know what that means. Well, 6 it's not the only way we can become extinct.
7 I urge you to do the work. You don't have to 8 believe a thing I say except go and look at the data, look 9 at the vital statistics, correlate those data with nuclear 10 power generation, nuclear power effluence.
11 Look seriously at the work of Rosalie Bertell, 12 John Gothman, Jay Gould. Look especially at Jay Gould's 13 recent book, The Enemy Within, an analysis of breast cancer 14 at all 60 nuclear sites in the United States. Breast cancer
() 15 is very much higher in those areas.
16 As regards Calvert Cliffs, I challenge you to do 17 an analysis of the deaths in the hot zones. I live in 18 southside Virginia, but I'm in the hot zone of Calvert 19 Cliffs, within a 100-mile radius.
20 Look at the mortality rates within a 100-mile 21 radius, look at the mortality rates within a 50-mile radius, 22 and look at them over an extensive period of time. I think 23 what you will find is there is a correlation there.
24 Thank you.very much.
25 [ Applause.)
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96 1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Tony.
2 MR. RUSSO: Just for the record, I just want to 3 say that I'm very much against re-licensing Calvert Cliffs.
4 I think you ought to shut it down tomorrow, or tonight, 5 really, turn the switches off tonight. We'd be a lot better 6 off.
7 MR. CAMERON: I'm glad you added that. I don't 8 know who would have reached that conclusion without that, 9 but thank you.
10 Tony referred to the NRC standards. For those of 11 you who are interested, the standards were set through the 12 rule-making process, public comment, rationale provided for 13 those standards, and you may not agree with the rationale 14 provided there, but for anybody who is interested in how the l
() 15 NRC set the Part 20 standards and what the basis was, if you 16 indicate that you'd like a record of those, we'd be glad to 17 send them out to you.
l 18 MR. RUSSO: They're not backed up by data.
19 MR. CAMERON: I would let people reach whatever 20 conclusion they would want to on that. I'm just noting that 21 the rationale for those are available. And thank you, Tony.
22 Tyla Mattison?
23 MS. MATTISON: Thank you very much for letting me l
24 speak tonight.
1 1 25 My name is Tyla Mattison. I'm from Virginia, and l
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97 1 I live in the -- of course, I'm going to be speaking, in
/ 2 case you couldn't tell by looking at my sign here, for the U) 3 no-action -- in other words, to shut down and decommission 4 the plant.
5 I live in Virginia, and I live in the vicinity of 6 Surry nuclear plant, whose re-licensing renewal will be i
7 coming up in a few years, so this is of interest to me as 1
8 far as what's going on here tonight.
9 In the words of Mr. Russo, talking about Rosalie 10 Bertell, John Gothman, Linus Pauling, there are many dangers 11 involving nuclear power. No matter how carefully men and 12 women handle the radioactivity in the plants, accidents can 13 happen. Think of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Detroit.
14 Small radioactive releases continue to bombard the workers
() 15 and the surrounding area. There are possibilities of 16 accidents in transit of spent nuclear rods from the plant to 17 the final repository, should that be found, since we don't 18 have a final repository yet. So, almost all waste is still 19 on the nuclear plant sites, whether in dry casks or wet 20 pools.
21 In my opinion, it doesn't matter how many jobs it 22 creates, the nuclear recommissioning creates, if future 23 generations are harmed. The question of BGE being good 24 citizens is not a criteria for whether a very risky business 25 should continue.
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98 1 An accident will imperil all life in the
() 3 2 Chesapeake Bay.
the industry.
It doesn't matter how well the NRC oversees It doesn't matter about all the generous 4 things that BGE does for the county if the end result is 5 accident or death or extinction.
6 A question for you is about the health. I did 7 - start looking at this manual here that was on the front 8 desk, and it's radioactive waste production, storage, and 9 disposal, and the date is 1996, so it's not totally up to 10 date, perhaps.
11 I would like to know about the effects of the 100 12 millirems per year and the 5,000 millirems that workers are 13 i permitted per year -- what that will do over a period of f
14 years. I would like to know some more details on that as
/O
\ ,/ 15 far as the health issue. It seems to me 5,000 is a lot of 16 millirems for one particular worker to imbibe every year, 17 year after year.
18 Another question is how can you start a scoping 19 process when no repository has been found and the wet pools 20 are filling up?
21 Also, I heard someone speak earlier this afternoon 22 about some of the dry casks that are developing cracks, and 23 I'd like to know how that is addressed, as well.
24 I have another question, and this has to do with 25 national security protection. What national security
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99 1 protection is in place?
() 2 3
Also, in this manual, on page 13, it stated that 91,000 spent fuel assemblies containing 26,000 tons of spent 4 fuel from nuclear power plants are in storage, mostly 5 on-site. Could this highly dangerous nuclear waste be a 6 target by terrorists or some enemy?
7 If so, how is there protection or monitoring from 8 over-flying and at what expense?
9 If you have an answer to this national security 10 question, I would like to hear an answer at this time.
11 MR. CAMERON: On that last particular question.
12 MS. MATTISON: Right. Just on the question that 13 -- I haven't heard anyone talk about that.
14 MR. CAMERON: Chris, do we have any -- any of the
) 15 NRC staff have an answer for that right now or an approach 16 that we're taking on it?
17 Let us let them think about it, and hopefully --
18 MS. MATTISON: Maybe later tonight.
19 MR. CAMERON: Yes, right.
20 MS. MATTISON: I'll stay till the end. Maybe 21 somebody would like to speak of that.
22 MR. DURANTE: Is the question a terrorist attack 23 on the waste?
24 MS. MATTISON: Right. There's a lot of 25 possibilities. In other words, it seems like there could be ANN RILEY &-ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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100 1 a lot of different possibilities, since the nuclear waste is 2 kept on-site and it seems to be pretty well known. I mean
(
3 if I can read it in a manual, then it's pretty --
l 4 MR. CAMERON: Okay.
i 5 Tyla, we're going to -- Chris is going to take a 6 shot at it now, so to speak. I 7 MS. MATTISON: Okay.
8 MR. GRIMES: I hesitate to address proliferation 9 issues and safeguard issues, because they're not my 10 expertise, but since I live down the hall from the spooks, 11 as we like to call them, I can tell you that there are a 12 variety of requirements that the NRC has for safeguards, 13 protected areas, security, physical devices to prevent 14 materials from either escaping from a plant site or escaping
() 15 while -- or being hijacked in some way.
16 Those requirements, I believe, are in Part 73 of l
17 the Code of Federal Regulations, but we can get you more l 18 details in terms of safeguard requirements and also the l
19 actions that the Commission takes to prevent'-- for 1
i 20 non-proliferation of nuclear materials.
21 MS. MATTISON: Thank you.
22 I'll just finish up my comments.
23 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead.
24 MS. MATTISON: I would recommend alternative 25 sources. I feel that we're all grown men and women and we O ANN RILEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD.
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101 1 should be spending our energies in developing safe energy
() 2 3
sources such as wind power, solar power, and other ways.
We can be developing our technologies for 4 Americans to use less energy with a variety of improved 5 appliances.
6 All these alternative sources also provide jobs, 7 jobs which can support ourselves and our communities 8 financially without fear into the future.
9 Thank you very much.
10 MR ., CAMERON: Thank you, Tyla.
11 [ Applause.]
12 MR. CAMERON: We have two speakers left, I
13 registered speakers, and one is Dallas Stull. Is Dallas 14 still with us?
) 15 [No response.)
16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. William Roosenburg.
17 MR. ROOSENBURG: Good evening.
18 Can you hear me in the back there?
19 I have a terrible accent because I'm Dutch, but 20 how many non-employees by BGE Calvert Countians are here? i 21 Can I see hands?
22 Are you employed by BG&E?
23 MR. AUSTIN: Yes, sir, I am.
24 MR. ROOSENBURG: Oh. Then I don't want to see 25 your hand. You have to be.not employed by BG&E.
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102 1 Are you Calvert Countians?
() 2 3
There are very few here, and I think that it is because we, as the people of Calvert County, realize that we 4 have sold our soul. BG&E moved in, and I was there. I was 5 -- I've been there from the beginning.
6 I had to see the commissioners -- and John Gott 7 knows about it. He's gone home, I think. We had three 8 commissioners -- Gott, Grover, and Jones -- and I needed 9 some furniture for kindergarten from the commissioners, and 10 there was a guy with a big smile and a Maryland pin. I 11 didn't know who the hell he was, but he was there and he 12 walked around and he was totally -- had free run of the 13 place of the commissioners.
14 But later, two years later, it turned out that it
( ,, 15 was Ray Bowkamp, and he was the PR man of BG&E. You may i6 know about it. And that's -- already they were casing 17 Calvert County.
18 Then, later, I was in the meetings where it went 19 over the permit, and they had a big protagonist, and it was 20 Louis Goldstein, and the commissioners said, well, Louis, 21 when do you want to have the permit, you take your day. The 22 commissioners -- they had totally bought out, totally, lock, 23 stock, and barrel, by the big companies, and the Calvert 24 County people didn't know what the hell was happening to 25 them.
l l
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103 1 And then there came public meetings. Oh, yes, we
() 2 3
were informed, definitely, and they did that pretty cagey.
They went to the Chamber of Commerce and to the Lions and to 4 the -- all the -- what have you, and they gave them a canned 5 speech, and then, in any meeting, there would be one of 6 these guys and he would give his canned speech, and then, if 7 people wanted to ask questions, they were right there with 8 -- and it will be answered.
9 That way, they kept the opposition off the floor, 10 you see, and only the good guys won, and now, they came in, 11 and what happens?
12 Indeed, the money came in, oodles of money, and we 13 were poor as a county, and the commissioners immediately 14 reacted by lowering the taxes, and so, we, as Calvert
() 15 County, we had a very beautiful situation where we weren't 16 subject to deterioration like the other surrounding 17 counties, like Prince Georges, Virginia.
18 We didn't have a population problem, but when the 19 taxes went down, my God, there was Calvert County, you 20 didn't pay taxes there, and the building industry moved 21 right in. They weren't Culvert Countians, the building 22 industry. Hell, no.
23 The advertised the houses in Prince Georges and 24 Washington. They were not houses for Calvert Countians.
25 Calvert Countians didn't get the benefits.
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104 1 There were jobs, yes, and I have to say that I'm
() 2 3
very glad what it did to a certain section of the population who were still actually slaves. They were kept alive in the 4 winter-time by stripping, and their bosses would declare 5 them unemployed, and they paid them a very low wage for 6 tobacco stripping, and everybody did it, all the family did 7 it.
8 Well, then came bG&E, and there were winter jobs, 9 and so, they got from under the farmers where the tobacco 10 was sold after the new crop was put in, until the tenant who 11 wanted to get from under the farm couldn't because he had 12 already the crop in.
13 And now we are reaping the results of being a rich 14 county. We get billed for our one shopping center after
() 15 'another that has deteriorated, and that is because we sold 16 our soul to a big company like BG&E.
17 And if we keep on and let the plant be extended, 18 we're just going to stay sold, and the price that we have to 19 pay, because we are paying for whatever happens on the -- in 20 that plant --
it's going to be higher and higher, because 21 you know, over the years, everything becomes much more 22 expensive, and if that plant, in 20 years, will have to be 23 buried or whatever you people want to do with it, it's going 24 to cost us and we will be so poor that we can't even come 25 out of it.
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105 1 That 's all I 14 anted.
() 2 3
[ Applause.]
MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Roosenberg.
4 That's the last of our registered speakers, and I 5 would ask if there is anybody else in the audience who 6 hasn't had an opportunity to speak yet, if they would like 7 to say anything.
8 [No response.]
9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Well, I would thank all of 10 you for coming out tonight and for offering us your concerns 11 and suggestions, and thank you very much. Good night.
12 [Whereupon, at 9:47 p.m., the meeting was 13 concluded.]
14
( 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
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REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings r
before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in
(
the matter of:
NAME OF PROCEEDING: PUBLIC MEETING --
ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING MEETING FOR CALVERT CLIFFS LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION (EVENING SESSION)
CASE NUMBER:
PLACE OF PROCEEDING: Solomons, MD were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court ;
I reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and i accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
n <
(! [h5%
Mark Mahoney C Official Reporter Ann Riley & Associates, Ltd.
l
ARYLAND ENERGY ADMINISTRATION 45 Calvert Street Parris N. Glendening Annipolis, Maryland 21401-1907 G""' '
Frederick H Hoover,Jr.
(410) 974-3751 o-mill address: rnea @ energy. state.md.us Statement of Frederick H. Iloover, Jr.
Director, Maryland Energy Administration j at the j Public Meeting on the Calvert Cliffs License Renewal Solomons Island, Maryland July 9,1998 Good Afternoon. I am Fred Hoover, Director of the Maryland Energy Administration. On behalf of the Govemor and for myself, we welcome the opportunity to participate in this process because of the importance of this facility to Maryland's present and future enviromnental well-being.
CJ Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant is an important component in the State's electrical generation mix. Our assessments over its 24 year period of operation indicate that it has an excellent enviromnental record, and it is considered a strong candidate for license renewal. We also know that the plant provides significant benefits to Maryland's air quality since it does not produce the types of pollutants emitted by buming fossil fuels. Since the plant producesjust under 50 percent of the power generated by BGE andjust over 25 percent of the electricity generated in the State, it is an important component in Maryland's emissions strategy and attainment plan. Yet, we also know that there are questions that need to be examined and answered carefully before its license is renewed. We see this process as providing an appropriate forum for addressing these questions.
For my part, the Maryland Energy Administration will be working with the Power Plant Research Program of the Department of Natural Resources to coordinate the State's review of the license renewal for Calvert Cliffs and to prepare conunents as necessary for submission to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Since the Power Plant Research Program has been monitoring the operation of Calvert Cliffs since 1974, we have an excellent baseline ofinformation and experience from which to stan our review. Additionally, we will solicit information (a~l MRS 1-800-735 2258 TTYNoice ! ftu o
, ~ . ~
l 0 and coordinate conunents from other State agencies, including other units within the Department of Natural Resources and from the Departments of the Enviromnent, Business and Economic Development, and the Office of State Planning. The data and agency comments will be compared with information provided by the Applicant
- and by members of the public so that each issue identified in the scoping process l will be thoroughly evaluated as part of our participation in this renewal process.
With this in mind, I encourage the public to panicipate in this process so that we have a full and vigorous review of Calvert Cliffs, and I look forward to hearing the comments and questions on this relicensing. Thank you.
O i
l O