ML20247R432

Transcript of Commission 890303 Press Conference in Rockville,Md Re Shoreham Proceedings.Pp 1-10

ML20247R432
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Site:	Shoreham File:Long Island Lighting Company icon.png
Issue date:	03/03/1989
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NUDOCS 8906070228
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. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA I

- NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMIS SI.ON. .

s Tf(16' PRESS CONFERENCE ON THE SHOREHAM PROCEEDINGS

[Q(3({QL* ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND h8[$,' MARCH 3, 1989 Pages: 20 races NEALR.GROSSANDCO.,INC.

COURY REPORTER $ AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, Northwest Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 7q m

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N DISCLAIMER This is an unofficial transcript of a meeting of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission held 'on March 3, 1989 in the ' Commission's office at One White Flint North, Rockville, Maryland. The meeting was open to public attendance and observation. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected or edited, and it may contain inaccuracies.

The transcript is intended solely for general informational purposen. As provided by 10.CFR 9.103, it is not part of the formal' or informal record of. decision.of the matters discussed. Expressions of opinion in this transcript do not necessarily reflect final determination or beliefs. No pleading or other paper may be filed with the Commission in any proceeding as the result of, or addressed to, any statement or argument contained herein, except as the Commission may authorize.

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HEAL R. GROSS court REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBER $

1 1323 RHoDE 15 LAND AVENUE, N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASMN4GioN. D.C. 20005 (202) 232-6600

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. A 4 e p UNITED STATES ~OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION G

l PRESS CONFERENCE p -ON THE SHOREHAM. PROCEEDINGS f

f Nuclear Regulatory Commission 1 White Flint North Rockville, Maryland Friday, March 3, 1989 COMMISSIONERS PRESENT:

LANDO W. ZECH, JR.

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NEAL R. GROSS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433

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STAFF PRESENT:

JOE FOUCHARD. Director of Public Affairs L-i u ..e NEAL R. GROSS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433

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1 P-R-0-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 4:04 p.m.

3 MR. FOUCHARD: If you've got any questions, 4 the Chairman will be over in just a moment. The order

+1 5 will be up in about a half an hour.

6 Hi, Mr. Chairman.

7 COMMISSIONER ZECH: How are you doing?

8 MR. FOUCHARD: Do you have any questions, 9 all of you?

10 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Has anybody got 11 anything?

12 The order is pretty straightforward. Let me 13 explain briefly what we did here today, just so you 14 will be clear on it.

15 The Commission today took a decision that 16 'results in dismissal of the government interveners in 17 the Shoreham proceeding. This terminates the 18 adjudicatory process for the Agency.

19 The reason we took this action, as the order 20 clearly explains, is because it was our considered 21 finding that the government interveners acted in bad 22 faith during the proceedings. The reason we came to 23 that decision essentially, as well explained in the 24 order, but very briefly, was because the government 25 interveners did not comply with the orders of the s .

NEAL R. GROSS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 i (202) 234-4433

., 4 1 Licensing Board. Essentially, which we thought was 2 very important, they put in writing a letter to the 3 Licensing Board stating that they would not continue 4 with the proceedings.

5 Under those circumstances, the Licensing 6 Board determined that had faith was involved and that 7 the government interveners should be dismissed. The 8 Commission today agreed with those findings.

9 Then, I think, one could ask, where do we 10 stand now? Let me tell you very briefly where we 11 stand now. The adjudicatory proceedings are 12 terminated. That means that now the action on 13 Shoreham goes to our staff. The staff now must do L~

14 several things. First of all, they must review the 15 Emergency Planning Safety Evaluation Report and 16 investigate into and make determinations into the open 17 contentions that were remaining on the table at the 18 end of the adjudicatory process. The staff must then l 19 be satisfied that emergency preparedness for the 20 Shoreham facility can be satisfactorily performed.  !

21 In addition to that, we, the staff, will 22 make what we call an operational readiness assessment 23 visit to the Shoreham facility. This visit takes 24 ordinarily two to three weeks. The purpose of that l

l 25 visit is to assess the readiness for operations of the '

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'f NEAL R. GROSS f 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. l Washington, D.C. 20005 l (202) 234-4433 I

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,. 5 1 Shoreham facility.

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.2 Th'e st'aff will also be looking at any other 3- open issuesz that might'arise from the assessment' team L 4 visit- or any other matter that could come to their j 1

5 attention.-  !

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6 Then, the next step after that, when the 1 7 staff is satisfied that in their judgment the plant ~is :j 8 ready to operate at full power --'and let me say too '

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that part of our order says that the plan will not 10 - operate above five percent power, which i t' is now. -'

11 until it- comes- before the Commission' and the ,

I 12 Commission will make that decision, which we did not

'I 13 make today. i

,_ d 14 QUESTION: Why did you hold off on -- l 15 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Let me just conclude a :l l

16 minute by saying then, when the staff is satisfied, I i

17 they will come before the commission in. a public .!

l 18 meeting at which time we will. - hear from the LILCO ~

19 officials as well as the staff, and the Commission 20 will then make a determination whether or not to 21 authorize full power for the Shoreham facility.

22 QUESTION: How long might.that take? ,

23 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Well, I told you, I l 24 believe, two to three weeks ordinarily for the 25 Operational Readiness Inspection. I just don't know i

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NEAL R. GROSS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433

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'- 1 how long it will take. It depends on what the staff 2 finds, it depends on the state of readiness. I really 3 can't estimate very well. If everything would go 4 well, I suppose that perhaps in a month would be the 5 earliest. But there are other things t o. look into.

6 There, perhaps, could be other matters that would take 7 longer.

8 But it's a very important decision we made 9 today, to terminate the adjudicatory proceeding. Let 10 me say we didn't do that lightly. We have great 11 respect for the state and local governments and for 12 their responsibilities. In this case, it was simply a 13 matter of their not complying with our regulations.

L 14 QUESTION: So, why didn't you just authorize 15 the license if all the adjudicatory proceedings are 16 over?

17 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Because there's more to 18 it than adjudicatory proceedings. We must make these 19 inspections now. We must .nssure ourselves that the 20 plant is fully ready to operate. We don't make the 21 final decision based on other than a complete report 22 by the staff to the commission that all of the 23 technical and other details have been satisfied. That 24 has not been done and will not be done until some time 25 in the future.

NEAL R. GROSS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433

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1 QUESTION: So, it's OL-3, OL-5 and OL-6 that .I 1

2 are all done.with?

3 COMMISSIONER' ZECH: The adjudicatory 4 proceedings have been terminated and that's the 5 important decision we made today, by dismissing the 6 government interveners.

7 QUESTION: There's still something open 8 though regarding the evacuation?

9 COMMISSIONER 2ECH: No. The issue of 10 emergency planning must fully be addressed because it 11- was being addressed at the time the adjudicatory 12- proceedings were finished. So, the staff.must look at 13 those. open. contentions and conclude that they were

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14 either satisfied or they're not satisfied. That-will 15 be the. determination that will be made in the future.

16 But we won't authorize a plant to operate until we're 17 satisfied the public health and safety could be

+r-m 18 protected. We need that recommendation Soc the staff 19 to the Commission before we can make that 20 determination.

21 QUESTION: The interveners say that in 35 22 years of nuclear regulation that governments have 23 never been thrown out of a case. Can you Justify your 24 actions today?

25 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Well, I think I have

'.- 'R NEAL R. GROSS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433

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.I 1 justified'them. We really believe that the government.

2 interveners exercised bad faith in our-licensing board 3' process. I told you, I believe, that we came to that 4 conclusion' -- and the order will be more specific--

5 we came to that conclusion because of their refusal to 6 obey the orders of our licensing board and even 7 submitted us in writing to the licensing board at 7 8 letter saying that they did not intend to continue 9 with the proceedings.

10 Under those circumstances, we have very few-11 options but to exercise u harsh sanction. We know we 12 did that. We did it because we thought it was the E- 13 right thing to do.

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14 QUESTION: Do you think it's a waste to shut 15 down the Shoreham plant?

16 COMMISSIONER ZECH: That had nothing to do 17 with the decision today. Our business is public 18 health and safety.

19 QUESTION: I was just curious about your

[ 20 opinion on it, p

21 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Well, I'd rather stick 22 to my regulatory responsibilities today, if you don't 23 mind.

24 QUESTION: How soon might you make that on-25 site inspection?

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• 1 NEAL R. GROSS 1323 Rhode' Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 w_-____ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ - - _ _ - __

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'"l l' . COMMISSIONER ZECH: That could be-soon. I

-2 Edon't kno'w. There's no reason.that we couldn' t ^ make -

3 it maybe next: week. I'm j ust - nog . sure, .. but I .. would 4; assume that we've given.the' staff the' authorization to

'i 5 ' commence that inspection as'soon a s' they feel'they're 6 ready.

7' QUESTION: 'What about' the timing of your 8 decision today? Did that have anything-to do with the l

t '9 deal:between-LILCO and Governor --

10 COMMISSIONER ZECH: No, it had nothing to do 11' with it. We've had an' oral argument, I believe it'was

12- on the 21st of February.- We've had-time -to reflect on 13 that oral' argument and we'took'the time ~we needed, I '

I 14 believe, to carefully ' consider all' the matters and 15 today's decision is the normal ~ course of our business.

16 QUESTION: Given the long record here, do, 17' you think'there really are-going to.be any problems in 18 terms of issuing that full power license?

'19 COMMISSIONER ZECH: I can't speculate any 20 further. All I can say is that we're going to make 21 sure the inspections are done, make sure the findings are proper and that we're convinced that O SA.2.

22 er proper.

23 I can't speculate beyond that, but the decision was a 24c significant decision and we realize that. It was done 25 with the careful thought on our part and a great deal ot . . , .

l NEAL R. GROSS l' _..

1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

l ... Washington, D.C. 20005 l (202) 234-4433

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J2 .think it was' responsible on our part. We. simply ldid .

3' what we had to do.

1 4 QUESTION: Thank you, .Mr. Chairman, very.

.5 much.

6 COMMISSIONER ZECH: Thank you very much.

17 QUESTION: Thank you.

o 8 MR. FOUCHARD: The order ought to be up, as

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9- I said. Well, we were here five minutes. S o ,' maybe 10 25 minutes. If you want to wait, I'll bring it into 11 the: press' room or put them.out here.

12 QUESTION: ~Thank you.

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13 QUESTION: How long is the order?

L 14 .MR. FOUCHARD: Thirty-six, 37 pages.

15 (Whereupon, at 4:13 p.m., the above-entitled 16-  : matter was concluded.)

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NEAL R. GROSS 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005

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• CERTIFICATE OF TRANSCRIBER

l. This is to certify that the attached events of a meeting lL of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission entitled:

TITLE OF MEETING: PRESS CONFERENCE ON THE SHOREHAM PROCEEDINGS l

.- PLACE OF MEETING: ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND DATE OF MEETING: MARCH-3, 1989 were transcribed by me. I further certify that said transcription is accurate and complete, to the best of my ability, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing events.

A UM,Lf Reporter's name: Peter Lynch

• p, NEAL R, GROSS COURT Rf>0RTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ts[AND AYtNUE, N.W.

9 02) 234 4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005 (202) 232-6000

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