ML21039A546
| ML21039A546 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | North Anna  |
| Issue date: | 02/08/2021 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| SECY RAS | |
| References | |
| 50-338-SLR, 50-339-SLR, ASLBP 21-970-01-SLR-01, NRC-1362, RAS 55968 | |
| Download: ML21039A546 (99) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Virginia Electric and Power Company Docket Number: 50-338-SLR/50-339-SLR ASLBP Number: 21-970-01-SLR-01 Location: teleconference Date: Thursday, February 4, 2021 Work Order No.: NRC-1362 Pages 1-98 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 ATOMIC SAFETY AND LICENSING BOARD PANEL 5 + + + + +
6 HEARING 7 --------------------------x 8 In the Matter of: : Docket Nos.
9 VIRGINIA ELECTRIC AND : 50-338-SLR/50-339-SLR 10 POWER COMPANY :
11 :
12 (North Anna Power Station : ASLBP No.
13 Units 1 and 2) : 21-970-01-SLR-01 14 --------------------------x 15 Thursday, February 4, 2021 16 17 Video-Teleconference 18 19 BEFORE:
20 G. PAUL BOLLWERK, III, Chair 21 NICHOLAS G. TRIKOUROS, Administrative Judge 22 DR. GARY S. ARNOLD, Administration Judge 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 APPEARANCES:
2 On Behalf of the Applicant 3 RYAN LIGHTY, ESQ.
4 of: Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP 5 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue NW 6 Washington, D.C. 20004 7 202-739-5274 8 ryan.lightly@morganlewis.com 9
10 On Behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 11 ANITA GHOSH-NABER, ESQ.
12 of: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 13 Office of the General Counsel 14 Mail Stop O-14A44 15 Washington, D.C. 20555 16 anita.naber@nrc.gov 17 18 On Behalf of Beyond Nuclear, the Sierra Club, 19 and Alliance for a Progressive Virginia:
20 DIANE CURRAN, ESQ.
21 of: Harmon, Curran, Spielberg and Eisenberg 22 1725 DeSales Street NW, Suite 500 23 Washington, D.C.
24 240-393-9285 25 dcurran@harmoncurran.com NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 CONTENTS 2 Preliminary Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 3 Statement on Behalf of the Petitioners . . . . . 11 4 Statement on Behalf of the Applicants . . . . . . 23 5 Statement on Behalf of the NRC Staff . . . . . . 34 6 Rebuttal on Behalf of the Petitioners . . . . . . 47 7 Board Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 8
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4 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 2:04 p.m.
3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Good afternoon.
4 Today, we're here to conduct an initial 5 prehearing conference in the subsequent license 6 renewal proceeding in which Applicant, Virginia 7 Electric Power Company, or VEPCO, requests that the 10 8 Code of Federal Regulations, or CFR, Part 50 operating 9 licenses for its North Anna Power Station Units 1 and 10 2 be extended for a second 20-year period; that is, 11 until April 1st, 2058 and August 21st, 2060, 12 respectively.
13 In response to an October 9th, 2020 14 hearing opportunity notice published in Volume 85 of 15 The Federal Register, at page 65,438, on December 16 14th, 2020, Petitioners Beyond Nuclear, Sierra Club, 17 and Alliance for Progressive Virginia submitted a 18 hearing petition that included a contention and an 19 associated waiver request under 10 CFR Section 2.335 20 challenging VEPCO's subsequent license renewal 21 request.
22 Petitioners contention entitled, "Failure 23 to Address Environmental Impacts of Reactor Accidents 24 Caused or Contributed to by Earthquakes," claims that 25 the Environmental Report, or ER, that accompanies the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 VEPCO subsequent license renewal application fails to 2 satisfy the NRC's regulations implementing the 3 National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.
4 Specifically, Petitioners declare that the ER does not 5 comply with Sections 51.53(c)(2) and 51.45(a) of the 6 Agency's NEPA regulations because it does not address 7 the environmental impacts of operating the North Anna 8 facility during the extended subsequent license 9 renewal term, given the significant risk of an 10 earthquake that will exceed the reactor's design 11 basis, as demonstrated by the fact that the 2011 12 Mineral, Virginia, Earthquake, with its epicenter a 13 short distance from the facility, exceeded both units' 14 design basis.
15 In addition, because this contention 16 involves a NEPA Category 1 issue, that, per the 17 listing in Table B-1 of Part 51, Subpart A, Appendix 18 E, of the Agency's NEPA implementation provisions, 19 presumably, would be barred from consideration in its 20 subsequent license renewal proceeding, Petitioners ask 21 that we find their petition requesting a Section 2.335 22 waiver of Sections 51.53(c)(3)(i), 51.71(d), and 23 51.95(c)(1) meets the four-part test for granting a 24 waiver, so as to permit consideration of their 25 contention.
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6 1 The answer submitted on January 8th, 2021 2 by Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff and VEPCO seeks 3 the denial of Petitioners' hearing request, asserting 4 that, while Petitioners have established their 5 standing to intervene, they, nonetheless, have failed 6 both to show that they are entitled to a waiver under 7 Section 2.335 or to submit an admissible contention.
8 In a January 15th, 2021 reply, Petitioners 9 again declared that they should be admitted as parties 10 to this proceeding because their waiver and petition 11 of contention meet the applicable regulatory standards 12 in Sections 2.335 and 2.309(f)(1) governing waivers 13 and contention admissibility.
14 This prehearing conference has been 15 convened to conduct oral argument that will allow the 16 participants to present their positions regarding and 17 responding to Board questions concerning the contested 18 matters of the sufficiency of Petitioners' waiver 19 petition and the admissibility of their contention.
20 Before beginning the argument, however, I 21 would like to introduce the Board members and have the 22 representatives of the participants identify 23 themselves for the record.
24 Administrative Judges Nicholas Trikouros 25 and Gary Arnold, the two technical members assigned to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 this Licensing Board, are both nuclear engineers. My 2 name is Paul Bollwerk. I'm an attorney and the 3 Chairman of this Licensing Board.
4 We are all participating via video 5 connections from different locations in the 6 Washington, D.C. area and elsewhere, as are our law 7 clerks, Molly Mattison and Stephanie Fishman.
8 At this point, I'd like to have counsel 9 for the various participants identify themselves for 10 the record. Why don't we start with Applicant VEPCO, 11 then move to the NRC staff, and finally, to the 12 Petitioners.
13 MR. LIGHTY: Good afternoon, Your Honor.
14 This is Ryan Lighty, appearing on behalf of the 15 Applicant.
16 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Thank you.
17 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Good afternoon, Your 18 Honor. This is Anita Ghosh-Naber for the NRC staff.
19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you.
20 MS. CURRAN: I'm sorry. My name is Diane 21 Curran. I'm here on behalf of Beyond Nuclear, the 22 Sierra Club, and Alliance for a Progressive Virginia.
23 I know that representatives of all my 24 clients are on the phone this afternoon, as is our 25 technical consultant, David Lochbaum. I don't think NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 I will probably need to consult Mr. Lochbaum, but if 2 I get a technical question that I just want to be sure 3 I've got the terminology straight, I may ask you for 4 a break, so that I can give him a call on my cell 5 phone.
6 And I also want to apologize in advance 7 that, despite my best efforts, including getting 8 professional help, there's a funny notice that dings 9 on my computer every 5 or 10 minutes, and I hope it 10 won't do it too much today. I've tried my best to 11 turn it off and I will mute myself when I'm not 12 talking.
13 Thank you.
14 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. I should say 15 that the Board had anticipated that perhaps the 16 parties would need to contact their technical experts 17 and we'll certainly accommodate you in that regard.
18 And hopefully, everyone has had an 19 opportunity to turn off their cell phones and/or put 20 them on mute or ring, whatever, and any land lines 21 they might have in their office as well. So, we 22 appreciate you reminding us of that, Ms. Curran.
23 All right. I'd like to note that, prior 24 to the beginning of this call, I asked all the 25 participants' representatives to try to remember that, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 notwithstanding we are using a video link via WebEx to 2 which the court reporter has access, as a courtesy to 3 those members of the public and others who are joining 4 us via the listen-only connection, that when they 5 start to speak, please identify themselves, so that it 6 will be clear who is talking.
7 Also, as the participants' representatives 8 are aware, we're attempting to monitor everyone's 9 connectivity in an effort to see if anyone drops off 10 unexpectedly. If so, we'll be taking steps to try to 11 ensure that we don't move forward with the argument 12 until they are able to reconnect via video link or 13 telephone, if that becomes an issue.
14 And I would note again that we made 15 available to the participants, and via the NRC website 16 and an Agency press release, information on how to 17 access this conference by telephone only. We hope 18 those members of the public or others who wish to 19 listen to this conference were able to access the 20 bridge line this afternoon.
21 I would observe as well that this 22 proceeding is being recorded and a transcript of this 23 conference will be prepared and should be available in 24 the NRC's electronic hearing docket by next week.
25 As to the process that we'll follow for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 today's argument, as we outlined in our January 19th, 2 2021 issuance, each participant's representative has 3 been allotted a period of time within which to present 4 its position regarding these matters.
5 We'll hear first from Petitioners who have 6 been given a total of 30 minutes, of which they may 7 reserve up to 10 minutes for a rebuttal presentation 8 following the VEPCO and staff presentations. VEPCO 9 and the staff will be heard from in that order and 10 have each been allotted 20 minutes to present their 11 arguments.
12 And while the Board members normally might 13 interpose questions during a participant's argument or 14 presentation, in this instance we'll endeavor to wait 15 until all the participant presentations are concluded.
16 Thereafter, following a short break, we'll explore, to 17 the extent necessary in light of their arguments, the 18 questions we posed to the participants in a January 19 29th, 2021 issuance, as well as any other questions 20 that might have arisen in light of their 21 presentations. We do this recognizing that the 22 participant answers to the questions we provided on 23 January 29th may require an extended discussion that 24 would go beyond the time made available for their 25 argument presentations.
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11 1 Finally, we'd observe that the matters at 2 issue before the Board have been fully briefed and 3 we've read the participants' pleadings. So, as we 4 indicated in our January 19th order, we hope the 5 participants and their arguments will focus on 6 identifying the principal points in controversy and 7 the information that supports or rebuts their legal 8 and/or factual claims regarding those matters. And as 9 we also noted there, because this argument is not an 10 evidentiary hearing, the participants should not be 11 attempting to introduce evidence during the argument.
12 And finally, we hope that this session 13 will not go much more than two hours, although we'll 14 see how things work out.
15 All that being said, let me turn to Ms.
16 Curran and say, how much time do you wish to reserve 17 for your rebuttal?
18 MS. CURRAN: Thank you, Judge Bollwerk.
19 This is Diane Curran. I'd like to reserve 10 minutes, 20 please.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you.
22 And I believe it's your turn then.
23 MS. CURRAN: Okay.
24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Please proceed.
25 STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONERS NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 MS. CURRAN: Thank you.
2 In this subsequent license renewal 3 proceeding, Dominion proposes to extend the operating 4 license time for two currently operating reactors, 5 North Anna Units 1 and 2, from 60 years to 80 years, 6 twice the original license time, despite the 7 demonstrated inadequacy of the seismic design basis, 8 as shown by the 2011 Mineral earthquake.
9 For a proposed new reactor on the same 10 site, before that project was cancelled, the NRC had 11 required Dominion to upgrade the reactor's design 12 basis in order to account for the more severe 13 earthquake. And for that new reactor, the upgrade was 14 required for brand-new safety equipment.
15 Here, in contrast, Dominion proposes to 16 keep North Anna operating past 60 years out to 80 17 years without any seismic design upgrade to its safety 18 equipment. Unlike the brand-new safety equipment at 19 Unit 3, the safety equipment at Units 1 and 2 has 20 already been used for more than 40 years and would be 21 used for up to 80 years, a period for which no 22 operating experience currently exists and for which 23 the NRC has identified significant uncertainties in 24 the reliability of that equipment at such an aged 25 stage.
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13 1 Petitioners understand that this 2 subsequent license renewal proceeding does not concern 3 the adequacy of the North Anna seismic design basis to 4 satisfy the Atomic Energy Act's reasonable assurance 5 standard. Nevertheless, it is highly relevant here 6 because the NRC's license renewal GEIS relies on the 7 adequacy of reactor designs for its conclusion that 8 the environmental impacts of design basis accidents 9 during the license renewal term will be insignificant.
10 That no-significant-impact finding was 11 turned on its head by the 2011 Mineral earthquake, 12 which exceeded the seismic design basis for North 13 Anna. Thus, in their contention, Petitioners assert 14 that the license renewal GEIS's conclusion is not 15 applicable to this subsequent license renewal 16 proceeding and the environmental impacts of operating 17 North Anna beyond its seismic design basis must be 18 examined.
19 Petitioners do not have to prove that 20 proposition here. We only have to show that we have 21 a genuine and material dispute with the Applicant on 22 this, who I will refer to as Dominion. I'm sorry, 23 there's several terms for the Applicant and I'm stuck 24 on Dominion. But we don't have to prove our case; we 25 only have to show a genuine and material dispute.
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14 1 In the time that's been allotted to me, 2 I'd like to focus on four issues:
3 One is the relationship between the Atomic 4 Energy Act and NEPA in this case.
5 The second is, does the Environmental 6 Report or the 2013 GEIS, which postdates the Mineral 7 earthquake, evaluate the environmental impacts of 8 relicensing North Anna to operate outside of its 9 seismic design basis?
10 Three, what would an adequate NEPA 11 environmental analysis look like?
12 And four, what is significant, unique, and 13 novel about this case, such that a waiver should be 14 granted?
15 First, on the relationship between NEPA 16 and the Atomic Energy Act, of course, the Atomic 17 Energy Act preceded NEPA. It is, fundamentally, a 18 deterministic regulatory scheme setting minimum 19 standards that are intended to provide a reasonable 20 assurance of safe operation. The key features of this 21 regulatory scheme are that:
22 One, equipment relied on to prevent and 23 (Audio interference.) be built to a high quality that 24 will allow it to withstand the accident conditions in 25 which it must function.
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15 1 Second, this equipment must be redundant 2 in order to provide what the NRC calls defense in 3 depth.
4 Third, probability plays only a small 5 role, and that's generally in determining what types 6 of accidents should be planned against with these very 7 rigorous design features.
8 And finally, once equipment is found 9 necessary to protect public health and safety, it must 10 be installed without regard to its cost.
11 And these elements, taken together, create 12 what the NRC calls a margin of safety.
13 And if you look at Note 6, page 16 of our 14 hearing request, there's two Federal Register notices 15 that really go into this in-depth, what are the basic 16 elements of this safety regime.
17 Now NEPA, in contrast, is interpreted 18 differently or applied differently by the NRC as a 19 general matter. The kinds of analyses that we are 20 most familiar with, which we see, say, in a SAMA 21 analysis for reactor license renewal, is one where the 22 NRC estimates probability, multiplies it by 23 consequences, and then, comes up with probability-24 weighted consequences.
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16 1 Analysis, mitigation alternatives are examined to see 2 whether they're cost-effective, but the scheme is very 3 different because it's probability-based; it's not 4 deterministic. There's not a minimum safety standard.
5 So, looking at license renewal, it's, I 6 think, a unique and interesting, intriguing problem 7 here that the NRC, basically, applies two very 8 different conceptual frameworks to environmental risk 9 in the license renewal GEIS. On the one hand, for 10 design basis accidents, the NRC says: we are not 11 going to reinvent the wheel and try to estimate what's 12 the likelihood of a design basis accident and what are 13 the consequences. We're going to rely on the Atomic 14 Energy Act regulatory scheme, the design basis, the 15 compliance with these very rigorous regulations. And 16 we're going to conclude that, if the design basis is 17 adequate, if it's complied with, if the regulations 18 are complied with, that amounts to no significant 19 impacts.
20 We can find that in the license renewal 21 GEIS in 1996 and it was not changed in 2013. It is 22 bedrock for the license renewal GEIS because most of 23 the risk that a reactor poses falls within the NRC's 24 Atomic Energy Act scheme. That is what the Atomic 25 Energy Act is designed to do, is to make sure that, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 whatever risk there is left over is residual.
2 So, then, the NRC, having sort of set this 3 up for design basis accidents, said, what shall we do 4 for beyond-design-basis or severe accidents; in other 5 words, accidents that we don't think are very likely, 6 but they could have severe consequences? Well, we're 7 going to multiply probability by consequences. We'll 8 get probability-weighted consequences, and then, we 9 will do a cost-benefit analysis for severe mitigation 10 alternatives.
11 But any kind of a risk that is not covered 12 by the basic Atomic Energy Act safety regime is 13 marginal; it's beyond the margin of safety that's 14 established by Atomic Energy Act compliance. That is 15 the situation we have here. We have a very unusual 16 situation where an earthquake occurred which showed 17 the design basis on which the NRC relies for a finding 18 of no significant impact for license renewal was 19 exceeded, demonstrating it is not adequate.
20 And we can see from the experience at Unit 21 3, which was supposed to be built on the same site, 22 the response to the minimal earthquake was to upgrade 23 the design, but a decision has not been made to do 24 that here. And we think there's a real question that 25 should be addressed in the hearing: should these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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18 1 impacts be addressed in the new Environmental Impact 2 Statement because the 1996 EIS just doesn't apply 3 anymore in terms of design basis accidents?
4 So, one of the questions you asked, 5 Judges, was, why are the risk analyses referenced in 6 the Environmental Report inadequate? Basically, 7 they're inadequate because they don't address this key 8 issue, that we have a breach, an exceedance of the 9 design basis on which the NRC relied for its no-10 significant-impact finding. You cannot find that 11 addressed anywhere. It's not in the 2013 license 12 renewal GEIS. It is not in the Environmental Report.
13 It is not in any of the risk analyses relied on 14 Dominion.
15 So, that is a chief question, and it 16 requires an analysis of what does it mean in a NEPA 17 context to say, for the NRC to say, we rely on this 18 deterministic regulatory scheme to find there are no 19 significant impacts. This may mean translating these 20 concepts to probability and consequences. You know, 21 it's going to mean something. It hasn't even been 22 attempted here. So, that's what we're looking for.
23 That's what's missing, and that is what we are looking 24 for.
25 And you can see that Dominion says, "We've NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 considered the Mineral earthquake." That does appear.
2 But there's no representation we have considered how 3 the Mineral earthquake affected this assumption that 4 impacts are insignificant because this plant is going 5 to operate within a seismic design basis.
6 And that is a conceptual issue that needs 7 to be addressed that is very different from that 8 marginal severe accident analysis. We're going to 9 look at very unlikely accidents and see if there might 10 be something that we could do that would be cost-11 effective. Say in the case of Unit 3, the NRC said, 12 you must upgrade this plant to meet a higher safety 13 design requirement without regard to cost. So, why is 14 it that it comes out different for Unit 1 than Unit 3?
15 A major question.
16 So, in terms of what we're looking for, 17 we're looking for an Environmental Report that would 18 discuss this issue; that would talk about how 19 operating beyond the design basis with aging 20 equipment, what kind of environmental impacts would 21 that have?
22 Now the Board has asked why this issue is 23 not covered by NRC's safety regulations, such that 24 we're not allowed to raise them here. The principal 25 reason is that the NRC's experts have identified NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 uncertainties in the long-range behavior of certain 2 important safety components as they age. As long as 3 these uncertainties remain unresolved, they pose a 4 residual risk that needs to be addressed under NEPA.
5 And for that proposition, we rely on 6 Limerick Ecology Action v. NRC, a case we cite in our 7 brief from 1989, that this is a compounded residual 8 risk. To say that it's going to be monitored is not 9 an adequate answer under NEPA. NEPA requires an 10 evaluation of the risk, not just putting it off into 11 the future. That's what the Supreme Court said in 12 Robertson v. Methow Valley: we need to deal with the 13 consequences with the environmental impasse now, not 14 kick the can down the road.
15 So, my final topic here is why are these 16 circumstances significant? Why are they novel, new, 17 significant, and unique? Well, new, because the 18 earthquake happened after the last license renewal 19 decision for North Anna. That's the answer to that.
20 That makes it new. And it's not addressed in the 2013 21 GEIS, which, by the way, was drafted in 2009. And I'm 22 not sure how much it was really changed after that 23 Draft GEIS in 2009, although I have not seen any 24 reference to the issues we raise in the 2013 GEIS.
25 Why is this unique? Because the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 earthquake just happened near North Anna. This case 2 is also unique because we have Unit 3 which was being 3 planned for the very same site that had a very 4 different result. So, we have a unique situation 5 where we can see what the difference is in the 6 analysis that was done for these two different 7 reactors.
8 I know the NRC has tried to distinguish 9 Units 1 and 2 from 3, but, as far as we're concerned, 10 there's no really important distinction here. And 11 NEPA, of course, doesn't take into consideration that 12 a reactor's already old; it's already been operating.
13 NEPA is forward-looking. Look at the impacts. Are 14 they significant? Are they significant enough to be 15 addressed by alternatives or mitigating measures? And 16 why should the result be so different for Unit 3 than 17 it is for Units 1 and 2?
18 So, new, significant, unique. And then, 19 there's a further standard that the purpose of the 20 regulation would not be served if the regulation was 21 enforced. There's an issue here whether we invoke 22 Table B-1. We do think we properly invoke Table B-1 23 by mentioning it, discussing it, and asking for a 24 waiver of the regulations which apply to Table B-1, 25 which is not self-effectuating, Table B-1.
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22 1 But the question here is, would the 2 purpose of Table B-1 be served by applying it here?
3 And we say no, because the fundamental purpose of a 4 NEPA regulation is to adequately assess environmental 5 impacts. Yes, there's a purpose of efficiency, but 6 that efficiency cannot be sacrificed to reasonable 7 accuracy of an environmental finding.
8 And I have not kept track of my time. Are 9 you going to tell me when I'm at 20 minutes or should 10 I --
11 JUDGE BOLLWERK: You still have four 12 minutes left, if you're keeping track.
13 MS. CURRAN: Oh, yes. All right. So, I 14 will use my remaining four minutes to say that we 15 think that this case is very straightforward and we 16 have met the elements of both a waiver and an 17 admissible contention. We have a waiver because we 18 have circumstances that are novel, unique, and 19 significant. We've demonstrated the purpose of Table 20 B-1 would not be served by applying that regulation in 21 this case.
22 And we also have established a genuine and 23 material dispute with Dominion as to whether the 24 findings of the license renewal GEIS have been 25 challenged here, and whether Dominion discusses that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 challenge at all. And our answer would be no. There 2 is no discussion in the Environmental Report of this 3 very significant fact that the finding of no 4 significant impact in the license renewal GEIS has now 5 been proven to be without support.
6 And I will conclude there.
7 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you 8 very much. We appreciate it. This is Judge Bollwerk.
9 All right. I think, next, we have Mr.
10 Lighty for VEPCO or Dominion, whichever he would 11 prefer to represent, or both.
12 STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE APPLICANTS 13 MR. LIGHTY: Thank you, Your Honor.
14 Either or both, or the "the Applicants" will be fine 15 as well.
16 Again, this is Ryan Lighty, appearing for 17 the Applicants, and we certainly appreciate the 18 opportunity to have this conversation today.
19 And allow me to start by saying that we 20 believe, as the Board does, that the pleadings are 21 sufficiently clear on the points that are raised in 22 this proceeding. So, in the interest of keeping our 23 discussion today concise and efficient, we will 24 certainly endeavor not to repeat those arguments here.
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24 1 questions, it would be worthwhile to spend just a 2 moment on a few opening observations. First, we would 3 like to highlight a couple of important statements in 4 the Petitioners' reply pleading which we've not yet 5 had a chance to address. And second, we would like to 6 offer a straightforward way of thinking about the 7 interplay between the safety and the environmental 8 issues raised in the petition. And hopefully, that 9 will help us to properly frame our discussion going 10 forward.
11 First, as Your Honors could probably tell 12 from our answer pleading, the Applicants were not 13 entirely sure which issue in the Generic Environmental 14 Impact Statement, known as the GEIS, that Petitioners 15 were trying to challenge in their petition, either the 16 design basis accidents issue or the severe accidents 17 issue. And the staff's answer pleading suggests they 18 also struggled to unscramble the various claims in the 19 petition.
20 But, given that the 2011 Mineral, 21 Virginia, earthquake was a beyond-design-basis event, 22 it seemed plausible that Petitioners were purporting 23 to challenge the severe accidents issue, which is the 24 issue that considers beyond-design-basis seismic 25 events. But, as it turns out, Petitioners clarified NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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25 1 in their reply that they are only seeking to challenge 2 the design basis accidents issue. And more 3 specifically, page 7 of the reply acknowledges our and 4 the staff's observation that the Petitioners had 5 failed to dispute any aspect of the GEIS severe 6 accidents analysis.
7 But Petitioners did not rebut this 8 assertion. Instead, they noted that their waiver and 9 contention arguments did not need to dispute that 10 analysis because they are only challenging the design 11 basis accidents issue. And then, the next few pages 12 of the reply at pages 7 through 9 go on to clarify 13 that the crux of the challenge is Petitioners' 14 speculation that the seismic design basis is 15 inadequate. And, Your Honors, these are important 16 clarifications.
17 We noted in our brief that the adequacy of 18 the seismic design basis is outside the scope of this 19 proceeding and that, even if it were within the scope, 20 Petitioners failed to offer anything beyond 21 generalized speculation to support that claim. But, 22 setting all of that aside, and assuming just for the 23 sake of argument that this claim was within scope, and 24 that Petitioners had supplied the requisite support, 25 their arguments still fail for an even more NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 1 fundamental reason. And that is because the specific 2 contours of the seismic design basis simply are not 3 relevant to Petitioners' environmental challenge.
4 So, to put all of that in context, I would 5 like to suggest a straightforward visualization of the 6 interplay between the safety and environmental issues.
7 So, picture, if you will, a piece of paper with a 8 square in the middle or feel free to sketch this on a 9 notepad, if you like. The square represents the 10 bounds of the seismic design basis. Next, picture 11 several dots inside the square. These dots represent 12 seismic events that are within the CLB design basis.
13 On the environmental side, these dots are 14 analyzed in the GEIS under the design basis accident 15 issue. And as Petitioners noted, the GEIS's 16 conclusion is essentially deterministic. The NRC 17 concluded that the dots inside the box would result in 18 small impacts because these dots are subject to 19 stringent NRC design basis safety requirements.
20 Now picture some additional dots outside 21 the square. These dots represent beyond-design-basis 22 earthquakes such as the Mineral earthquake. The GEIS 23 analyzes these dots via the severe accidents issue 24 using a probabilistic method, and based on that 25 analysis, the NRC concluded the dots outside the box NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 1 would result in small impacts for a different reason, 2 due to their likelihood.
3 As amplified in their reply, Petitioners 4 are purporting to challenge the size of the square.
5 They are claiming -- without support, mind you -- but 6 they are claiming that the seismic design basis is 7 inadequate and the square should be bigger. But the 8 size of the square simply does not matter in the NEPA 9 context because the GEIS analyzes all of the dots, 10 regardless of whether they are inside the square or 11 outside the square. And simply put, Petitioners have 12 not identified a dot that is not covered somewhere in 13 the GEIS.
14 This really seems to come down to 15 Petitioners' misunderstanding of the severe accidents 16 issue. They appear to believe that it is limited to 17 Severe Accident Mitigation Analyses, or SAMAs, but 18 that simply is not the case. The severe accidents 19 issue contains two different prongs. Under the first 20 prong, the NRC analyzed the impact of severe 21 accidents, including from beyond-design-basis seismic 22 events. The second prong is what pertains to SAMAs.
23 The Petitioners are simply misreading the severe 24 accidents issue and disregarding that first prong, 25 which contains the analysis that they claim to be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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28 1 missing. And it's ultimately that this claim fails at 2 a fundamental level because the GEIS analyzes all of 3 the dots.
4 And in sum, the Applicants respectfully 5 submit that both the waiver petition and the hearing 6 request suffer from this fundamental flaw, and thus, 7 the Board should deny both.
8 And with that, I will turn to the Board's 9 specific written questions.
10 So, first, the Board's first question to 11 the Applicants pertains to the March 2018 Seismic 12 Probabilistic Risk Assessment Summary Report and noted 13 that the ER considers the SPRA in the context of new 14 and significant information, and asked whether there 15 are any other implications for the ER from the SPRA 16 evaluation.
17 And I would note that, as discussed in 18 Section E4.15.3.1.1 of the Environmental Report, the 19 seismic PRA, which takes into account the Mineral 20 earthquake, was utilized to determine if any new 21 information was considered significant, using the 22 NRC's endorsed methodology in NEI-17-04.
23 So, in simple terms, the SPRA is baked 24 into the severe accidents NSI screening, and then, all 25 of the evaluated SAMAs were screened out qualitatively NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 1 or quantitatively on this basis. And so, in general 2 terms, the SPRA is a current licensing basis matter, 3 but it was used to screen the significance of 4 potential new and significant information in the 5 severe accidents context, but, again, Petitioners 6 clarified that they were not challenging the severe 7 accidents issue.
8 Turning to the Board's second question for 9 the Applicants, the Board pointed to the conclusions 10 of the NRC staff's April 2019 SPRA review letter and 11 asked how these conclusions factor into the adequacy 12 of the seismic design basis during the SLR period of 13 operation. And as we've mentioned, the adequacy of 14 the seismic design basis is a CLB issue, is not 15 subject to challenge in license renewal. But 16 licensees are required to maintain an adequate CLB 17 throughout plant life. That includes during the 18 subsequent period of extended operation.
19 And that is subject to continuing NRC 20 oversight through the reactor oversight process. And 21 maybe to just put a finer point on that, the staff's 22 April 2019 conclusion that the seismic design basis is 23 fully acceptable is a snapshot determination, but the 24 licensee is obligated to maintain that acceptability 25 throughout the plant life, throughout the period of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 1 extended operation, subject to ongoing NRC oversight 2 of that acceptability.
3 And finally, the staff's December 2015 4 Confirmatory Action Letter closeout confirms that 5 certain going-forward commitments from the Applicants 6 were appropriately completed -- for example, the 7 installation of new seismic monitoring equipment --
8 and confirmed that certain of those commitments were 9 captured in the Final Safety Analysis Report, or FSAR, 10 including the Seismic Margin Management Plan. That is 11 captured in the FSAR. The FSAR continues forward into 12 the period of extended operation.
13 Turning to the Board's first question for 14 all of the participants regarding special 15 circumstances and new and significant information, I 16 would note that the Applicants put a very robust 17 discussion of the multiple reasons that the 18 Petitioners have not identified any special 19 circumstances here in our answer brief. And so, I 20 won't repeat those here, but I would just summarize 21 that the occurrence of a beyond-design-basis is not a 22 circumstance that was not considered in the rulemaking 23 leading to the rule. That's, essentially, the bottom-24 line reason that the Petitioners have not identified 25 any special circumstances here.
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31 1 As to the NSI issue, the new and 2 significant information issue, the Board appropriately 3 pointed to the definition in the ER which, in turn, 4 comes from NRC guidance in Regulatory Guide 4.2, which 5 provides three reasons that information may be 6 considered both new and significant.
7 First, the identification of a new issue 8 that was not considered or addressed in the GEIS. And 9 as we noted, the Mineral earthquake does not satisfy 10 that prong because, again, it was considered and 11 addressed in the GEIS and in the rulemaking. The 12 Mineral earthquake does not constitute an event that 13 creates a seriously different picture of the 14 environment, either. Petitioners simply have not 15 shown that the occurrence of a beyond-design-basis 16 earthquake is even relevant to the deterministic GEIS 17 impact conclusion regarding design-basis accidents.
18 And finally, the Petitioners have not 19 shown that any of these things constitute an 20 unrecognized action or mechanism, which is the third 21 prong of the Reg Guide 4.2 definition.
22 Turning to the Board's second question for 23 all the participants regarding FLEX equipment, the 24 Board asked, what is the significance of FLEX 25 mitigation equipment in evaluating the consequences of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 1 a seismic event at North Anna now and during the SLR 2 period of operation?
3 As a general matter, FLEX equipment, 4 that's a CLB issue and it's governed by the 5 requirements in 10 CFR 50.155, and again, is not 6 subject to challenge here. But, in general terms, 7 FLEX portable equipment and mitigating strategies are 8 used by operators for accidents that result in an 9 extended loss of offsite power and onsite power. And 10 as part of the new FLEX rule, this equipment is 11 maintained on a regular basis to ensure the equipment 12 remains available now and during the SLR period.
13 And the seismic PRA explicitly models the 14 seismic capacities of this equipment -- in other 15 words, the seismic fragility -- which represents the 16 conditional probabilities that a component would fail 17 for a specified seismic ground motion, are modeled 18 into the seismic PRA. But, again, this FLEX equipment 19 comes into play in a beyond-design-basis event. And 20 the Petitioners have again noted that they are not 21 challenging the severe accidents analysis in the GEIS.
22 Turning to the Board's third question 23 regarding the Seismic Margin Management Plan, I would 24 note that Dominion has committed to a long-term 25 Seismic Margin Management Plan that considers the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 1 Mineral earthquake in analyses of plant design changes 2 on a going-forward basis. And that is captured in the 3 FSAR, and that will, again, continue into the 4 subsequent period of extended operation.
5 And finally, the Board's fourth question 6 for all of the participants asked whether NRC 7 regulations afford Petitioners any means to challenge 8 directly the determinations regarding new and 9 significant information, absent a waiver. We know 10 that the NRC expressly affords the Petitioners an 11 avenue to provide input regarding new and significant 12 information through the comment submission process.
13 That is noted in our answer at page 5 at Note 14.
14 It's also acknowledged in Regulatory Guide 4.2 at page 15 8.
16 That's the specific mechanism that the NRC 17 intended to allow anyone to provide input regarding 18 potential new and significant information. But the 19 regulations do not permit adjudicatory challenges to 20 NSI, absent a waiver. And that's also addressed in 21 our answer at page 32 and Note 139.
22 And so, ultimately, because of 23 Petitioners' misunderstanding of the severe accidents 24 issue, and their failure to recognize that it, in 25 fact, analyzes the impact of beyond-design-basis, not NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 1 merely the mitigation alternatives for severe 2 accidents, their proposed contention and their waiver 3 both should be denied.
4 And with that, I'm happy to take the 5 Board's questions. Thank you.
6 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you, 7 sir. As I indicated, I think we'll wait until the 8 very end to pose any questions, but I appreciate your 9 argument.
10 Why don't we turn, then, to the NRC staff 11 counsel.
12 STATEMENT ON BEHALF OF THE NRC STAFF 13 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Good afternoon, Your 14 Honors.
15 My name is Anita Ghosh-Naber and I 16 represent the NRC staff.
17 The Petitioners have proffered a single 18 contention in this proceeding that challenges the 19 alleged failure of Dominion's ER to address 20 environmental significance of the 2011 earthquake that 21 took place near Mineral, Virginia. The Petitioners 22 also request a waiver of certain regulations in 23 10 CFR Part 51 to the extent that they bar 24 consideration of Category 1 issues in this proceeding.
25 However, the Petitioners have not met the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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35 1 waiver requirements or the contention admissibility 2 standards. Accordingly, both the waiver petition and 3 the hearing request should be denied.
4 With request to the waiver petition, 5 Petitioners do not make the required prima facie 6 showing that the NRC's regulations should be waived 7 and do not meet any of the four Millstone factors.
8 Specifically, the Petitioners do not demonstrate that 9 the 2011 Mineral earthquake qualifies as a special 10 circumstance for a waiver in this proceeding.
11 Under the second Millstone factor, the 12 Petitioners must demonstrate that special 13 circumstances exist that were not considered in the 14 rulemaking. However, the 2013 GEIS specifically 15 considers the environmental consequences of beyond-16 design-basis earthquakes in its severe accident 17 analysis in Appendix E of the 2013 GEIS.
18 The 2013 GEIS specifically expanded upon 19 the scope of the severe accidents evaluation that was 20 contained in the original 1996 GEIS. They used more 21 recent technical information that included both 22 internally and externally initiated event core damage 23 frequencies and, specifically, seismic events, as 24 discussed in Section E.3.2.
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36 1 of the events at Fukushima, which included a beyond-2 design-basis earthquake of a greater magnitude than 3 the Mineral earthquake and resulted in severe 4 environmental consequences.
5 The staff concluded that the severe 6 accident analysis in the 1996 GEIS remains valid and 7 that the probability-weighted consequences continue to 8 be small.
9 Under the third Millstone factor, 10 Petitioners must demonstrate that special 11 circumstances exist that are unique to North Anna.
12 However, the 2011 Mineral earthquake, which was a 13 beyond-design-basis earthquake, does not raise special 14 circumstances unique to North Anna. The risk from 15 severe accident externally initiated events, and 16 specifically seismic hazards, are not unique to North 17 Anna or to license renewal. Any plant can experience 18 a beyond-design-basis event, although the probability 19 of that occurring is very low.
20 Thus, seismic issues are addressed by the 21 NRC on an ongoing basis, as demonstrated by the NRC's 22 evaluations and actions following the Fukushima 23 earthquake and tsunami. And as previously mentioned, 24 these issues are specifically evaluated in the GEIS in 25 the severe accident section.
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37 1 For these reasons, the Petitioners have 2 not demonstrated that the 2011 Mineral earthquake 3 qualifies as special circumstances and have not met 4 the second and third Millstone factors. Accordingly, 5 the waiver petition should be denied.
6 In the area of interest in questions, the 7 Board asked for a discussion of whether the 2011 8 Mineral earthquake qualifies as new and significant 9 information under the ER definition. And the 2011 10 Mineral earthquake does not qualify as new and 11 significant information. Specifically, it does not 12 meet any of the three criteria outlined in the ER 13 definition.
14 First, as previously explained, the 15 beyond-design-basis earthquakes were specifically 16 considered in the severe accident analysis in the 2013 17 GEIS. Therefore, the Mineral earthquake does not 18 identify a significant environmental impact issue not 19 considered in the GEIS and not codified in Table B-1.
20 The Mineral earthquake also does not meet 21 the second criteria in the ER definition that new 22 information not considered in the GEIS leads to a 23 seriously different picture of the environmental 24 consequences of the action than previously considered, 25 such as an environmental finding different from that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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38 1 codified in Table B-1. Specifically, the Petitioners 2 do not present a seriously different picture of the 3 environmental impacts that was considered in the GEIS.
4 Following the earthquake, the staff 5 determined that North Anna could be safely restarted 6 based on its finding that the licensee demonstrated 7 that no functional damage to those features necessary 8 for continued operation had occurred and that North 9 Anna could be operated without undue risk to health 10 and safety of the public, although there was some 11 earthquake-related damage to non-safety-related 12 equipment observed. There was also no measurable 13 radiological release associated with the event.
14 The Petitioners do not demonstrate that 15 there are environmental impacts from the 2011 16 earthquake that would lead to a different 17 determination that the environmental impacts for 18 design-basis actions or probability-weighted 19 consequences of severe accidents would be greater than 20 the generic findings of small.
21 Finally, the Petitioners do not meet the 22 third criteria in the ER definition that any new 23 activity or aspect associated with a nuclear power 24 plant can act upon the environment in a manner or an 25 intensity or scope not previously recognized. But the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 1 GEIS specifically recognizes that a beyond-design-2 basis earthquake could occur.
3 Thus, the Petitioners failed to meet the 4 waiver standards because they do not demonstrate that 5 the 2011 earthquake qualifies as new or significant 6 information.
7 In its questions, the Board had asked 8 whether NRC regulations afford Petitioners any means 9 to directly challenge new or significant information, 10 absent a waiver. A waiver is required before 11 Petitioners can introduce what they allege to be new 12 and significant information. Therefore, Petitioners 13 may not directly challenge the staff's determinations 14 regarding new and significant information, absent a 15 waiver in an adjudicatory proceeding.
16 However, in accordance with 10 CFR 51.73, 17 the NRC staff will issue its Draft Supplemental 18 Environmental Impact Statement for public comment.
19 This would provide the opportunity for Petitioners, or 20 any member of the public, to comment on the staff's 21 new and significant information determinations in the 22 Draft SEIS and it would allow them to provide the 23 staff with new information for its consideration.
24 The staff also provides an opportunity for 25 members of the public to provide comments on new and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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40 1 significant information as part of its scoping 2 process, though the scoping process has ended for 3 North Anna. Also, Petitioners with new and 4 significant information regarding a generic finding, 5 if they believe it to be incorrect for all plants, 6 they can also submit a petition for rulemaking under 7 10 CFR 2.802.
8 The Petitioners' primary argument in 9 support of both their waiver petition and their 10 contention is that the occurrence of the 2011 Mineral 11 earthquake which exceeded North Anna's design basis 12 refuted the assumption in the 1996 GEIS that a 13 reactor's design is adequate to prevent or mitigate 14 the effects of likely seismic events. However, the 15 Petitioners' argument ignores the fact that the 2011 16 beyond-design-basis earthquake does not fall within 17 the category of accidents covered by the Category 1 18 finding for design-basis accidents.
19 As explained in the 2013 GEIS, design-20 basis accidents were considered at the time of initial 21 licensing. And because licensees are required to 22 maintain the plant within their acceptable design and 23 performance criteria, including during the license 24 renewal term, the environmental impacts of design-25 basis accidents are not expected to change.
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41 1 Petitioners are essentially arguing that 2 Dominion and the NRC staff cannot rely on Dominion's 3 compliance with North Anna's design basis because 4 North Anna's design basis is now deficient, in light 5 of the 2011 earthquake. However, this raises an 6 impermissible challenge to North Anna's current 7 licensing basis and to the NRC staff's determinations 8 following the 2011 earthquake which permitted North 9 Anna to restart without requiring a modification to 10 North Anna's design-basis earthquake. Therefore, this 11 argument falls beyond the scope of this subsequent 12 license renewal proceeding, and the Petitioners' 13 arguments fail to provide the requisite support to 14 meet the waiver standards and the contention 15 admissibility criteria in this proceeding.
16 In its questions, the Board had also asked 17 the NRC staff to explain the terms "design-basis 18 earthquake," "safe-shutdown earthquake," and 19 "operating-basis earthquake," and the relationship 20 between these terms. Appendix A to 10 CFR Part 100 21 provides seismic and geologic siting criteria for 22 nuclear power plants, including criteria for 23 determining the safe-shutdown earthquake and the 24 operating-basis earthquake. The plant's design basis 25 must account for both the safe-shutdown earthquake and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 1 the operating-basis earthquake.
2 As stated in Footnote 1 of Appendix A to 3 10 CFR Part 100, the safe-shutdown earthquake defines 4 that earthquake which has been commonly referred to as 5 the design-basis earthquake. Therefore, the terms 6 "safe-shutdown earthquake" and "design-basis 7 earthquake" mean the same and are used 8 interchangeably.
9 In accordance with Appendix A, the safe-10 shutdown earthquake represents an earthquake that 11 produces the maximum vibratory ground motion for which 12 certain structures, systems, and components are 13 designed to remain functional. These SSCs are 14 necessary to ensure, one, the integrity of the reactor 15 coolant pressure boundary; two, the capability to shut 16 down the reactor and maintain it in a safe-shutdown 17 condition, or three, the capability to prevent or 18 mitigate consequences of accidents which could result 19 in potential offsite exposures. The operating-basis 20 earthquake is the lesser of the two ground motions, 21 and for North Anna, the operating-basis earthquake is 22 half the maximum vibratory ground acceleration of the 23 design-basis earthquake.
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43 1 without undue risk to the health and safety of the 2 public shall be designed to remain functional and 3 within applicable stress and deformation limits when 4 subjected to the effects of the vibratory motion of 5 the operating-basis earthquake in combination with 6 normal operating loads.
7 Appendix A of Part 100 also specifies 8 that, if vibratory ground motion exceeding that of the 9 operating-basis earthquake occurs, shut down of the 10 nuclear plant will be required. Prior to resuming 11 operations, the licensee will be required to 12 demonstrate to the Commission that no functional 13 damage has occurred to those features necessary for 14 continued operation without undue risk to public 15 health and safety. Therefore, the operating-basis 16 earthquake represents a threshold for required plant 17 shutdown for inspection.
18 The Board had asked what is meant by 19 "exceeding the seismic design basis". This means that 20 the observed ground acceleration due to the earthquake 21 exceeded the safe-shutdown earthquake and the 22 operating-basis earthquake. The operating-basis 23 earthquake's exceedance required for plant shutdown is 24 determined based on a comparison of ground motion 25 response spectra in accordance with NRC guidance.
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44 1 The Board had also asked about the 2 significance of the Seismic Margin Management Plan.
3 Dominion implemented the Seismic Margin Management 4 Plan to address the impacts of the Mineral earthquake.
5 This plan requires an explicit evaluation of plant 6 modifications for the effects of the 2011 Mineral 7 earthquake to ensure adequate seismic margins are 8 maintained for plant SSCs. Because this is part of 9 North Anna's current licensing basis, any plant 10 modifications during the period of SLR or subsequent 11 license renewal extended operation would, likewise, 12 require an evaluation for the effects of the 2011 13 earthquake to ensure seismic margins are maintained.
14 But, ultimately, seismic conditions are 15 considered an ongoing safety issue for operating 16 plants, and therefore, remain separate from license 17 renewal. Therefore, the Petitioners' arguments 18 challenging North Anna's design basis fall beyond the 19 scope of this subsequent license renewal proceeding.
20 Petitioners also assert that a waiver is 21 required to reach a significant environmental problem.
22 As support, they point to safety-related design 23 changes that Dominion had proposed for its COL 24 application, and they take issue with the fact that 25 Dominion did not make these same changes for the Unit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 1 1 and 2 reactors and they, instead, provide FLEX 2 equipment for the North Anna 1 and 2 units that are 3 not safety grade.
4 To comply with the NRC orders issued 5 following the earthquake and tsunami at Fukushima, and 6 now with the mitigation of beyond-design-basis events 7 rule in 10 CFR 50.155, licenses, including North Anna 8 plant, implemented mitigation strategies. These 9 include FLEX mitigation equipment, such as diesel 10 generators, to maintain or restore core cooling 11 containment and spent fuel pool cooling capabilities 12 in the event of a beyond-design-basis external event 13 such as an earthquake.
14 The NRC staff has not yet completed its 15 environmental review for this application. However, 16 the actions taken by the licensee to comply with the 17 NRC orders and the rule for mitigating beyond-design-18 basis external events, including the use of FLEX 19 equipment, would support the conclusion in the 2013 20 GEIS that the probability-weighted consequences of a 21 severe accident continue to be small for all nuclear 22 plants. And it would also further reduce the 23 likelihood of finding a cost-beneficial SAMA that 24 would substantially reduce severe accident risk at 25 North Anna.
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46 1 In addition, Dominion performed a seismic 2 PRA to determine if plant enhancements were warranted.
3 And Dominion and the NRC staff both concluded that no 4 further action is required at North Anna Units 1 and 5 2. The Petitioners do not point to any flaws or 6 deficiencies in the seismic PRA, and they provide no 7 support for their assertion that any similar changes 8 to the design of the North Anna 1 and 2 operating 9 reactors were needed following the 2011 earthquake.
10 Thus, the Petitioners fail to support their waiver 11 petition.
12 With respect to contention admissibility, 13 as described in our brief, the Petitioners have not 14 proffered an admissible contention because they did 15 not raise an issue material to the findings the NRC 16 must make. They raise issues that are outside the 17 scope of the proceeding, and they raise issues that do 18 not create a genuine dispute with the Applicant.
19 Because the Petitioners have not met the 20 waiver requirements or the contention admissibility 21 requirements, both the hearing request and the waiver 22 petition should be denied.
23 Thank you.
24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you.
25 Ms. Curran, it's your opportunity, then, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 1 to have a rebuttal for about 10 minutes.
2 REBUTTAL ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONERS 3 MS. CURRAN: Okay. I think it's really 4 important here to acknowledge that in this subsequent 5 license renewal case the occurrence of the 2011 6 Mineral earthquake has put NRC into new territory in 7 terms of NEPA analysis. And that is, how should an 8 exceedance of the seismic design basis be evaluated 9 where the design basis is a fundamental element of the 10 no-significant-impact finding in the license renewal 11 GEIS?
12 And as long as we're making mental 13 pictures, I'd like to offer an alternative to Mr.
14 Lighty's mental diagram. He had suggested a square 15 with inside is the design basis and, then, outside is 16 beyond design basis. And he had put some design-basis 17 accidents inside the square and beyond-design-basis 18 accidents outside. And he sees it as these two 19 categories, and I just don't think that these 20 categories are terribly helpful here. So, let me give 21 you another picture that might explain why.
22 Okay. Picture -- and this is a Venn 23 diagram -- NEPA is a big circle, because we know that 24 NEPA covers all of the reasonably foreseeable 25 environmental impacts of a federal action, and we know NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 1 that includes radiological impacts. And inside that 2 circle there's two other circles. The most inner 3 circle is the design basis that is established under 4 the Atomic Energy Act. That is inside NEPA, and the 5 NRC says, okay, we're going to take that and we're 6 going to say, as long as those requirements are 7 complied with, we don't have any significant impacts 8 here. Well, thinking about that inner circle, put a 9 shadow around it just outside of it, a penumbra, like 10 a circle around a planet. That's the margin of safety 11 that is established by compliance with the design-12 basis requirements.
13 Now, when I think of the Mineral 14 earthquake, I don't think of it as lying outside that 15 circle, now the two inner circles. I see it as 16 rending the fabric of the boundaries of those circles.
17 In other words, that accident now raises questions 18 about the integrity of that inner circle and its 19 penumbra, which is that margin of safety which is 20 supposed to be established by the no-undue-risk 21 standard.
22 You can't just swell the Mineral 23 earthquake into the category of beyond design basis 24 and analyze it like a severe accident because of this 25 assumption that in a general license renewal GEIS, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 1 that if a licensee's design is adequate, impacts will 2 be insignificant. It begs the question, the 3 occurrence of this Mineral earthquake begs the 4 question, now what do you do with that environmental 5 finding? It has been disrupted. The circle has been 6 disrupted by the occurrence of this event.
7 And it needs to be explicitly discussed, 8 not let me throw you a risk analysis that might 9 satisfy your concerns. That's not what NEPA is for.
10 NEPA is supposed to tell interested governments -- and 11 we're talking about other federal agencies; we're 12 talking about state agencies; we're talking about 13 members of the public -- we formerly said to you that 14 we had confidence this plant posed no significant 15 impacts because of this, because of this design. And 16 now, that design has been breached. It has been 17 compromised.
18 What do we say then? We don't just throw 19 you into another category and disregard our previous 20 statement to the public. The Agency must go back and 21 explain what did we mean in the first place and how 22 has that conclusion been affected by this accident.
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50 1 valid.
2 There were a couple of other points I 3 wanted to make very quickly. FLEX equipment, I think 4 you had raised a question about that. FLEX equipment 5 is not safety grade. And so, it's not the equivalent 6 of design-basis equipment.
7 So, we have, in the case of Unit 3, the 8 design had to be upgraded. We have, in the case of 9 Units 1 and 2, FLEX equipment was considered okay. If 10 you do some kind of risk analysis, we'll let you use 11 that.
12 But if the NRC starts by saying we're 13 going to rely on this conceptual, deterministic 14 framework, if they abandon that for the next phase, it 15 has to be discussed. It can't just be disregarded.
16 And I haven't heard anything here today saying that it 17 has been dealt with. It's a pretty big conceptual 18 difference and it's in there. It's in the license 19 renewal GEIS.
20 I think I said it before, but I will say 21 it again. Anytime that the fundamental safety of a 22 nuclear reactor is questioned by an event, as it has 23 been here, that's significant. In our view, it's 24 going to be significant as a matter of law. Because 25 when you think about it, the Atomic Energy Act is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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51 1 supposed to make sure that most of the risk posed by 2 a nuclear reactor is taken care of by safety 3 regulation. Everything else in the periphery is 4 severe accidents for which you can do a cost-benefit 5 analysis and maybe you will impose some severe 6 accident mitigation alternatives. Well, if you're 7 going to go down the road of saying our safety regime 8 is what we rely on for no significant impacts, if that 9 is challenged, it has to be addressed; it has to be 10 discussed. And that is significant enough to grant us 11 a waiver.
12 And finally, I think you heard both 13 counsel for NRC staff and the Applicants say that the 14 only road for us to get a hearing on our concerns is 15 through a waiver. I think that was established in the 16 recent Limerick case, where NRDC went in and said, "We 17 have new and significant information," and the 18 Commission said, "I'm sorry, you've got to do a waiver 19 petition, if that's what you want to raise."
20 The opportunity to submit comments in a 21 scoping proceeding or in a Draft EIS, there's no way 22 that could be compared to the kind of rights that 23 members of the public get in the setting of a hearing.
24 So, we would submit to you that this waiver proceeding 25 is the only way that we can actually get a hearing on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 1 our concern.
2 If I still have some time, I'm just going 3 to go through my notes to see if there's anything.
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: You've got a couple of 5 minutes.
6 MS. CURRAN: Okay. So, this whole 7 question of the distinction between the safety design, 8 what's in the current licensing basis and outside the 9 scope of this proceeding. As long as the NRC says in 10 an Environmental Impact Statement that the finding of 11 no significant impact is based on compliance with an 12 NRC-approved safety design, if that safety design is 13 compromised in any way, that opens the question, that 14 opens the door to a NEPA analysis.
15 We are not seeking any hearing under the 16 Atomic Energy Act, but NEPA is an independent statute.
17 NEPA is applicable, fully applicable, to NRC 18 regulatory decisions, unless there's a statutory 19 exemption, for which there is none here. So, as long 20 as these Atomic Energy Act concepts are brought in by 21 the NRC itself into the finding of no significant 22 impact, then it is appropriate to discuss those 23 findings in this contention and in a hearing.
24 And we would hope that in an Environmental 25 Impact Statement that the NRC would look at these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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53 1 issues and discuss them. They may decide we're going 2 to let North Anna operate for an additional 20 years 3 out to 80 years; we're not going to make them upgrade 4 the design, as we did with Unit 3. But let's get an 5 explanation for that that addresses the particulars of 6 that no-significant-impact finding and explains the 7 departure now.
8 And that's it for me.
9 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you 10 very much.
11 We very much appreciate counsels' 12 arguments. It's been very interesting.
13 Just let me turn to the Board members for 14 a second. Do you think, if we come back by 3:30, that 15 will give us enough time to talk about the questions?
16 You can just nod, Judge Trikouros or Judge Arnold.
17 Yes?
18 JUDGE ARNOLD: Yes, that's fine.
19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Judge 20 Trikouros, is that all right, 3:30? You're muted, but 21 I can see you saying yes. So, all right.
22 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Yes. Sorry about that.
23 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Why don't we, then, go 24 ahead and take a break until 3:30, and we'll come back 25 at that point and have Board questions.
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54 1 Question, Ms. Curran?
2 MS. CURRAN: Yes. What time do you have 3 now?
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: I have about 3:13.
5 MS. CURRAN: Good.
6 JUDGE BOLLWERK: My computer is synced 7 with yours.
8 So, that gives us about 15 minutes. It 9 will give you a chance to stretch your legs and use 10 the facilities, if you need to.
11 My suggestion would be that, during the 12 period, you will probably want to mute your microphone 13 and also turn off your video, unless you want 14 everybody to see what you're doing.
15 But, in any event, we'll be back at 3:15 16 and we'll restart at that point. All right? Thank 17 you, everybody.
18 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 19 off the record at 3:17 p.m., and resumed at 3:34 p.m.)
20 JUDGE BOLLWERK: We will go back on the 21 record and begin with the Board questions.
22 Let me go ahead and start by asking Ms.
23 Curran a question. So, I thought the two arguments 24 about diagrams were interesting, and let me talk about 25 the Venn diagram. As I understand the diagram that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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55 1 you've proposed, Ms. Curran, it's there's an outer 2 circle, which basically covers all the NEPA; there's 3 two inner circles, one that's the design basis, and 4 the second one is sort of a penumbra, if you want to 5 call it that, that circles the design basis, which 6 basically accommodates or reflects that there's an 7 area in there where defense in depth, basically, 8 covers that area. So, it relies just beyond the 9 design basis, but is reflected by the fact that, 10 notwithstanding the design basis, there's also some 11 margin; there's always a margin that's built into the 12 safety requirements that are imposed. Have I got it 13 correctly? I don't want to misrepresent it.
14 MS. CURRAN: Judge Bollwerk, this is Diane 15 Curran.
16 You've got it to a T. And then, just 17 picture a knife cutting through the margin and the 18 edge of the inner circle, and that's the earthquake.
19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Let me 20 propose a different, using that same model, a 21 different construct, which is, based on the earthquake 22 -- and let me stop right there. Let me ask one 23 question of counsel for -- well, no, let me go on.
24 So, because of the fact that there's been 25 a beyond-design-basis earthquake, and my understanding NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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56 1 is that the plant accommodated that earthquake well, 2 other than I believe that one counsel mentioned, NRC 3 staff counsel I believe mentioned there was one non-4 safety impact. And I understand it was a cask that 5 may have moved, is that correct? Is that what we were 6 talking about? Anybody? Does anybody know?
7 I think Judge Arnold had mentioned that at 8 one point to me at any event. Well, basically, on the 9 safety side, there were not any issues. Can you say 10 that the design-basis circle has actually moved out, 11 so that the penumbra may be smaller, or maybe the 12 penumbra has moved out? Nothing has been pierced; 13 something has just expanded?
14 MS. CURRAN: Okay. That's a really good 15 question. This is Diane Curran.
16 You just said that it was, the earthquake 17 was examined, and the equipment wasn't damaged, the 18 safety equipment wasn't damaged, and everything was 19 fine. In the first place, that's an operational 20 determination, and the NRC is always doing that.
21 Something goes wrong. The licensee and the NRC will 22 go over the equipment and make sure that the plant can 23 keep operating safely. I don't see that as equivalent 24 to a licensing determination, which is what we're 25 talking about here.
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57 1 And the earthquake raised a question for 2 the NRC: should we upgrade the design basis? The 3 question was answered in the affirmative for Unit 3.
4 So, to say that it was reviewed and no 5 problems were found that would cause a shutdown or 6 immediate changes to the equipment, so the plant could 7 keep operating safely, is a different question than 8 the kind of determination that gets made at the 9 licensing stage. We're at a key moment here.
10 And, okay, maybe that's the answer, right?
11 Maybe the answer is we're going to modify what we 12 consider the design basis to say, to make some kind of 13 determination that, in fact, it doesn't matter that 14 the earthquake exceeded the design basis. That would 15 be a license amendment. That would be a licensing 16 determination, and the public would have a chance to 17 participate in that determination: is that reasonable 18 or not? That would be, you know, a safety hearing and 19 probably it would have an environmental component to 20 it.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: This is Judge Bollwerk.
22 So, you're saying there would have to be 23 a change to the FSAR, which would require a license 24 amendment to change the design basis?
25 MS. CURRAN: Yes.
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58 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Okay. Let me turn to, 2 first, the staff and see what you have to say about 3 it. Actually, I'm sorry, let's turn to VEPCO first to 4 see what you have to say about that.
5 MR. LIGHTY: Thank you, Your Honor.
6 I would go back to that diagram of the 7 inner circle with design basis, a slightly larger 8 circle with the penumbra, and then, an even bigger 9 circle that is NEPA, and note that, for the inner 10 design-basis circle, that's analyzed in the GEIS on 11 the design-basis accidents issue.
12 Then, everything else within the NEPA 13 circle, the bigger NEPA circle, is analyzed in the 14 severe accidents issue in the GEIS, everything within 15 the NEPA circle, including that penumbra. There's 16 nothing here that hasn't been analyzed somewhere in 17 the GEIS and fully complies with NEPA.
18 So, that's what I think the disconnect 19 here is, that the Petitioners don't seem to 20 acknowledge the very important first prong of the 21 severe accidents issue in the GEIS. Ms. Curran made 22 repeated references to the cost-benefit analysis of 23 the SAMAs, but that's only one component of the severe 24 accidents analysis in the GEIS. There's a separate 25 fulsome analysis of beyond-design-basis accidents in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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59 1 the GEIS. It's been covered by NEPA.
2 So, the suggestion that a beyond-design-3 basis earthquake is something that the NRC has never 4 considered before, or that it's never been analyzed, 5 it's something so novel and unique that it requires us 6 to throw out Part 51 and to have a hearing on this 7 issue, that's simply incorrect. This issue has been 8 analyzed. It was analyzed in a very robust analysis 9 in the 1996 GEIS and, then, in 2013 with updated 10 analysis techniques, the NRC updated that analysis.
11 And I think Ms. Curran is missing that 12 entire analysis that is presented in both the '96 and 13 2013 GEIS, and that's a very important omission in the 14 argument.
15 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. So, your box 16 has become a circle, but it doesn't make any 17 difference in your view?
18 MR. LIGHTY: Correct, correct.
19 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Let me just 20 ask, has the design basis for North Anna changed? Is 21 it something different now than it was before?
22 MR. LIGHTY: No, there was no change. In 23 fact, that's what the thousands of pages of analysis 24 or the past decade have confirmed, that there's no 25 need to modify the design basis because it fully NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 1 complies with all of the NRC's regulatory 2 requirements, all of the requirements in the existing 3 license.
4 The Mineral earthquake did not require any 5 change to the design basis. It is still fully 6 adequate. And again, challenging the adequacy of that 7 would be something far beyond this license renewal 8 proceeding.
9 JUDGE BOLLWERK: So, maybe I'm being too 10 simplistic and that's probably the case. But, if I 11 recall -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- the Mineral 12 earthquake was at 5.8, is that correct?
13 MR. LIGHTY: Yes, I believe that is 14 correct, Your Honor.
15 JUDGE BOLLWERK: And the design basis 16 prior to that was somewhat lower, am I correct about 17 that?
18 MR. LIGHTY: I don't believe the design 19 basis is expressed in terms of magnitude. I believe 20 it is expressed in different terms, but, yes, the 21 Mineral earthquake did exceed the design basis.
22 JUDGE BOLLWERK: And is Ms. Curran correct 23 that a change in the design basis would require a 24 license amendment?
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61 1 certainly have to be an analysis to determine whether 2 a license amendment would be required.
3 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Okay. Let me turn to 4 staff counsel to see if she has anything she'd like to 5 say on the subject that I've raised.
6 And, Ms. Curran, I'm going to come back to 7 you at the end and allow you an opportunity to 8 respond.
9 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Thank you, Your Honor.
10 This is Anita Ghosh-Naber for the staff.
11 Just to reiterate, there are two findings 12 that are made in the GEIS, and one is with respect to 13 design-basis accidents and the other is with respect 14 to severe accidents. So, the accidents that are 15 covered under the design-basis accident finding were 16 the ones that were analyzed at initial licensing. And 17 anything beyond that and beyond North Anna's design 18 basis, or any plant's design basis, would be covered 19 under the severe accident finding in the GEIS. So, 20 beyond-design-basis earthquake in 2011 would fall 21 within the scope of the analysis in the 2013 GEIS, 22 specifically under the severe accidents sections.
23 With respect to North Anna's design basis, 24 it wasn't changed as a result of the 2011 earthquake.
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62 1 extensive analysis, and the staff has conducted their 2 restart evaluation.
3 There's also a lot of evaluation that was 4 done following Fukushima. There is seismic hazard 5 evaluations and the seismic PRA that were done, and 6 the regulatory determination that was made was that 7 nothing further was needed.
8 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. And I take 9 you agree with Mr. Lighty that, by stating it's 5.8, 10 I did not state correctly what the design basis is or 11 how it's expressed?
12 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Yes, that's correct.
13 The design-basis earthquake is expressed in terms of, 14 I guess, the ground motion acceleration. There is 15 peak ground motion acceleration, which I could give 16 you numbers for, but, really, when the staff analyzes 17 this, they're looking at a response spectrum. So, 18 they're looking at background acceleration as a 19 function of frequency. So, they're looking at a plot, 20 rather. There are numbers I could give you for peak 21 ground motion acceleration.
22 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Right.
23 MS. GHOSH-NABER: But it's really the plot 24 that they are looking at.
25 JUDGE BOLLWERK: And so, you said the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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63 1 design basis hasn't changed. So, that plot hasn't 2 changed, even though that plot was exceeded?
3 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Yes, so there would be 4 a separate plot of the Mineral earthquake. It would 5 have its own spectrum.
6 JUDGE BOLLWERK: And it's outside the 7 original plot, but the design basis is still the same?
8 MS. GHOSH-NABER: The design-basis 9 earthquake spectrum is still the same. The Mineral 10 earthquake has its own spectrum, that's correct.
11 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right.
12 MS. GHOSH-NABER: And it exceeded it, you 13 know, at certain frequencies.
14 JUDGE BOLLWERK: And so, to change that 15 design basis relative to the license, would you 16 require a license amendment?
17 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Can I have a moment --
18 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Sure.
19 MS. GHOSH-NABER: -- to consult with the 20 staff?
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: And as I said, Ms.
22 Curran, we'll come back to you when she comes back.
23 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Thank you, Your Honor.
24 It could be done by an operating license 25 amendment or it could be done by order as well.
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64 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you.
2 Ms. Curran, let me turn back to you, then, 3 please.
4 MS. CURRAN: Thank you.
5 I have two points I want to make in 6 response to some comments by Mr. Lighty.
7 He was using my circles, concentric circle 8 image, and saying that any accident that fell outside 9 of the inner circle of the design-basis circle must be 10 analyzed as a beyond-design-basis accident. I think 11 that's one of the key issues here, is whether that 12 categorization fits these circumstances.
13 My understanding of the way NRC does 14 analysis for beyond-design-basis accident probability 15 is that it's evaluating the likelihood of accidents 16 that haven't happened. They are severe; they are 17 unlikely.
18 And what's different here is that the 19 earthquake happened. So, I don't think you can throw 20 it into that category of predicting unlikely events 21 because it happened; it challenged the design basis.
22 And then, it is essential to inquire, what are the 23 environmental impacts when the design basis is 24 challenged? And it may be that you get to the same 25 answer, but the question must be asked, the Agency has NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 1 to show -- and I'm thinking of the NRC ultimately --
2 to show that this was considered because it was the 3 initial analysis must be revisited and explained why 4 that's no longer appropriate. Or, if it is 5 appropriate, then it prompts a revision to the design 6 basis. But it can't be ignored. It can't be just 7 treated as a different kind of animal that we're not 8 going to look at.
9 The inconsistency between the occurrence 10 of the Mineral earthquake and the assumption in the 11 license renewal GEIS that the design basis would be 12 adequate to maintain environmental impacts at an 13 insignificant level has to be examined. And we're not 14 here to get to the merits of the case. We're here to 15 try to force a discussion of that issue.
16 And then, I think Mr. Lighty said that the 17 design basis for North Anna is fully adequate. Well, 18 you know, that's a determination that Dominion and the 19 NRC have made, that they made a lot of reviews after 20 the 2011 earthquake, clearly. But those reviews were 21 never brought to bear in a licensing case because 22 there was none on the table at that point. Now there 23 is one.
24 And I agree, we can't talk about the 25 current licensing basis. We can't talk about whether NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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66 1 the design basis for North Anna is adequate. But we 2 can ask for a discussion of the findings and 3 assumptions that underlie the license renewal GEIS and 4 whether they continue to be valid here.
5 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you.
6 Let me go ahead and turn to Judge 7 Trikouros. I know he's got a couple of questions 8 along the same lines, and I have at least one more 9 that I'll come back to.
10 Just Trikouros?
11 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Hello. Can you hear me 12 now? Hello?
13 JUDGE BOLLWERK: You're good. Go ahead.
14 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: I don't hear you.
15 Hello?
16 JUDGE BOLLWERK: I can hear you. Can you 17 hear us?
18 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Yes, I can't hear you 19 through my -- give me one second. Say it again, just 20 to make sure?
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Go ahead. And can you 22 hear us now?
23 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Yes, I can only hear 24 you. I can't hear you through my -- okay, that's 25 fine. I can hear you through the laptop speaker.
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67 1 All right. So, I was trying to understand 2 the reasoning behind not changing the plant design 3 basis, but providing a seismic margin monitoring or 4 management program; and also, why Unit 3, for example, 5 at North Anna did require a change to the design 6 basis.
7 The only thing that makes sense that 8 explains all three of those is that the current 9 systems, structures, and components of the plant all 10 experienced the Mineral earthquake since it had, in 11 fact, occurred, and were able to live through that 12 event safely. Therefore, one could argue that the 13 current systems, structures, and components at the 14 plant are more than capable of dealing with a Mineral 15 earthquake.
16 However, any new components, structures, 17 or systems added to the plant in the future will not 18 have had that experience. Therefore, the only way to 19 determine if they're safe is to analyze at the higher 20 level that was associated with the Mineral earthquake, 21 and that, in fact, is done by the Seismic Margin 22 Management Program.
23 In the same vein, Unit 3 at North Anna had 24 not experienced that earthquake, and therefore, it 25 falls under the category of having to be analyzed at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 1 the higher level. Therefore, that would explain why 2 the design basis of that plant would have to be higher 3 than the North Anna.
4 Is that a logical explanation for why the 5 design basis of the plant wasn't changes as a result 6 of the Mineral earthquake?
7 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Who is your question 8 directed to?
9 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: I'm sorry, my question 10 is to Ms. Naber of the NRC first.
11 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Just so you 12 know, we'll allow Ms. Naber to respond. Then, we'll 13 go to Mr. Lighty, then Ms. Curran, and then, back to 14 Ms. Naber for any final thoughts.
15 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Thank you.
16 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Thank you, Your Honor.
17 Your understanding with respect to the 18 Seismic Margin Management Plan is correct. All plant 19 modifications, future plant modifications, would 20 require analysis of both the design-basis earthquake 21 and effects and impacts from the 2011 Mineral 22 earthquake. At the time or following the 2011 23 earthquake, the NRC, in accordance with the 24 regulations in Appendix A, had to make a restart 25 determination that there was no functional damage to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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69 1 those SSCs.
2 And I had mentioned this earlier. I had 3 specified there was specific criteria. So, the NRC 4 had made that finding that there was no functional 5 damage to the plant, which would permit restart. So, 6 your understanding in that regard is correct.
7 For the COL application, I can't really 8 speak to that, other than Dominion did its analysis 9 there and determined some other seismic design 10 modifications were necessary.
11 But, you know, Dominion did do a seismic 12 PRA for the operating reactors similar to the analysis 13 that was done for the COL. And they determined that 14 no further regulatory modifications were necessary and 15 the NRC had concurred.
16 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Okay. That's fine.
17 That's fine.
18 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Do you want to hear from 19 Mr. Lighty now?
20 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Well, sure.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Or do you have a follow-22 up? It's up to you.
23 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: No, no, I think that's 24 fine.
25 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right.
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70 1 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: We could hear from Mr.
2 Lighty.
3 MR. LIGHTY: Thank you, Your Honor.
4 Yes, I think your description all fits 5 together in a logical way. I think that those were 6 decisions at the time, however, that may have been 7 reached on their own merits. There was a robust 8 technical evaluation that demonstrated that the design 9 basis for Units 1 and 2 did not need to be revised.
10 And I think that was independent of the separate 11 analysis that was undertaken for Unit 3.
12 And keeping in mind that these are two 13 different plants with different reactor technologies 14 licensed under two different parts of NRC regulations, 15 and in very different stages of their life cycle, then 16 I think the technical analyses that were reached 17 separately rather than necessarily lined up in the 18 logical fashion that you put together makes complete 19 sense.
20 But it might be worth noting, just as a 21 general matter, that a design basis is not required to 22 be bounding of the most extreme event that a facility 23 may ever experience. That's not what the NRC's 24 regulations require.
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71 1 design criteria in Appendix A to Part 50, they require 2 appropriate consideration of the most extreme natural 3 phenomena. And so, I think that's a very important 4 distinction. The design basis doesn't have to bound 5 everything that could happen to a plant.
6 And the regulations explicitly acknowledge 7 that plants may experience beyond-design-basis events, 8 and that's exactly why the beyond-design-basis 9 rulemaking was undertaken, the final rule implemented 10 last year, Part 50, Section 50.155, I believe. So, I 11 think that's an important consideration as well.
12 But I do think that your explanation 13 certainly makes logical sense in hindsight.
14 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: So, go ahead, Ms.
15 Curran. I'm sorry, go ahead.
16 MS. CURRAN: Thank you.
17 I just wanted to remind us all that the 18 original no-significant-impact determination made by 19 the NRC in 1996, and confirmed or affirmed by the NRC 20 in 2013, predates any rule that might have changed, or 21 maybe it sounds from what Mr. Lighty is saying that 22 maybe this new rule relaxed something, but that wasn't 23 what -- what the NRC said in 1996 was we are relying 24 on the design bases for these reactors, which, you 25 know, there were so many reactors. North Anna was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 1 operating at the time, was covered by that. And I 2 think, under NEPA, one has to look at what was the 3 regulatory framework, then, that was relied on.
4 I just wanted to point out, honestly, I'm 5 not -- your proposition about the SMMP and the role it 6 played, I don't understand it well enough to know is 7 that logical, but it's the kind of thing that you 8 would expect to see addressed in an environmental 9 document like this; you know, to explain to people 10 this is -- people want to know why is it that we might 11 have had a new plant that was at a higher level of 12 safety than this old one which is going to be allowed 13 to keep operating for quite a long time without the 14 upgrade. That's the kind of thing that NEPA was 15 designed to address, especially when you've got that 16 safety determination worked into, it's baked into the 17 1996 license renewal GEIS.
18 And I would note that, when Ms. Ghosh-19 Naber was describing the SMMP, she said all future 20 modifications would require consideration of the 21 design basis and the earthquake or the challenge to 22 the design basis. That's talking about future 23 modifications that Dominion may want to make. It's 24 not suggesting that -- that doesn't say anything about 25 whether the design basis should be upgraded. It's NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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73 1 just saying, whatever you do in the future, you're 2 going to have to consider these things. You know, 3 these are factors. Like maybe if you want to 4 downgrade some safety equipment, you have to consider 5 that this thing happened. But I don't think that 6 speaks at all to the question of upgrading the design 7 basis.
8 And then, finally, an instruction that 9 determines there's no functional damage, that's really 10 different from a licensing determination. You know, 11 the no-functional-damage determination is, can I keep 12 operating this plant for the rest of its term? But 13 we're talking about allowing 20 years of additional 14 operation after 60 years are up. That is going to be 15 a different determination.
16 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Okay. Let's go back to 17 Ms. Ghosh-Naber and just see if she has anything she 18 wants to add, since she started. And then, you can 19 move on to the next question, if you have one.
20 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Yes, that's fine.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Ms. Ghosh-Naber?
22 MS. GHOSH-NABER: No, I don't have 23 anything else to add.
24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Judge 25 Trikouros?
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74 1 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Yes. So, the other part 2 of my question deals with the Fukushima analysis, 3 Recommendation 2.1. Ms. Naber had mentioned the 4 analysis that was done for that. And then, certainly, 5 VEPCO had to do such an analysis, and they concluded, 6 if I'm not mistaken, that the design basis of the 7 plant did not cover what they would consider possible 8 seismic ground motion response spectra, based on 9 looking at the most current data rather than the 10 original data for which the plant was designed.
11 And they concluded that an event, let's 12 say similar to the Mineral event, or perhaps larger, 13 I'm not sure -- I didn't do a comparison between those 14 two -- but they concluded that that could occur. And 15 they proceeded to perform a seismic PRA specifically 16 because they had reached that conclusion, and I 17 believe the NRC required a seismic PRA to be performed 18 if that conclusion was reached. And after all of 19 that, the conclusion was made that the design basis of 20 the plant was adequate.
21 I wanted to just understand if anyone 22 knows the basis for that conclusion, just in summary 23 fashion.
24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Do you want to address 25 that question to somebody, in particular, first or?
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75 1 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: No, I'm addressing it to 2 anyone who might know of the three.
3 MR. LIGHTY: Your Honor, Ryan Lighty, for 4 the Applicants.
5 I think, to put it in very simple terms, 6 the ground motion response spectrum that you're 7 referring to is sort of a simpler and highly 8 conservative analysis, and the NRC required the 9 seismic PRA to be performed to sharpen the pencils and 10 to really dig into the analysis of the probabilistic 11 risk assessment for seismic events. And so, it's just 12 a more detailed analysis than simply looking at the 13 GRMS response curve.
14 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: All right. So, you're 15 saying that it was very conservative and that's the 16 reason why they felt that they didn't have to increase 17 the design basis of the plant for that?
18 MR. LIGHTY: Well, I believe the SPRA 19 confirmed that they did not need to revise the design 20 basis for the plant, right. After they sharpened 21 their pencils with the more sophisticated analysis in 22 the SPRA, that's what confirmed that no change to the 23 design basis was needed.
24 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Okay. So, one final 25 question.
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76 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let's go ahead and see if 2 Ms. Ghosh-Naber has anything to say on that answer 3 before you proceed.
4 MS. GHOSH-NABER: I would agree with Mr.
5 Lighty's assessment. Also, my understanding is that 6 what the seismic PRA determined was that the change in 7 the risk parameters with respect to CDF and LRF were 8 within the NRC's acceptable criteria. And that's why 9 no further regulatory actions were necessary.
10 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: You're referring to core 11 damage frequency, for example, that --
12 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Yes.
13 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Yes? Okay.
14 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. And then, 15 let's go to Ms. Curran then, and we'll come back to 16 Mr. Lighty after that.
17 MS. CURRAN: Thank you. This is Diane 18 Curran.
19 Just briefly, I want to say I think we're 20 getting into the merits here of whether an EIS should 21 have been done, whether the risk is addressed 22 somewhere and can be incorporated into an EIS. You 23 know, those kinds of merits issues, it's good to have 24 that for context here, but I don't think it can be 25 relied on to rule our contention inadmissible. We NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 1 have raised a genuine and material dispute with 2 Dominion that, you know, I think has to be judged on 3 the merits of that dispute and not on what might come 4 out of an Environmental Impact Statement ultimately.
5 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you.
6 Mr. Lighty?
7 MR. LIGHTY: Yes, thank you, Your Honor.
8 I somewhat agree with Ms. Curran that we 9 are getting into merits, but we're getting into merits 10 of a Part 50 current licensing-basis issue that simply 11 is not subject to litigation in this license renewal 12 proceeding. If the Petitioners believe that the 13 current design basis is inadequate, their remedy is 14 found in filing a petition under 2.206.
15 That would be an unfortunate matter. If 16 Ms. Curran wants to open up a license amendment 17 proceeding, that is her redress. It is not to try and 18 bootstrap a safety argument from Part 50 onto an 19 environmental contention in order to get a hearing, 20 because at the end of the day we're looking at an 21 environmental issue and there is no gap in the GEIS.
22 I think that's really the punchline here.
23 At the highest level, the GEIS has 24 analyzed the potential for beyond-design-basis seismic 25 events. It's not missing. There's no omission in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 1 GEIS that would even allow us to go down the path of 2 talking about the sufficiency of a current licensing-3 basis issue. And I think that we have to absolutely 4 keep that in mind when we're discussing the merits of 5 the waiver petition and the admissibility of the 6 contention.
7 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Well, that brings me to 8 my last question since it does deal with the GEIS.
9 The GEIS is dealing with what appear to be -- well, I 10 guess we're going in two circles, one being design 11 basis and the other being severe accident.
12 One could certainly appreciate that the 13 probability-weighted consequences of severe accidents 14 is very small. And one could certainly appreciate 15 that the environmental effects of an event that occurs 16 within the design basis is very small. But you're 17 telling me that the GEIS actually encompasses the 18 entire region around the design-basis circle, 19 including, if you will, including the margin-of-safety 20 region that we've defined.
21 I don't see that. Perhaps you can explain 22 to me how the 2013 GEIS, I guess is it, in dealing 23 with severe accident analyses, can cover the entire 24 region between, let's say, the Mineral earthquake and 25 a severe accident.
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79 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: And that's directed at 2 whom?
3 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: That's to Mr. Lighty.
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Okay.
5 MR. LIGHTY: Thank you, Judge Trikouros.
6 And I think that's a fair question.
7 One place that I would point you to is in 8 Appendix E of Volume 3 of the 2013 GEIS. The NRC 9 undertook a quantitative analysis of these types of 10 accidents. The external event accidents originally in 11 the 1996 GEIS were analyzed mostly on a qualitative 12 basis. And so, there were advancements and analysis 13 techniques and data availability that allowed this 14 more refined analysis in the 2013 GEIS.
15 And if you go to look at that Appendix, 16 you can see the range of core damage frequency events 17 that the NRC analyzed when it was considering the 18 severe accidents issue. And so, looking at that, you 19 can get a sense of how far away from design basis 20 you're getting by looking at that core damage 21 frequency number.
22 As noted in our brief, the North Anna SPRA 23 confirmed that the mean seismic core damage frequency 24 is well within the range of CDFs that were evaluated 25 in the 2013 GEIS. And so, I think that's one way to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 1 confirm that it's within the scope of what was 2 considered in the GEIS, because we have a very 3 sharpened-pencil, sophisticated analysis that shows us 4 we're within what was evaluated in the severe 5 accidents issue.
6 But, again, I think at a higher level, Ms.
7 Curran has confirmed she's not challenging the 8 sufficiency of the severe accidents analysis. She 9 doesn't want to challenge the severe accidents 10 analysis at all. So, it's not a question of whether 11 the severe accidents issue is broad enough to cover 12 the Mineral earthquake because the Petitioners aren't 13 even challenging the appropriate analysis. And I 14 think that's important to keep in mind as well.
15 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: All right. It's very 16 clear, however, that there are events that are greater 17 than the design basis which have a CDF of zero, a core 18 damage frequency of zero, and yet, do result in 19 radiological releases. Those are the types of events 20 that I think we're talking about. They are greater 21 than the design basis. However, you cannot say 22 necessarily that the probability-weighted consequences 23 are insignificant. Well, you might be able to say 24 that, but I don't know where that's analyzed. So, it 25 wasn't clear to me that that CDF zero, but including NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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81 1 radiological release, is covered by the two GEIS.
2 MR. LIGHTY: Your Honor, I think it is 3 covered in the severe accidents issue because the 4 consequences are ripe for a core damage event. The 5 consequences is a core damage accident. And so, it's 6 assumed to be a very severe accident.
7 And the NRC has determined that the 8 consequences of severe accidents are low because their 9 probability is low. It's the probability that drives 10 the small impact determination for beyond-design-basis 11 triggers.
12 It's very different from the design-basis 13 accidents analysis which looks at, in a very 14 deterministic way, that the event is governed by 15 design-basis requirements in NRC regulations. Once 16 you get outside of that space, as the Commission has 17 noted in the Indian Point case noted in our brief, 18 CLI-15-6, the reason that the Commission believes that 19 the impacts of all accidents -- all accidents -- are 20 small is because the plants are designed and operated 21 to successfully withstand design-basis accidents. And 22 then, on the second hand, the probability of severe 23 accidents is low. So, it is really the probability 24 that is driving the determination of small or 25 insignificant impacts that are triggered by beyond-NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 1 design-basis seismic events. And I think that's very 2 important to keep in mind because, I mean, that 3 Commission pronouncement is just less than six years 4 old now.
5 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: All right. Ms. Naber, 6 do you want to address this at all?
7 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Yes. I would just add 8 to what Mr. Lighty had to say about the GEIS. The 9 GEIS fully recognizes the possibility that the plant 10 could experience external events that exceed its 11 design basis, and this is the analysis that the staff 12 performed in a severe accident analysis in the GEIS.
13 And they looked at external events. They considered 14 the core damage frequencies for seismic events as well 15 as other events. They also looked at internal events 16 as well. So, this is something that was covered in 17 the GEIS specifically.
18 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: All right. So, you're 19 saying that the GEIS covers the entire region beyond 20 design basis?
21 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Yes.
22 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: All right.
23 MS. GHOSH-NABER: That's the specific 24 purpose of the severe accident analysis, is to look at 25 actions that go beyond the design basis of a plant.
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83 1 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Including events that 2 have no core damage frequency, where no core damage 3 occurs, but radiological releases do occur?
4 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Yes.
5 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: All right.
6 MS. CURRAN: Could I have a chance to 7 comment?
8 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Yes.
9 MS. CURRAN: Just while we're on the 10 geometric shapes, another shape is coming to my mind, 11 which is that -- well, the beyond-design-basis 12 analysis clearly applies to potential events, an 13 accident that could happen. We're going to calculate 14 the probability and the consequences. But what if an 15 accident, what if a earthquake happens that challenges 16 the design basis? Now I see a triangle like the 17 Bermuda Triangle. That's where it goes and it 18 disappears, because, honestly, you know, Mr. Lighty 19 said that we are not challenging the severe accident 20 analysis.
21 We don't think that this issue can be 22 resolved by just looking at the two categories, 23 design-basis accidents and beyond-design-basis 24 accidents and using the tools that have been used so 25 far, because this situation is coming up for the first NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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84 1 time and needs some different tools. NEPA requires a 2 hard look. It requires you to figure out how to do 3 it. And it hasn't been addressed here. It doesn't 4 get addressed by just saying we're going to treat it 5 like any other beyond-design-basis accident that might 6 happen, because it did happen and the design basis has 7 now been brought, the adequacy of the design basis has 8 now been brought into question. And we can see that 9 at Unit 3 that was addressed.
10 So, you know, we've got enough ingredients 11 here to say let's have an analysis; let's do a new 12 NEPA discussion, or let's have a hearing on whether we 13 should go forward with a new EIS. And that's what we 14 think we need to do with our contention, is present 15 you with a dispute that warrants further inquiry.
16 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: All right. Now one of 17 the questions that we gave you pre-filed asked the 18 question, what would be the nature and assumptions of 19 this analysis that you're indicating should be done, 20 and how would it be different than the Environmental 21 Report that's currently been done?
22 MS. CURRAN: Okay. That's a good 23 question. I think it would be, the first thing that 24 would have to happen is that Dominion and the NRC 25 would have to go back to that no-significant-impact NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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85 1 finding in the license renewal GEIS and look at what 2 went into it, and it was, in fact, an Atomic Energy 3 Act-based deterministic finding.
4 So, then, the EIS or the Environmental 5 Report would have to say, well, this is what we based 6 this finding on. This is now what has happened. And 7 NEPA is supposed to be done quantitatively, to the 8 extent possible, and I think it would be a challenge 9 because the deterministic analysis is qualitative.
10 So, you would have to spend some time thinking about 11 how you were going to go back to that and revisit it, 12 in light of what you know now about the occurrence of 13 the Mineral earthquake.
14 And then, the Agency would have to decide 15 how to either quantify or qualitatively describe the 16 impacts of continuing to operate North Anna beyond the 17 design basis, beyond the seismic design basis. And I 18 think, Judge Trikouros, you were raising that there 19 are issues aside from core damage that would be 20 implicated. There would be perhaps increased wear and 21 tear because of operating beyond the seismic design 22 basis. There would be increased vulnerability. I 23 mean, to me, it seems like there's a real intersection 24 here between what we know are uncertainties about 25 increasingly fragile equipment, safety equipment, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 1 the fact that they may be challenged beyond what they 2 are originally designed to withstand.
3 How do those factors interact? You do a 4 scoping analysis and you try to figure out what are 5 all the relevant factors. You take comments on that, 6 and then, you prepare a Draft Environmental Analysis 7 explaining all the factors you considered, coming up 8 with what is the approach to this that you want to 9 take that makes sense under NEPA, that gives you the 10 hard look that's required. And this is a different 11 kind of an animal than has been discussed up until now 12 because of this challenge to the design basis.
13 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: All right. Thank you.
14 Does anyone else want to comment on this 15 before we go on?
16 MR. LIGHTY: Your Honor, just very 17 briefly. Ryan Lighty from the Applicants.
18 I want to be clear that, when I mentioned 19 core damage frequency earlier, that I was just giving 20 one example of something that has been considered in 21 the severe accident analysis in the GEIS. We raised 22 that as just one type of analysis in the GEIS that the 23 Petitioners failed to challenge in their petition, but 24 there are many other aspects of that analysis.
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87 1 at how it defines an accident more broadly, on page 2 5-1 of the 1996 GEIS, it says the term "accident" 3 refers to "any unintentional event outside the normal 4 plant operational envelope that results in a release 5 or the potential release of radioactive materials into 6 the environment."
7 So, it's not just a core damage event, but 8 it's much broader. And so, the analysis in the GEIS 9 considers things beyond core damage events, and I just 10 wanted to make that brief clarification here.
11 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Yes, that was the 1996 12 GEIS?
13 MR. LIGHTY: Correct. Yes, Your Honor.
14 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Okay. All right. Thank 15 you.
16 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Does Ms. Ghosh-Naber have 17 anything she wants to say about that, what's she's 18 heard from Ms. Curran or Mr. Lightly?
19 MS. GHOSH-NABER: No, I don't have 20 anything. Thank you.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Ms. Curran, 22 anything further you want to say on that subject?
23 MS. CURRAN: No, I think I've said it.
24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you.
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88 1 question?
2 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: No, I don't think I need 3 to ask another question. I'm fine.
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Let me turn, 5 then, to Judge Arnold.
6 JUDGE ARNOLD: Yes, I have much shorter 7 questions, just one line of questioning for it.
8 Ms. Naber, you gave us a very quick review 9 of what the design-basis earthquake and its 10 relationship to the safe-shutdown earthquake. Now you 11 said the safe-shutdown earthquake is the design-basis 12 earthquake, is that correct?
13 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Yes, that's correct.
14 JUDGE ARNOLD: Okay. What exactly does 15 "safe shutdown" in this context mean?
16 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Safe-shutdown earthquake 17 is defined by Appendix A. There's some criteria.
18 But, basically, it's the motion for which -- it's the 19 earthquake that produces the motion for which certain 20 SSCs are designed to remain functional. I can explain 21 that further, if you'd like me to.
22 JUDGE ARNOLD: Well, does the safe shut 23 down exclude the possibility of a severe accident?
24 MS. GHOSH-NABER: May I have a moment to 25 consult with my staff?
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89 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Judge Trikouros, you 2 might want to turn off your mic.
3 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Thank you, Your Honor.
4 So, your specific question was if the 5 safe-shutdown earthquake excludes severe accidents, 6 correct?
7 JUDGE ARNOLD: Yes.
8 MS. GHOSH-NABER: So, I think the simple 9 answer to that is, yes, it would exclude a severe 10 accident.
11 JUDGE ARNOLD: Okay. So, in severe 12 accident analysis of a severe accident caused by a 13 seismic event, that seismic event is beyond the design 14 basis?
15 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Yes.
16 JUDGE ARNOLD: Okay.
17 MS. GHOSH-NABER: So, it's an earthquake 18 beyond the safe-shutdown earthquake and an earthquake 19 beyond the operating-basis earthquake.
20 JUDGE ARNOLD: And in the GEIS, they have 21 listed a large number of plants in which they look at 22 the core damage frequency due to a seismic event. And 23 for all of those plants, they're looking at beyond-24 design-basis earthquakes?
25 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Yes, that's my NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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90 1 understanding in the severe accident analysis.
2 JUDGE ARNOLD: Okay. So, looking at 3 beyond-design-basis earthquakes for severe accidents, 4 it's a generic issue common to all plants, not just to 5 North Anna?
6 MS. GHOSH-NABER: Yes, that's correct.
7 JUDGE ARNOLD: Okay. That's all I wanted 8 to know. Because I looked at the GEIS and the core 9 damage frequencies, and I didn't see any split between 10 beyond design basis and less than design basis. So, 11 it occurred to me they might all be beyond design 12 basis. So, you verified that.
13 I have no other questions, if anyone else 14 wants to comment on that.
15 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Let's go to Mr. Lighty 16 first, if he has anything he wants to say.
17 MR. LIGHTY: I agree with staff counsel, 18 Your Honor, and I think Judge Arnold has it right on 19 the nose.
20 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. And, Ms.
21 Curran, anything you want to say?
22 MS. CURRAN: Well, in terms of whether our 23 case falls under a generic heading, I think what's 24 unique in this case is the occurrence of the Mineral 25 earthquake, which is the basis for our contention.
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91 1 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. And, Ms.
2 Ghosh-Naber, anything you want to add?
3 MS. GHOSH-NABER: No.
4 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right.
5 JUDGE ARNOLD: All my other questions have 6 been answered in the course of this. So, I'm done.
7 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you.
8 Let me go back to Judge Trikouros and see 9 if he has any other questions.
10 Judge Trikouros, any questions?
11 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: No, I don't. Thank you.
12 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. I just have 13 one last question. And I'm sort of wondering to what 14 degree, given the way the circles or the squares have 15 been described, we would be in a different place if 16 there had been some damage to the plant, maybe not a 17 core melt, based on the earthquake and the size of the 18 earthquake, but let's say a number of pipes had been 19 broken; there had been some other damage to the plant.
20 Would the analysis that we're talking about here be 21 any different, given the way you described the GEIS 22 and what it covers?
23 I'll go to Mr. Lighty first.
24 MR. LIGHTY: Thank you, Your Honor.
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92 1 say that the analysis in the GEIS is insufficient 2 because, as the Commission has explained, it is the 3 probability of an accident, of a severe accident, that 4 drives its conclusion of small impact. It's a 5 probability-weighted conclusion. And so, I think 6 that's important.
7 But, again, even if we're talking about 8 plant damage, I think that's different than the 9 purpose of an environmental analysis, which is to 10 examine environmental impacts. The Petitioners here 11 don't point to any environmental impacts from the 12 Mineral earthquake, let alone significant 13 environmental impacts, and then, one of the 14 significant environmental impacts that were not 15 considered in the GEIS. And I think that's important 16 to consider, especially in the context of the 17 Commission's clarification that its small impacts 18 conclusion is largely driven by probability, and the 19 Petitioners certainly haven't challenged that aspect, 20 either.
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you.
22 Ms. Ghosh-Naber, anything you'd like to 23 say on that subject?
24 MS. GHOSH-NABER: No. I agree with Mr.
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93 1 Fukushima and the events following Fukushima, which 2 involved an earthquake that was at a higher magnitude 3 and there were more severe consequences from that 4 earthquake.
5 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Anything 6 else?
7 MS. GHOSH-NABER: No, that's all.
8 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Ms. Curran, 9 then, please.
10 MS. CURRAN: Thank you. This is Diane 11 Curran.
12 Two issues. Judge Bollwerk, when you were 13 asking would the case be different if there had been 14 damage to pipes or other components, the answer, I 15 think, is no. Because what's key here is the 16 exceedance of the design basis.
17 I think your question goes to operational 18 concerns. Should we not allow this plant to operate 19 for the rest of the term or for the rest of the week 20 because there was damage to pipes? But, in a 21 licensing context, clearly, the inquiry is much more 22 sophisticated than that. It's, you know, there's a 23 design basis that is established for purposes of 24 protecting against an array of challenges. And that 25 could be weakening of components during repeated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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94 1 earth, you know, ground motion events. That could be 2 a core damage accident, but it could probably be a 3 whole range of things.
4 And we're not talking about next week or 5 even to the end of the license renewal, you know, the 6 current one. We're talking about between 60 and 80 7 years out. And at that point, at the point where a 8 licensing determination is made, you're looking at a 9 long period of time, and that is the purpose of design 10 requirements, to give that kind of robust protection 11 for the entire period.
12 So, if that kind of a determination were 13 made, we would want to see it in the context of an 14 EIS. Well, we don't really need to worry too much 15 about the environmental impacts of North Anna because 16 we observe that the minimum earthquake didn't damage 17 the pipes too badly. And although this may be a 18 little different than the way we looked at this issue 19 in 1996, here's our rationale for changing the way we 20 look at it. We think the public is entitled to that 21 kind of a discussion: what exactly is the NRC going 22 to rely on in order to approve operation of North Anna 23 for between 60 and 80 years beyond the seismic design 24 basis?
25 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you.
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95 1 Mr. Lighty, I'll give you the last word on 2 that, if you have anything you want to say.
3 MR. LIGHTY: Just very briefly, Your 4 Honor.
5 I listened to Ms. Curran's comments 6 earlier talking about what she would want to see in an 7 environmental analysis that was performed pursuant to 8 their petition. And at the end of the day, I think 9 she is asserting that it must be a deterministic 10 analysis because the design-basis accident analysis is 11 also deterministic.
12 But I'm not aware of any requirement in 13 the NEPA that that be the case. I'm not aware of any 14 prohibition in NEPA from using different types of 15 analysis to consider different categories of issues.
16 And it certainly isn't presented in the Petitioners' 17 briefs.
18 Thank you, Your Honor.
19 MS. CURRAN: Judge Bollwerk, can I respond 20 to that?
21 JUDGE BOLLWERK: Sure. But he gets the 22 last word.
23 MS. CURRAN: Okay. We'll just whittle 24 this down.
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96 1 make sure everybody got a chance to say what they want 2 to say.
3 MS. CURRAN: Okay. This is Diane Curran.
4 We, the Petitioners, are not insisting on 5 any particular methodology for conducting this 6 environmental analysis. I want to make that very 7 clear. But what we think is necessary is to address 8 the type of analysis that was done in 1996, and either 9 say we're going to continue with that type of analysis 10 or we're going to change it, and here's how we justify 11 the change in our analysis. That's what we're looking 12 for. We're not trying to tell anyone how to do it, 13 but we are saying it needs to be done.
14 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Thank you.
15 Ms. Ghosh-Naber, anything you want to say, 16 having heard that?
17 MS. GHOSH-NABER: I would just like to 18 reiterate my previous arguments that the Petitioners 19 are essentially raising challenges to North Anna's 20 current licensing basis to the extent that they are 21 challenging the design-basis earthquake in those 22 findings. So, those are outside the scope of this 23 license renewal proceeding.
24 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Mr. Lighty, 25 anything further?
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97 1 MR. LIGHTY: Just very briefly, Your 2 Honor.
3 The analysis of beyond-design-basis 4 earthquakes has been done. It has been done. And 5 Petitioners do not point to any impact, any 6 environmental impact, that was not considered in that 7 analysis. That is the bottom line with this 8 proceeding, Your Honor.
9 Thank you.
10 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. All right.
11 Let me just turn to Judge Arnold and Judge Trikouros 12 to see if they have anything further.
13 Judge Arnold?
14 JUDGE ARNOLD: I have nothing further.
15 JUDGE TRIKOUROS: I've covered my 16 concerns.
17 JUDGE BOLLWERK: All right. Well, then, 18 on behalf of the Board, I would like to express our 19 appreciation to all the counsel for appearing before 20 us today, for giving very good arguments. I think 21 we've learned a lot that we didn't know. We've gotten 22 some clarification on some things that we needed to 23 know. And again, our appreciation to all of you.
24 Also, I think the technology here worked 25 fairly well, which is a good thing.
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98 1 And I would invite you, if you had any 2 comments, you could perhaps direct them to Andy 3 Welkie, who would love to hear from you if you have 4 anything you think we can do better or differently.
5 We're certainly willing to -- we want to make sure 6 that everybody gets an opportunity, a fair 7 opportunity, to participate in these virtual 8 proceedings. So, that's important to us as well.
9 So, at this point, if there's nothing 10 further from any of the parties or any of the Board 11 members, we will go ahead and adjourn this conference.
12 We have 45 days from this point in which 13 to render a decision. If, for some reason, we don't 14 make that deadline, we will let the parties and the 15 Commission know, in accordance with the rules. My 16 anticipation is we will meet that deadline, but, 17 nonetheless, we'll let you know if we don't.
18 And again, on behalf of the Board, our 19 sincere appreciation to all of you for appearing 20 before us today and presenting a very interesting 21 argument. And at this point, we will consider the 22 conference closed, and we'll go off the record.
23 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 24 off the record at 4:43 p.m.)
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