ML20248C897
| ML20248C897 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | 07000025 |
| Issue date: | 09/29/1989 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| References | |
| CON-#489-9269 85-594-01-ML, 85-594-1-ML, ML, NUDOCS 8910040054 | |
| Download: ML20248C897 (155) | |
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ORIGINIL h UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION In the Matter of:
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ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL ASLBP No.
CORPORATION, ROCKETDYNE 85-594-01-ML DIVISION (Special Material License Number SMN-21) 6
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Pages: 115 through 268 Place: Van Nuys, California <
Date: September 29, 1989
...................................................... a
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( oh HERITAGE REPORTING CORPORATION
\ \ opuntnaparas 1220 L Street, N.W., Suke 600 Wastington, D.C. 20005 g,pog oTi4 s9o929 I
PDR ADOCK0700g5~ (202) 6M B. --
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' (i 1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2 ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD PANEL 3
l 4 In the Matter of: )
)
5 ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL -) Docket No. 70-25 l CORPORATION, ROCKETDYNE ) Request to Renew l
6 DIVISION ) for Ten Years
- )
7 (Special Material License ) ASLBP No:
Number SNM-21) ) 85-594-01-ML 8
VOLUME II 9
Friday, 10 September 29, 1989 11 Van Nuys State Building Auditorium 12 6159 Van.Nuys Boulevard
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Van Nuys, California ,
13
[(')\ The above-entitled matter came on for hearing
\] 14 pursuant to notice, at 9:35 a.m. _
15 BEFORE: PETER B. BLOCH, 16 Administrative Judge Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel 17 United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission 18 Washing ton , D.C. 20555 19 20 21
. 22 23 24 25 0
.e i n4 M_--__-_----- --. - - - - _ _ . - _ - _ . - . _ _ _ _ - )
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[ 117 1 I N D'E X 2
- , 3 INTERVENERS
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PAGE' 4 John C. Scott 122 5 Dr. Estelle Lit 137 6 Jerome Raskin 156-7 : Mary Nichols 188' 8 James D. Warner 199 9 Sybil S.'zeppieri 207 10 Donald Wallace 218 11 Arlene Mathews 222 12 ROCKWELL:
(q 13 Dr. Joseph Mills 236
\ 14 ' LIMITED APPEARANCES:
15 Nancy Grant- 257 16 Dr. Erwin Zament 257 -
17 18 19 20 21
. 22 23 24 25
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JUDGE BLOCH: With great respect I wish to 2 welcome you all wholeheartedly to this, the second day of 3 our proceeding concerning Rockwell International 4 Corporation, Rocketdyne Division's request for renewal of 5 its special material license number SNM-21, Docket 70-25 6 entitled Request to Renew for Ten Years.
7 The business before us this morning is to -
8 consider requests to become parties in this case. In some
- 9 instances, these requests have been served on Rockwell 10 International at least ten days prior to this oral 11 argument. In those cases, the Board will propose to go 12 forward and decide whether or not individuals who make 13 requests should become parties pursuant to the ru12s of 14 sub-part L of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. There 15 may be some requesters here today who have not served any 16 papers on Rocketdyne or whose service on Rocketdyne was 17 within ten days of today. In at least one instance I know 18 of, it was today.
19 In those instances, I will ask Rocketdyne 20 whether it wishes to respond to the filing and will defer .
21 any ruling until after Rocketdyne has a chance to respond 22 if it elects to do so. In instances where there is no ,
23 objection or where the party has filed its request in a 24 timely fashion, that is at least ten days ago, I expect 25 that I will be able to rule either today or within the 1
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'O ih ) 1 next few days in writing by issuing an order from 2 Washing ton , D.C.
3 It might be helpful -- instead of reviewing the 4 ~ criteria for becoming a party, because I'm sure.we'll be
-' 5 going through those as we have discussions with the 6 parties, I'd like to look down the road a little bit to 7 see the prize that's being sought. And I know that some 8 og the' requesters are aware that this prize consists of a 9 lot of hard work and, that's what it does consist of.
10 What I anticipate in terms of the schedule in this case 11 will be subject to discussion with the parties. But what 12 I anticipate is something like the following: We'll set a 13 date on which parties will file their direct case which jj?,
4 14 will include evidence and citations to materials in our
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15 . record. It might include affidavits, will document 16 specifically what it is that concerns the parties.
17 Second, there will be a provision for Rocketdyne 18 to respond to each allegation made by a party. Third, 19 there may be an opportunity for rebuttal, but rebuttal 20 will be limited to new or surprise material, that is 21 material that's not already included in the basic material
. 22 that Rocketdyna has filed in its application or in the 23 basic documents that the Government hss already placed in 24 the files. And fourth, Rocketdyne will be given an 25 opportunity to respond to the rebuttal but only with
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'T 120 1 respect to entirely new arguments, things that they 2 haven' t been -- had a chance to respond to before that.
3 At that time, Rocketdyne also might be able to move to 4 strike portions of the quote " rebuttal" that were, in 5 fact, not rebuttal but were response to previous 6 materials.
7 And fifth, I want an analysis of the record, the 8 full record and that means that the party making the .
9 analysis will want to acknowledge the arguments made by 10 the other party in their fullness. So that when I write 11 an opinion, I will be addressing all of the arguments and 12 the parties will be helping me to go through the record in 1, 13 a way'* hat is fair to both parties. At that time, you 14 want to acknowledge the full strength of whatever 15 arguments have been made by -- in this case, the parties 16 will file an *nalysis of Rocketdyne's case and of their 17 own together .
18 Now, at that point, if there is more than one 19 party, you may be citing materials filed by another party 20 as well as yourself, because it will be the full record 21 that will have to be analyzed. And then the last filing I 22 would anticipate would be made by Rocketdyne which also .
23 could analyze the full record in response to the parties' 24 analysis. The reason Rocketdyne would have the last 25 filing is because the burden of proof remains on
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( 1 Rocketdyne on all issues that'have;been legitimately 2 raised.by the parties. So, they.would, I' anticipate, i 3 have the opportunity to make the last analysisLof the 4 record.
5 All of'this, of course, is'always' subject to
'6 parties making motions because for one reason or another, 7 what we decide is the best way to proceed sometimes.
8 doesn't work and you can ask for exceptions for cause. I 9 just~ wanted you to see that what you're requesting is not
.10 - a simple privilege if _ you want to become a party in = this 11 case. There is work to be done if it's to come to 12 anything. Parties which rely on assertions about;the
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./ Pi 13- great dangerousness of what we're doing and on platitudes
!( 14 usually don' t get very far, because I have to apply the 15 regulations of the Nuclear. Regulatory Commission.
16 That said, what I'd like to do is to start with
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17 the parties who made the earliest requests. In this 18 instance, the first requester in my file is John Scott.
19 So, I'd like to ask that the requesters limit their 20 presentations -- the first thing I'd like to ask is you 21 make it as brief and to the point as you can, but if you 22 must go to twenty minutes, you may do that. You may not 23 go beyond twenty minutes without special motion. One 24 second. Mr. Scott, awhile back you asked for a few more 25 minutes to look at materials. Do you need it?
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122 1 MR. SCOTT: No.
2 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, thank you.
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3 MR. SCOTT: Your Honor, my name is John Scott.
4 And I'm a resident and property owner living and working 5 approximately two point six miles from Rocketdyne's Santa 6 Susana fuel laboratory and the NRC operated Hot
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7 Laboratory. My interest in these proceedings concern the 8 health, safety and well-being of myself, my family, my .
9 employees who work in the same area, neighbors and the 10 public in general of the San Fernando Valley as well as 11 property values in homes in my neighborhood that start at 12 a half a million dollars and go up to two million dollars.
) 13 Judge Bloch, you have a formidable task ahead of 14 you.
15 JUDGE BLOCH: Mr. Scott, I need to interrupt on 16 a detail, but it's an important one. How did you 17 determine the two point six miles? And the reason I ask 18 is that NRDC has filed a brief stating you live within two 19 miles.
20 MR. SCOTT: I live within two miles of .
21 Rocketdyne Santa Susana fuel laboratory.
22 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, I don' t know. I mean, which -
23 is it? It can' t be both.
24 IIR . SCOTT: It's a great question.
25 MR. WARNER: I can answer for our side.
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A u 123
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U 1 Okay, if you would, how did you
) JUDGE BLOCH:
2 figure the distance from Mr. Scott's home?
3 MR. WARNER: We scaled it from a --
4 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, first of all, your name is?
5 Mt. WARNER: My name is James D. Warner with the 6 Natural Resources Defense Council.
7 JUDGL !! LOCH: Thank you. We need to have the 8 record complete. Please continue.
9 MR. WARNER: To -- to determine the distance 10 from Rockwell's Hot Lab to Mr. Scott's residence, we used 11 a topographic map from the U.S. Geologic Survey and scaled 12 it from the Hot Lab to his house using -- crossing it to a 13 local LA County street map.
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) 14 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, thank you. I j ust -- I have 15 to be tentative to all the details.
16 MR. SCOTT: understand. I understand. I 17 understand completely. Six tenths of a mile is important.
18 I understand that. You have a formidable task in front of 19 you which is one of two things, as I see it. You can 20 continue to allow Rockwell International to maintain a l 21 license to handle special nuclear materials, particularly
, 22 uranium 235, enriched uranium and plutonium, plutonium 238 23 and plutonium 239, all potentially dangerous and deadly 24 materials, or you have the power to refuse to renew the 25 license.
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1 And I cannot, in light of all the evidence, 2 documents, reports that hava been brought forth to you and l
3 myself, find how you cannot say to this company that 4 enough is enough and refuse this license. Recent 5 disclosures by the Department of Energy, the Environmental f l
6 Protection Agency, California State and County officials I cite inadequate storage of toxic materials, numerous *{.)
8 radioactive contaminated sites, inadequate monitoring of .
9 the environment, incomplete State mandated inventory 10 reports of toxic chemicals and radioactive materials at 11 the facility, all of which are indications of Rockwell's 12 inability to correctly manage their facility.
13 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, Mr. Scott, if you were to 14 state your concern, that is the one that you' re going to 15 follow up on or the ones you're going te follow up on 16 tersely, is that the principal concern, that the
'7 activities of Rockwell indicate inadequate or improper 18 management to be trusted with the licensing of this plant?
19 I'm not sure if I understan0 you.
MR. SCOTT:
20 JUDGE DLOCH: The licensing of this lab?
21 MR. SCOTT: I'm not sure if I understand what 22 you' re saying.
23 JUDGE BLOCH: What is it you want to prove in 24 this proceeding? Does it have to do with imptoper 25 management as reflected in the activitier on the site, O
125
( l these releases and things of that kind?
2 MR. SCOTT: I think that's a part of'it, yes.
3 Okay, is that the principal thing JUDGE BLOCH:
4 that you intend to prove?
5 MR. SCOTT: No.
E JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, what else is a part of it?
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7 -See, the purpose of the concerns is so that we can focus 8 on what it is we're actually going to be going forward on.
9 So, when you say "It is a concera of mine", here it means 10 something very serious. It means you have enough concern 11 that you' re going to dig into it.
12 MR. SCOTT: Yes, I have enough concern that I'm
/l 13 going to dig into this and feel like that I've already
\ 14 started digging.
15 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay. So, continue.
16 MR. SCOTT: Okay. As early as last Friday, l
.17 September 22nd, this same company, Rockwell International, 18 was fired by the DOE for the mishandling in Rocky Flats 19 facility in Colorado. Deputy Energy Secretary W. Henson l
20 Moore stated September 25th, "The Government dumped 21 Rockwell International Corporation because it was fed up
. 22 with Rockwell's performance". And frankly, I am, too.
23 Some facts, Rockwell's environmental monitoring and 24 facility of affluent annual reports of '87 and '88 state, 25 "The results of this environmental monitoring indicate
l 126
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1 that there are no significant sources of unnatural 2 radioactive material in the vicinity of the Rocketdyne 3 sites".
4 However, according to the 1989 DOE environmental 5 survey, ten areas were identified to be contaminated. The 6 report also states, "Due to an insufficient number of 7 ground water monitoring wells, the ground water monitoring -
8 program is not capable of accurately determining ground .
9 water flow from characterizing the nature and extent of 10 ground water contamination at known and potential source 11 areas and is also not capable of detecting off-site ground 12 water contamination".
3 13 In addition, the EPA reported that environmental 14 monitoring has been inadequate to determine if 15 contamination is migrating off-site. Rocketdyne has 16 failed to provide one, identification of potential and 17 existing hazards. Two, they fail to provide enforcement 18 of the utilization of safeguards to the public against.the 19 potential nuclear -- potential dangers of incidents.
20 Three, they fail to establish safe nuclear material 21 management control and waste management. And also they 22 fail to perform measurements of internal and external .
23 radiation doses of radioactive and toxic material 24 concentrations and affluents released to the environment l
25 properly as they state they do in document ESG-82-33
' O f
O_ 127 t k Q ) 1 Health and Safety sections of their renewal application.
2 Other examples of why this license should not be 3 renewed and that facility be shut down permanently are due 4 to continuous and unusual events reported and unreported 5 during the past three years of records that I've been 1 6 provided with. Other examples are forthcoming in the 7 documents that Judge Bloch reques ted. For example, in a 8 letter given to us this morning dated January 5th, 1988, 9 the purpose of this letter is to provide follow up 10 information to a November 25th, '87 report of a sodium 11 fire release at the Rockwell International Corporation, 12 Rocketdyne Division, Santa Susana Field Laboratory.
(~T 13 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, stop. That was given to you
\ / 14 this morning? I don' t think it was given to me this v
15 morning. January 5, 1988? It's the document that was 16 given to me at 8:30 this morning? Hold on for a second.
17 Okay, what -- where in the --
18 MR. SCOTT: It's a letter dated January 5th, 19 1980.
20 JUDGE BLOCH: Please continue.
21 MR. SCOTT: As reported to the National Response
. 22 Center and the Of fice of Emergency Services on the 23 referenced date, it was uncertain whether or not a 24 reportable quantity of hazardous material was released but 25 the report was made as a precautionary measure. Seventeen
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128 1 gallons of sodium would weigh approximately ninety-five 2 point two pounds exceeding the ten RQ reportable quantity.
3 However, hot sodium metal burns in the presence 4 of air to form sodium oxide and sodium hydroxides. A 5 sodium fire did occur and sodium was converted to oxides 6 and hydroxides. The fire smoldered for approximately two 7 and a quarter hours before being totally extinguished. It -
8 is believed that no caustic smoke lef t the twenty-six 9 hundred acre test site. This is another example of the 10 public being deceived .
11 JUDGE BLOCH: I'm sorry, what is the nature of 12 the deception?
13 MR. SCOTT: I can' t find any information that 14 was given to me by Rockwell in documents dated 1986, '87, 15 '88 of reportable or non-reportable incidents.
16 JUDGE BLOCH: I'm sorry. I'm being dense right 17 now so, you're referring to other incidents of -- where 18 does it say that in the letter?
19 MR. SCOTT: Say what?
20 JUDGE BLOCH: What's the problem about other 21 reportable or non-reportable incidents?
22 MR. $COTT: Well, we were given reported and ,
23 non-reported incidents for 1986, '87 and '88 earlier in 24 the proceedings. I can' t find any of this information in 25 those materials that were given to us earlier and this was N
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L 129 h,G y) .
y 1 given to me an hour before, this morning.
2 JUDGE BLOCH: Where in the materials do you 7 3 think they should have been provided?
l d MR. SCOTT: In the non-reportable accident.
5 They said it's a non-reportable accident and they gave us 6 reports of non-reportable accidents.
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7 JUDGE BLOCH: So, where was the statement in 8 their application that you think is false? What was it 9 they said that you think is false? Where is that?
10 MR. SCOTT: It's in the -- I'll tell you in j ust ~
11 one second. If it was reported , it was in the 12 supplemental date of -- given to us. I can find it, if j?'; 13 you'd like.
) 14 JUDGE BLOCH: The -- you should know that what I
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15 requested this morning and received this morning had to do 16 with both the Santa Susana Laboratory and its renewal and 17 also with associated DOE activities.
18 MR. SCOTT: Right.
19 JUDGE BLOCH: For the renewal of the license, 20 the DOE activities need not have been included in the 21 application.
. 22 MR. SCOTT: Is this a DOE --
23 JUDGE BLOCH: I don't know.
24 MR. SCOTT: I don' t either.
25 JUDGE BLOCH: So, we don't know whether it was l
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1 an omission from the other report.
2 MR. SPOTT: Assumed correct.
3 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, let's continue.
4 MR. SCOTT: However , in the annual review for 5 1986 and 1987 -- I'll give you some examples here of 6 things that I consider note-worthy. November, 1987 --
7 18th, 1987 a maintenance employee entered a contaminated .
8 area before he could be stopped. His shoes were 9 contaminated but they were cleaned satisfactorily. It 10 states, "This incident apparently resulted from English as 11 a second language", which I do not understand why someone 12 would be allowed to be in this facility if they don' t 13 understand English or there are no signs saying "Spanish".
14 April 14th, 1986, it was reported that a one 15 point five seven MCI SR90 source assigned to the R1 Hot 16 Lab was missing. Investigation showed that it was 17 probably disposed of in the container of radioactive waste 18 generated during clean-up of the hot storage rocm. This 19 was reported to the State. This was a reportable
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20 incident.
21 October 28 th , 1986, zirconium saw chips from the 22 fermi-fuel (phonetic) disassembly work in Cell 4 at the ,
l 23 Hot Lab ignited. The fire was put out by inerting the 24 cell atmosphere with nitrogen. Since the saw chips are 25 too large to be pyrophoric, it is assumed that the saw
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,3 131 h struck some of the uranium fuel and the sparks ignited the
) 1 2 zirconium. This was a non-reportable incident. This 3 potential highly explosive fire illustrates my concern of 4 any type of future radiation fire within the Hot Lab.
5 Since the ESFL is situated in an extreme fire hazard, my 6 concerns are doubly heightened.
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7 These are but a few of incidents within the 8 reports. Other concerns germane to this proceeding is the 9 transfer of radioactive materials off-site on the 10 hazardous roads. Based on a conversation with Pat 11 Coulter, Rocketdyne Public Relations Director, Mr. Coulter 12 stated to me that trccks carrying casks have actually gone 4 13 out of control on Woc 1sey Canyon Roa'd leaving the
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( ,j 14 facility. Although he stated no damage occurred to the 15 trucks or the cask, what are the assurances or guaranties 16 that a future accident of this type would not cause an 17 extremely dangerous situation?
18 Rockwell states in Appendix A to ESGA --
19 JUDGE BLOCH: Mr. Scott, I want you to know that 20 that will be an interesting concern to document because l 21 there are extremely rigorcus requirements on the shipping
. 22 casks which are tested from very, very extreme conditions.
23 So, what you're alleging there is that somehow they're not l
24 adequate and that the quality assurance on them isn' t ')
25 adequate.
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I 132 1 MR. SCOTT: Okay.
l 2 JUDGE BLOCH: Let's j ust say it's a dif ficult l
3 thing for you to want to prove.
4 MR. SCOTT: I understand that but I think it l
l 5 should be noted in the record that a representative did j 6 say there have been accidents.
7 JUDGE BLOCH: It's in the record. Everything 8 you say is in the record.
9 MR. SCOTT: Fantastic. Rockwell states in 10 Appendix A to ESG-82-83 at page 24 in Ethics and Standards 11 of Business Conduct, "We are committed to the highest 12 standards of business conduct in our promotional and 13 defense businesses. At Rockwell, we believe ethics is 14 good business", which appears to be contradictory in the 15 face of reported allegations by various agencies quoted.
16 Further Rockwell states in Appendix A, Enviro nmen tal 17 Matters, "Under our environmental assessment program, the 18 environmental practices of domestic and international 19 facilities are regularly reviewed to assure compliance 20 with applicable Federal, State and local laws and 21 regulations. Air emissions, water discharges and solid 22 and hazardous waste disposal are carefully monitored". .
23 These statements also appear to be contradictory 24 to Rockwell's past performance. I invite you, Judge 25 Bloch, to visit our community to see for yourself why we
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, bN_j ) 1 want to continue to live in safety and why Rocketdyne 2 should not be allowed to continue its activities within a 3 growing urban area. When you visit our community, you 4 will also undoubtedly see the -- see why residents are 5 concerned about Rockwell's sloppy management.
6 A few months ago Rockwell came to visit us with 7 a presentation that showed what a good neighbor they are.
8 As far as I know, this is the first time in twenty years 9 that we've even been acknowledged. As a matter of fact, 10 Rockwell's projected population for my community in 1990 11 shows that they think that there's a hundred and four 12 people living within the two to three mile distance.
fl; 13 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, this is in the application?
14 MR. SCOTT: Yes.
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15 JUDGE BLOCH: Where is that found?
16 MR. SCOTT: Contingency plans, off-site 17 contingency plans.
18 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, thank you. We don' t need a 19 page reference at this point.
20 MR. SCOTT: I want to assure the people .at 21 Rockwell --
. 22 JUDGE BLOCH: Your community is Bells Canyon.
23 MR. SCOTT: Yes, south, southeast, southeast of 24 the Hot Lab. It's even projected farther to the year 2000 25 and they show -- actually show j ust a few more people
,y, km-
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l 134 1 projected for that time frame. I want to assure the 2 gentlemen at Rocketdyne that we do exist in Bell Canyon 3 although they don't show us to exist in Bell Canyon. We I 4 number ten times the amount projected by Rocketdyne.
5 Quite frankly, I don' t think that Rockwell gives 6 any -- giv'es a hoot about how many people 'could be 7 effected in case of a nuclear accident.
8 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, I'd rather that we didn' t 9 speculate on intentions. It's going to be hard enough to 10 worry about actions.
11 MR. SCOTT: I j ust want to make sure they know 12 that I'm there, Judge. What I asked Rockwell officials 13 when they came to our community point blank, "Has anyone 14 ever died or shown illness due to radiation or toxic 15 chemical exposure? They assured me emphatically no. As 16 it turns out, there have been numerous settlements of 17 leukemia, cancer-related diseases to employees and this is 18 how Rockwell skirts the issue and relinquishes 19 responsibility for any work-related illness. How many 20 more people are settling out of court? How many more will 21 it take to convince the NRC to close this facility down?
22 In closing, it's been estimated that clean-up of . 4 23 this facility is costing millions of potential taxpayers' 24 dollars. I personally would like to see my tax dollars go 25 toward construction, worthwhile endeavors rather than
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.il s 1- .clehn-up of the- sloppy management of yet another Rockwell.
2 mess. Last night: a gentleman by- the name of Don Wallace 3 said that, as a Fire Captain, he has personally checked 4 the local-- fir,e officials and they know nothing of existing 5 arrangements..with Rockwell. I hopeithat.this inspector-or 6 this gentleman's ~ information should- be entered-' into the 7 record.
8 Therefore, I respectfully --
9 JUDGE BLOCH: Is this information relevant to 10 any of your concerns?
11 MR. SCOTT: Absolutely.
12 JUDGE BLOCH: Which concern do you find it
/O 13 ' relevant to?
14 MR. SCOTT: That if there's a fire that goes' 15 through my area, that nobody knows how to handle _this type 16 of fire. They actually haven' t been notified.
17 JUDGE BLOCH: And . I guess also it's also 18 relevant to- the concern you mentioned before about 19 inaccuracies.
20 MR. SCOTT: Yes.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay. Could I just clarify? Are.
. 22 you intending to litigate all of the concerns you've 23 mentioned this morning?
24 MR. SCOTT: I'm not sure if I can answer that at 25 this time. Does that answer ;our question? I'm not sure.
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~l 136 1 JUDGE BLOCH: If you're admitted as a party, if 2 that were to happen, I'd want you to state by Monday which 3 is the last day for . amending your concerns, what your 4 concerns really are so that we know what you're interested 5 in in the proceeding. Now, if there are some that you 6 think you got to look into further before you decide, you 7 can include some that you may not wind up following up, 8 but you may find it efficient for you to narrow your 9 focus.
10 MR. SCOTT: I understand.
11 JUDGE BLOCH: To you everything, you may do 12 nothing.
13 MR. SCOTT: I respectfully request that Rockwell 14 International be denied their request for renewal of 15 special material license number SNM-21, a full 16 environmental impcet study be done, a complete clean-up of 17 the entire facility with a report giving evidence that the 18 facility has been fully decontaminated under the 19 supervision of an outside agency and the entire facility 20 be permanently removed.
21 I thank you for your time and consideration.
22 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, Mr. Scott, I interrupted .
23 several times and your time would have been expired , but I 24 will permit you five minutes for rebuttal if you need it 25 later because of the interruptions.
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.Q j_s 137 h l' 1 MR. SCOTT: Thank you.
D 2 JUDGE BLOCH: Ms. Estelle Lit.
3 DR. LIT: _ I am a concerned person -- is . that 4 working -- a wife, a mother and a grandmother as well as a 5 concerned citizen in a global inter-dependent world . We 6 are. homeowners in Northridge which is about five miles 7 east -- I am not sure exactly -- of Santa Susana Field 8 Laboratory, the nuclear plant. My daughter and three 9 grandchildren lived in Simi which is about five miles 10 west, about five miles west of the plant. And my paughter 11 and three grandchildren moved away two weeks ago because 12 of all this concern.
(( 13 JUDGE BLOCH: So, they don' t live five miles 14 west.
15 DR. LIT: No , they l ived , L-I-V-E-D. I have 16 been operated for cancer in the uterus in this community 17 and of course, I'm concerned for a health point of view.
18 I am concerned about the credibility of Rocketdyne's 19 management and the lack of oversight by the State's 20 regulatory agencies and about the lack of information 21 released to the citizens by this plant. All of this 1
. 22 endangers me and my family and the people in the 23 surrounding communities.
24 JUDGE BLOCH: You mentioned two things, lack of l
25 information and what was the first one?
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1 DR. LIT: Pardon me?
[
2 JUDGE BLOCH: You said lack of information.
3 What was the first thing you mentioned?
4 DR. LIT: I am concerned about the credibility 5 of Rocketdyne's management --
6 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay.
7 DR. LIT: -- and the lack of oversight by the 8 State's regulatory agencies. .
9 JUDGE BLOCH: The lack of oversight is not a 10 ground for concern in this proceeding. Rocketdyne can' t 11 be charged with what other -- others have done.
12 DR. LIT: But Rocketdyne had to, in some way, 13 notify the State regulatory agencies so they would know 14 that something was happening. And, in fact, Gallegaly 15 called for --
16 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, so you' re alleging a lack of 17 responsibility in filing required reports.
18 DR. LIT: Right. And Gallegaly spoke to that 19 just recently and the EPA, the Environment Protection 20 Agency, did in fact bring together a working group and .
21 I'll speak to that in a minute, that exists currently but 22 recently. .
23 Let's see. As a concerned citizen --
24 JUDGE BLOCH: Ms. Lit, if it solves the 20 problem --
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'C) 139 4 I 1 DR. LIT: Pardon?
2 JUDGE BLOCH: If it solves -- if that recently 3 formed group solves.the problem, then it may be difficult 4 for you to demonstrate that it's being formed lately shows 5 improper management. It may, but that's going to be --
6 DR. LIT: Well, I have a report from the EPA 7 that you don' t have that I will share with you that speaks l
8 to what is happening because of this new work group that's 9 been set up and I will do that shortly.
10 I'm still talking about myself at this point.
11 As a concerned citizen, a retired professor from 12 California State University of Los Angeles, currently I' 13 President of the United Nations San Fernando Valley and
( also as LA Board of Education appointed member on the Los l 14 15 Angeles Unified School District's Central Planning Council 16 for School Base Management where we' re trying to 17 restructure education for LA Unified School District, I 18 want to see that the future generations are not endangered 19 by this plant's nuclear activity in this highly populated 20 area.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: Ms. Lit, I just want to clarify
- 22 something. You said about five miles. Are you sure that 23 you live closer than six miles?
24 CR. LIT: I don' t know. It could be. I don't 25 know.
(,,,---- . - _ _ - - - _ . _ _
~) 140 1 JUDGE BLOCH: Are you sure that you live closer 2 than seven miles?
3 DR. LIT: I don' t think it's that -- I'm three 4 miles west of Chatsworth is -- Chatsworth is three miles 5 west of the plant and I'm right at the border line of 6 Chatsworth and Northridge. So, I threw in two extra 7 miles, but I didn' t check it. I can check it if you wish 8 if you think that's important. Is that considered 9 important?
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Yeah, for the completeness of the 11 record, it will be helpful to know how far you actually 12 live.
13 DR. LIT: Okay, I'll get somebody to check it 14 for me.
15 JUDGE BLOCH: That could be mailed by you 16 Saturday, if you could. That would be helpful to mail it 17 tomorrow. ,
18 DR. LIT: Okay, all right, I'll do that. Okay, 19 now we are in the midst of -- of gathering information 20 through the EPA. From a letter received by Congressman 21 Bielenson, who -- to whom I wrote an original letter 22 asking him for help, he then wrote this letter to .
23 McGovern, Daniel McGovern, EPA Administrator. And then I 24 received an answer from Deanna Wieman, who is the Regional 25 Administrator for the -- for EPA, Daniel McGovern. And I
.Y l
t
f7) 141 j 1 will submit this when I'm through.
' %. /
2 ' The current findings of this -- of .this --
3 JUDGE BLOCH: I think I'd prefer if you would --
l 4 do you have copies so that people can look at it now?
5 DR. LIT: Well, I may neeo !t as I talk to you.
6 I'm not sure.
7 JUDGE BLOCH: Maybe he can made copies and when 8 he's done with that, we'll let people look at it. We'll 9 pause briefly and then you ca'n continue, but continue with 10 other material right now.
11 DR. LIT: All right. All right. Let's see.
12 Well, while he's doing that, there was something --
- ( . ' 13 JUDGE BLOCH: Could you tell us, what is the p\ 14 concern to which the EPA Administrator's letter relates?
~
15 DR. LIT: The fact that they've set up a number 16 of groups and the reports will not be in for -- for a time 17 and --
18 JUDGE BLOCH: So it has to do with the timing of 19 our schedule?
20 DR. LIT: It has to do -- well, as you see what 21 they set up, it has to do with what went wrong so they had
. 22 to set it up. And we' re talking about -- we' re talking 23 about the various -- by the end of September '89, in a 24 report of violations issued by the Ca11fernia Department 25 of Health Service, Toxics Health Service -- Toxics fx k
I
~) 142 1 Substance Control Division, the EPA intends to also 2 conduct a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act facility 3 assessment of the Santa Susana facility, Areas 1 through 4 4 to evaluate further the extent of contamination of the 5 s'ite.
6 Also, EPA has created a work group of all the 7 regulatory agencies involved with this site to meet bi-
'8 monthly. The California Department of Health Services is 9 the lead regulatory agency involved with ongoing ground 10 water remediation activities at the site. The radioactive 11 tritium found in the ground water is one of the big 12 questions. In addition, EPA is -- l'm reading what you 13 told me not to read but okay. "In addition, EPA is j
14 conducting a Federal facilities preliminary assessment of
~
15 site investigation which is expected to be completed 16 September 15th, '89". I phoned --
17 JUDGE BLOCH: I read the other EPA report and it 18 was interesting because it mentioned materials on site, 19 but there was no assessment of how the materials got there 20 or of culpability in their getting there or how long ago i
,4 21 they got there. So , I had difficulty tying it in , in my 22 mind, to whether or not this license should be renewed at .
23 this time. You' re going to have to somehow tie in the 24 existence of these materials on site to some reason, 25 particularly in Part 70. I'd like all of the parties to ei
w ,
s N' 143
(
1 know'this, Part.79fof-the Criterialfor Licensing.
.2 MR. RASKIN: . Judge-Bloch.
3 JUDGE BLOCH: So, you have to relate anything to 4 'the cr'iteria-in Part 79.
5 MR.~ RASKIN: -If the materials are there and 6 there was no other company that 'was involved, would it- not -
7 stand ' to reason that' Rocketdyne is culpable for' that' --
8 . JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, your name is -- your name 9 is?
10 MR. RASKIN: Jerome Raskin.
11 JUDGE BLOCH: Jerome Raskin. It might be and it 12 might not, because I don' t know when they were deposited
. (7'r 13 there. I don't know what the practicen were at that time
~
14 and I. don' t know whether the practices have been corr'ected 15 since that time. There's no way that I can know for s'>re 16 from the fact that something is there, that the people who i
17 are applying'for a license at this time are not -- are not 18 reliable. There has to be something more, I think, than 19 just the existence of materials, something about the size 20 of the operation is important, too.
21 For example, in the building of a nuclear power
. 22 plant, there are many errors made. It's impossible not 23 to. The existence of errors don't, by themselves, mean 24 that there's culpability. Now, one really big error might 25 give rise to some serious inquiry. But I have to have
\
l
l 1
^) 144 1 some way of relating the materials on site to the current 2 operations of Rockwell to be seriously concerned about 3 renewing the license.
4 DR. LIT: Would you say that --
5 JUDGE BLOCH: No, I want to just take the person 6 who's speaking. We have twenty minutes a person and this 7 is not an open discussion.
8 DR. LIT: Okay, would you j ust repeat your 9 culpability is relating --
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, you' re going to get that in 11 -- the record will be available, so I'd rather not repeat 12 that.
13 DR. LIT: All right. Okay, I will include that
}
14 letter that explains these things that I've mentioned 15 regarding the EPA, which I drew from the letter. I need 16 to get the reports. I did follow up the Las Vegas and in 17 San Francisco. I was unable to reach the parties, whoever 18 knew something about this, I could not get. I even did an 19 800 number and I didn' t. So, that happened j ust at the 4 20 end of this week, because the letter came somewhere in the 21 middle of the week. So tha t ' s tha t .
22 All right, now j ust a couple of other things .
23 that are being considered here and that is the U.S.
24 Department of Energy's survey team will be sent to Santa 25 Susana Field Laboratory -- I think you mentioned this --
l '
! f'T 145 lb -
v )
i 1 to conduct a full study of contamination of the nuclear
~_/
2 plant. It will address -- it will address incomplete 3 documentation of radioactive contamination and 4 inadequacies in the company's environmental monitoring 5 program that were identified recently by EPA. And they 6 will prepare a clean-up schedule by December.
7 Again, this is all very current and I'm going to 8 have to, as you say -- all right, now I j ust want to --
9 JUDGE BLOCH: If you would, I'd like to j ust 10 make an announcement that I've been authorized to make.
11 There's a gentleman in attendance, his name is Jim 12 Har tman . He's an employee of the Department of Energy in
( 't 13 its San Francisco office. And he heard what I said
( j 14 yesterday about refarral to the staff of the Nuclear
~
15 Regulatory Commission of last night's transcript. And 16 they' re looking at it, and then they' re referring it to 17 the DOE. And he just expressed his approval that that 18 referral process would be done, that the DOE would like to 19 see the transcript from last night and have an opportunity 20 to comment on it.
21 DR. LIT: Thank you. j i
. 22 JUDGE BLOCH: Please continue.
l 23 DR. LIT: Okay, I --
24 JUDGE BLOCH. To analyze it, not comment on it, l 25 to analyze it, to do its own work on it. Please continue.
N l
1
146
~} -
1 DR. LIT: All right. Then I looked -- I have 2 some material that I used, the 1983 -- let's see where it 3 is, yes. I used the material in the long-range plan for 4 decommissioning surplus facilities and I was looking 5 for --
6 JUDGE BLOCH: This is of the Department of 7 Energy?
8 DR. LIT: Of the Department of Energy, no, of 9 the Rocketdyne plant put out in 1983. Oh, it's right 10 here. You want me to -- do you have a copy of that, the 11 1983 long-range decommissioning surplus facilities? It's 12 put out by the Rocketdyne's plant.
13 JUDGE BLOCH: I don' t have it. What concern is 14 it relevant to?
15 DR. LIT: All right. This -- Rockwell knew in 16 1983 that there was a danger of radioactivity getting into 17 the ground water and danger of radioactivity getting off 18 the site through waterways. This document, on page 95, 19 states that in their plant's risk assessment, quote, "For 20 all the facilities there is a risk of possible water borne 21 migration of contaminants along surface waterways for the 22 support facilities and to an on-site subsurface region for .
23 Building 059". And on page 96, there's a table <>f risk 24 assessment saying that Building 059 had -- this was a 25 building that had a reac cor that was taken away years ago.
J G
147
(~)
f 1 It had water collecting in its basement in 1983.
2 It was given a nine out of ten as a high risk for 3 potential water contamination and four out of ten to 4 spread contamination through surface transfer. Now -- and 5 the reason I chose this is because today this same 6 building, 059, in Area 4 is the one that they've q
~
7 discovered the ground water is now -- has a small amount 8 of tritium. Now, this has been going on for so many 9 years. It's reactor was removed in 1976.
i 10 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, Ms. Lit, just stop for a 11 second. I want to look at the letter that I asked to have 12 copied. Let me distribute these to the parties first.
- 13 Let's go of f the record.
14 (Off the record.)
15 JUDGE BLOCH: Back on the record . I have 16 distributed copies of the EPA administrative letter as 17 handed to me on behalf of Ms. Lit. In reading it quickly, l
18 I see no allegations of wrongdoing by Rockwell. There is 19 some allegation that the monitoring procedures of the DOE 20 might be more accurate. So, it's a little difficult to 21 see how it will relate to a concern in this proceeding at
. 22 nevertheless, it may be bound into the transcript. Pleaea 23 continue.
24 DR. LIT: All right, I'll continue. So, I have 25 been talking about 1983, a look at the danger of O
~\ 148 1 radioactivity getting into the ground water and the danger
' 2 of radioactivity getting off-site through waterways and I
3 using as an example Building 059 which had a reactor in it 4 at one time and it is now gone, but there's still l
5 difficulties left at that particular place. And --
6 JUDGE BLOCH: So, the general problem of which 7 this is evidence is what? What is your concern about the 8 general problem? .
9 DR. LIT: The general problem is that Rockwell 10 knowing a danger and stating it as a high risk did nothing 11 about it -- this high risk until -- and had water 12 collecting in the -- in the basement of this place --
13 JUDGE BLOCH: Evidence of a lack of management, 14 reliability.
15 DR. LIT: -- for many years, from --
16 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, I j ust want to try to 17 specify what your concern is --
18 DR. LIT: Oh, I see.
19 JUDGE BLOCH: -- that you might want to go ahead 20 and demonstrate. .
21 DR. LIT: Yeah, yeah, that's -- and in both 22 areas, also waterways using the surface contamination.
23 The study -- this particular study recommended a time 24 table for dismantling most of the facilitier,by 1989. And 25 these nine contaminated surplus facilities, only one has
]
.M,m 149 1 been completely decontaminated and that was only three
- Qv) 2 months ago. There seems to have been -- since May, 1989, 3 May -- I think it was 14, when the Daily News, Tony 4 Knight, let us know through the newspaper regarding the 5 survey of the plant and that there were ten areas of -- of 6 contamination, radioactive and chemical, we really weren' t 7 aware of what was going on at that plant.
8 And so to find that in '83 there was something 9 that said this, there are a lot of things going on at this 10 plant that need to be cleaned up and to hind in ' 89 that-
-11 is still needing to be cleaned up, that is what I'm 12 dealing with here.
need to co p e e h
~
15 DR. LIT: Pardon?
16 JUDGE BLOCH: How much more time do you need to 17 complete your statement?
18 DR. LIT: Oh, well -- I don' t know how much more 19 time. I'm almost finished. I want to -- I j ust want to 20 bring up two more things. One is today's material that we
'21 got in the morning. Back to 059, in the surplus --
. 22 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, I'd like to say, you know, l 23 you're not arguing your whole case. You're stating your 24 concerns --
25 DR. LIT: Oh, okay, all right.
1
~3 150 1 JUDGE BLOCH: -- and some reason why you have a 2 problem with it.
3 DR. LIT: Then I don' t have to give you -- all 4 right. My concern on here is, I'm looking for whether 5 what's here is also located in -- I was looking at 1983 6 and I was looking for what I read here. I read here, 7 " Radiation in the reactor vault is primarily from -- this 8 is in 059 -- from activated cobalt. The radiation levels 9 are high, on the order of" -- I can' t read it -- " fifty to 10 a hundred RH, too high to allow personnel to enter, too 11 high to allow personnel to enter".
12 Now, then it says, "Therefore, remote operating 13 techniques are necessary", and so'forth. Well, I thought, 14 "Well , my goodness , if cobalt is -- the levels are so high 15 that it's too -- you can' t go into that building as of 16 today, and there are remarks that don' t -- you know, don' t 17 go in, it's a dangerous area", I went over and spoke to 18 the fellow that deals with this -- this report and I asked 19 him if cobalt -- what emanates from cobalt, not being, you 20 know, a physicist or anything like that -- what emanates 21 from cobalt is not considered in the summary that was 22 given to us this morning as a chemical and radiological .
23 contamination incident or release at SSFL, because I was l 24 looking for it in '83, to see if it was recorded --
25 JUDGE BLOCH: And there is --
.]
l
(?) 151
/-m
'd 1 DR. LIT: -- or anywhere.
2 JUDGE BLOCH: There's a preface to the filing 3 which states that there were not incidents which exceeded 4 the allowable releases under NRC regulations and they use 5 that as the threshold for releases.
6 DR. LIT: Well, I don' t know what is allowable
~
7 or not. I j ust know that if an area -- you' re not allowed 8 to go near that part of the building, I d o n ' t -- I would 9 assume that NRC would consider that not allowable. I have 10 no ider from there on what is allowable or not, but I made 11 that assumption that if you can' t go near the building, 12 something's happening there that you must' not -- and when ei 13 I read it in here, in the 1983 report about the cobalt, k 14 then I did ask. And he said to me, and this is what' 15 interests me because this is a typical type of answer, he 16 said -- and he's probably very correct -- that chemical 17 and radiological contamination incidents or releases is 18 not -- does not include the radiation areas.
19 And I felt, well, if I'm looking at these i 20 incidents or releases, I would like to know the radiation l 21 areas in that whole plant were you can' t go near.
. 22 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, but he's right . I asked for !
23 releases. And if you have ordinary activities in which '
24 you use radioactive materials and there's expected 25 contamination, that's not a release. It's not the kind of l 8 Ei_____________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
'3 152
)
1 incident I was interested in.
2 DR. LIT: Well, I'm interested in the radiation 3 areas because I --
1 4 JUDGE BLOCH: But they were answering my 5 question and not yours. j i
6 DR. LIT: Right. ]
7 JUDGE BLOCH: So, is there anything else that 8 you must discuss in terms of a concern? The fact that you 9 have questions in your mind really isn' t a concern about 10 the application. Is there something that --
11 DR. L.!T: Well, concern about the credibility of 12 the applicant. And that's what I've been trying to 13 present all through whatever I've been saying. I've been 14 bringing up questions about the credibility.
15 JUDGE BLOCH: But is that what you consider your 16 principal concern, credibility as shown by these specific 17 incidents?
18 DR. LIT: Well, that's one of my concerns.
19 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, credibility, that is the 20 accuracy of the filed materials is required under Part 70.
21 If, in fact, there's a patter of inaccurate materials in 22 the application, that would be of concern to me. It's .
23 also not that easy to demonstrate, but it would be very 24 impor tant , ,
25 DR. LIT: The other concern, of course, is the !
j
N;;
1 }
f 1
, yh.. 153
'use.of their communicationsLwith the public.
kh ; f~ k )yL1; l The fact-2 ' that they' re. always 'using -- and Lyou . heard this last 3 L night, but I'll'put?it in-the record again -- no. imminent ~
4 danger and I-'did a lot of lookingl around about this thing called no immediate' or ' they say " imminent danger" .
5
.6 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, I hear the concern..
'*J 7: .DR. LIT: Okay, all right..
8 " JUDGE BLOCH: And it may or may not be relevant 9 to license renewal criteria under Part 78.- I'm att 10 familiar enough with that to know. I do -know that when 11 youLfile.your materials, you should state which:legali
.12 criteria you' re addressing for license renewal . So, I
(?W 13 .hedr'that you're concerned about that. I'm j ust not sure L
) 14 if it's relevant under the law. And it may be, but you'll !
~
15 have to find what part of Part 78 it applies to.
16 DR. LIT: Okay. And . I'm very concerned about 17 the ground contaminating in water because in our -- in our 18 type of community.where it's dry with occational outbursts
~
19 of rain, we do have -- we do lean on underground streams 20 and water-bearing formations or aquifers. And I'm very 21 concerned about the lack of the vegetation and the winds
. 22 up there in such a dry region that the soil erodes. And 23 I'm concerned about it could -- the covers they've used on l^
- 24 radioactive waste that they have in ponds, et cetera, 25 could -- sumps and whatever -- whatever it is, could l
0
Q 154 1 permeate and we have seen tritium already has occurred.
2 JUDGE BLOCH:- Okay, so your principal concern 3 there is about whether or not radioactive materials on 4 site will leak into the surrounding communities with 5 health effects.
6 DR. LIT: Fine.
7 JUDGE BLOCH: And your principal concern about 8 that appears to be tritium because that would be the most 9 likely to move since it's a form of water.
10 DR. LIT: Well, yes, and also small -- I'm also 11 concerned about small animals such as gophers and jack 12 rabbits burrowing into contaminated areas and spreading 13 ' radioactivity that way. And I'm concerned about the heavy 14 rainfall that occurs a few months of the year and whether 15 large amounts of radioactive contamination, at that point, 16 can be carried distances down the creeks. And I'm 17 concerned about certain resting places along that -- the 18 two sides of that mountain that the soil, I think, over 19 forty years, should be tested because I really think --
20 I'm worried, I'm concerned that it's collected 21 radioactivity over the many years that the plant has used 22 Bell Creek as part of it's -- and the other side, I don' t .
23 now how long they have.
1 24 So, I'm concerned about that whole movement of 25 -- in water and in the soil of the radioactivity that's J
G 1
Dm 155
.hx_-) 1 been going up there for -- on there for forty years.
2 JUDGE BLOCH: Thank you. Have you stated each 3 of your concerns today, or are there concerns you haven't 4 stated?
5 DR. LIT: I can say -- I'm not sure I stated all 6 of them at this point. What have I missed? Oh, yeah, 7 it's just come to my attention that somebody was here last 8 night who is in the insurance field, and he brought to our 9 attention the fact that our insurance in this area does 10 not cover nuclear -- there is no nuclear coverage in case 11 of fire or airborne plutonium or whatever. We are not 12 covered in the insurance and that was a very --
J' 13 JUDGE BLOCH: I'm confident that whether you're 14 covered or not is not a ground for not renewing the 15 license for Rockwell.
16 DR. LIT: I see. All right, well that was j ust 17 -- thank you.
18 JUDGE BLOCH: No, Mr. Raskin, do you want to 19 make an independent presentation? Ms. Lit, let me 20 clarify, you are -- I take it you' re applying for party 21 status for yourself as an individual. Is that correct?
1
.. 22 DR. LIT: As an individual, yes.
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Thank you. Mr. Raskin, is the 24 same true for you?
25 MR. RASKIN: Yes, it is.
A l
l l
156 l-)
1 JUDGE BLOCH: So twenty minutes will be at l 2 10:54. I have 10:34 3 MR. RASKIN: You've heard it all yesterday about 4 the releases, the errors --
5 JUDGE.BLOCH: Mr. Raskin, I'd like to take out 6 of order, your address and how close you are to the plant.
7 MR. RASKIN: Okay, my address is 18350 Los 8 Alimos, A-L-I-M-0-S. That's quite appropriate in today's 9 market, but the Los Alimos we' re talking about, my 10 address, of course, is the -- refers to the flower, 11 Mexican name, that grows on a mountainside -- at any rate, 12 Los Alimos, Northridge. And I would assume that I'm 13 within anywhere from three to five miles. I have not 14 checked it. If somebody has a Thomas map handy, we can 15 measure it from the Santa Susana and I can give it to you 16 immediately. Does somebody have a Thomas map?
17 JUDGE BLOCH: Unless challenged, I'll accept the 18 statement that it's three to five miles.
19 MR. RASKIN: All right, fine. I'm not quite 20 sure what the concern is regarding the distance, however, 4
21 Judge Bloch.
22 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, one of the three criteria in .
23 Sub-part L was the extent of the -- of your interest, the 24 extent to which you personally might be injured by the 25 continuation of this license. The further from the plant, J G
f?h 157 r~q .
.f( v ) 1 the less likely a release is to effect you directly.
, 2 MR.~ RASKIN: Except that some of these releases 3 could very well be airborne and with the type of winds we 4 have, the airborne releases would not stop'at three miles 5 or five mileu or ten miles or fif teen miles as we know in 6 the case of Chernobyl --
7 JUDGE ELOCH: The problem is --
8 MR. RASKIN: -- the airborne is probably still 9 being airborne.
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Yeah, well we're not talking about 11 a Chernobyl-type release here.
12 MR. RASKIN: No , we' re not , we' re not , but we
- r? 'T 13 are talking about wind carrying release, fh g / 14 JUDGE BLOCH: So, we' re talking about dispe'rsion
~
15 models of how wind can release these things.
16 MR. RASKIN: That's right.
17 JUDGE BLOCH: And I'm j ust telling you that the 18 closer you are to the plant, the more directly effected 19 you are.
20 MR. RASKIN: Yes, that is true.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: And so it's important that I know
. 22 how close you are.
23 MR. RASKIN: But we should not overlook the fact 24 that if you're somewhere in this basin, you are subject to 25 being harmed . And the amount of harm would -- if it
/~% ;
%nd
3 158 1 happened to be plutonium would only require a very, very i 2 minimal -- as matter of fact, they don' t know of any 3 minimum amount of plutonium that would not cause harm if 4 air-breathed. So, I'm not quite sure if the distance 5 concern is really that valid, but I don' t -- I'm sure 6 you' re not here to argue with me and I'm not here to argue Okay.
7 with you.
8 All right, at any rate, as I say -- anything 9 else you wanted me --
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Continue.
11 MR. RASKIN: All right, you've heard it all 12 yesterday, about the releases, the errors, the occurrences 13 which have brought problems to Rocketdyne and, of course, 14 to us. My contention is not that they have done terrible 15 harm to all of us, not yet. To the environment up at 16 Santa Susana Flats, yes, to the rest of us, I said, not 17 yet. And as a result of that not yet, I'd like them out 18 and away from populated areas where the potential for harm 19 and inj ury would not be minimal .
20 It's true that all the errors and mistakes that 21 have not been tragic yet nor even serious if the 22 Rocketdyne figures I've come across can be believed. I'm .
23 not saying yea or nay. I'll examine some of that later, 24 the belief in the Rocketdyne figures, but the potential is 25 surely there. A little over four pounds of plutonium is O
('i 159 74 Q allowed in the NRC part of Rocketdyne, plus -- and this, s ) 1 2 of course, is an unknown factor which you refuse to allow 3 us to comment on --
4 JUDGE BLOCH: Could we stop for a second? My 5 understanding is two point five pounds of--- two point 6 five --
7 MR. RASKIN: Kilos which is over four -- it's 8 almost five pounds of --
9 JUDGE BLOCH: That's correct.
10 MR. RASKIN: Okay?
11 JUDGE BLOCH: Go on, continue.
12 MR. RASKIN: Two point two times --
, 13 JUDGE BLOCH: I want to make sure that I know
(? D
\ ,) 14 what we're talking about. Go on.
15 MR. RASKIN: All right. So, I'll correct this, 16 instead of four pounds, almost five pounds of plutonium is 17 allowed in the NRC part of Rocketdyne.
18 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, stop for a second.
19 MR. MILLS: The license calls for two kilograms 20 of plutonium.
21 MR. RASKIN: Pardon me?
. 22 JUDGE BLOCH: Two kilograms.
23 MR. MILLS: Two kilograms.
24 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, four point four pounds.
25 MR. RASKIN: Tha t ' s wha t I thought originally,
O 160 1 okay, instead of two and a half. So, I said a little over l 2 four pounds of plutonium is allowed in the NRC part of ,
3 Rocketdyne, plus -- and this is an unknown factor, the 4 amount that DOE has in its possession up there at the 5 Santa Susana. We can' t comment on that nor can anybody 6 comment on that. And , of course , the DOE won' t. A fire l 1
7 of great enough magnitude could scatter this terribly l 8 poisonous substance far and wide.
i 9 The potential for many cancer cases is great.
10 And the despoiling of this area is, of course, there.
11 Settling of plutonium dust on landscape would make the San 12 Fernando Valley, Simi, Canoga Park, Woodland Hills, Hidden 13 Hills, Saugus, Thousand Oaks, Chatsworth, Northridge, 14 Reseda and many other communities barren. And there are 15 probably other communities thet2 that I have not commented 16 on.
17 Even the new region that Councilman Berenson and 18 Chappell are involved with, would not be immune. That's 19 just a local reference, Judge Bloch. Okay, now what would 20 Rocketdyne's financial responsibility be in all of this?
21 How would they slip out of all the potential suits?
22 Chapter 11? That seems to be a good tool for the .
23 companies which release poison gases like the company that 24 did so in India or the Robbins Pharmaceutical Company and 25 their IUD which harmed women or the asbestos people --
.0
p I
s 1
L 161
. M,7 -
( 1 JUDGE.BLOCH: 'Okay,-I'd prefer if you stayed 2 ' relevant to this case.
3 MR. . RASKIN: Yeah, well, I do think this is 4 : relevant because --
l 5 JUDGE:BLOCH: Not-any of those companies.
6 MR. RASKIN: -- none -- oh,.none of those
~
7 companies are relevant.
8 JUDGE BLOCH: And bankruptcy isn' t really 9 relevant here either.
10 MR. RASKIN: Well, no -- in all the information 11 you have sent me, and you did send me piles and piles of 12 ~information, nowhere have I seen anything about the
/^ 13 financial responsibility of Rocketdyne in all of this.
['+ 14 All I saw was a nine billion dollar corporation. Now, 15 that does not say anything about their financial 16 responsibility.
17 JUDGE BLOCH: You're talking about --
18 MR. RASKIN: The financial responsibility of 19 Rocketdyne if something goes wrong. I do think that --
20 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, that's up to the law.
v 22 JUDGE BLOCH: That's governed by law.
23 MR. RASKIN: That's governed by law?
24 JUDGE BLOCH: If they harm people and they're at 25 fault, they're liable.
O i
O 162 1 MR. RASKIN: And they have no further 2 responsibility.
3 JUDGE BLOCH: No further responsibility other 4 than liability? They also have legal responsibilities to 5 follow the regulations and they can be fined for that end 6 they can lose their license for that.
7 MR. RASKIN: All right, okay. At any rate, the 8 point I'm making that assets of Rocketdyne are nine 9 billion dollars and this wouldn' t go very far in the 10 various communities that I mentioned , if you had to 11 distribute that in the communities being lef t barren.
12 It's true that Rocketdyne has contingent plans 13 for big accidents and maybe they can contain fires or 14 large enough releases as a result of too much fisable 15 (phonetic) material in close proximity to each other, but 16 what if they can' t contain it and the winds blow out there 17 and they blow and they blow and they blow? And the home 18 of cards built by Rocketdyne and all of us would come 19 tumbling down.
20 No, the risk is too great in a populated area.
21 Speaking of a populated area, have you ridden up the only 22 two roads to Santa Susana? The population charts which -
23 are shown in the Rocketdyne application for license would 24 have to be reviewed ever upward daily with all the 25 building that is going on there. So, one of the two roads
]
[ 163
() '1 in and out may become freeway clogged at the time of an 2 accident or.a fire, ambulances, fire trucks, emergency.
! 3 vehicles, personnel which Rocketdyne quotes as being a p
L 4 half hour a way, which I presume would be the case of 5 Doctor Mills, as they quote, supervisors are only -- live-6 close enough to be half hour away. They would be stranded 7 and they wouldn' t be of much help in supervising if there 8 were a fire during the time when the supervisors are not 9 present or an accident during the time when the 10 supervisors are not present.
11 They wouldn' t be much help. And , of course ,
12 their contingency plans don't show what they would do with
^
/T 13 all of these people stranded on the roads leading up there
(?
'i ,) 14 with everybody.trying to get out of there, see, on
~
15 winding, two-lane, steep highway, see? But you say 16 accidents don't happen. Rocketdyne is well-run. The 17 supervision is too good. Errors can' t be made. The 18 probability of accident is low. You have experts. You 19 perform experiments. You make tables. You make 20 applications and because you are Rocketdyne, nobody 21 quections you. Well, I've looked at their application.
. 22 You sent me the application. And many of the attached 23 documents -- and I want to say, I found some errors.
24 Now, it's true that some of these errors may 25 very well be only typo errors, see, and still if they're
/'
f d
7 164 )
typo errors , since some of the tables that I'm going to 1
f i
2 talk about having typo errors, which have occurred time 3 and time again because much of this material is repeated 4 time and time again in the same application in a different 5 -- it might be in the contingency table -- in the 6 contingency part, it might be in the decontamination part, 7 it might be in the health and safety part -- it's repeated 8 and it still contains the same errors. So, it isn' t j ust 9 the typo. It's something that is overlooked, see?
10 And so, if we take a look, for instance, at --
11 in the environmental -- there's one environmental 12 assessment, yes, on page 31, for instance, the values of
) 13 alpha and beta -- the values given for alpha and beta are 14 less than the lowest detectible level in every case. Now, 15 if they have a certain lowest detectible level, how can 16 they detect a lower level than the lowest detectible 17 level, see? And it's glaring in that whole table. That's 18 -- I'll give it to you. It' s Table -- it ' s --
19 JUDGE BLOCH: Are you sure?
20 MR. RASKIN: It's the table on page 31.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: Are you sure that these readings 22 that are below the lowest detectible level are empirical .
23 readings rather than projections from models?
24 MR. RASKIN: No, they are the readings that are 25 given in the table.
)
W:
165-
. , r^
h,, -1 JUDGE BLOCH: 'They're actual readings --
x 2 MR. RASKIN: .They are the actual- readings.
3 JUDGE BLOCH: -- and not models.
4 MR. RASKIN: They are not said to be models. . If 5 you take a-look at page 31 in the' environmental 6 ' assessment --
~
7 -JUDGE BLOCH: Which environmental assessment?
8 MR. RASKIN: The 1988, I would suspect, the~one 9 you gave me.
.10 JUDGE BLOCH: There were three, if 1 I recall 11 correctly.
12 MR. RASKIN: Yeah, an '87, '88 and maybe an86.
r;' 13 The one you're looking at right JUDGE BLOCH:
14 now is --
15 MR. RASKIN: The '88.
16 JUDGE BLOCH: --
'88.
17 MR. RASKIN: Right.
18 JUDGE BLOCH: And what page?
19 MR. RASKIN: Page 31.
20 JUDGE BLOCH: What I see it says at the top of 21 the table is " Analysis results". This is laboratory
- 22 analysis or is this analysis through modeling?
23 MR. RASKIN: It must be --
24 JUDGE BLOCHr Okay, it must be -- if they're 25 analyzed , okay, as required . Now, where do you learn that
. 1 I
"). 166 1 this is below the lowest detectible level?
2 MR. RASKIN: Because they give the value of the 3 lowest detectible level on the -- on the table. At the 4 bottom of the table, the bottom line of the table is the 5 lowest detectible level .
6 JUDGE BLOCH: Table -- it's continued on the 7 next page? Okay, was this page 30? Where is that line, 8 page 327 9 MR. RASKIN: No, page 31 --
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Yes.
11 MR. RASKIN: -- the bottom line, in the 12 environmental assessment.
i 13 JUDGE BLOCH: On page 31, my bottom line says, 14 " Release volume" . This is an environmental monitoring and 15 facility affluent annual report.
16 MR. RASKIN: No, t61 Environmental assessment.
17 JUDGE BLOCH: For '88.
18 MR. RASKIN: Yes.
I 1'd JUDGE BLOCH: Why don' t I look on over your 20 shoulder? Hold on a second. .
21 MR. RASKIN: Well, I don' t have it with me. I 22 just have it in my notes that I had taken. -
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, I can' t help you because I 24 can't --
25 MR. RASKIN: Well, okay, Attachment 6, page 31, J
167
'O
( 1 minimum detection levels say, " Point zero, zero six four" 2 and look at these values, every one of which are less than 3 that.
4 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay.
5 MR. RASKIN: Zero, zero six four, every one of 6 them are less than that. You know, we have to have some S
~
7 responsibility here is what I'm saying. All right? Do 8 you see what I'm saying?
9 JUDGE BLOCH: I'll guess that what they' re doing 10 is, they're reporting the actual reading of the machine 11 with the knowledge that it's not as accurate as that 12 indicates. So, they put that on the last line to show 13 that the sensitivity of the machine is not as great as 14 they're claiming. They can answer later, if they prefer
~
15 to.
16 MR. RASKINi If you say the sensitivity of the 17 machine is not as great, you still would not have values 18 half -- a sixth of the sensitivity of the machine. I'm --
19 20 JUDGE BLOCH: You think you wouldn' t do that l ,
j 21 even if --
. 22 MR. RASKIN: No.
23 JUDGE BLOCH: -- there was a reading of the 24 machine of that level?
25 MR. RASKIN: Even if that were a reading of the l
n
l l
l M 168 f 1 machine at that level, sir.
2 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, continue. l 3 MR. RASKIN: All right. So, okay, then on page 4 33 on that same issue, we have at the bottom there, it 5 says, "The maximum detection limit" -- and really they 6 don' t mean maximum detection limit, they mean minimum What 7 limit. Now, you say, " Hey, that's a typo error".
8 I'm saying is that, this table has been repeated maybe 9 five times in all of the material. A great deal of the 10 material is repeated over and over again. This table is 11 repeated over and over again, and not only that but this 12 table has come from 1986, 1987 and 1988 and probably, if I
.1 13 had the 1984 request, it would still be in there in' toto.
14 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, so you are concerned about 15 inaccuracies. Could you tell me how many more 16 inaccuracies you actually have in front of you?
17 MR. RASKIN: Well, as I come across them, I will 18 tell you.
19 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, I'd just like you to number 20 them. Instead of going into each one in detail, because 21 we' re not having an evidentiary hearing today, how many 22 more have you there that you could specify right now, if .
23 you continue in the same way, how many more inaccuracies?
24 MR. RASKIN: I don' t know. There's --
25 JUDGE BLOCH: Just count them. Just go slowly
.h 169
,1 ,and' count them.-
'(w1 -
2 MR. ~ RASKIN: There's -- in the contingency plans
~
3' on page 6-4 and 6-5 --
4 JUDGE BLOCH: No, I don' t want. to know --
'S MR. RASKIN: -- the tables --
6 JUDGE BLOCH: I don' t want to know what - they 7 are. I just want you to count them.
8 MR. RASKIN: Well, here are two more. Here's 9 another'one. Here is another basic one, and speaking of 10 carelessness, here's another one. And here is -- this one 11 I will' have to read to you because I think it's important 12 for the -- for understanding. This is important. How jil .13 many did I get so far? - Five? All right. Here's another VI \ 14 They probably reversed the figures an'd I've s'een
%,s_/ error.
15 that thing about three times.
- 16. JUDGE BLOCH: Okay.
17 MR. RASKIN: Somebody is not --
18 JUDGE BLOCH: I j ust want to know the number.
19 MR. RASKIN: All right, you want the numbers?
20 JUDGE BLOCH: No, no, the total number of --
21 MR. RASKIN: The total number, how many was 22 that?
l 23 JUDGE BLOCH: -- of inaccuracies that you 24 believe you've detected.
25 MR. RASKIN: Here's an inaccuracy, but this is
\
l'
] 170 an important one I want to go through. That's about five 1
f 2 that I -- or six.
3 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, so we're between six and ten 4 is what I'm hearing as you go through it.
5 MR. RASKIN: Yeah.
6 JUDGE BLOCH: Now, if you want to go over two of
~
7 them, let's go over two of them. And you'll have the 8 opportunity, if you'd like, on Monday to mail a brief 9 summary of what the other inaccuracies are so that I would 10 be able to know and Rockwell would be able to know the 11 nature of what you think the inaccuracy is.
12 MR. RASKIN: All right, here's -- on the -- this 13 one, I think, is a very important one. And it's in the 14 contingency plan for accident. And this talks about an 15 alarm system. And it says that the alarm system --
16 JUDGE BLOCH: Do you know the page?
17 MR. RASKIN: Yeah, page 2-6, on the contingency 18 -- accident contingency situation.
19 JUDGE BLOCH: Hold on a second.
20 MR. RASKI N: Yeah. ,
21 JUDGE BLOCH: 2-6 in the --
22 MR. RASKIN: 2-6 in the contingency. -
23 JUDGE BLOCH: The page is titled at the top 24 2.1.1.2 Standards for High Airborne Contamination Alarm?
25 MR. RASKIN: That may very well be it.
3 9 j
l Q 171 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay,.so what does it say?
, [f%/
1 l 2 M R .' RASKIN: This is not a table, so this is l 3 not -- 3 4 ' JUDGE BLOCH: What does it say on'that page?
5 MR. RASKIN: All right. Well, I don't know what 6 it says on the page itself, but some of the - they talk-7 about the . alarm goes of f and -- but they' re -- it's really 8 -- and plutonium is released to unrestricted area. If-the 9 plutonium. -- and they give the maximum permissible 10 concentration hour. They say the alarm goes off at 6500 11 for plutonium under MPC hours, maximum permissible 12 concentration hours, and plutonium is released to --
t ') 13 JUDGE BLOCH': All right, I can't follow what f s
( / .14 you' re saying, because I can' t find it on 2-6 of' the 'on-
~
15 site radiological contingency plan.
16 MR. RASKIN: On -- you' re right the Standards 17 for High Airborne Contamination Alarms and go down to the 18 " Alarming air monitors are kept in the following 19 locations". All right?
20 JUDGE BLOCH: Yes.
21 MR. RASKIN: Okay, now "the Hot Lab operating
. 22 gallery sensitive to both alpha and beta activity with 23 alarm points corresponding" to so much micro-curie 24 (phonetic) per cubic centimeter for alpha activity or 25 sixty-five hundred maximum permissible concentration hour
1
] 172 1 for plutonium released to an unrestricted area, okay? Are 2 you with me on there?
3 JUDGE BLOCH: Yes.
4 MR. RASKIN: All right, I'm going to quote from 5 that paragraph and from the following paragraphs. Now, 6 they say that with this is dispersed to the nearest 7 boundary, it's reduced by a factor of four thousand, 8 because of the dispersal factor. It is also reduced by a 9 factor of two thousand because of filter, assuming it goes 10 through a filter. If it doesn' t go through a filter, of 11 course, that factor does not enter. But if it goes 12 through a filter, then -- so you got a factor of eight 13 thousand and it'seems to me that if you took the sixty-14 five hundred and divide it by eight thousand, you do not 15 come to their low figure of point zero, zero, zero, eight 16 which is eight ten thousandths. You come to a figure 17 eight tenths, you see, which is about a thousand times 18 greater than their factor.
19 JUDGE BLOCH: Well , le t's see . Isn' t it correct 20 that if there's a four thousand reduction factor and a two .
21 thousand that you have to multiply the two of them 22 together?
23 MR. RASKIN: That's right, which will give you 24 eight thousand. -
25 JUDGE BLOCH: Eight million? So, let's go on to 3 9
(~) 173 I;!m ) 1 the next one.
'w' 2 MR. RASKIN: All right. I accept that as an 3 error. Okay. Okay. The -- let me see what -- I've taken 4 some of these out of --
5 JUDGE BLOCH: I'd like to say this, I have seen 6 proceedings in which people with relatively limited
~
7 expertise have found important problems in technical 8 materials prepared by professionals. But it's not that 9 easy.
10 MR. RASKIN: Yeah, but the point I'm making here 11 is, that when these errors --
12 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, but we' re going to have to
/
] 13 see one at a time how many of them are errors also, ti )
%a/ 14 because we haven' t seen Rockwell's discussion of them 15 either.
16 MR. RASKIN: Okay, I will -- no, no, that's 17 right. That's right .
18 JUDGE BLOCH: But you'e concerned that there are 19 errors. I hear that.
20 MR. RASKIN: I am concerned and I am concerned 21 that --
. 22 JUDGE BLOCH: Is there one more that you want to 23 talk about now because I said you could talk about two?
24 MR. RASKIN: In the decontamination booklet, the . 1 25 one on page 25 -- it's the decontam -- you have the 1
/~~s l
~, _j f
l i
[') 174 1 decontamination booklet? Yeah, decontamination plan, 2 okay, page 25 -- j i
3 JUDGE BLOCH: Is that in the materials from the 4 record? I 5 MR. RASKIN: Yeah.
6 DR. LIT: It's Attachment 7.
7 JUDGE BLOCH: Why don' t you make your statement 8 about it, and I'll look over your shoulder because it's 9 just easier for me?
10 MR. RASKIN: Yeah, well, let me get it for 11 you.
12 JUDGE BLOCH: Mr. Raskin has been looking for 13 this error and has just stated that he might do this one 14 in writing because he's having a little dif ficulty finding 15 exactly what his concern is.
16 MR. RASKIN: The -- there's another point that I 17 want to make.
18 JUDGE BLOCH: No, those were the two that we 19 were going to talk about.
20 MR. RASKIN: Yeah, okay.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: Is there something other than 22 errors now that we' re movit 3 on to? I'd like you to wrap .
23 it up within a few minutes because your twenty minutes has 24 been reached.
25 MR. RASKIN: Well, I'll wrap it up in a few
175
' (~)
( 1 minutes. Let me -- let me -- okay, speaking of 2 carelessness, gas affluents from the Hot Lab eventually 3 pass through filters that have a coefficient of ninety-4 nine point nine --
5 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, we're done with errors right 6 .now.
7 MR. RASKIN: Yeah.
l l 8 JUDGE BLOCH: This is not an error.
9 MR. RASKIN: Using DOS aerosol as a test l
10 chemical, that's standard .
11 JUDGE BLOCH: Uh-huh.
12 MR. RASKIN: But no mention is made of one
~
( 13 filter rack that has only a ninety-eight percent (t 14 af ficiency, when ninety-nine percent is required and this
~
15 was allowed to continue. This is on page 29 of the health 16 and safety and the environmental 1988 one. They allowed 17 that efficiency -- that one to continue. That's not an 18 error. That's a deliberate continuation.
19 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, so you're alleging that 20 there was a filter that was operating at less --
21 MR. RASKIN: Ninety-eight percent instead
- 22 of --
23 JUDGE BLOCH: -- less than required standards l .
24 and there was an intentional decision to allow it to 25 continue in use.
~T 176 MR. RASKIN: Right, yeah. Okay, speaking of --
1 f
2 and I think Ms. Lit -- Doctor Lit referred to this in the 3 deactivated SNAP reactor building 059, on page 33 in the 4 1947 environmental monitor -- I'm sorry, on page 19 of the 5 1947 environmental monitor, its conclusion differs 6 considerably from the EPA conclusion, the Gallegaly F report, on Building 059. And I asked a question, that 8 seemed so strange and why is there that difference in 9 conclusion, see, unless one closes one's eyes to 10 apparently available --
11 Also, the license request said that there's not 12 ,- going to be any uranium hexa-fluoride. Now, on the 13 health and safety table, 3-2, why is fluorination being 14 allowed or being requested in the modification factor for 15 enclosure?
16 JUDGE BLOCH: What is what being -- what is 17 being requested?
18 MR. RASKIN: Fluorination is being requested.
19 JUDGE BLOCH: Fluorination.
20 MR. RASKIN: Fluorination.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: Spell it.
22 MR. RASKIN: Using fluoride gas is tPe process -
23 of fluorinating.
24 JUDGE BLOCH: Why is it being requested?
25 MR. RASKIN: Right, it's being requested in the l H
ei l 1
i
)
I'), 177 b
v ) 1 modification factor for enclosures, Table 3-2, in the 2 health and safety -- health and safety --
3 JUDGE BLOCH: -What is your concern about that?
4 What is the nature of your concern about that?
5 MR. RASKIN: What do you mean, "natare of my 6 concern"? They' re not supposed to have any uranium hexa-7 fluoride. All right?
8 JUDGE BLOCH: Tha t's correct.
9 MR. RASKIN: Okay, so does that not concern me 10 that they' re going to fluorinate who knows what chemicals 11 and there may be some uranium in that? And as a result, 12 you'll form uranium gas.
13 JUDGE BLOCH: Let's look at that. It's the
'f{}
V,v) 14 health and safety.
15 MR. RASKIN: And I'm surprised you asked me 16 that.
17 JUDGE BLOCH: Let's look at the place you' re 18 talking about. Section 3-27 19 MR. RASKIN: No, Table 3-2. It's on Table 3-2.
20 JUDGE BLOCH: Is that in one of the Appendices?
21 Table 3-2, wait a second.
. 22 MR. RASKIN: And the table is modification 23 factor for enclosures. It's 13-4. Table 3-2, 24 modification factors for enclosure requirements, under i
25 simple dry operations, down below, it's fluorination. j 1
,/^'N b
W) h 1
{
1
i
~} 178 1 JUDGE BLOCH: So, you'd like to know what kind 2 of fluorination occurs?
3 MR. RASKIN: That's right and would you expect 4 fluorination to be -- see they're using -- apparently in 5 fusing procedures for preparation of solution and well, 6 it's hard to say what, but at any rate --
7 JUDGE BLOCH: You' re concerned that the 8 fluorination might result in the handling of a prohibitive 9 material.
10 MR. RASKIN: That is right, or in the producing 11 of a prohibitive material.
12 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, thank you for stating the 13 concern.
14 MR. RASKIN: Yeah, okay, now my purpose in 15 bringing these errors to your attention or these potential 16 errors to your attention is to point out that with all the
! 17 expertise, with all the control available, errors can 18 creep in and so it can also when working with the 19 materials. Nobody does harm deliberately. It just l 20 happens. Accidents, we call them. In our ordinary work 21 and daily routine, errors and mistakes are correctable 22 except, of course, in cars, but when they' re involved in .
23 cars, that involves only a few of us, limited, we say.
24 But Rocketdyne's nuclear work is not so limited l 25 as you well know.
1J 1
s ).
N r- x 179-
[( ~1. JUDGE BLOCH: So, your. concern is thatLthere:
2 might be human error that would . result in ' releases.
3 MR. RASKIN: Definitely, even with all the
'4 expert'ise that they have available. Now, I also have 5 some concern with their request that an environmental 6 impact statement'not be required. The terrible condition
~
7- of waste, even though you claim it may be there because it 8 might be sent from heaven or who knows where, even' though 9 they' re the only ones who had radioactive work from day 10 one up there --
11 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, I made a statement about
'12 . that and I didn' t state that it came from heaven.
6N 13 MR. RASKIN: To whom else would_it be traced?
14 JUDGE BLOCH: I already-answered that, so I 15 don' t want to make another statement, but you 16 mischaracterized my stating that it came from heaven.
17 MR. RASKIN: That it can' t be what?
18 JUDGE BLOCH: You just mischaracterized my 19 stating that it came from heaven. I didn' t say that. So, 20 just continue.
21 MR. RASKIN: Okay, all right.
. 22 JUDGE BLOCH: I don' t like to be 23 mischaracterized like that.
24 MR. RASKIN: All right, it didn' t come from 25 heaven, but it came.from somewhere and I would contend I '#\
l L_ . _ _ _ _ . _ . _ _ . _ _ _ _ . _ _____._____.____________.m _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . . _ - . _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ __________________m______ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I} 180 1 that Rocketdyne is responsible for it. All right,
! 2 therefore, the terrible condition of waste and pollution 3 as shown in the EPA Gallegaly and the DOE report, should 4 necessitate an environmental impact statement and also --
5 JUDGE BLOCH: You want to find the criteria that 6 require an EIS as opposed to an EPA when you pursue that.
7 MR. RASKIN: As opposed to an EPA? '
8 JUDCE BLOCH: And EIS as opposed to an EA.
9 MR. RASKIN: Yeah.
10 JUDGE BLOCH: There are two documents that can 11 be prepared, the complete environmental impact statement 12 and the environmental assessment. Both are assessments of 13 environment effect. If you want to contend that an EIS 14 must be prepared, you'll want to know what the standards 15 are that govern that, that's all . In each case, when you 16 make filings, you'll want to peg your filings to the legal 17 standards that I'm to apply.
18 MR. RASKIN: All right, we'll have to find 19 those:. All right, and then -- I'm sorry, I -- well, let 20 me -- oh, one other point, of course, is that in the 21 license app 1!. cation, they tell of an actonide burner.
22 Now, this is the license application to NRC. It is not .
23 the license application to DOE and I don't know why we are 24 not aware or we do not have information on this actonide 25 burner.
]
O 181
[ 1 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, where in the application are 2 you referring to?
3 MR. RASKIN: This is -- do you. have the application? Who has the application? On the 5 application, application to the Office of Nuclear Safety 6 -- Nuclesc Material Safety and Safeguards of the United 7 States Nuclear Regulatory Commission for renewal of 8 license, blah, blah, blah, on page 3, down at the bottom l 9 under F.
10 JUDGE BLOCH: It i a, not the health and safety l
i 11 sections of the renewal.
12 MR. RASKIN: Pardon me? No, this is the
/i 13 application itself, the application for --
) 14 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, please continue. It's the 15 letter that was sent with the application. Go on.
16 MR. RASKIN: This is the application.
17 JUDGE BLOOH: Okay, continue.
18 MR. RASKI N: All right. Under F, special 19 nuclear material control and accounting, they describe --
20 which describes the actonide burner program material 21 controls. These documents are provided as Attachments 3
. 22 and 4 respectively. Kell, when I looked for documents 3 23 and 4, I'm told that they are proprietary information and 24 it's withheld pursuant to, so forth and so on.
25 JUDGE BLOCH: And you would like to be able to O
w _- _
'S 182 1 gain necess to those documents.
2 MR. RASKIN: Well, I have some --
3 JUDGE BLOCH: Let me ask you a direct question.
4 MR. RASKIN: -- concern --
5 JUDGE BLOCH: Would you like to gain access to 6 those documents?
7 MR. RASKIN: Would I like to gain access; only 8 to know whether the actonide burner program involves 9 additional safety and involves -- or what it involves, 10 period.
11 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay.
12 MR. RASKIN: Because I do think that we should 13 know.
14 JUDGE BLOCH: We sometimes are able to release 15 to a requester -- to a party, rather, not to a requerier 16 but to a party specific requested materials under an 17 agreement that they will not disseminate it. It's a 18 special privilege that you can obtain on motion where you 19 would agree that you would not release the materials 20 because it's considered proprietary. Having gained access 21 to the materials, if you found that you believe they were 22 not entitled to proprietary status , you also could move .
23 that they be denied proprietary status. But if they are 24 proprietary, you might be able to obtain them ender a 25 proteci'ive order, but would not be able to release them to
183 b, ')) 1 anyone else.
A ,-
2 MR. RASKIN: Well, that's putting a terrible 3 burden on me because I feel a responsibility not only to 4 myself and no't only to -- but to others who are in like 5 position as myself.
6 JUDGE BLOCH: I can' t do anything other than 7 that. If, in fact, they're not prop.:letary and therefore, 8 they're not entitled to that status, the people who are in 9 that special position can make motions about it.
10 MR. RA5 KIN: Who has determined that they are 11 proprietary? Just the company said --
12 JUDGE BLOCH: Rockwell has.
,fs'; 13 MR. RASKIN: -- Rockwell's saying it.
'( 14 JUDGE BLOCH: That's correct.
15 MR. RASKIN: Are they trying to hide something 16 behind that word proprietary?
17 JUDGE BLOCH: You'll have to determine that when 18 you see it. It may be that it's proprietary. There's a 19 reason that they don' t want it released because it would 20 hurt them commercially. They' re entitled to that.
21 MR. RASKIN: Hurt them commercially or in --
- 22 politically or what? l 23 JUDGE BLOCH: Commercially, that's what 24 proprietary means.
25 MR. RASKIN: Is it possible that it might hurt j l
3 184 1 them politically or publicly?
2 JUDGE BLOCH: Not if it's proprietary.
3 MR. RASKIN: And that has been determined, pre-4 de termined .
5 JUDGE BLOCH: That's the meaning of proprietary.
6 MR. RASKIN: Can I give you an answer later?
7 JUDGE BLOCH: Yes, and you'd have to make a 8 motion about gaining access to that material.
9 MR. RASKIN: All right.
10 JUDGE BLOCH: You might want to do that in 11 writing if you decide to do it.
12 MR. RASKIN: Yeah, it would have to be in 13 writing. I can see that.-
14 JUDGE BLOCH: And when you d o tha t , yo u' 11 15 express a willingness to enter into a protective order.
16 MR. RASKIN: All right.
17 JUDGE BLOCH: At which point, I would -- I would 18 ask Rockwell to respond and if they want to, to suggest a 19 form of protective order. If you prefer, you could 20 actually suggest a form of protective order, but my guess j 21 is that's not your expertise.
22 MR. RASKIN: No, it isn't. -
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay. I also would like to 24 disclose and say that I have an advisor in this case who 25 is a nuclear physicist. His name is Gus Linenberger.
)
I' h!O l[,
185
< 1 He's not here today because of illness. I don't know
((J 2 everything that physicians and physicists know about 3 ' nuclear materials. All I know is when to ask. So, it 4 could even be that you would know some things about this
- l. 5 case, technically, that at the present time exceed my 6 knowledge. You don' t have to be surprised if I don' t know
~
7 -about the actonide burner program. I don't.
8 MR. RASKIN: Yeah, well, that's the whole thing 9 that we' re -- I'm a little concerned. We note that it's 10 part of their application. - And i t ' s --
11 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, I heard that. We understand 12 the status of ':Ust and whether you' re going to make a j.I'; 13 request or not. ,
N 14 MR. RASKIN: Yeah, all right. All right, in 15 conclusion, what I'm saying is that we feel that being 16 safe, you wouldn' t re-license and -- but I recognize that 17 -- could you answer a question to me? How many -- how 18 many license -- applications for renewal of license has 19 the NRC ever denied?
20 JUDGE BLOCH: There are special material 21 licenses that have been denied and revoked. I don' t know
- 22 the count. And it's entirely irrelevant. It's got 23 nothing to do with my decision.
24 MR. RASKIN: No, I know it would be, but it 25 wouldn't have nothing to do with your decision, but I'm x
I h 186 just wondering. At any rate, the thing is that, if you --
1 h
2 if the license is not denied, we hope that i t would -- th e 3 following would be put upon granting of a license. That 4 the environmental impact statement would be imposed and i 5 that an oversight community group would sort of -- would 6 be -- I shouldn' t say imposed , but an oversight community 7 group should be - should be working with Rocketdyne very 8 closely, no politicians to be on this group and no ,
9 political appointees to be on this group, you see, but 10 just community people who are interested.
11 JUDGE BLOCH: And if Rockwell were willing to 12 accede to that voluntarily, would you be willing to be on
, 13 such a group?
14 MR. RASKIN: Would I be willing to be on such a 15 group? I'd sure consider it but --
16 JUDGE BLOCH: That's the kind of thing tha t I 17 talked about originally when I said, " Talk to each other 18 and see what you can work out". That might be able to be 19 worked out either in the context of this litigation or 20 separately.
21 MR. RASKIN: Yeah.
22 JUDGE BLOCH: So, I would still suggest that if -
23 that's the kind of thing you want, it's possible that you 24 can persuade me that it should be a condition on the 25 license. You'd have to have good grounds for it. It's
> 0 ,
IM 187
/ ,j/3 o
v j 1 also something that you might be able to work out directly 2 with the company.
3 MR. RASKIN: Well, all right, basically then 4 this~is what I had to say and I'll send you the.
5 information on the -- what I feel to be --
6 JUDGE BLOCH: . Two things, the list of mistakes 7 and if you want it, a request for a protective order.
8 MR. RASKIN: All right.
9 JUDGE BLOCH: So that you can gain access to 10 parts of the application that have not been disclosed.
11 And the protective order, you understand, would impose 12 conditions on your use of it.
j; 13 MR. RASKIN: Yes.
14 JUDGE BLOCH: Thank you.
15 MR. RASKIN: Thank you.
16 JUDGE BLOCH: Now, I know that the NRDC would 17 like to appear today. Are there other requesters who want 18 to make statements today, one, two? I'd like to have an 19 estimate from each of you of the time period that you can 20 work within. I'd like to limit it to twenty minutes. How 21 much time do you need? I'd also like to know what your
. 22 position is with respect to requesters who have not given 23 you an opportunity to study their materials. Would you 24 like ten days to comment before I rule?
25 MR. LANCET: Yes.
"N 188 1 JUDGE BLOCH: You would, okay. There's a 2 gentleman in the back. You want to be a limited appearer.
3 Is that correct? So we have two people in the room who 4 want to make limited appearance statements if we have time 5 at the end.
6 Okay, what I'd like to do now -- we've been in 7 session for almost two hours -- is to take a ten minute 8 break.
9 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Back on the record. NRDC.
11 MS. NICHOLS: Thank you, Judge Bloch. My name 12 is Mary Nichols and I'm a senior attorney with the Natural T 13 Resources Defense Council. Although I'm new to NRDC, 14 because NRDC has just opened an office here in Los 15 Angeles, I've been practicing environmental law in various 16 capacities here in California for more than seventeen 17 years.
18 JUDGE BLOCH: And I assume that soon you'll file 19 an appearance.
20 MS. NICHOLS: Yes. I am accompanied today by 21 James D. Warner. Mr. Warner is a project engineer with 22 NRDC's nuclear program. Prior to joining NRDC this year , -
23 he was a senior environmental engineer at ICF Technology, 24 Incorporated where he served as a consultant to the 25 Department of Energy investigating hazardous waste L----
I'l 189 h 1 problems at facilities throughout the United States, 2 including Rockwell's Santa Susana field laboratory. In 3 addition, he's provided hazardous waste consulting 4 services to various government and private clients.
5 I won' t describe NRDC at great length other than 6 to say that we do have members residing within a five mile 7 radius of the Santa Susana field laboratory. We 8 identified one of them in our petition which we filed and 9 served today. We do have others and we did not name them 10 in the petition filed today without consulting with them.
11 We felt it was inappropriate to list their names. People 12 who join the NRDC do so by sending us money and indicating 13 n'j;)
f their support. They receive documents from us that tell S ,/)
14 them about our programs and what we' re doing.
15 Our nuclear program is one that's been ongoing 16 for more than a decade. And so we can presume that people 17 who continue as members are in support of that program, 18 but we felt we should not release any additional 19 individual names without consulting with those 20 individ ual s .
21 JUDGE BLOCH: And I did request informally that
. 22 you do that, so that we wouldn' t have the situation of the I
23 one person that you did list also being an independent l l
24 party, i
)
25 MS. NICHOLS: Yes, and we will pursue that and i
f 4
I
____ __ _ A
'T 190 1 provide additional names to you within the next few days. h 2 If you wish us to -- well, let me just ask this question 3 because Rockwell has indicated that they want ten days to 4 review the petition -- if you want their ten days to run 5 from the time that you receive those additional names?
6 JUDGE BLOCH: I think it should run from the 7 time that your amendments are received.
8 MS. NICHOLS: Okay, we'll get those to you 9 within the next few days, hopefully, certainly by the end 10 of next week.
11 JUDGE BLOCH: That doesn' t mean they'll require 12 the full ten days. Having reviewed it, they can always 13 tell me that they' re satisfied at some point.
14 MS. NICHOLS: A similar situation applies with 15 respect to the Los Angeles Chapter of Physicians for 16 Social Responsibility, a group which we are representing.
17 JUDGE BLOCH: You might move a little closer to 18 your mike.
19 MS. NICHOLS: Well, I can' t get much closer.
20 All right, we ripped it loose. NRDC has a lengthy history 21 of involvement in NRC proceedings through our Washington 22 office and I have filed in the petition ten specific -
23 instances of cases in front of the NRC, where we believe 24 that NRDC has played an active and useful role. And we've 25 also stated reasons for our general interest in this
)
i
.N 191
' 1' proceeding.
2 I'd now like to.give you some specific -- the
~
3 specific issues that.we wish to raise in this proceeding..
4 They 'are first, and we think really at the heart of the 5 issue facing the NRC in deciding whether to re-issue a-
-6 license,.is whether the nuclear practices that were 7 conducted' safe in the San Fernando Valley of.the 1950's or 8 even the 1978's can be considered as safe today or in the n
9 year 2988 when the re-issued license would finally expire 10 given the dramatic increase in population density within 11 the immediate vicinity of the plant and the continuing 12 expected growth.
r'3 13 The NRC, we believe, ought to re-analyze the
) 14 potential impacts of a release from the facility using
~
15 updated population information and revised accident 16 scenario analyses as well as revised risk calculations 17 based on population projections that would be applicable 18 at the end of the license period, not at the beginning of 19 the period.
20 Secondly, and related, we point out that the
. 21 1984 environmental appraisal used unsupported assumptions
.. 22 about the accident scenarios that could lead to a release.
L 23 There are two potential accidents that were considered in 24 estimating the impact of a release from the Hot Lab, a 25 criticality and a fire. The analysis, however, is t
N 192 1 optimistic in assuming that each accident scenario would 2 occur independently and that the criticality would occur 3 with at least partially effective HEPA filters. A more 4 appropriate and reasonably foreseeable accident would 5 include a simultaneous fire and criticality.
6 The inclusion of fire in any accident is 7 particularly important given the frequency of brush fires 8 that sweep across these mountains. In this case, a 9 failure in the integrity of the filters, HEPA filters 10 could cause a release resulting in an off-site dose four 11 times higher than the estimate that's given in that 1984 12 appraisal.
13 JUDGE BLOCH: If you would, I j ust wan t to 14 report some discussions that I've had with Rockwell about 15 their answer to my question on emergency planning, because 16 it turns out to be relevant to what you' re rait i.ng. ,
i 17 MS. NICHOLS: Thank you. I l
18 JUDGE BLOCH: It turns out that my request 19 concerning the applicability of emergency planning i
20 requirements was citing a section of the regulations which i 21 has since been amended. The section is 70.22I. And it 22 now reads in I-1, "Each application to possess enriched .
23 uranium or plutonium for which a criticality accident 24 alarm system is required ," and there's some other 25 conditions, "must contain either an evaluation", which is ;
l !
1 L___- _ _ _ \
i
(-
,'N, 193
[h described, "or an emergency plan for responding to the 1
2 radiological hazards of an accidental release".
3 Speaking to Mr. Lancet this morning, he agreed 4 that Rockwell has a requirement that they have a 5 criticality accident alarm system and that, therefore,
?
6 Rockwell is covered by 70.22I. He then stated that the 7 on-site radiological contingency plan, revised May 19, 8 1989, has the required evaluation in 70.22I -- excuse me, 9 70.22I-1, sub 1. And that is contained in Chapter 3 of to that plan, particularly from 3-3 on. Now, I think that 11 that analysis is quite similar to the one that you're 12 citing. It also makes the assemption that the criticality
,cQ. 13 and fire incidents are independent of one another and not
([ )
"x ,/ 14 co-joint, occurring at the same time. Please continu'e. I
~
15 just want you to know that that analysis there might be 16 important if it dif fers from the one that you' re citing .
17 MS. NICHOLS: Yes, thank you for the update.
18 Third, several waste disposal sites have recently been 19 identified at the Rockwell facility that have not yet been 20 fully characterized. While some significant waste 21 disposal sites, such as the B/886 burn pit are located
- 22 outside the Energy Department's Energy Technology Center 23 in the lease option area of the Rockwell facility, several 24 waste sites are located nearby within this area. We 25 respect the view expressed by Judge Bloch, that while 10 f
O CL_-) s 1
~N. 194 1 CFR 70.11 appears to exempt from licensing any work done 2 for the' Department of Energy, this does not appear to 3 exempt Rockwell's Department of Energy activities from 4 scrutiny in this proceeding should those activities be 5 relevant to the pending request.
6 In addition, several areas of reasonably well 7 characterized ground water contamination have been 8 iden tified in Area 1, 2 and 3 at the Santa Susana Field 9 Laboratory. Finally, a number of other --
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Ms. Nichols --
11 MS. NICHOLS: Yes.
12 JUDGE BLOCH: I j ust -- I want to comment 13 legally on the issue that you're raising now.
14 MS. NICHOLS: Yes.
15 JUDGE BLOCH: As I read what you said and I saw
'16 this for the first time this morning , you' re saying that 17 because there are other contaminants on site that this 18 license should be effected. To me that may imply a 19 conclusion that the addition of these contaminants to the 20 existing contaminants in somehow worse than if they 21 existed alone. That's an interesting factual statement 22 and you may be able to demonstrate it. .
23 The other thing that it says is that if, in 24 light of the exemption of DOE activities, that for this 25 purpose it's okay to look at A plus B. And those are j ust N
l l
o_
1 C)' 195 g3 (j j 1 interesting assumptions and it may require some legal i v
2 support for that. i 3 MS. NICHOLS: I understand. We are making both 4 of those statements and we do expect to have to provide 5 further~ documentation and testimony to support them.
6 Finally, a number of other issues that deserve the NRC's 7 attention in this proceeding include issues of worker 8 health and safety reliability and completeness of 9 ' application, hazards of transportation of highly 10 radioactive aerated fuel rods, along existing mountain 11 roads.
12 We are not, at this time, stating that we will 13 have additional evidence to supply on those but merely in)
N) 14 indicating for the record and for Rockwell, that we do --
~
15 that we' re aware of those issues and we may wish to 16 comment further on them if we are admitted as parties to 17 this proceeding. I would now like to --
18 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, let me ask you this, as a 19 lawyer here -- and sometimes I need help from lawyers, too 20 -- do you think you've stated the concerns fully enough to 21 become concerns in this proceeding?
. 22 MS. NICHOLS: I believe that by noting these as 23 concerns, we are -- and they are listed as criteria or --
24 not in precisely those words, but I think each of them are 25 covered by criteria that are listed for re-licensing in L
I .-
7 196 1 the applicable Federal regulations. We're merely 2 indicating that those are areas of concern for us as well.
But we are not, at this point, asserting additional
( 3 4 information as to why they should be particularly 5 concerned. Those are j ust areas that we have some --
6 JUDGE BLOCH: In terms of the standards that I'm 7 to apply -- -
8 MS. NICHOLS: Yes.
9 JUDGE BLOCH: -- I'm not drawn to any particular 10 part of the application as being deficient. Do you think 11 that listing this like this is enough for you to be able 12 to follow it up later, or do you want to amend this to i 13 somehow refer to the application so that I know what part 14 of the application this is related to?
15 MS. NICHOLS: I believe that this is adequate to 16 alert Rockwell and you to those issues and the nature of 17 our concerns so that we could follow up with more specific 18 items at a later time. But, if you wish to have us amend 19 our petition to reflect specific citations to the 20 application, we would be willing to do so.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, my problem, of course, is 22 that there have only been a couple of cases on this new ,
23 standard and it is, of course, going to be easier if there 24 is something more specific. Then we are clearly within 25 what is intended.
)
l l
197 C)
-h MS. NICHOLS: We'd be happy to accede to that
). 1 2 and --
3 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, do you know the date by 4 which that amendment might be filed?
5 MS. NICHOLS: I believe that we could file and 6 serve that -- both of these items by the end of next week.
~
7 We'll try to put everything in at one time so we aren' t 8 turning .in multiple pieces of paper.
9 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, by the end of next week.
10 Thank you.
11 MS. NICHOLS: Okay. I'd like to turn the 12 microphone over now to my colleague, Mr. Warner, 13 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, let me ask you also , I heard f_7
\
6" '
) 14 for the first time your colleague's association with the 15 Department of Energy. I take it that, in your opinion, 16 there's nothing in that association that creates a 17 conflict of interest here.
18 MS. NICHOLS: That is our opinion. It has been 19 -- the issue has been raised and has been extensively 20 reviewed by NRDC. And we believe that there is no 21 conflict or -- legal or ethical in --
. 22 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, so in this case, let me ask, 23 does that mean -- maybe I should ask -- I should ask --
24 MS. NICHOLS: Mr. Warner.
25 JUDGE BLOCH: Mr. Warner. Were you involved in
(-
c'N, 198 1 matters at the DOE that were directly related to the 2 matters that you' re about to -- that you' re about to 3 submit evidence about in this proceeding?
4 MR. WARNER: To the extent of my contract work 5 with the Department of Energy enabled me to become 6 knowledgeable about the activities there, yes. However, 7 the primary focus of this proceeding is the NRC license 8 activities, which, as you know, are clearly exempt from 9 NRC licensing.
10 JUDGE BLOCH: But you also will be submitting 11 documents relating to the DOE activities that were your 12 official concern, because you consider them to be relevant 13 to the NRC re-licensing. That's the area that I'm not 14 clear on as to whether there's a conflict.
15 MR. WARNER: Maybe you can help me with this, 16 Judge Bloch, any of the documents that I would use as 17 reference are publicly available documents.
18 JUDGE BLOCH: It's quite clear to me that you're 19 not doing this for personal gain. And yet, I don't knew 20 whether or not -- I j ust am not familiar enough with the 21 conflict of interest standards to know whether, despite 22 the fact that it's not for personal gain, that there's .
23 some prohibition. I j ust don' t know. As a matter of 24 fact, I would ask that there be some kind of a legal 25 filing together with this application so that I know that
)
(?') 199 I 1 we aren' t accidently running into a conflict of interest 2 problem.
3 MS. NICHOLS: We'll describe more fully the 4 nature of the work that Mr. Warner did.
5 JUDGE BLOCH: It could be a precise citation to 6 the conflict of interest regulations of the Department of
~
7 Energy would resolve these issues in my mind. I'm just 8 not familiar with them, so I really don't know how they 9 apply.
10 MR. WARNER: And we'll be happy to work with you 11 in resolving any of that question.
12 JUDGE BLOCH: Please continue and welcome, 13 despite the fact that I was asking those questions.
14 Welcome to the proceeding.
15 MR. WARNER: Thank you, Judge Bloch. My name is 16 James D. Warner. When we were first asked to become 17 involved in this proceeding by some citizens, the first 18 question we asked just to try to understand it, was what 19 projects are they actually doing up there? I respect that 20 work that you've got to do to try to understand how 21 people's concerns fit into your legal mandate. We had to
. 22 understand what is the work they're doing and how could it 23 have an environmental impact, if any, from the operations 24 there at the facility?
25 And to answer that question, we j ust did a lot O
S. 200 1 of research. First of all, Rockwell has stated in their
! 2 public documents only generally, that Santa Susana is an i.
! 3 energy research and development facility. Hence, for non-4 Department of Energy work, they needed an NRC license.
5 And that's why we' re all gathered here today. We 6 requested a list of contracts from the Department of 7 Energy. We interviewed more than three dozen Energy 8 Department officials and at least forty Energy Department 9 contractors.
10 We scoured hundreds of documents, trying to 11 understand what actual operations they were performing at 12 the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the Hot Lab so that 13 we could then go on to try to figure out well, what are 14 the environmental impact potentially. After months of 15 research, we couldn' t identify a single project except for 16 decontaminating the Hot Lab that they were performing 17 there. And in fact, I spoke very recently with the 18 Department of Energy's director there and confirmed that, 19 indeed, that was their plan, to decon taminate the Hot Lab, 20 although he didn' t also identify decontamination.
21 The only project that we found to be considered 22 for the Rockwell Hot Lab is a continuation of past .
23 operations; that is, initial processing of spent fuel for 24 the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons. Right 25 now, however, no such material processing is -- appears to
(~h' 201
(( 1 be occurring at the Hot Lab, as I --
2 JUDGE SLOCH: Could you explain to me why, if 3 that's the activity.that requires licensing by the NRC?
4 MR. WARNER: Excuse me?
5 JUDGE BLOCH: If this is processing for nuclear 6 weapons, why does it require NRC licensing?
~
l 7 MR. WARNER: That's an excellent question. I'm 8 glad you stated that first, for the record. I would also 9 31ke to ask that question. If the only work they're doing 10 is initial processing of spent fuel for nuclear weapons, 11 for weapcns grade plutonium, why do they need an NRC 12 license?
^', 13 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, if I heard you correctly,
('
14 what you did is you inquired of the DOE what they're doing 15 in the Hot Lab. If I understand the license application 16 properly, the DOE wouldn't necessarily even know of that.
17 MR. WARNER: Of commercial contracts, that's 18 correct. And that's why we also inquired with Rockwell 19 about what they were doing, and indeed, people 20 knowledgeable about the Hot Lab operations. But then we, 21 of course, had to ask the question in the future. What l . 22 projects might they do in future. Just because they're 23 not doing something now, maybe they' re trying to get a 24 license for scme future operation. And it made me recall 25 discussions with Rockwell employees when I was on-site O
l l
's 202 1 just last year working on the DOE contract for two weeks.
. 2 And the discussions that I had with individuals with 3 Rockwell was that they were hoping to get a contract to 4 declad fuel rods from the fast flux test facility, a 5 facility up in Washington State.
6 That involved , as I said, processing spent fuel
~
7 that would ultimately be refined into weapons grade 8 plutonium for nuclear weapons.
9 JUDGE BLOCH: This is power reactor spent fuel?
10 MR. WARNER: It is not commercial power, no.
11 The fast flux test facility is a -- is not a commercial 12 power facility.
13 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, so it not --
)
14 MR. WARNER: I'm not alleging any violation of 15 Hart /Simpson (phonetic) here. I'm trying to lay it out 16 very carefully here so as not to mistate it, because there 17 are some -- it is a little bit complicated, the research 18 that we did and what we uncovered. So, I thank you for 19 that, trying to clarify it, so we are precise in this and 20 not over-stating it, but not under-stating it, j us t trying 21 to clarify and what is going on.
22 But before being sent to the new weapons grade .
23 plutonium processing plant the Department of Energy has 24 proposed in Idaho, it would first have to be processed 25 somewhere. The primary site for doing that processing is J
'O 203 1 the Purex facility or another facility up in Washington M
2 State. The Santa Susana Field Laboratories Hot Lab 3 figures into this only to the extent that it was 4 identified in a November 1988 environmental impact 5 statement from the Department of Energy as being the back-6 up facility for Purex.
~
7 In December of 1988, however, safety problems at 8 this plant caused it to be shut down.
9 JUDGE BLOCH: Purex?
10 MR. WARNER: Tha t's correct. The Department of 11 Energy, as of earlier this week, hopes that it can be
-12 restarted again next year but they couldn' t identify a 13 date or exactly how they were going to get re-opened. But p_q ,
\'s b 14 essentially the proceeding is part of a much larger story.
,/
~
15 Two years ago, the Secretary of Energy stated the United 16 States was awash in plutonium, and for that reason we are 17 not producing any more plutonium in the United States .
18 And, the only reactors doing that have been shut down and 19 now are going to be decommissioned. Since that, however, 20 the Department of Energy has revealed a plan to build a 21 new lazer-based weapons grade plutonium facility in Idaho
. 22 that I mentioned earlier, called the Special Isotope 23 Separation Project.
24 We believe that this plant is unnecessary and 25 therefore, that any other projects along the path to do so p
1A NL.
I
~ _ _ - . . _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
m 204 f 1 are unnecessary. We believe it's unnecessary because the 2 U.S. has a surplus stockpile of weapons grade plutonium.
3 We' re talking about a -- l 4 JUDGE BLOCH: I don' t understand the relevance 5 of this discussion to what I have to do. How is that 6 relevant to the re-licensing of the authority to do 7 contract activity?
0 MR. WARNER: I understand your question and that 9 relates to, again, our fundamental question of what they 10 plan to do at this facility. I can skip the discusssion 11 of the --
12 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, you basically want to 13 know --
14 MR. WARNER: -- country's need for --
15 JUDGE BLOCH: -- what it is they are doing 16 because it will help you evaluate the risk.
17 MR. WARNER: That's correct. I can forego the 18 discussion of the United States' lack of need for 19 additional weapons grade plutonium that could be processed 20 at this facility. But again, if the Purex plant does not 21 re-open, the Santa Susana Field Laboratories Hot Lab has 22 been identified as the back-up, although the Department of .
23 Energy, again, has no current plans to use it for this --
24 JUDGE BLOCH: Now, when you say the Hot Lab --
25 there are two parts of Area 4, one of which is DOE and the
i
'A 205 f) h 1 other of which is the licensed activity. Do you know 2 which side?
3 MR. WARNER: Yes, I do. The Hot Lab is actually 4 located outside the lease option area, sometimes loosely 5 referred to as ETEC, although they're not exactly the same 6 set. There are areas of ETEC that aren' t necessarily in' 7 the lease option area. But, the Hot Lab is located j ust 8 several hundred yards outside the lease option area.
9 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay.
10 MR. WARNER: So, it's not part of that.
11 JUDGE BLOCH: And so as you understand the 12 regulations, if there were DOE activities conducted in the 13 licensed facility, would those activities be subject to r~3 I
%s,) 14 the license?
15 MR. WARNER: I'm not a lawyer.
16 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, it's a question that I don't 17 know the answer to.
18 MR. WARNER: Nor do I. I guess -- I'm still 19 going back to my very practical question, what plans to 20 they have to use the Hot Lab and why are we all sitting 21 here today in Los Angeles discussing an NRC license if the
. 22 only potential activity in the Hot Lab wouldn' t require a 23 license?
24 If there are no other activities planned for the 25 Hot Lab, and if the Hot Lab is not used for producing O
(L) b
l 206 1 weapons grade plutonium, the license should not be 2 granted, because it's not needed and they should simply 3 decontaminate and decommission the facility and withdraw 4 from using that facility any longer.
5 JUDGE BLOCH: I know often in our regulations 6 need is a criterion for licensing. Is that part of Part 7 70? Am I supposed to find that there's a need for the 8 license? ,
9 MR. WARNER: I didn' t specifically see that.
10 Again, I'm not a lawyer, but in -- generally --
11 JUDGE BLOCH: Mr. Lancet indicates I do have to 12 find that, or at least that that's relevant.
s 13 MR. WARNER: Okay, thank you, Mr. Lancet.
14 JUDGE BLOCH: To be clear, he indicated that by 15 a nod of the head. He's not sitting on my lap.
16 MR. WARNER: In summary, we would like Rockwell 17 to make clear their intentions for using the Hot Lab, 18 whether they do intend to use the Hot Lab for processing 19 fuel to be used for weapons grade plutonium and if they do 20 not have any plans, we wish to request that Rockwell .
21 withdraw its application for an NRC license. Thank you, 22 Judge Bloch. -
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Thank you. Welcome, Ms. Zeppieri.
24 If you could identify yourself by name and address and 25 start by stating a little bit about how far from the plant j
/[] 207
( ) 1 you live and your interest.
2 MS. ZEPPIERI: Sybil Scotford Zeppieri, Z-E-P-P-3 I-E-R-I.
4 JUDGE BLOCH: Maybe you want to spell Sybil, 5 too. S-Y-B-I-L.
6 MS. ZEPPIERI: I, Sybil Scotford Zeppieri and 7 others herein known as concerned residents near Rockwell 8 or Sybil Zeppieri, et al, wish to become a party to the 9 above-mentioned corporation request to renew their nuclear 10 permit. And I'm referring to Rockwell International 11 Corporation, Rocketdyne request at the Santa Susana Field 12 Lab. I'm interested as a I live one-half mile --
,i[) 13' somewhere within a mile below the Rocketdyne Rockwell
( 14 Santa Susana Field Laboratory.
15 JUDGE BLOCH: And your address is?
16 MS. ZEPPIERI: It's -- my address -- and this is 17 peculiar about the Box Canyon area, the earlier homes 18 built in the '20's have lower numbers and mine is 27.
19 However, the newer homes sort of went along without 20 including us in their chronological order so across the 21 street is a two hundred number. So, it would be the two
- 22 hundred block of Box Canyon.
23 JUDGE BLOCH: And house number 27 on the two 24 hundred block.
25 MS. ZEPPIERI: Right. Okay, I'm interested in p
l.
L,
'f C.
208
'^)
1 the -- I feel threatened by the off-site contamination of 2 nuclear or radioactive particles in the undergro 'd water.
~
3 There are many live. springs in these particular halls and 4 one is directly above me. Sometimes it runs heavier at 5 night, although there has not been any rainfall to justify 6 this. I am also concerned that leech field contamination 7 in the RMDF Buildings 21 and 22 from an accidental valve 8 opening in the '60's has seeped into cracks in bedrock and .
9 that no ground water monitoring is done.
10 .'d like to show at this time, if I may, a short 11 segment of breaking the nuclear chains, a film, to 12 demonstrate the cause of why I'm involved in this and the j 13 concerns that : have learned in this film, I will relate 14 to the report afterwards.
15 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, could you so we can now, in 16 watching it, what is the concern that the film 17 illustrates? What concern --
18 MS. ZEPPIERI: It concerns -- it illustrates 19 chromosome damage because one of the things that is said 20 constantly is there's no eminent danger. So, I want to 21 show through the film how radia -- how -- let me j ust 22 refer to my notes, radio -- I think it must be -- oh, -
23 ionizing radiation causes chromosome damage and how, in 24 f a c t ', there have been -- okay, the Rocketdyne policy, 25 which is page 1 -- 3-1, paragraph 3.1.2 the ALARA policy
)
I
-a p, 209 I
( 1 in the annual report for radiation safety committee of the 2 NRS.
3 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, so what -- I'm going to 4 allow you to show it --
5 MS. ZEPPIERI: All right.
6 JUDGE BLOCH: -- but I got to tell you that in 7 order to demonstrate that there is an unacceptable 8 risk -- ;
9 MS. ZEPPIERI: Well, all right 10 JUDGE BLOCH: -- okay, you're going to have to 11 demonstrate either that the analysis contained in the on-12 site radiological plan which I referred to in my 13 discussion with NRDC is inadequate or that in some way 14 it's not looking at some facts that exist.
15 MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay.
16 JUDGE BLOCH: So, there's got to be a proof link 17 between what's going one at Santa Susana and the effects 18 that you' re talking about . Yes, radiation can have 19 effects, but the question on renewal is, are they doing 20 something that's not adequate to safety on this site?
21 MS. ZEPPIERI: All right. And there is a couple
- 22 other things mentioned in there.
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, so, do we have to turn 24 lights down or can you just show it? Let's show it.
25 We'll let the record show that a video tape was shown.
O
i l
I "T 210 i
- l 1 Given the fact that it's not evidence at this time, we're 1 2 willing to receive Ms. Zeppieri's copy of what was shown q 3 so that there will be some record of what it was that we 4 saw. We'll keep the one copy of that in Washington, D.C.
I 5 at the records of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 6 Panel.
(Off the record.)
7 8 JUDGE BLOCH: Back on the record . Ms. Zeppieri, 9 would you like to comment on how the concerns from that 10 film are germane to the application?
11 MS. ZEPPIERI: All right, I will. First of all, 12 I'm not a physicist, so I have to have a layman's
, 13 understanding of what -- of what pluton does and how 14 chromosome damage takes place. And in -- let's see if I 15 can find it -- the chromosome damage was the ionizing 16 thing , right. I have it here. On page 1, 3-1, paragraph 17 3.1.2, the ALARA policy. Rocketdyne's policy --
18 JUDGE BLOCH: Tha t ' s A-L-A-R-A.
19 MS. ZEPPIERI: A-L-A-R-A.
20 JUDGE BLOCH: For the Reporter.
21 MS. ZEPPIERI: Oh, okay. Rocketdyne's policy to 22 hold all exposures to ionizing radiation the minimum .
23 possible.
24 JUDGE BLOCH: No, as low as reasonably 25 achievable is not the minimum possible. The minimum
_)
l1 211
(") {
( f 1 possible is always zero.
2 MS. ZEPPIER1: Is always what? f 3 JUDGE BLOCH: The minimum possible is always 4 zero. As low as reasonably achievable is a practical 5 balance.
6 MS. ZEPPIERI: All right, so the wording is --
7 JUDGE BLOCH: Very important.
8 MS. ZEPPIERI: -- very important. All right, so 9 minimum possible doesn' t say you can achieve the zero 10 level.
11 JUDGE BLOCH: Absolutely not.
12 MS. ZEPPIERI: So, then it doesn't hold 13 Rocketdyne to a specific gauge. And I'm wondering, is
- [)3
( ,/ 14 that --
~
15 JUDGE BLOCH: The regulations of the NRC require 16 that you use radiation in a careful way that allows you to 17 achieve a level that's as low as reasonably achievable.
18 It means that in each case, you look at what you're doing 19 and the costs of doing it, and you minimize the amount 20 that you're going to release within the practical concerns 21 of what you're doing. We don' t require zero released of
- 22 radioactive materials. That's not possible.
23 MS. ZEPPIERI: But this doesn' t say how much 24 they can release or will release.
25 JUDGE BLOCH: Tha t's correct . It's a -- there 73 r Q ,Y 1
L____ _
'3 212 1 are also overall limits but the ALARA is additional to 2 that. It's a special additional safety precaution within 3 the allowed limits.
4 MS. ZEPPIERI: All right, well --
5 JUDGE BLOCH: That should be all capitals when 6 you spell ALARA.
7 MS. ZEPPIERI: These are my concerns, whether 8 they can be thrown out, all right, but I'm still 9 concerned, because we are all concerned around there about 10 the eminent threat and so I'm trying to point out in my 11 statements how that looks to me.
12 Then also in RMDF -- let's see if I can find it
'1 13 -- the radioactive -- the document that this is in --
14 well, anyway, Rockwell is soliciting contracts to 15 reprocess used fuel rods in Building 20 from sources 16 different than the DOE. Now, I have been told and at one 17 point in the report, that there would not be any 18 reprocessing. But if they' re soliciting contracts -- and 19 I got this out of their application.
20 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, where does it say they're 21 doing this?
i 22 MS. ZEPPIERI: Building 20. .
23 JUDGE BLOCH: No, no, where in the application? !
l l
24 MS. ZEPPIERI: Oh, okay, the -- let's see RMDF, 25 nine buildings have radioactive waste. It discusses the .
1 I
J ei
~~
213-
=1.
1- " HEPA filter , ' so i t's --
2 JUDGE BLOCH:- What's ' the name of the document 3 lfirst? ,
4 MS. EEPPIERI: I think it's radioactive 5 contamination.
6 JUDGE'BLOCH:' What's the name ' of the document?
7 MS. ZEPPIERI: Radioactive Contamination --
8 Sites with Radioactive Contamination.
Let's see , ' that? s 9 the'Gallegaly report, I guess, page 17.
10 ' JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, as I understand it, it's not 11 part of the. application, but we'll look at that. Tha t' s 12 just an EPA report.
%Cy 13 MS. ZEPPIERI: Oh,'I see. Right.
)
14 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, what about page 17?
15 MS. ZEPPIERI: Well, that -- you asked me where 16 it was and I have page 17, Gallegaly report. I don't know 17 -- because these are my notes. I~ don' t have my own copy.
f
,18 JUDGE BLOCH: But what is it about page 17 that 19 creates a concern'for you?
20 MS. ZEPPIERI: Well, there's somewhere in there 21 -- in that general area, I can't find it, under the HEPA 22 filter section, do you see that anywhere?
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Not on this page.
24 MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay, well, then further on. I i
25 was going through it, so it must be in there somewhere.
l
\
l i
)
O 214 1 I'm not sure of the page. See EPA recommendations, well, 2 that's all I have is the -- a paragraph that states that 3 and I got it out of that -- out of that report.
4 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, let's see if you can just 5 state it clearly without telling me where it is. What is 6 i the concern?
7 MS. ZEPPIERI: Rockwell is soliciting contracts 8 to reprocess used fuel rods in Building 20 from sources 9 different than the DOE. So, in other words, they're --
10 they are considering reprocessing spent fuel rods which is 11 the most dangerous.
12 JUDGE BLOCH: You're talking about illegal
^
13 activity of reprocessing commercial --
14 MS. ZEPPIERI: Omission, omission.
15 JUDGE BLOCH: What?
16 MS. ZEPPIERI: It would an omission in their --
17 in their -- maybe it's illegal.
18 JUDr-E BLOCH: I guess I don' t understand clearly 19 enough what it is that you' re worried about.
20 MS. ZEPPIERI: Well, I understand that they l 21 don' t do reprocessing up there. I've been told -- even 22 you told me that, that they' re not going to be -
l 23 reprocessing spent fuel, but in fact, they are soliciting 24 contracts to do such a thing. I understand they were -- I 25 was told that they were just going to be decladding, which l
ll}
l l
l L_______._._____.
l.
l 215
. P, . -
( 1 of course, is also a dangerous procedure and then sending 2 the spent -fuel somewhere else for reprocessing.
3 JUDGE ~BLOCH: Decladding is part of the 4 application, yes.
5 MS. ZEPPIERI: But they are also considering 6 soliciting reprocessing contracts from other than the DOE.
~
7 JUDGE BLOCH: All right, if you can cite a -- an 8 authoritative source for that, I'd like you to do it 9 within a couple of days.
10 MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay.
11 JUDGE BLOCH: A caref ul cite that shows that you 12 have reason to believe that reprocessing will take
\ 13 place --
r4
( 14 .MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay.
15 JUDGE BLOCH: -- that's not a part of the 16 application --
17 MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay.
18 JUDGE BLOCH: -- if that's what you believe.
19 So, continue.
20 MS. ZEPPIERI: That's what I read. I --
21 JUDGE BLOCH: Continue.
. 22 MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay. In regard to decladding, 23 let's see -- recladding concerns me also because it's a 24 potentially dangerous explosive method of decladding 25 surrounding highly radioactive spent reactor fuels.
O
I
^N 216 1 There's no protection or guaranty that Rocketdyne would l
2 not accept decladding operations from injured reactors, 3 such as Detroit had, And see, we nearly lost Detroit. I 4 have a document from the Committee to Bridge the Gap that 5 I'd like to enter into the record, which is where I got i 6 this.
7 JUDGE BLOCH: What does it have to do with a 8 concern of yours? .
9 MS. ZEPPIERI: The decladding and dangerous 10 process of decladding and how it can emit radioactivity 11 into the air.
i 12 JUDGE BLOCH: They've already been licensed to 13 declad. What is wrong with the application? What is the 14 problem you find with the application about decladding?
15 MS. ZEPPIERI: They are already licensed -- l 16 aren' t they asking for a renewal of this license?
17 JUDGE BLOCH: Yes, but what is wrong with what 18 they're proposing about that, what aspect of the 19 s7 plication do you have a concern about?
20 MS. ZEPPIERI: It's a dangerous explosive method I
'I 21 and an accident could happen. And there have been --
22 they' re -- also when they receive inj ured fuel rods from ;
I 23 like the fuel reactor in Detroit, which nearly had a melt-24 down, then that is dangerous j ust in transporting it and i 25 then working with an inj ured -- I don't know if the word
_)
l
217 1 is inj ured -- a fuel rod that's broken. And also such as 2 the accident in 1964 under AI jurisdiction known as SNAP-3 8, the reactor for the space program, in eighty percent of 4 the fuel rods, the reactor suffered clodding and melting.
5 I submit that --
6 JUDGE BLOCH: Tha t's cladd ing , C-L-A.
7 MS. ZEPPIERI: Oh, that's my writing, cladding 8 and melting, yes. So, I also would like to have another 9 document entered into the record if I may. And that's 10 another Mother for Peace which I have here somewhere and 11 I'll discuss'why later. I have that written here, but I 12 don' t know why I said that on this issue.
- ry 13 JUDGE BLOCH
- What I'd like you to do, instead y, ) 14 of taking these things for the record now, because I can' t
~
15 tell why I'm receiving them --
16 MS. ZEPPIERI: Oh, I see.
17 JUDGE BLOCH: I'd like you to prepare a written 18 application. It's j ust very dif ficult to analyze what 19 you're doing orally. I would rather not continue with the 20 oral presentation. It's just too dif ficult for me to l
21 understand what it is that we' re being asked to consider j
- 22 as concerns.
23 MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay.
24 JUDGE BLOCH: It would be possible to state 25 concerns in a terse way, but I'm having difficultly with l
{' - . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
D 218 the form in which you' re doing it. So, if you wouldn't 1
f 2 mind , I would like to have you file a written application.
~
3 MS. ZEPPIERI: All right, I'd be happy to.
4 JUDGE BLOCH: Thank you.
5 MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay.
6 JUDGE BLOCH: Thank you very much. You're 7 Donald Wallace?
8 MR. WALLACE: I am.
9 JUDGE BLOCH: And your address and distance from 10 the plant?
11 MR. WALLACE: My address is 1710 North Cold 12 Canyon Road in Calabasas. That's approximately nine point 13 six miles away from the plant.
]
14 JUDGE BLOCH: Thank you, it's not a plant.
15 MR. WALLACE: I work at 6345 Fallbrook Avenue, 16 which is approximately five point two or three or slightly 17 over five miles from the plant. Since I am a fireman, I 18 work there one-third of my life. I own -- additionally, I 19 own twelve acres of property approximately three and a 20 half miles from the plant, from the facility. My health 21 and safety and my economic interest will be directly 22 effected by the outcome of these proceedings. -
23 If you grant the relicensing, my health and 24 safety will be compromised and my health concerns include 25 the radiation effects from potential accidents, the radio D
O
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219
. 1 effect.-- radiation effects from transportation accidents-
-2 .and radiation ef fects from transportation through my --
3 cthrough and by my neighborhood.
4 Economic concerns' include the ef fects of 5 . relicensing.on my property _ values. 'I bought fourteen-6 acres of land about twenty'-two -years ago and -I planned to
~~
7 live-there. . When that became impossible due ' to other 8 economic circumstances, I determined to hold on to the 9 land as a -- as an investment. The value of my land.will' 10 be diminished by 1imiting the market for sale should you
- 11 ~. grant the relicensing. Additionally, California law 12 requires that. the existence of this nuclear waste facility m 13 or-this nuclear. facility be disclosed to potential buyers 14 and my economic interest would be adversely affected by
~
15 the relicensing of this facility through that device, 16 through the disclosure laws in the State of California 17 concerning real estate.
18 My concerns are, if granted the status of a 19 . party to these proceedings, I will present evidence that 20 Rockwell International is not qualified to be licensed by 21 the NRC due to a demonstrated lack of willingness or
. 22 ability to follow NRC rules concerning the handling and 23 storage of nuclear products set forth in the license. I 24 will present evidence that Rockwell has falsified its on-l 25 site radiological contingency plan, particularly in its l
\
f
i l- 220 1 fire, EMS and population sections.
2 I will present evidence that Rockwell's 3 engineered provisions for handling abnormal operations are i i
4 inadequate or outdated or inadequate and outdated. I will 5 present evidence the Rockwell's organization for the 6 control of radiological accidents are inadequate. I will 7 present evidence that Rockwell's maintenance of 8 radiological contingency prepared and its capability is 9 inadequate and does not actually exist as it is stated in 10 its on-site contingency plan and is inadequate under 11 provisions for -- under the -- under the license 12 agreement.
T 13 I will present evidence that its reports and 14 records are inadequate and I've just spoken to a person 15 knowledgeable in Workers' Compensation law in tlie State of 16 California and I expect to be able to present evidence 17 that Rockwell does not meet the standards for relicensing 18 under the sections dealing with safety of its workers. I 19 would also like to file additional concerns and present 20 additional evidence after I've had an opportunity to 21 review the documents which have been distributed to 22 requesters and the record. -
23 I think that succinctly puts my concerns and my 24 interests on the record and I would request that you grant 25 me this status. Thank you.
I
.7 I
^Qn; -221 1(r
.. ( . =1 JUDGE BLOCH: Mr.'Wallace, I suspect that with-2 respectLto one or two of the last things that you wrapped 3 in there, that -I need a little bit more about the way that
.4 it's germane to the application. So, for example, ^.he-5 . OSHA - whatever the standards are in. Worker'-- whatever 6 'i s wrong in. the _ application about that, you might j ust 7 ~want to ' file a supplement about.that, so that I have 8 something more' specific.
9 MR. WALLACE: I will -- I will put these -- to 10 the best of my ability, I will put these in writing and 11 submit them to you just as soon as I can get access to the
- 12 -documents that you have granted to the requesters to .this
- m. '13 point.
( 14 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, and as I heard what you 15 said, I heard that you incorporated by reference the 16 . remarks you made last night when you talked about 17 inaccuracies and inadequacies of the plan.
18 MR. WALLACE: I do. I would like those concerns 19 or those statements that I made last night incorpora ted .
20 JUDGE BLOCH: Thank you.
21 MR. WALLACE: Thank you.
l . 22 JUDGE BLOCH: You might want to stay in case 23 there's rebuttal to be done. I don't know what --
24 MR. WALLACE: I'm j ust freeing up the chair.
25 JUDGE BLOCH: I believe there's one more person, k L
{'
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i d
i "x 222 1 Arlene, please.
2 Yes, thank you. My name is -- is i MS. MATHEWS: ,
3 there chalk on that board? I would like to draw a little i 4 map. Is there chalk there?
5 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, let's go off the record.
6 (Off the record.)
7 JUDGE BLOCH: Back on the record.
8 MS. MATHEWS: Okay, my name is Arlene Mathews. .
9 I live at 10027 Casaba , C-A-S-A-B-A in Cha tsworth ,
10 California, which is approximately two miles or so from 11 Rocketdyne as the crow flies. And because, Honorable 12 Judge Bloch, you do not reside in this area, I take it, I 3 13 would like to show you on a map the way the terrain is and 14 give you some indication of what we deal with. What I'm 15 leading to is that the location is not an appropriate 16 location in the first place for this kind of facility. No 17 license should ever have been granted prior to this.
18 So, to ask for a renewal of a license in an 19 inappropriate location I think is terribly important. Let 20 me j ust go up to -- ,
21 JUDGE BLOCH: I want you to continue but I want 22 you to know that ultimately I'll have to decide that in -
23 light of both where the plant -- where the facility is and 24 what the risks of release are. So, it's a complex 25 question you're addressing. There's no simple way of
223
.M.
hv I '1 knowing, even if it were in the middle of a block with~a 2 million people that it would be unsafe.
3 MS. MATHEWS: Indeed.
4 JUDGE BLOCH: Now, I don' t know that Rockwell 5 would be arguing that in the middle of a block with a 6 million would be unsafe, but it's a modelling question.
~
7 It's a question of what the most severe accidents might be 8 and what the risks are of those. So, please --
9 MS. MATHEWS: Okay, they are in the middle of a 10 block between a :million people in the San Fernando Valley 11 and more in Ventura County.
12 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay. The distances matter , too.
,4Q 13 MS. MATHEWS: Right, thank you. Okay. Okay.
x_,, 14 Obviously, not to scale. San Diego Freeway, Golden State 15 Freeway.
16 . JUDGE BLOCH: Are the directions correct, the 17 north, south directions?
18 MS. MATHEWS: This would be north, south, east 19 and west. And if anybody wishes to dispute my map, please 20 do, but I think it's fairly accurate. This is the Golden 21 State Freeway going from -- all of this would be part of 22 the San Fernando Valley. There is still more that 23 continues on through Burbank and --
24 JUDGE BLOCH: Let me describe what you've done, 25 if you'd like, i
l k_
7
.] 224 1 MS. MATHEWS: Yes.
2 JUDGE BLOCH: On the eastern side of this map, 3 there's a north / south road called Golden State Freeway.
4 In the middle of the map on the board, there's a 5 north / south road called San Diego Freeway and toward the 6 left side of the map, a north / south road called DeSoto.
~
7 At the bottom of the map an east / west road labeled Ventura 8 Freeway. At the top of the map, an east / west road labeled 9 Simi Freeway and there's a space near the upper lef t-hand 10 part of the map labeled Chats --
11 MS. MATHEWS: Chatsworth.
12 JUDGE BLOCH: Chatsworth Northridge. Okay, 13 we'll understand it means Chatsworth Northridge.
14 MS. MATHEWS: Yes.
15 JUDGE BLOCH: Now, continue.
16 MS. MATHEWS: Okay, where I have these funny 17 little zig-zag lines are the Santa Susana Mountains.
18 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, they are the border of the 19 map along the top and left margins of the map.
20 MS. MATHEWS: Okay, so I live here in the middle 21 of the A, in Chatsworth, I would say two miles or so from 22 the plant which would be about here, approximately. Is -
23 that correct fellows from Rockwell International?
24 JUDGE BLOCH: The X on the map is near the upper 25 left-hand part of the map. The distances are not to scale S
"U _
]
.1 y ,
, l jp 225.
( -1 so the only.important' thing is that the requester;is
- 2. slightly to the east of DeSoto.
3' MS. MATHEWS: Okay. ~This area, I understand is 4 a sliver.of' unincorporated area, but this border here m 5 between Simi- Valley and Chatsworth, ' this mountain border
' 1 6 is'the1 edge between Los Angeles, the City of Los Angeles,=
~
7 not just the County, the City of Los Angeles and .Ventura 8 County. Now, this.part of the City -- this is a very 9 small part of the City and maybe -- maybe half of the San 10 Fernando Valley.
11 There is another freeway out here, a Foothill 12 Freeway that goes north and south and this would be --
- ^.
. 13 - when you go over this hill here, you end-up either in' 14 Beverly. Hills er in Los Angeles, you know. This San Diego 15 Freeway will take you to the Beverly Hills /Brentwood area.
16 And to the east of that is all of Los Angeles laying.out 17 there. The ground waters travel down the mountains, down
'18 the slopes from here.
19 Now, we live in a semi-desert area. To the 20 north of us the Mojave Desert and not too far. And in 21 this area, where the mountains are, would you believe that
.' 22 we have no real native plants. Everything that you see 23 c growing there that's so lush and beau'iful was brought in.
24 The chaparral, the native plant, is filled with oil, lots 25 and lots of oil and it explodes in seconds. It starts a
I i
7 226 1 lightening storms. And the reason we have desert is not 2 only because we didn' t have very much water down here and l 3 we had to import it. Mullholland and those people, you've 4 probably read about, imported it from the north to make 5 this a populated area. Otherwise it was all desert not 6 too terribly long ago.
7 The prevailing winds come in from the desert and 'j i
8 soon we' re going into the Santa Ana wind season. Those 9 Santa Ana winds are fierce. They bring in hot, hot desert i 10 winds. In any case, in the San Fernando Valley, our 11 temperatures go up to a hundred and ten degrees easily. I 12 like that. I'm used to it. Eighty degrees, I start g 13 getting cold. But -- so in these canyons, when'these 14 winds sweep through, you cannot believe what happens.
15 They bring with them fires. These are natural fire areas.
16 They expect that these places are -- that everything in 17 these mountains has to burn off within a thirty year 18 period. Everything burns off.
19 Many times when the fires have come roaring 20 through these canyons down from the Santa Clarita Valley 21 and down here to eventually end up in Malibu to the sea 22 and it sweeps through in an hour, two hours. I mean you -
23 cannot believe what the wildfires are here. Many times 24 I've seen the fires up around their plant, where they've 25 almost gotten it. We've almost gotten it, too. When 5
i
'N 227
( 1 they' re on fire and it's with -- I'm not saying the 2 buildings themselves. I'm saying when the surrounding 3 terrain is on fire and threatens them, we're also 4 threatened. We wet down our roofs . We're used to that.
5 So, we live, you know, like on the edge of a 6 precipice. We live in a highly seismic area. Putting a
~
7 plant of this sort is about as smart as placing it on 8 Mount Saint Helena, you know. Tha t's about what we' re 9 doing. That's the kind of insanity that we' re living 10 with. It's not bad enough that we have to worry about the 11 San Andreas Fault, but we have all these other little 12 faults that go under this plant. One of the faults is the
- 13 one that caused the major earthquake in what was that,
/
14 1979? That came from here. This is where the whole eh. r.
15 freeway collapsed, right here, where I have that X, you 16 know.
17 We have all of the seismic area. We have all of 18 these fires that we live with. Then we have the floods 19 that come down the mountains when the chaparral is built 20 -- is taken away. So, that's what we live with right 21 there. It was inappropriate to locate them there. Now, 22 if we really had really responsible people that we're 23 dealing with, we'd have a little bit more self-assurance.
24 But we've had these fellows -- one of them stood up, a l
25 very nice man, there he is -- stood up and told us that i
\
'N 228 1 look at their record. They have a wonderful record and on 2 that basis they should get relicensed.
3 Look at their record? These are the same --
4 this is the same team that ran the Rocky Flats facility 5 and have been cited for illegal dumping, illegal dumping 6 of radioactive waste. How can any human being -- any
~
7 human being in our society justify such a terrible action.
8 And these are the same people who own and who ran this 9 place. And that's very scary.
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Would that be a concern? There 11 has to be more than j ust a charge.
12 MS. MATHEWS: Well --
x 13 JUDGE BLOCH: Tha t is not going to be accepted 14 by me when it's j ust a charge.
15 MS. MATHEWS: Right.
16 JUDGE BLOCH: Because the trouble is the charge 17 does not mean that they did it.
18 MS. MATHEWS: They did find radioactive waste 19 buried. That they did find. ,
i 20 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, you will be having to 1 l
21 document that.
22 MS. MATHEWS: Yes. Okay, but the question -- -
23 you know, it wasn' t my friends and relatives who still 24 live in Denver who did that radioactive dumping because 25 they don' t have access to radioactive material, you know, j
4 l
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_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ - . - - - - . -- )
('g 229
( 1 near Rocky Flats and near Denver, northwest of Denver. I 2 come from Colorado. I still have a home there.
3 I'm saying, somebody did that illegal dumping 4 there.
5 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, one comment I'd like to make 6 is, the most direct evidence we could have would be the 7 way that they actually handled the licensed activities I 8 which they're asking a renewal of. Why don' t you go back 9 to your seat? That's a good idea. Take that mike with 10 you, though. And there might be other practices on this 11 site that would be relevant. It would have to be 12 something truly egregious at another site so that I would
) 13 even get into it."
14 MS. MATHEWS: Yes. As I stated yesterday, there 15 have been truly egregious things that happened here.
16 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, you're going to have to --
17 MS. MATHEWS: And we weren' t noticed to 18 evacuate. I mean, when they had a partial meltdown, they 19 didn't tell the people of our community that they had such 20 a happenstance.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, you understand that for me
. 22 to hear anything in the hearing , it's going to have to be 23 carefully documented to sources that I can trust.
24 liS. MATHEWS: Indeed , yes .
25 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay.
O
~3 230 1 MS. MATHEWS: Indeed.
2 JUDGE BLOCH: And particularly charges that 3 someone has done something criminal.
4 MS. MATHEWS: Yes, yes, we will --
5 JUDGE BLOCH: I'm very sensitive to that.
6 MS. MATHEWS: Of course, we will look very
~
7 carefully at that and I am considering a lawsuit, as a 8 matter of fact. I should say, when I mentioned -- I think 9 I mentioned that I'm a widow. My husband died five years 10 ago.
11 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, let's stay to what's 12 relevant here.
13 g g'. MATHEWS: Right, this may be relevant, 14 because USC and UCLA have done studies and we far exceed 15 the rate for heart disease and for lung disorders in our 16 are:. You know, we --
17 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, demographic studies are very 18 difficult. You're also in a heavy smog area.
19 MS. MATHEWS: We are, and so that's why we 20 assumed that that was the reason that a man like my 4
21 husband had no organs to give away except his corneas.
22 Everything else was gone. -
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Demographic studies are just very 24 difficult and I'm willing to look at a demographic study, 25 but you must know there are a lot of problems with
)
(Q 231 1 demographic studies.
2 MS. MATHEWS: Right, I understand.
'3 JUDGE BLOCH: The major problems are that the 4 things that we're interested in are very low incidents of 5 ' occurrence. So, there's usually a wide error band around 6 them and it's very hard to do a demographic study that 7 shows that anything causes anything.
8 MS. MATHEWS: Yes, I know that's a difficult 9 area, that's a very difficult area to prove. Nonetheless, 10 it is true that we do have a very high incidence of cancer 11 and heart disease in the area, very high incidence. So, 12 maybe that isn' t the thing -- that isn' t the main area r3 13 which to pursue. I did, by drawing the map, wish to show 14 that'that plant is always in danger of being on fire. And
~
15 whether radioactive material, when on fire, constitutes a 16 great danger, I don' t know. I'm not a scientist, but I 17 think it's something that we'll also have to look at.
18 JUDGE BLOCH: Have you had a chance to look at 19 the application to see what it is that they do about fire?
20 MS. MATHEWS: No, I haven' t, but from what I 21 heard about what they do, I think it's wonderful that they
. 22 take all these precautions, except that it apparently 23 hasn't worked when they' re talking about a partial 24 meltdown , thirteen accidents . And here's another 25 interesting thing, and that is they told us, Gee , you L' ,
232
']
1 know, we're a terrific company. We're very careful and h 2 we're very responsible. And we have this perfect record" .
3 That's what we were told last night. "We have this 4 wonderful record".
5 If that be the case, then why are they asking 6 for millions upon millions of dollars from the Government
~
7 right now, to clean up a seriously hazardous condition?
8 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, what I'd like -- .
9 MS. MATHEWS: That's the bottom line,,
10 JUDGE BLOCH: What I'd like to do -- you see, 11 I'm concerned because you' re covering everything and 12 you' re not going to be able to prove everything. If you
)
13 were to go ahead with these concerns, my concern is you'd 14 spin your wheels and you'd demonstrate nothing. So, what 15 I'd really like you to do, is to think further about what 13 it is you're doing and to file a written request which 17 focuses on those things that you really want to do. And l
18 you might want to think about what other people are also 19 going to be doing in this proceeding, so that you really 20 have concerns that are related to the application. .
21 You might want to familiarize yourself with the 22 application to show that you know why it's germane. And -
23 then if you have things that you want to be concerned 24 about, then you should file that in writing and people 25 will have a chance to study it and decide what to do. And j
233 1 I think that it might be helpful to~you, so that your own 2 participation, if you are included, will be as productive 3 as possible. It will really be focused on things that you 4 can do well.
5 MS. MATHEWS: I appreciate your suggestions and 6 that we'should hone in on the priority things. And as-I 7 say, I think that the bottom line is from the record 8 itself. And that is that these people have stated in 9 their court case that they filed last week, that they 10 cannot preserve the environment if they are to fulfill 11 their nuclear contracts with the U.S. Governmen t .
12 JUDGE BLOCH: I'm sure they cited'that with p" ~3 13 respect to -- if they did cite it, and I have no direct 14 knowledge -- if they said it, it was with respect to their s_
15 operations at Rocky Flats. 'It may not be relevant in this 16 case, that they discontinued an operation, if they found L 17 that they couldn' t do it properly.
18 MS. MATHEWS: Well, --
19 JUDGE BLOCH: It might be plus.
l 20 MS. MATHEWS: I could give you some analogies.
21 I won' t take up your time with that. I'm simply saying
- 22 that this is the same management team.
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Just focus on what you want to 24 prove --
25 MS. MATHEWS: Right.
l O
t-
~5 234 1 JUDGE BLOCH: -- and why you think it's relevant 2 to non-renewal, that's all .
3 MS. MATHEWS: Right. I think it's terribly 4 relevant that they have admitted that they cannot proceed 5 in a contract to do this nuclear kind of work and preserve 6 the environment. They feel that the laws ask too much of 7 them. And in my opinion, since we have not been notified 8 during the years when they had these accidents, they did ,
9 not make arrangements for evacuating us when they had a 10 partial meltdown, they didn' t show responsibility. And 11 now they secretly -- and this is in the record -- they 12 secretly are asking for a tremendous of amount money, 13 funding , to clean up a serious and very, very hazardous 14 condition.
15 So, on one hand they tell us that things have 16 been very well managed and well taken care of and on the 17 other hand, they have to admit that serious conditions 18 arise. Now, I'd like to know j ust how serious, exactly 19 what those serious conditions comprise. I think we're not 20 being informed.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, thank you.
22 MS. MATHEWS: And in a democratic society, we -
23 should be fully informed, except for those areas that are 24 so strictly classified where our national security is 25 concerned, f
O l
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p- 235 1 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, I want to thank you.
'2 MS. MATHEWS: Thank you.
3 JUDGE BLOCH: And when you do file'-- if you do-4 file.a written request, you also want to make sure it's 5 directed at the parts that I have jurisdiction over.
6 MS. MATHEWS: Of course, thank you so much.
~
7 JUDGE BLOCH: You're welcome.
8 MS. MATHEWS: I appreciate it.
9 JUDGE BLOCH: So, at this point, we do not have 10 applications from Sybil Zeppieri and Arlene Mathews, but 11 we do from NRDC and Donald Wallace. And I'd like to give 12 Rockwell an opportunity to comment. Obviously, if they 13 want more than twenty minutes, they' re welcome to it.
% 14 Let's just see what seems to be fair in terms of the time 15 they require to respond to all of the requests.
16 I want to amend what I just said. The NRDC 17 application is before us, but it's to be amended , so you 18 don' t have a final form.
19 MS. MATHEWS: Oh, excuse me, Judge, may I add 20 one thing. There was a reason for my drawing those 21 freeways. That DeSoto Avenue facility is located in
- 22 Canoga Park, which is just south of Chatsworth. In order
! 23 to -- to bring nuclear plutonium or whatever materials 24 they use to their facility or to take them away, they have 25 to use those freeways. The Ventura Freeway is not only f
- s. 236 1 the most used freeway in Southern California, it's 2 probably the most used freeway in the world. If it's the 3 m,st used freeway here aad they're trying to widen it and 4 it's just always packed, then probably throughout the 5 world, it's the most ured artery.
6 The north / south boulevard of DeSoto --
7 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, I would like to stop you 8 because --
9 MS. MATHEWS: Okay.
10 JUDGE BLOCH: -- you did complete before.
11 MS. MATHEWS: Okay.
12 JUDGE BLOCH: And you' re going to have a chance
- 13 to file in writing.
14 MS. MATHEWS: Okay.
15 JUDGE BLOCH: Doctor Clark.
16 DR. MILLS: Doctor Mills.
l 17 JUDGE BLOCH: Mills.
1 1
18 DR. MILLS: That's quite all right. Before 1
19 making my statement, I would first like to correct a piece 20 of information that was on the record earlier. There was 21 a nod of the head by Mr. Lancet here previously, and he 22 was nodding at something that had transpired in the .
23 discussion prior to when you asked your last question.
24 And --
l 25 JUDGE BLOCH: So, whatever I said he nodded to, C-------
V .
L ii
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h R,- ; , 237 l1- he'didn't.
2 DR. MILLS: Right and --
,m.
3 JUDGE BLOCH: We'11 take that out.
l; 4 DR.-MILLS: And maybe -- specifically the L 5 question was related to the fact of whether you' had to l
.6 establish need as part .of meeting the regulations. And 7 that needs to be looked into.
8 JUDGE BLOCH:. We j ust don' t know.
9 DR. MILLS: We do not know.
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay.
11 DR. MILLS: Secondly, in terms of rebuttal, we 12 do not plan to rebut the submittals of Scott and . Lit and 13 Raskin and we would reserve the . ten day period to respond *
.g
^jt 14 to the NRDC and Mr. Wallace's submittals. But I would 15 like to now enter our statement into the record.
16 JUDGE BLOCH: Good, I also would actually seek 1
17 your help in whether I should rule on the concerns 18 individually and what standard I might use or whether. I 19 should j ust admit parties and say, "Be caref ul because you 20 have to prove whatever your concerns are", and we'll worry l 21 about it at the next stage of the proceeding as to whether i 22 .there is something there that must be really carefully 23 attended to.
24 DR. MILLS: Sorry. Judge Bloch, we would like 25 to entrust you with that decision, but if you have some 5
- o- _. ___ -_ _ _ _ _ . - .____.m-_a - ._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - . - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , _ . - _ _ _ _ _ _ - _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _
~ 238 1 particular questions for us, we'd be happy to answer them 2 today or provide an answer in writing Monday or Tuesday of 3 next week, 4 JUDGE BLOCH: If you were to leave it to me, I 5 would think that the type of scheduling that we talked 6 about - that I talked about earlier would probably handle 7 the winnowing out of what's really important from what's 8 not important. If there are things that don' t cite the 9 regulatory standards as to why they think it's relevant to 10 the license, I won' t consider them at all . So, I want to 11 state that again for the interveners.
12 At the stage of submission of evidence, you must 13 tie in your arguments to the regulatory standards for 14 renewal of the license. If you don' t cite the standard 15 then I may ignore it entirely. Now, it's possible that I l
16 wouldn't. I could use my discretion to look at ic and 17 s ay , " Oh , I know the standard and that's too important to 18 overlook", but I'm not going to be held to any standard of 19 considering something ^ hat doesn' t cite a standard in the 20 regulations. .
21 DR. MILLS: That's perfectly acceptable to us.
22 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, please continue. .
23 DR. MILLS: Thank you, Judge Bloch, for this l
24 opportunity to make a statement concerning the requests I
25 for a hearing on the license renewal application for the
> q
239
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( ,( ; 1 Rocketdyne Hot Laboratory. The Rocketdyne Hot Laboratory
\m/
2 has been operated in a safe manner in the past and we are 3 dedicated to continuing to operate it safely in the 4 future. Our operation has been inspected by the NRC at 5 least three times a year for over thirty years.
6 In cddition, the NRC has consistently issued 7 license renewals during this period af ter reviewing our 8 detailed license renewal applications. Furthermore, this 9 license renewal application involves no substantive 10 changes in the license conditions, the environmental 11 assessment or the radiological contingency plan since the 12 last NRC license amendment. Additionally, we will update 13 the radiological contingency plan to conform to the new h;_;)\
q 14 NRC rule on emergency preparedness for fuel cycle and 15 other radioactive meterial licenses before this new rule 16 becomes effective on April 7th of 1990.
17 These are the primary reasons why we feel that a 18 hearing is not required. However, we do not want to 19 interfere with any legitimate rights the interveners have 20 to obtain a fair hearing. If you should decide in favor 21 of holding hearings for the interveners, we will cooperate
. 22 fully. In addition, Rocketdyne strongly supports the i
23 position in the regulations 10 CFR 2.1233 for written 24 presentations of questions and answers. We recognize that 25 in some cases follow-up questions may be appropriate. We k~ ,] ,
"' 240 1 will, of course, provide complete and considered written 2 responses to any follow-up questions you feel are 3 appropriate. And that concludes our statement.
4 JUDGE BLOCH: Thank you. In that case, I am 5 prepared to admit three parties at this time. I will 6 issue an order within the next week confirming that. And 7 the three parties are Mr. Raskin, Doctor Lit and -- now 8 the name has escaped me -- Mr. Scott. Those three will be 9 admitted and I will not rule on individual concerns 10 primarily because we will have a procedure in which people 11 will be asked to state those concerns with documentation 12 and with reference to particular regulations, so that we
' 13 can worry at that time as to whether there really is 14 substance to what people are trying to prove.
15 My own belief is that by narrowing your own 16 concerns as a party, that you serve yourselves better and 17 you're more able to make an effective participation in the 18 proceeding. I would like then to pass to the next stage 19 of the -- well, wait a second. So, there are two people 20 -- the other people who were speaking today will file and 21 Rockwell will have ten days within which to respond. I 22 will rule at the end of that time. I expect that we won' t .
23 need a further pre-hearing conference for that because 24 there's been enough ventilation, I think, of what is 25 needed and what people are concerned about.
)
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._____________-__ _ ___._-_ _ ___ __ _ _ j
G. ll.
241
( 1 MR. RASKIN: Which people are-they, Mr. Bloch?
2 You said two additional people.
3 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, there are -two who need to b 4 make small changes in what they've done and two' additional 5 ;will file fresh applications. . I. said something to each of 6 the people today who spoke.
7 MS, gEPPIERI: So, then I'm one who has to write 8 a written request?
9 JUDGE BLOCH:- A written' request, yes. You'll 10 have no trouble with your statement of residence and the 11 effect on you, but'I do want you to carefully consider 12 what concerns you want to go forward with.
eS 13 MR. WALLACE: Mr. Bloch?
'!?
4 14 JUDGE BLOCH: Yes, you are Mr. Wallace.
15 MR. WALLACE: Am I to consider that I am a party 16 pending response from Rockwell in ten days?
-17 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, I can' t rule that way. I 18 cannot rule that way because they're entitled to respond 19 before I rule, 20 MR. WALLACE: Okay.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: Under the rules, they have those
.. 22 ten days. If, in studying what you receive, you decide 23 you don' t need to respond, I'd appreciate a prompt o' .
24 notification of that.
25 MS. ZEPPIERI: So then that's three people.
q 1
i I
'T 242 1 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, I thought there were i
2 actually four additional, but we don' t have to count them, 3 because you know who you are. It's okay. Now, I want to 4 go forward with the scheduling.
5 DR. MILLS: -Judge Bloch?
S JUDGE BLOCH: Yes.
7 DR. MILLS: Do we have something submitted 8 officially from Mr. Wallace for us to consider, a .
9 documen t?
10 JUDGE BLOCH: No, I ruled that you could use the 11 record from today --
12 DR. MILLS: Just the record.
13 JUDGE BLOCH:' -- plus one area that I asked him 14 to supplement, if I remember correctly. So, the record is 15 today's record, plus his limited appearance statement last 16 night, plus the one area that I asked for supplementation 17 on.
18 MR. WALLACE: Workers' Comp.
19 JUDGE BLOCH: Workers' Comp, yeah. It's 20 actually not Workers' Comp, it's workers' safety. .
21 HR. WALLACE: Workers' safety, okay.
22 MS. MATHEWS: Can we get a copy of the rules? -
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Sub-part L?
24 MS. MATHEWS: Yes.
25 JUDGE BLOCH: Yeah, I've given that to almost
.p. 243
, ,c - .
1 everybody here.
1(w. /).
2 MS. MATHEWS: Oh, I didn' t receive it.
3 JUDGE BLOCH: It's available. I think I still l
4 have a copy for you.
5 MS. MATHEWS: Thank you.
6 DR. MILLS: Judge Bloch, one more point of 7 information, then our ten day period starts when we 8 receive the record of today plus what his additional 9 information is passed on to us?
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Yeah, I -- the last piece of 11 information that's due under the discussions today, your 12 time starts then, when you receive it. I believe it's
- j 13 when you receive it. I'm willing to' rule that way right
% 14 now, because it will only make a couple days difference as
~
15 to whether -- when it's mailed or when it's received .
16 We'll rule when it's received. Please make proper service 17 of your application. You'll see under Sub-part L what 18 that is. You can ask the existing parties how they did 19 it, how they made proper service.
20 MS. ZEPPIERI: Excuse me. I have a question.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: Yes.
. 22 MS. ZEPPIERI: Point of order , how long do I 23 have to submit a written report?
24 JUDGE BLOCH: I'm going to file a Federal 25 Register notice within the next week and you'll have f^
s_ ,
1 mm _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ .m_._ d
l i
~T 244 1 thirty days from then.
2 MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay, and my original letter, l l
3 which I filed, is not a part of this then. This is like {
I 4
a --
5 JUDGE BLOCH: I'd rather that we not consider - -
1 6 that to be, because an application should meet the 7 criteria of the regulations, in particular timeliness 8 which I'm going to rule,, anyone is timely if they're .
9 before the notice time period has run, interest, which is 10 your residence and how you're effected and your concerns, 11 that they're germane to the license application.
12 MS. ZEPPIERI: The original letter that I sent 13 was three pages. Do you -- did you ever get it or read 14 it?
15 JUDGE BLOCH: I have it and I'm sure I inserted 16 it in the record last night. No, I guess I didn' t because 17 you made a limited appearance. Did you make a --
18 MS. ZEPPIERI: No, I didn' t speak at all .
19 JUDGE BLOCH: If you didn' t speak, I inserted it 20 in the record. ,
21 MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay, so this particular one that 22 I'm going to send now is another -- is a second -- -
l 23 JUDGE BLOCH: Just address the three points I 24 talked about.
1 25 MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay, I thought I had done that 9
245
(~}
( ) 1 in that first letter, so that's why --
\._)
2 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, if you do -- as you look 3 back at it, you send me a brief note saying that that is 4 .your application, but check it to make sure that the 5 concerns are germane to the application.
6 MS. ZEPPIERI: Okay.
7 JUDGE BLOCH: I had a proposed order of 8 proceeding with no dates on it. And I have a lot of 9 papers. Here it is. There are two changes I want to make 10 in this. I want to read it again and I'm going to ask 11 people -- the parties -- just the parties this time, to 12 come and -- you' re a party. Requesters who have been 13
{} admitted to the proceeding are now parties. I know most
\
\
f 14 people in LA don' t consider that a party, but --
15 The first step for each party will be, they will 16 submit their direct case which will consist of in each 17 case, first a citation to the regulations as to what 18 standard is being addressed that it's alleged that 19 Rockwell hasn' t met. And then very clear citations to 20 factual material so that I can understand the document 21 without even referring to that factual material. You want
. 22 to express it so that I don't have to look to your 23 references.
24 Charts or graphs are fine, whatever will clearly 25 express what it is you want to say. Be organized so that
/S.
m
Iq- 246 1 we can refer to parts of the document with ease. That 2 makes it a lot easier for me to know what's going on in 3 the case. If you can put tabs on different sections, if 4 it's a lengthy document, that helps. A table of contents 5 helps. Tne purpose is to make it easy for me to use what 6 you're presenting. Express it as clearly as possible. If 7 you're citing to secondary sources and have no direct O knowledge, I'd like you to flag that. So, if you j ust --
9 if it's a newspaper article and you don't know who the 10 informant was or what that was, just clearly state that 11 you have no direct knowledge of it.
12 And then the second stage will be Rocketdyne's 13 response to each allegation. The third stage is the 14 parties' rebuttal only to new or surprise material. So 15 you want to be careful in reviewing the application and 16 other materials in the record already, so that you address 17 them the first time through. In fact, I would advise that 18 you actually cite to what Rockwell has said on the points 19 you're concerned about, so that you show that you 20 understand what they've said, j ust as I'm going to ask 21 that they cite what you said with understanding. So that 22 we don' t have people passing each other in the wind. .
23 The arguments should be direct and responsive to 24 what's in the record. And if you're careful ths. first 25 time, then the only thing you're going to respond to the
)
l l
1
r') 247 I) f 1 second time on rebuttal is something that's new, some 2 expert that Rockwell may have brought in to testify and 3 you didn't know they were going to do that, so now you can 4 rebut what that expert has said, either with new testimony 5 directed to their expertise or with your own expert. But 6 it will only be allowed if it's new.
7 Then Rocketdyne will be able to respond again 8 only to new material, although they can also at that time, 9 file motions to strike if there was additional filings on 10 non-rebuttal material, that is, where they responded to 11 things that were not new. The fifth stage, the parties 12 will get to analyze the full record on matters of concern p q) 13 to it. That is, you've stated your concerns. Only 14 analyze the record on those concerns, but in this stage s_,
15 your analysis can go beyond what you filed to what other 16 parties have filed and to what Rocketdyne has filed. It's 17 an analysis -- it's, in fact, an attempt to draft 18 something that, if I like it a lot, I could use as an 19 opinion.
20 You're trying to do my thinking for me, which 21 means it has to be addressed in an objective way to what's
- 22 in the record. And then Rocketdyne will do the same.
23 They will attempt to write what could be the final opinion 24 in this case if I agree with what they say. And probably 25 it won't come from either one of the sides, but from both,
\
Q(' ~ )
o
i f
7 248 1 but if someone really knocks all the hammers -- all the 2 nails into the coffin that might be the opinion I will 3 adopt. Unlikely it will be word for word, but it could be 4 more one party's than the others.
5 Now, at the time you file your analysis, there 6 can also be another section that's very important. And 7 that section is areas where further information is needed.
8 And you want to address specifically why further 9 information is needed that's not already in the record.
10 And then within each of those areas, propose specific 11 questions that I can ask either in writing or of specific 12 witnesses. If I must call witnesses, tell me why I must 13 call witnesses, because the preference in this sub-part of 14 the regulations is for a written determination. And often 15 questions involving technical matters can be determined 16 without speaking to the individuals involved.
17 So, remember at this stage, point out holes in 18 the record and ask -- suggest to me questions that must 19 still be resolved and if necessary, suggest why they need 20 to be asked of live witnesses. In Rockwell's analysis, .
21 they'll be able to respond to that portion and I'm afraid 22 we need one more stage, therefore, and that is that the -
23 other parties must be able to respond to Rockwell's 24 suggested questions, if there are any. If Rockwell 25 suggests questions, which frankly I think is unlikely, but
Q 249
( 1 if they do, you'll get a chance to respond to whether
.)
2 those questions are appropriate.
-3 Now, what I need from the parties, if you' re i 4 able or willing to do it -- well, first of all, I'd like 5 each party to comment on whether this system (pr getting 6 everything filed is acceptable without commenting on 7 dates. Do the parties need a break to consider that?
8 Let's take a break.
1 9 (Whereupon, a short recess was taken.)
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Back on the record. And there are 11 three parties now. Do any of the parties want to comment 12 on the proposed schedule? Okay, I notice that they have
'N 13 all indicated they don' t want to cominent. Does Rockwell 14 want to comment on the proposed schedule?
15 DR. MILLS: We'd just like to comment that we 16 think it is in the best interests of everyone to get on 17 with this matter and we would foresee schedules on the 18 order of -- at least between couple of steps of one month 19 -- at least thirty days each and not more than that.
20 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, I'm going to ask about the 21 timing in a couple of minutes.
, 22 DR. MILLS: But as far as the overall process, 23 we're -- we think it's -- we're pleased with the process.
24 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay. So, then I do adopt the 25 seven steps as I've set them forth in the record and they l0
250
]
1 will govern the proceedings from here on out. I would 2 tell people that I always will accept a written motion to 3 reconsider something within ten days, but until I act on a 4 motion for reconsideration, the ruling stands. And do not 5 file motions for reconsideration beyond ten days. I don't ,
6 consider those.
7 Now, what I'd like to do is to ask the parties 8 their cuggestion for the amount of time that they need to 9 make their filing. Mr. Scott.
10 MR. SCOTT: I think at least two months.
11 DR. LIT: At least two months. I prefer more 12 for the initial date.
)
13 JUDGE BLOCH: How much more?
14 DR. LIT: I'll be gone to Sacramento for half of 15 October , so I would say November , December -- December , we 16 lose half in December with all the -- I probably would 17 like -- I would like until January 15th to get the act 18 together.
19 JUDGE BLOCH: Mr. Raskin?
20 MR. RASKIN: Yes.
l 21 JUDGE BLOCH: Is it Doctor Raskin?
22 MR. RASKIN: No, Mr. Raskin. -
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Mister.
24 MR. RASKIN: Two months after the time the 25 parties are finalized.
S
251 r^3 1 JUDGE BLOCH: Are the representatives from the 2 NRDC still here?
3 MS. NICHOLS: Yes.
4 JUDGE BLOCH: I would like to hear from you even 5 though you're not a party.
6 MS. NICHOLS: Thank you. We would like sixty 7 days from the time that a decision is made to admit us.
8 JUDGE BLOCH: May I ask, would it be acceptable 9 to have twenty days between each of the other steps on the I 10 understanding that if any of the parties finishes their 11 work faster than that, that the time will be set based on 12 the time that they -- that their documents are received .
s 13 So, for example, if Rocketdyne finishes in three days, you 14 save seventeen days off the schedule.
15 DR. MILLS: Judge Bloch, in -- while we're 16 anxious to get this process over as expeditiously as 17 possible, in the interest of having equal time, if the 18 parties are taking sixty days to prepare the 19 information --
20 JUDGE BLOCH: You want longer.
21 DR. MILLS: -- we would like to have the sixty
. 22 days to respond.
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Just on step 2 or on the other 24 steps, too?
25 DR. MILLS: Just on step 2.
252
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1 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, so the other steps, how 2 about twenty days between the other steps?
l 3 MS. NICHOLS: We would have no problem on the 4 rebuttal or the responses. Of course, that's Rocketdyne's 5 issue, but as far as the analysis is concerned which you i
6 lead, as you've described it, to in essence an opinion, I 7 think a little more than twenty days would be appropriate 8 at that point.
9 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, thirty days before step 5 10 and thirty days before step 6?
11 MS. NICHOLS: I'think we could live with that.
12 DR. MILLS: That would be fine with us.
13 JUDGE BLOCH: And I'd point out that one way we 14 could conceivably seye time is if there's a lot of 15 interaction among the parties, Rocketdyne could actually 16 be anticipating what's happening, so they could actually 17 file faster than the sixty days. So, how the parties get 18 along could influence whether we can go faster.
19 So, if there's no objection, what I will do is 20 adopt the schedule whereby I'm going to put a Federal 21 Register notice in this next week, which is the first week 22 in October. And I'd like the parties to have until .
23 January 3. Actually I don' t know the day of the week. If 24 I should name any days that fall on a holiday, you have 25 until the next business day to file.
i 1
1
,o 253
]
1 All filing days are days that the other parties 2 should receive the document. So, if you' re going to do it 3 by mail, mail it four days earlier. But if you' re goitg 4 to do it by express mail, you can do it the previous 5 morning. Make sure that it's received by the date of 6 filing, January 3rd. And the receipt should be all of the 7 people on the service list, which means each of the !
8 interveners. It means the Secretary of the NRC and it i
9 means Rocketdyne and it means myself. So, Rocketdyne 10 should have until March 3rd. Rebuttal only needs twenty 11 days. We'11 make it March 23rd. Rocketdyne's response 12 should be only twenty days and that's --
13 DR. MILLS: Judge?
14 JUDGE BLOCH: Yes.
15 DR. MILLS: We want a clarification. The 16 January 3rd date is approximately -- a little over three 17 months from now, ninety days?
18 JUDGE BLOCH: Yeah, I gave them a little extra 19 time because there's going to be the petitions filed 20 within a month. I want to have everyone at the same time.
21 The petitions will be filed within the month af ter I issue
. 22 the notice in the Federal Register and you'll have ten 23 days to respond. So, it's even possible that some people 24 will have less than two months. Am I right? Did I do 25 that wrong?
J 3 254 1 MS. NICHOLS: No, that's correct.
2 DR. MILLS: No, I think that's correct. It's 3 just that some people would have more than sixty days 4 also.
5 MS. NICHOLS: It's also the Christmas holidays.
6 JUDGE BLOCH: Yeah. It's always possible that 7 if you find you' re inconvenienced by only having sixty 8 days, that you can ask for an extension of time. .
9 Extensions of time for cause can be granted. Cause will 10 not, however, be something like, "I took a vacation", or 11 "I was lazy and didn' t get to it" . Cause means something 12 serious. We're in a serious proceedings and you have
- 13 obligations in the proceeding .
14 So the next stage would be step 4 due by the 15 12th of April. And then the next stage, the fifth stage 16 is May 12th and the sixth stage June llth and the seventh 17 stage, if needed -- end this is j ust a response to 18 Rocketdyne's analysis of the record -- excuse me, it's the 19 response to their suggestions for questions. Well, let's 20 make it July 10th. In fact, I can be preparing the 21 decision as those things are being prepared. So, it 22 probably will not delay the determination of the case. -
23 The seventh step is, if Rockwell asks questions 24 suggests questions, then the interveners -- the parties 25 will have an opportunity to respond as to whether those m
- )
1
g 255 1 questions are appropriate.
2 MR. SEAMANS: I thought that --
3 JUDGE BLOCH: Why don' t you take a microphone 4 and speak directly. You'll have to identify yourself.
5 Identify yourself, please.
6 MR. SEAMANS: My name is Richard Seamans, 7 counsel for Rockwell, S-E-A-M-A-N-S. I got a little mixed 8 up. When I got to step number 5, I thought that was the 9 analysis by all the parties.
10 JUDGE BLOCH: Ah, no, when I use the word 11 " party", it does not include Rockwell. I want you to be 12 able to see their analysis before you respond.
e- 13 MR. SEAMANS: That's step 6.
14 JUDGE BLOCH: Step 6 is the Rocketdyne or s ,,
15 Rockwell response, analysis including questions that you 16 might suggest for me to ask and then step seven is the l 17 response to those questions.
18 MR. SEAMANS: Thank you.
I 19 JUDGE BLOCH: And then there is a step 8 which L
20 is my step. I have to write an opinion or take other 21 action consistent with the requests of parties that I ask
. 22 questions or call witnesses.
23 MR. LANCET: May I ask a question?
24 JUDGE BLOCH: Yes.
25 MR. LANCET: If the parties identify areas where
, C
. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . ____.__E
N 256 1 further information occurs, that will occur during their 2 analysis submittal .
3 JUDGE BLOCH: Yes.
4 MR. LANCET: And then we're to address those 5 during our analysis submittal. Is that correct?
6 JUDGE BLOCH: Tha t's correct.
7 MR. LANCET: And then only if we raise areas 8 would they have then the seventh step. ,
9 JUDGE BLOCH: That's correct.
i 10 MR. LANCET: Thank you. ]
11 JUDGE BLOCH: Before we go on to a couple of 12 limited appearance sessions, is there any other necessary 13 business that the parties wish to bring before the --
14 before me? I'm used to being a Board and I'm not a Board i
15 in this case. I i
16 MS. ZEPPIERI: Can I ask a question even though 17 I'm not a party yet?
18 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, let's go of f the record. j I
19 (Off the record.) l 20 JUDGE BLOCH: Back on the record . Is there any ,
21 other necessary business? There being none, there were 22 two requests for limited appearance statements. Do the -
23 two people who are about to appear know who should come
.i 24 first? Please come forward and take a seat at the table 25 over here. Okay, please take both types of mikes. One is i 3 9
q 257 1 for the record.
2 MS. GRANT: Well, I don' t have to go on the 3 record.
1 4 JUDGE BLOCH: Well, that's okay. The other kind l 5 is the one that amplifies your voice.
6 MS. GRANT: Okay.
7 JUDGE BLOCH: Now, this actually is a limited 8 appearance statement so it will be recorded but it's not a 9 part of the evidentiary record.
10 MS. GRANT: Okay. My name is NMncy Grant, G-R-11 A-N-T. I'm actually speaking for Assemblyman Terry 12 Friedman who could not attend last night's meeting and is 13 in jury duty right now. He just wanted to let you know 14 that he is the Chair of the Subcommittee on Health and 15 Welfare for the State of California and he is looking into 16 the Rockwell matter regarding the State's responsibility 17 and he'll be announcing soon what, if any, steps we 18 believe the legislature should take. That was it.
19 JUDGE BLOCH: Thank you.
20 MS. GRANT: Thank you for letting me speak.
21 JUDGE BLOCH: And the last person for a limited
. 22 appearance, please. If you want to state your name for 23 the record, you may do so.
24 DR. ZAMENT: I am Doctor Erwin Zament. I am 25 internist specializing in pulmonary diseases. For the e
~1 258 1 past fourteen years, I have been Chief of Medicine of the 2 Los Angeles County Olive View Medical Center which 3 actually is located.just at the top right-hand corner of 4 that map. And I'm President of Olive View Medical Center 5 Foundation.
6 As an academition, I am Professor of Med'icine at 7 UCLA School of Medicine and I have a special interest in 8 the history of medicine and the history of toxins and .
9 poisons. And I regret I wasn't here last night. I was at 10 a meeting discussing arsenic. I have a dual interest in 11 participating in these proceedings. First, I am proud to 12 be listed amongst a select group of nationally prominent 13 physicians as a sponsor of Physicians for Social 14 Responsibility.
15 Secondly, I am very familiar with Rocketdyne as 16 a neighbor of Olive View Medical Center in the San 17 Fernando Valley. And I would like to comment with respect 18 to both of my roles. As a member of Physicians for Social 19 Responsibility, I believe it is essential to identify and 20 rectify any hazardous material management that threatens .
21 the health of large numbers of the population, such as 22 Doctor Saxon and others have done. However, I believe -
23 that in the present case, there is insufficient 24 information to justify charges that Rocketdyne is woefully 25 exposing the public to radioactive hazards.
i l
n 259
( 1 Thus, it is not clear that appreciable levels of 1 2 radioactivity have entered populated areas nor is it clear 3 that most of the radioactive elements and products under 4 consideration in this case, do constitute a meaningful s
5 health threat in the concentrations that would be likely 6 to enter the public environment. Of course, disasters can 7 always occur as most of you know. Olive View was 8 destroyed in the 1971 earthquake. We survived in one 9 sense that we have been rebuilt and we're now functioning 10 again. But natural disasters can always cause devastation 11 that even the best plans cannot prevent.
12 It should be borne in mind that so-called 13 poisons such as arsenic have, in fact, been used as 14 valuable medications, whereas benign simple drugs such as 6 :>
15 aspirin, kill more people each year than all the deaths 16 that can be clearly attributable to radioactive accidents.
17 Thus, all drugs can be poisons, whereas, all poisons can 18 be safe, depending on the dose administered and on the 19 route of administration. But it's rather unfortunate that 20 the use of the word " radioactive" raises a negative health 21 image immediately, irrespective of what is being discussed
. 22 and creates serious anxiety which is readily fostered when 23 inaccurate statements and emotional testimonies imply a 24 health risk.
25 It should be recognized that radioactive
%, 260 !
1 materials don' t just cause cancer, they can be used to l
2 treat cancer and other diseases. Moreover, radioactive j l
3 tracers such as tritium are used quite safely and 4 appropriately in diagnostic testing on patients. Thus, it 5 is unreasonable to reflexly judge that the alleged 6 radioactive material leaks at Rocketdyne's plants 7 constitute a true hazard. Unfortunately, the appropriate 8 anxiety about potential exposure to a health hazard can 9 have negative effects on social behavior and we have seen 10 historically, and here I allude to my interest in the 11 history of medicine and I will give you a recent example 12 -- we've seen historically with AIDS, as well as numerous 13 other diseases and perceived threat, that' worries and 14 anxiety can lead to egregious behavior even worse than the 15 health threat that is posed by the disease.
16 Thus, as a physician who has a strong commitment 17 myself to sccial responsibility, I feel we must avoid 18 histrionic over-reactions to perceived threats.
19 Furthermore, our society can no longer function 20 effectively in a competitive industrialized world if every 21 community refuses to allow even an implied but unproven 22 social hazard attributable to an industrial facility to .
l 23 function within their neighborhood.
24 Before condemning an important leader in 25 American industry, such as Rocketdyne clearly is, it is l
l
i
(~T 261 1 essential that the full facts be presented and analyzed in 2 an non-emotional forum and that certainly has not happened 3 today or yesterday. l 4 I would now like to address the role of 5 Rocketdyne as an organization of responsive human beings 6 rather than as a remote uncaring complex of irresponsible 7 obfuscating anti-social scientists, the evil empire, who 8 have been vilified, I think, by many of the comments at 9 this hearing. I'd like to alleviate the natural anxieties 10 of the public by offering a contrary evaluation of the 11 leadership at this outstanding American industry by giving 12 a personal example of Olive view.
,CQ 13 Five years ago, Olive View Medical Center which
< \
s, ) 14 was just about to be re-opened in its new building to 15 replace the one damaged by the earthquake -- five years 16 ago this hospital was threatened with extinction because 17 of the fiscal insolvency in the Department of Health 18 Services of Los Angeles County, which provides the budget 1
19 for Olive view Medical Center. This is a hospital which l 20 solely provides health care for the indigent. It is not a 21 private hospital.
. 22 The academic and educational activities of this l 23 teaching hospital could only grow, as they are meant to 24 do, if supported by community resources. My colleagues j
25 and I at the hospital, therefore, established a foundation A
1 l
l l
\ ._________w
m, 262 1 at Olive View Medical Center with the object of attracting h 2 community support for our activities. Rocketdyne was one 3 of the handful of major businesses that showed any 4 interest whatsoever and within a short time, this 5 blossomed into an amazing interaction in which this remote 6 organization became actually a godfather to Olive View.
7 Over the years, Rocketdyne has helped us develop 8 educational programs including education of poisoning 9 prevention which we initiated and Rocketdyne has 10 generously, enthusiastically and with enormous patience 11 supported our annual fund raisers with leadership.
12 Rocketdyne has shown personal interest in attending our 13 Board meetings, our committee meetings and our fund 14 raising events. Rocketdyne has done various works for us .
15 They've printed invitations, brochures for us at no cost.
16 They've provided exciting props from their armament area 17 relating to space exploration which has provided an 18 exciting background to our fund raising events which 19 helped attract public attention for us.
20 Moreover, each year Olive view Medical Center 21 Foundation presents the Nellie Reagan award to honor the 22 memory of the President's mother. It so happens that the -
23 President's mother, Nellie Reagan, was a generous 24 volunteer at olive view and this award was established 25 with the enthusiastic support of President Reagan. And it
m 263 i 1 is currently developing into one of the most prestigious 2 regional awards that can be given to recognize an j
.J 3 individual providing community support and leadership. ;
l 4 Each year our community advisors on the Board of l 5 Olive view Medical Center Foundation, not just hospital ]
6 people, but business people and other leaders in the 7 community, select an individual who is considered suitable 8 to be a recipient for this award based upon that 9 individual's community commitment. In 1988 Mr. Richard 10 Schwartz, President of Rocketdyne, was selected as a 11 recipient of the Nell Reagan award in acknowledgement of 12 his deep commitment to supporting community projects in 13 the health field and elsewhere.
14 By honoring Mr. Schwartz, we also honored 15 Rocketdyne whose numerous acts of generodity to the 16 community have not been adequately recognized. It should 17 be noted that Rocketdyne supports Olive View, not for the 18 flurry that may accrue from supporting a hospital catering 19 to a rich and famous. Olive View serves the poor. And 20 Rocketdyne, through its interactions with Olive View has 21 shown great sensitivity to the overall needs of our
. 22 community. Thus, it should be recognized by the 23 population of the San Fernando Valley and adjacent areas 24 that Rocketdyne is not a faceless, heartless, brainless 25 organization, but it is a leading scientific industry
m 264 1 pledged to the peaceful development of the cutting edges f 2 of exciting research.
3 JUDGE BLOCH: Sir, may I ask how much more time 4 you're planning?
5 DR. ZAMENT: Op% minute.
6 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, please continue.
7 DR. ZAMENT: And the people at Rocketdyne from 8 the top leadership downwards have amply der.onstrated their .
9 kindness, their concern and their social sense of 10 responsibility, Finally, I'm horrified to see how anxiety 11 can lead to destructive bahavior in a society, that in 12 attempting to protect itself from very theoretical threats
, )
13 can undermine the function of an outstanding industry that i 14 we should be proud of. Rather than seek to restrict 15 Rocketdyne's essential work through legal restraints, let 16 us understand that the community could work with the 17 leadership of Rocketdyne to establish means by which their 18 work could continue to benefit the country without 19 exposing the community to undue risk.
20 I am convinced that we do not wish to destroy 21 Rocketdyne any more than Rocketdyne wishes to harm the 22 community. I am also convinced from my personal knowledge .
23 tha t Mr . Schw3rtz and his senior staf f are reasonable, 24 human, smart and socially involved leaders who can work 25 with the community representatives to alleviate all the m'
O
f- g - 265 b 1 cencerns that have escalated into massive community
(%J 2 anxiety. Reasonable interactions can lead to solutions; 3
whereas, increasing the present anxiety can only result in 4 damage to America's leadership role in science and 5 industry without offering the alternative of the no longer 6 attainable peace of Walden Pond that so.many people seem J
7 to wish for.
8 I just wish to state, we are in an industrial 9 world even in the Santa Susana Mountains and we must 10 adjust to live sensibly and harmoniously with this 11 reality. Thank you.
12 JUDGE BLOCH: How many other people wish to make 13 limited appearances who haven' t previously made limited
. ,::7
(/ A 14 N ,)_
appearance statements? I have noticed that we have a
~
15 wealth of different points of view represented 'in this 16 country and they've been represented in this room. The 17 overwhelming point of view that was expressed was
~
18 concerning fear, but there were also other points of view 19 expressed. My sense is that we're wealthy as a nation 20 when we can all hear each other.
21 I had the privilege of presiding over a case in
. 22 Texas involving the Commanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant.
23 And in that case, the Board initially found that there 24 were serious problems in the design of the plant and af ter 25 three years had passed, there was enough activity at the m
~ _ - _ - - - __
q 266 1 plant correcting those problems, so that trust grew up 2 between Texas Utilities and the intervenor. It grew up 3 aftnr over a billion dollars had been spent on correct!ons 4 in the plant. That's a heavy price for building up trust.
5 At this time, there was a settlement entered 6 into in which the intervening group became part of a 7 management group within the company. And they were also 8 given a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year of 9 engineering money so that they could be meaningful 10 participants in the process of the company. That plant 11 was, of course, a nine billion dollar two unit nuclear 12 power plant. So, that the precedent is not directly
, 13 applicable, but what's interesting to me is that people 14 who seem unalterably irreconcilable began to listen to 15 each other and a way was found for them to work together.
16 I don' t say that that's always possible, but it 17 was the spirit with which I started this proceeding and I 18 hold out the possibility that people of good faith can 19 listen to one another. If the bottom line for the citizen 20 of this town is, "No way we would want Rocketdyne to ever 21 operate here again", there, of course, cannot be a 22 settlement. And if the bottom line for Rocketdyne is, "We .
23 don't want to cooperate with citizens in close 24 cooperation", there, of course, can' t be a settlement.
25 But sometimes in the caldron of disagreement T
- 25- 267 1 there can be communication and some progress can be made
~-)-
2 towards greater understanding. We are neighbors in this-3 area, Rocketdyne and the citizens. And whether or not we
- 4 can get along is still not known. But I j ust want to hold l
5 out the possibility that in this process of finding facts 6 and interacting, there could be progress made towards x
'7 understanding and we could begin to more fully appreciate 8 differences that exist. And then again , of course, it 9 could happen that the proof will require that one side win 10 entirely. There's no way for me r as a Judge, to know.
11 This is a learning experience for me as well as possibly a I
12 learning experience for everybody else.
13 I want to thank everybody for their
- f sR(
s_,) 14 participation. I think we have a schedule that can work.
15 And therefore, we're on the route to determining this 16 case. I think we've set up a way of doing it so that 17 everyone who has a concern will have a chance to be heard 18 and I think we've described carefully what's required so 19 that being heard will not just be an empty exercise.
20 You have a question?
21 MS. TANSKY: Yes, Judge Bloch. If someone wants
- 22 access --
23 JUDGE BLOCH: Your name is -- yeah, come forward 24 to the mikes.
25 MS. TANSKY: My name is Susan Tansky and I just U
l i
l'
)
l' 1
I~, 268 1 wondered if some -- if anybody wants access to copies of 2 the tapes that the Court Reporter did, can they request )
3 that and just pay for the tapes? I know the AOMD does l
4 that here.
5 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, the sala of the tapes and 6 the transcripts is up to the reporting company. However, 7 a free copy will be available in th4 document room which 8 is the library in Simi Valley.
t 9 MS. TANSKY: Oh, okay., Thank you.
10 JUDGE BLOCH: That will be not the tapes, but 11 the transcript from the tapes.
12 MS. TANSKY: Okay, thanks.
, 13 JUDGE BLOCH: Okay, cff the record.
14 (Of f the record .)
15 JUDGE BLOCH: Back on the record. I want to 16 thank everyone for their participation. I also want to 17 thank our Reporter, who's been most patient and very 18 important in this proceeding. And I'd like to adjourn 19 today's proceeding . We will have no further proceedings 20 face-to-face, unless there's a determination under the 21 procedure we've set forth. The hearing is adjourned.
22 (Whereupon, at 1:55 p.m., the hearing in the .
23 above-entitled matter concluded.)
24 25
M i
- 77N) 4 CERTIFICATE 3 l
'This is to certify that the attached proceedings 1 before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
6 J Name: ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION I
ROCKETDYNE DIVISION (Special Material License Number SNM-21) a Docket Number: ASLBP No. 85-594-01-ML Place: Van Nuys, California 0
Date: September 29, 1989 1
were held as herein appears and that this is the original 13 transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear
("M' 34 Regulatory Commission taken stenographically by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the 15 direction of the court reporting company, and that the 16 g transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing 18 proceedings.
/s/ /
, 20 -
(Signature typed): Jan J onsky 21
' Official Reporter 22 Briggs Reporting Company 24
^
!O l BFIGG5 REPORTING COMPANY l^
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