ML21221A311
| ML21221A311 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 07/29/2021 |
| From: | Reactor Decommissioning Branch |
| To: | |
| Watson B | |
| References | |
| EPID L-2021-LRO-0031, NRC-1585 | |
| Download: ML21221A311 (148) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Public Meeting on Holtec Indian Point Post-shutdown Decommissioning Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
Tarrytown, New York Date:
Thursday, July 29, 2021 Work Order No.:
NRC-1585 Pages 1-146 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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PUBLIC MEETING ON HOLTEC INDIAN POINT POST-SHUTDOWN DECOMMISSIONING
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- THURSDAY, JULY 29, 2021
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The Meeting convened at the Sleepy Hollow Hotel & Conference Center, 455 South Broadway, Tarrytown, New York, at 6:00 p.m. EDT, Brett Klukan, Facilitator, presiding.
PRESENT BRETT KLUKAN, Regional Counsel, Facilitator ANTHONY DIMITRIADIS, Branch Chief, NRC Region I RICH GUZMAN, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation RAY LORSON, Deputy Regional Administrator, NRC Region I RICHARD TURTIL, Senior Financial Analyst, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 KATHERINE WARNER, Senior Health Physicist, NRC Region I BRUCE A. WATSON, CHP, Chief, Reactor Decommissioning Branch, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards ALSO PRESENT ANDREA STERDIS, Holtec
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 6:05 p.m.
MR. KLUKAN: So let me go through some quick introductions or quick intro remarks to try to make up for the little bit of time we lost. My name is Brett Klukan. I'm normally the regional counsel for Region I of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But tonight, as I have in past years, will be serving as the facilitator for this meeting.
As will be discussed more during the NRC staff's initial presentation, the purpose of this meeting is to receive public comments on the IPEC, or the Indian Point Energy Center Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report, or PSDAR. In order to accommodate as many interested members of the public as possible during the ongoing COVID-19 public health emergency, members of the public, in addition to participating in person, were given the alternative option of participating remotely via teleconference.
I now would like to summarize the COVID precautions being implemented for the meeting tonight.
Based on Governor Cuomo's July 15th, 2021 announcement regarding the lifting of COVID restrictions, it is the NRC's understanding that there are no state-imposed
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 COVID restrictions currently in effect for a meeting of this size. It is also the NRC's understanding there are, likewise, no locally-imposed COVID-19 restrictions that would be applicable to the conduct of this meeting.
For your awareness, NRC staff and contractors in attendance, if unvaccinated, are required to follow the NRC's Workplace Safety Implementation Plan requirements for COVID-19 precautions, including the use of masks and physical distancing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that unvaccinated persons continue to wear masks and physically distance when attending indoor events. Yesterday, the CDC also announced a recommendation that vaccinated persons wear masks in public indoor settings in areas of substantial or high transmission.
As of the date of this meeting, as of 3 p.m. this afternoon, Westchester County now has a substantial rate of COVID-19 transmission based on data published by the CDC. As such, in keeping with the CDC's recommendations, which the NRC follows and applies to its own staff, all NRC staff and contractors in attendance will be wearing masks during this
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 meeting.
NRC staff and contractors are also required to self-screen for COVID-19 symptoms prior to attending this meeting. For your convenience, the chairs marked with green stickers are six feet apart from each other. Sanitizing wipes and hand sanitizer is also located at the public speaker microphone for your use.
For those of you attending the meeting in person, on the registration table just outside the room there's a sign-up list for public speakers. When you registered to speak, you should have received a ticket, the other half of which we collected into a container at the registration desk. The speaking order will be determined by the numbers pulled from this container, the intent of which is that the speaking order be at random.
Note that we may also have individuals on the bridge line requesting to speak during the public comment portion of the meeting. If that is the case, then I will incorporate those individuals into the speaker queue in the following manner. Out of deference to those attending in person, after every three in-person speakers, we will call upon a speaker
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 on the phone. I will provide later, after the NRC's initial presentation, instructions for how members of the public participating in the meeting via the teleconference can enter the speaker queue after, again, after the NRC's opening presentation.
For your awareness, again, this meeting is being transcribed. The transcriptionist is sitting at the end of the table. So in light of that, I would ask, when it is your turn to speak, please identify yourself. I would also ask that people not speak over each other.
A few minor housekeeping matters, and we'll get underway. The bathrooms are just down the hallway. The exits are to either side of the foyer.
While cameras are permitted, please try not to obstruct the view of other audience members. And if you would be so kind at this time to please silence your cell phones.
And with that, finally, I'd like to turn it over to Bruce Watson to begin the NRC's presentations. Thank you.
MR. WATSON: Well, good evening. Thanks for coming. I hope you can hear me clearly through the mask. This is kind of an impromptu change which
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Brett has announced at 3:00 came into effect for federal workers. But, again, thanks for coming, and we're happy that you came here tonight for the opportunity to provide us comments on the Indian Point Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report that was submitted to the NRC.
We are required to hold an in-person meeting, and so we chose this date a couple of months ago due to the relaxation of the restrictions in the State of New York and the local vicinity. So, while we haven't held an in-person meeting in a while, I want to reiterate that we have been available to the public.
Region 1 deputy, Region 1 administrator, Ray Lorson, held the annual assessments meeting. It was a virtual meeting to review the final operational phase of Unit 3 in the past year. And also Rich Guzman to my right and I participated in one of the Cortlandt County concerned or interested citizens task force meetings to discuss the license transfer process.
So with that, we're going to go ahead and go to the slides. As I said, I am Bruce Watson. I'm chief of the Reactor Decommissioning Branch, and I'm from headquarters in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. My branch is responsible for
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the licensing and oversight, licensing oversight of the facility, and so my group will take care of all the licensing actions once the plant is transferred to us, the site is transferred to us, from the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
So let's go to the next slide, please.
Decommissioning is not new. We have terminated the licenses at ten sites, ten power reactor sites. There are currently, though, 26 power reactors in our decommissioning program. Seventeen of those are in active decommissioning, and that includes now the three Indian Point units. The PSDAR from Holtec basically says they are going into active decommissioning, and so they started to transition the plant. Unit 2 is already well along in the transition of preparing it for decommissioning; and Unit 3 is an earlier phase, having just shut down.
I want to point out that there's also nine plants in SAFSTOR, which is the condition Unit 1 was in since it shut down in 1974. But it is going to be also going into the process of active decommissioning by the licensee Holtec.
There are currently seven plants that have announced that they're shutting down, and so we're
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 waiting to see, when they do shut down, if that really occurs. Four of them are in Illinois, one is in Chicago, and two in California. So we're expecting to hear that, news on those as time progresses.
Also, I wanted to mention that we plan, we anticipate, I'm going to use the word anticipate because it's mainly dependent on the licensee to provide us with all the information needed. But we are anticipating terminating the licenses at four plants in the coming year. So we're expecting to terminate the licenses at Zion 1 and 2, the Lacrosse plant in Iowa, and Humboldt Bay in California. So our numbers will be reduced, and that will bring our total number of power reactors that have completed decommissioning, up to 14 that have completed decommissioning.
In the picture here is Maine Yankee before decommissioning; and then, of course, that's the picture of Maine Yankee and the only thing remaining is the spent fuel dry storage facility.
Next slide, please. The NRC's mission is to ensure that the decommissioning is conducted safely and securely until the license is terminated. NRC safety oversight will continue with licensing
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 activities and inspections until the license is terminated. So the key message here I want you to realize is we're not going away. We're going to be here as long as there is radioactive material under the license.
So with that, the site has been working on transferring from the reactor oversight program to the Inspection Manual Chapter 2561, which is the Reactor Decommissioning Program, Inspection Program.
And so we have the lead inspector here tonight with us at the table, Katherine Warner, and she's going to be available to answer questions also.
The other thing I want to point out is we are continuing to have the resident inspector there until the end of August. So we have kind of duplicate actions going on at the same time.
Next slide, please. On May 11th, Entergy certified permanent cessation of operations of Unit 3 and the permanent removal of the fuel from the reactor. And, of course, Unit 2 was certified a year ago. So what does that mean? Well, it means that when they terminate, make these two certifications, they are no longer authorized to removal the fuel from the spent fuel and put it back in the reactor and operate
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the reactor. In order to do that, they would have to apply for a new operating license. So, in essence, they are in permanent shutdown and the only thing left to do is decommission the site.
The Holtec PSDAR, or Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report, was submitted to the NRC as supplemental information to the license transfer application. And it was submitted to us December 19, 2019, so it's been out in the public domain for quite a while.
So with that, I just want to point out that our resident inspector, the picture on the top right, were there to observe the final shutdown of Unit 3 and that, you know, it was done safely and the plant continues to be in a safe condition, having been defueled.
Next slide, please. The PSDAR is reviewed by the NRC staff. It is a report to the NRC staff.
It covers, basically, three things. It covers the site-specific schedule at a high level, which tells us what direction the licensee is going to go with the decommissioning. It also provides the financial information on how to ensure that, to demonstrate to us that there's reasonable assurance that they have
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 adequate funding for the decommissioning, to conduct the decommissioning and complete it within the funding requirements. And it also verifies that the environmental situation is going to not be impacted.
So after they submit the certifications of permanent removal from the fuel from the reactor, the decommissioning can start, as long as they stay within the operating license, the plant's license.
And also the decommissioning activities must not endanger the public health and safety or the environment.
Next slide, please. This is a high-level summary of what the PSDAR says. It basically says that the spent fuel will be transferred into dry cask storage by 2024. They expect to complete decommissioning by 2033, and that would be all three plants. I have a typo error, actually my own edit, addition error here, but the trust fund is actually, at the end of 2020, had $2.4 billion in it, not 1.8. So sorry for my quick math, but it's a lot more than I have up here. It's
$2.4 billion.
And, of course, the PSDAR also concludes that the environmental impacts from the decommissioning will be less than those than when the
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 plant was in operation.
The staff began a formal review of the Holtec PSDAR on May 28th, 2021. And this was after the license was amended, making Holtec the new site owner of the site. So until that became official, we really couldn't review the PSDAR until that date.
So next slide, please. A couple of things I want to talk about here is that we will continue to inspect the plant to ensure the site is decommissioned safely. The NRC will continue to inspect the spent fuel in dry storage to ensure it is safe and secure until it is removed from the site.
And, of course, one of the major licensing actions yet to take place is the submittal of the license termination plan. The license termination plan is a very technical document on how the licensee is going to demonstrate to us that they will meet the unrestricted use of the site and allow for the site to be shrunk and license terminated down to the dry fuel storage.
Now, what does unrestricted use mean? It means that the owner can use the land for whatever purpose they choose to use it for. It's no longer under NRC control. The only thing that will remain under
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 NRC license will be the spent fuel facility.
One of the other things I wanted to mention is that they don't have to submit the LTP until two years before they request license termination, so it may be a while before they do submit the LTP to us.
But when they do, we will hold another public meeting.
We will solicit public comments on the LTP. And it is a license amendment, so there's also hearing rights for the LTP. And as I said, the LTP is approved as a license amendment, and we will take into account the public comments on that.
Next slide, please. Well, hold on. Go back one minute again. Never mind. The picture there was our Region III inspectors at the Zion plant doing surveys to verify that the plant was being cleaned up.
Next slide is just a few reminders about this meeting. We are here to listen to your comments on the Indian Point PSDAR. There's a lot of topics we can talk about, technical topics, but we really are here to talk about the PSDAR and hear your comments on those.
The NRC staff will do our best to answer your questions. We may not have the answers to everything, but we will listen to your comments and
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 we'll do our best to answer your questions.
The meeting is being transcribed. The fellow down here, Dylan, at the end is transcribing the meeting, transcribing the meeting comments and discussions. And it will be made publicly available, and also we'll be publishing a meeting summary that will also be publicly available.
Next slide, please. Just another reminder, decommissioning of power reactors is not new in the state of New York. The NRC oversaw the decommissioning of the Shoreham site out on Long Island, and we also provided the oversight and inspection of the State University of New York at Buffalo, the research reactor facility, and that license was terminated a few years ago and is now a green field and able to be reused by the university for whatever purpose they have for that land.
The other thing I wanted to mention, at the Shoreham plant, the fuel was transferred to one of the Peach Bottom facilities in Pennsylvania, and so there is no dry fuel storage facility at Shoreham.
The fuel was actually used in power operations at the Peach Bottom plant.
Next slide, please. Besides this public
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 meeting for comments, you can send in your comments by mail. There's an address here for that. This is also in the Federal Register notice. And, of course, you can always send your comments to the rulemakings.gov, and here's the address for that, the link for that. Be sure when you search the Federal Register notice, the regulations.gov, you search for the docket number ID, which is NRC-2021-0125. So you might want to take a note of those.
The public comment period is going to be closing on October 22nd of this year. We deliberately left it open greater than 90 days, and, actually, it's 120 days to make sure that we did have ample time for people to get their comments in.
So with that, next slide. You can always refer your questions to Neil Sheehan. He's back here in the back. He's from our Office of Public Affairs.
Neil's email address is here, along with his phone number. And so Neil is available to answer any follow-up questions or any questions on the Indian Point site that you may have.
With that, we'll turn it back over -- I guess we want to do some NRC introductions. Yes. So the group up here, you want to start, Rich?
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Introductions.
MR. GUZMAN: Good evening. My name is Rich Guzman. I'm a senior project manager at NRC headquarters. My branch is going to be supporting Bruce Watson in the reviews of the PSDAR. My branch is responsible for the operating reactor licensing review side, and I look forward to your questions.
MS. WARNER: Good evening. My name is Katherine Warner. I'm a senior health physicist with NRC Region I, and I am the lead decommissioning inspector for Indian Point.
MR. TURTIL: Good evening. My name is Richard Turtil, a senior financial analyst with NRC at NRC headquarters. And we'll be looking over financial review and financials for the facility.
MR. LORSON: Good evening. I'm Ray Lorson, the deputy administrator for the NRC's Region I office.
MR. WATSON: And, Tony, do you want to introduce yourself? While Tony is coming up to the mic, over here on the side is Karl Sturzebecher. He will be the decommissioning project manager. He's managing the phone line. And, of course, that's Doug Tifft, our Region I state liaison officer.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. DIMITRIADIS: Good afternoon. My name is Anthony Dimitriadis. I'm the chief of the Decommissioning, ISFSI, and Reactor Health Physics Branch in Region I.
MR. WATSON: And I think, Neil, you've already been introduced. I think that's about it, isn't it? Okay. Brett.
MR. KLUKAN: All right. Thanks, Bruce.
MR. WATSON: Well, I'll introduce Brett.
He already did.
MR. KLUKAN: Yes, I introduced myself.
So we're not stalled. We're just having some difficulties with the bridge line, so we're kind of stalled. So we're trying to work that out. In the meantime, I'm going to go through the rest of my remarks about how the public comment portion works, and then we'll see where we are at the end of that, okay? I just want to let you know what's happening.
So for those of you attending in person, I just want to emphasize that there are no prohibitions against trading your tickets amongst yourselves in the room, okay? Right now, we have 22 people in person signed up to speak. However, both individuals, if you are trading tickets back and forth, they have to both
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 be in the room at that time. Someone can't leave and then just donate their ticket to somebody else.
Donation of tickets, again, they only can be given to those in person. Obviously, we're also going to be just having problems with the bridge with trying to do that trade and get the person queued up on the bridge would be very difficult for us, given, particularly, the problems we're already encountering.
In addition, if an individual has already spoken during the meeting as a result of someone donating their ticket to them, that individual may donate their own ticket to somebody else, but they may not use that ticket to speak again. What that means is this: you get one shot at the microphone for the first round. Once we've exhausted all the speakers, if we have extra time in the meeting, then people can get up to speak again.
At this time, people will be limited to three minutes at the microphone. When your number is called, please queue up to this microphone. You can see that there's hand sanitizer and also hand wipes for you to use. Use them as you will.
I will give you some advanced warning of when it is your turn to speak. I will write the numbers
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 in the order in which I pick them on the board, okay?
If you are participating in the meeting, I'm going to wait to give instructions regarding the bridge line because I'm not even sure if they can hear me yet.
Again, please limit yourself to three minutes. There is a countdown clock I positioned in the middle of the room. That will count down from three minutes to, you know, when your time runs up. At that time, I will ask you to please conclude your remarks so we can move on to the next speaker. I'd ask that you bundle all of your remarks together and your questions because, once the clock starts, just like in a congressional hearing, I won't stop the clock.
PARTICIPANT: You're talking too fast, and it's very hard to hear.
MR. KLUKAN: Okay, all right. So we'll back up because I have the time. You get three minutes at the microphone. The clock will start counting down once you've introduced yourself. At that point, the clock won't start until, it will not pause. So if you ask a question and the NRC starts to respond and it's during your three minutes, that's it, all right? So I would suggest you bundle all of your questions together so that you maximize your amount of the time
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 at the microphone. If we have extra time remaining at the end, we will go back through a second round, okay?
Everyone understand that? You good?
Okay.
All right. I would ask, if you have something that you want to give to the NRC, that you hand it to me and I'll bring it up to the table, all right?
Basic ground rules. While recognizing that many of you have strongly-held opinions concerning the matters to be discussed this evening, I ask, nonetheless, you adhere to civil decorum and that you, in essence, respect each other. So please do not disrupt each other, just as you would not want to be interrupted while you were speaking.
With that said, threatening gestures or statements, under no circumstances, will be no tolerated and will be cause for immediate objection, excuse me, ejection from the meeting by local law enforcement.
If you feel that you've been threatened, please let me know, please let one of the NRC security staff know, or please notify a local law enforcement
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 officer at the station at the various corners of the room.
Before we begin -- well, let me -- it looks like we're still having problems with the bridge based on this posture. All right. So we're going to wing it. We're going to start with the elected officials.
I recognize that there are some, I think, who may not be able to hear us or give prepared remarks on the phone.
I apologize for that, but we do have some elected officials in the room with us this evening, so I'm going to start with them.
So just going to go through the recognitions first, and then I'm going to invite up those who would like to give prepared remarks. So in person, we have with us Nicole Virgona from Senator Chuck Schumer's office. Raise your hand and be recognized. Thank you. And then on the phone, hopefully we have Jerry Shapiro from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand's office. We also have Joan Grangenois from Representative Mondaire Jones's office. We also have Brynna Trumpetto for Representative Sean Patrick Maloney's office.
Also, we have with us James Creighton, who is a town councilman in the town of Cortlandt. We have
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Manna Jo Greene of Ulster County, and then we have Susan Spear of Westchester County Executive Latimer.
So with that, I would now like to go to Joan Grangenois from Representative Mondaire Jones's office, if you'll come to the microphone, please.
She's on the phone? Okay, all right. So would any elected officials at this time present in the meeting room like to give a prepared remark at this time?
MS. GREENE: What I just passed out was our sample comments, and then attached to them is a very in-depth analysis that we did --
MR. GUZMAN: Excuse me, Ms. Manna Jo Greene. If you could just state your name for the transcript.
MS. GREENE: Oh, yes, I'm sorry.
MR. GUZMAN: Thank you.
MS. GREENE: I've done this a hundred times, I should know by now. Manna Jo Greene. I am an Ulster County legislator, and I am also the Environmental Action Director for Hudson River Clearwater.
So I'm just going to go through the bullets very quickly. We will be submitting comments in writing. But one of our big concerns are the casks
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 and canisters, that system that will be put into place and is currently in place. These are thin-walled canisters that cannot be inspected. They're sealed.
There are lots of difficulties that, in Europe and other places around the world, they're using much more robust canister systems. In our case, it's half an inch thick steel, and in Europe it's 10 to 20 inches and often in hardened buildings.
I seem to bring up high burn-up fuel at every single meeting and annual report and so forth, but I don't think that the question of high burn-up fuel has been adequately addressed. And I think in the PSDAR there's a rush to move very hot and highly radioactive material too quickly.
Inadequate site remediation, I'll let my colleague address that. Radiation monitoring. It's my understanding that it's mainly perimeter monitoring, and they're having cases of worker exposure. I think the area where the workers are working needs to be carefully monitored, not just at the perimeter, and also the nearby elementary school.
And then pipeline risk, I know that the people here this evening are going to be talking about the AIM and Algonquin pipeline.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MS. GREENE: Okay. Thank you. We'll cover the others in writing.
MR. KLUKAN: Do we have any other elected officials in the room who would like to give prepared remarks at this time? Please come to the microphone.
Thank you.
MR. CREIGHTON: Thank you. My name is James Creighton. I'm a town councilman in the town of Cortlandt, and we are one of the host communities for the Indian Point Energy Center. I'm submitting these comments in connection with your review of the PSDAR, and many of my comments already have been made earlier today. The government said it, particularly Senator Pete Harckham made some great comments, as well as Assemblywoman Sandy Galef and County Legislator Smith and Cortlandt supervisor Linda Puglisi.
But I did want to point out a few items that are of great concern to us. Decommissioning in our neighborhood is incredibly important. We have only one shot to get this right. I think it's incredibly important at every site around the country, but we care here. This is our home.
Emergency response is critical, and I'm very concerned that there will likely be a request that
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 they pull back on some of the sturdy protocols. And if there were a serious accident at the site, it would be a really big mistake to have less security, less protocol in place, rather than more. Our firefighters, our emergency services personnel, and security teams on the site need more help. They need more support, not less.
Decommissioning activities take place on a level that it does. These are not normal activities at the site. The site has been run and run by professionals who knew that site inside and out. But the people around there are digging now and doing things that we've never done at that site, and things may happen. There may be things that are unanticipated, and those are exactly the types of things that we're worried about. These types of things we're sure will never happen, but you take a look at how many gas main breaks happen when Con Ed just does routine gas main improvements, and there are gas leaks. It happens.
It's not anything anybody wants to happen, they protect against it, but it does.
So here in the PSDAR, when you're looking at security, security has to be primary. We need to increase security, not pull back on it. We need to
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 plan. We need to be prepared for every scenario, and your charge, as you've said, is have the right level of oversight for safe decommissioning. So this has got to be item number one. Let's not cut back on safety and security.
We also need to be assured the financial aspects or the numbers that were provided in the PSDAR are accurate. I don't understand where some of the numbers come from, but I'm not a financial genius.
We have somebody on the panel now. But there were items in the PSDAR that talk about spent fuel management and project or construction management, and that's great.
The trust funds are the funds that we, the taxpayers and ratepayers, paid in all these years; and Holtec or any company is totally entitled to a reasonable fee and a return on their investment. But it looks like some of the numbers in the PSDAR are either coming up in error or essentially may suspend out the trust fund.
And that's a concern. They may be well based, but I'd ask that the financial experts take a look. You've seen the decommissioning in other areas. Make sure those numbers line up. The project management and construction management is not all that different here elsewhere. It may be more complex here. We have a
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 very dense population center nearby, so we want to get this right. If it costs more, great. Tell us. But we want to make sure that those numbers have a basis.
And we appreciate that Holtec wants to do a fast decommissioning, and we very much would like the property returned to a productive nature as fast as possible, so long as it's as safe as possible. We know they want to maximize their profits, and we're sure they won't be cutting corners or you, in your place at this table and looking this over, will ensure that no corner is cut and everything is done and done right and done with an extra level of security and sensibility.
Earlier today, you heard pushback on the Federal Register for the nuclear fuel.
Decommissioning trust funds should not be used for purposes other than decommissioning. That's just full stop. I don't understand anything beyond that, but, you know, Holtec is entitled to make money doing what they're doing. But the fuel is owned or managed, whoever owns it, I'm sure that there will be a request to the Department of Energy to reimburse them for whatever they have to do to hold on to this fuel that doesn't belong here for in perpetuity.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 But what we don't want is that money to come from the federal government and also to come from the trust fund. They shouldn't be paid twice. They should have been paid out of our ratepayer and taxpayer-funded trust fund. This is to clean up the site. It's important to get it right, it's important to do it fully, completely, and, you know, until this geological repository, it's got to stay, I guess, at the site. We'd rather it not be there. But, ultimately, we don't want the trust fund to be used for that.
Finally, we need to know that the ratepayer-financed decommissioning trust fund is used before the full cleanup of the site. Anything else would pose a clear fiscal danger to our state, to our communities. We want to make sure that the job isn't done half right because a level that you guys set is only sort of clean. It needs to be really clean. It needs to be clean so that its unrestricted use on that property, meaning something really good and productive can happen there at the Indian Point site. I know that that's your intention, and I'm sure that's the company's intention. But we don't want to be left, we only get one shot at this, and we don't want to be
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 left bearing costs for the results afterwards if it's only done sort of cleaned up.
So the cleanup has to remediate the known contaminants and radioactive isotopes that are leaking from the plant into the groundwater. We've got the wells that we're checking on. The fact that we know that means we know it needs to be cleaned up, so the contamination cleanup should go well beyond just the nominal depth of three feet. I'm glad to refer to the panel earlier today saying they were committed to that being cleaned up beyond just three feet and that it will include a groundwater and the site will really, hopefully soon, be able to be put to good productive use.
And with that, we'll say thank you for your time and I appreciate, hopefully, the great work.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: So to be clear, that was not intentional, these sound effects. I also want to recognize Tito Davila, who is a senior special advisor for Senator Patrick Harckham, the 40th Senate District in New York. And then also Lisa Hofflich from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is also on the phone.
And now we're going to, as I mentioned
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 earlier, Joan Grangenois-Thomas from Representative Mondaire Jones's office wanted to give prepared remarks. And so we're now going to try this out, so we're going to hold up her phone to the microphone and see what happens. All right.
MS. GRANGENOIS-THOMAS: Good evening, everyone. My name is Joan Grangenois-Thomas. I'm District Director for Congressman Mondaire Jones. And on behalf of the congressman, I want to thank the NRC for hosting the government-to-government meeting earlier and holding this public event and providing us the opportunity to raise the issues are constituents are deeply concerned about.
I want to start by highlighting that Indian Point moving from an active facility to a decommissioning one does not alleviate our constituents' concerns or lower the bar for NRC engagement. We hear near daily from members of our community who are concerned about their safety living, working, and sending their children to school in close proximity to Indian Point.
Our community also feels like they are the last to know important information about the future of Indian Point when they have the most at stake. The
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 NRC must do more to engage local stakeholders bringing them into the decision-making process instead of electing to pacify their concerns after the fact.
We very much look forward to hearing how the NRC plans to increase transparency to our constituents by bringing them into the decision-making process as Indian Point moves through the phase of decommissioning.
I also want to take this opportunity to highlight in particular the safety concerns our community has regarding the Algonquin natural gas pipeline currently operating in close proximity to Indian Point. We ask that the NRC work with Holtec, Enbridge, and Avista to consider all possible safety precautions that can be taken regarding the use of these pipelines during the decommissioning process, including but not limited to considering partial or complete shut off of the pipeline during decommissioning.
Our constituents' concerns extend to the timeline of this decommissioning, the processes and technology set to be used by Holtec and approved by the NRC, and the ultimate future of the site. So, again, I want to stress that continued community
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 engagement through this process is paramount. Thank you again on behalf of the congressman for this meeting and for this opportunity, and we look forward to hearing your answers to these very important questions.
Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Okay. So at this time, are there any other elected representatives, representatives of elected officials or elected officials themselves who would like to give a prepared remark?
PARTICIPANT: You have to talk slower.
MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Sorry about that. So are there any other elected officials or representatives of elected officials who would like to give a prepared remark at this time, or, and I apologize for not mentioning this earlier, any tribal representatives? If not, we will move on with the public comment portion of this meeting.
MR. WATSON: While this is an NRC meeting, we thought that it would be best that -- a lot of questions may be for Holtec International, and so we were going to ask if anybody from Holtec would like to join us at the table just so we have a focal point
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 for questions that might be referred to them. So other than that, we will still be an NRC meeting, but sometimes there's a lot of questions that should be directed to them, so we invite them to come to the table.
So with that, are you ready?
MR. KLUKAN: Yes. So just to be clear, Holtec is here, has provided representatives to potentially answer your questions. Holtec is not required to answer your questions. We cannot compel them to answer your questions, but you can direct your questions to Holtec or your comments to Holtec, and then Holtec can decide to choose to respond or not.
Again, if Holtec starts responding during your time while it's counting down, that eats into your time.
So I would suggest, again, that you bundle your comments together, okay?
I will be putting down the ticket order on this whiteboard. But to get us going, the first ticket is number 7, which is Sally Gellert. Sally Gellert, ticket number 7. Is Sally -- oh, okay, good.
MS. GELLERT: I'm Sally Gellert from Woodcliff, New Jersey. I didn't prepare a statement today. I just have two talking points you can think about and consider.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Greg Jaczko was the chairperson of the NRC during Fukushima and realized how dangerous it was and how many suggestions for safety were ignored, and he has continued to talk about the dangers operating or decommissioning. For example, he talks about relevant stewardship of waste that shouldn't be moved far. If it needs to be moved a little way to get out of water or an ocean, that's one thing. But transferring it across the country is dangerous to so many counties across our country. We need relevant stewardship to watch it over generation after generation.
This is too expensive, and too slow to mitigate climate change. There is a small modular nuclear reactor here. We need dry storage across nuclear energy. That's for you to consider, Holtec folks. And we'll come back to that with the license termination.
With respect to our Holtec rep, Lacey Township (inaudible) really more popular with Holtec, as have folks out in San Diego. NRC, keep an eye on them. We don't really trust them.
New York and the rest of the world uses thick-walled canisters to keep up with the ASME standards. You don't have that requirement, and we
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 want those standards imposed. We want thick-walled canisters that will keep this stuff as safe as possible.
No exemptions. We're tired of NRC exemptions. We need proof of the financial numbers. We know that this is a private company. There's a lot of limited liability corporations, so we're worried. We'll probably ask the court for direct oversight to force you to do more than rubberstamp (inaudible) you so often are.
Questions that came up with the slides were what kind of zoning restrictions can they impose after the license transfer? And why are your inspectors only through the end of August? This decommissioning process is going to go on for a lot longer.
And in terms of City of Buffalo, how much waste, you know, what's a comparison? How much more waste can you have at Indian Point after all these years of operation versus those two.
Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your comments.
MR. WATSON: I was going to take a couple of comments. Number one, I said that the resident inspector will be through August but we will continue
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 to inspect the plant and our inspectors will continue to inspect the plant, and that will be at a frequency based on the actual activities at the site and the safety risks of the work that they're doing. So we're going to be there --
MS. GELLERT: Okay.
MR. WATSON: -- inspecting the plant.
There was another comment I was going to make, too, and it's slipping from --
MS. GELLERT: The quantity of waste compared to --
MR. WATSON: Yes. The amount of waste is going to be significantly larger because these are very large pressurized water reactors in comparison to the small Buffalo research reactor. But the good news is there's low-level waste facilities that will take low-level waste and accept it for disposal.
MS. GELLERT: Well, they have a lot of high burnout fuel there.
MR. WATSON: No, the spent fuel remain on site under license and will be continued to be inspected.
MS. GELLERT: And the thick-walled canisters of the ASME standards?
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. WATSON: I'm sorry. I couldn't understand you.
MS. GELLERT: Thick-walled canisters, you know --
MR. WATSON: Well, the canisters that they're using are the ones that we haven't approved.
Unfortunately, they're not the thick-walled canisters that are used in Europe. Those types of canisters are going to have difficulty being transported, where the intent in the United States is to move the canisters to a permanent repository. And so that enables them to be transported.
MS. GELLERT: That's a problem. Thank you.
MR. WATSON: Okay, thank you.
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you again. Our next speaker will be ticket number 5, Robert Stein. Ticket number 5, Robert Stein.
MR. STEIN: Okay. Robert Stein. I'm a concerned local citizen, and I appreciate the opportunity to ask you these questions.
First of all, I would like to know what basis do you have for assuring us that the fair canister design is actually safe, and how long do you expect
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 them to remain safe? Because it is quite possible that we not be able to move the canisters away from the site on the schedule order in the proposal.
I would also like to know what plans there are for emergency personnel to train -- I'd like to know about the plans for emergency personnel to be trained and to have drills so that they can handle emergencies, and I would like to know the prospects for evacuation. So far, we have not had a plan, and I know it's terribly difficult.
I would also like some assurance that it is being considered the possibility of a serious explosion or fire and be cognizant of the proximity of a gas pipeline and the threat of terrorism if the canisters, thin-walled as they are, are not stored in a very hardened facility. And I understand that there is no provision at this point, please correct me if I'm wrong, to support those canisters inside of the facility.
So those are my only major concerns, and I'd appreciate your answers. And I hope you'll consider them and take them into account. I appreciate it.
(Applause.)
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. WATSON: Okay. I'll try to respond to a few of your questions. The first is that the NRC has approved those casks, those canisters. It's in combination with a shielded configuration, which is designed for what we call missile impact, airplane crashes, and other things to not affect the actual spent fuel canister itself.
But as far as emergency planning goes and emergency exercises and drills, those are continuing.
They just might not be on the same schedule they were before, but the emergency plan and other exercises will continue as planned. And the actual emergency plan reductions will not occur until well into the fuel is cooled off sufficiently that we can't have an offsite exposure accident for an exposure offsite.
But there will be an emergency plan in effect throughout the entire decommissioning process and also a fire protection plan, along with fire brigades and other such activities, to ensure the safety of the plant. And we will be inspecting those standards.
MR. STEIN: That's great. Will those plans be made public?
MR. WATSON: They actually, yes, they are
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 public. Yes, they're in the technical specification.
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. So next up we have ticket number 55, and that is ticket number 55 and that is Michel Lee.
MS. LEE: Can I switch my number with Paul Blanch?
MR. KLUKAN: Noted. So Paul.
MR. BLANCH: Thank you very much, Michel, for giving me this time. I've traveled a long way.
My name is Paul Blanch. I reside in West Hartford, Connecticut, and I'm a professional engineer, a nuclear expert. And the views I'm going to express tonight do not necessarily support any particular group, but I think my comments are representative of many of the comments of the public that I've dealt with. I'm reluctant to join any particular organization.
I think it was inappropriate for the NRC to get up here and tell us lies of Maine Yankee, which was pristine clean. And the inference made by the NRC, I heard the words green field. Green field is not defined in your regulations. It's a misnomer. It's a misleading statement. It should not be used by a group as professional as you claim to be. It is a misrepresentation.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 The other thing you represent by showing the Maine Yankee and that's the same at Connecticut Yankee. I work with both plants. Decommissioning is not done. There are hundreds of acres. However, you say or infer decommissioning is done. There are hundreds of acres that have not been released that have received a partial release. Partial release not even defined.
Now, my main point is I've been studying for the past many months all the regulations at the NRC on site remediation. Now, I have provided to Neil Sheehan and some of the other NRC people my concerns, and I know this meeting will not allow you to address my concern with respect to remediation. Is what I'm handing out here and have given to the NRC are a significant bunch of my assumptions based on my research that I want the NRC to confirm and confirm in writing, and they can do it tonight if they want to, but I want confirmation that my assumptions with respect to remediation are, in fact, true; and if not true, I want a response as to why they're not true and no longer proper reference to the regulations.
Now, the NRC, whether you people might know it, might not know it or get, the NRC has a new policy
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 published on March 19th, and it was approved and posted in the Federal Register. And I am making a formal request tonight that, with respect to Indian Point and Indian Point's decommissioning, that this policy be implemented. I will make a formal request such that we can have a town hall meeting, a roundtable meeting, as discussed in the Federal Register with NRC people such that we can have straightforward dialogue which we've never have. All we ever get is, Mr. Blanch, we'll get back to you and all I get is misrepresented statements, as pointed out by the inspector general.
I'd just like to ask the audience, members of the public or non-public, who would support an open, I don't want to call it a debate but a roundtable type discussion where we can have, you know, just questions and answers for the first time in --
(Applause.)
MR. BLANCH: Now, who at the NRC would support such a thing? Is there anyone from the NRC?
I don't see any hands.
But, anyway, the bottom line is we are going to ask for it. My question is, and I expect some type of response and I would like that definition of what is meant by not credible failure of the dry casks,
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 which the NRC refuses to provide.
Sorry for running long. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: All right. Thank you very much.
We're on to ticket number 4. All right.
Ticket number 4 is Herschel Specter. Herschel Specter.
MR. SPECTER: Good evening. I apologize to the audience. I have put my back to you. I much prefer to directly talk to you, but that isn't possible tonight.
What I want to talk about is the decommissioning cost estimates. On page 26 of the staff safety evaluation, "the site-specific decommissioning cost estimate included in the PSDAR was necessary to complete the review of the LTA," your words. Therefore, if the decommissioning cost estimates are in error, that is something might be omitted that is important, something that was incorrect and unrealistic assumption, all these things, if the decommissioning cost estimates are wrong, then the transfer of the licenses are in jeopardy and may be
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 inappropriate. Therefore, I want to talk about five things, if time permits, that point to serious errors in the decommissioning cost estimate.
I want to start with the subject of inflation. Inflation is not considered by Holtec in the PSDAR. I'll give you a page and a quote. Page 93 of the PSDAR, Section 4.4 on inflation, I quote, "Escalation of future decommissioning costs over the remaining decommissioning life cycle are excluded."
However, if you refer to your own regulations, you will find it is required to include inflation.
Thank you very much. I hope I've been heard so far.
In particular, please refer to Reg. Guide 1.159, which has a section on inflation required.
That's an old document, but, more recently, in a NUUREG, NUREG 1700, on page 14, it also talks about the need for inflation.
So since inflation was required, I did a little work and I calculated what the impact of inflation would be on the Indian Point 2 decommissioning cost estimates, and the number I used for the rate was an average of the decommissioning rate for the last ten years, 1.74 percent per year, on
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 average, for the last ten years.
When you plug that number in, and I have the numbers which I'll submit to the Commission, when you plug that 1.74 percent number in Holtec's own analysis, increasing your rate every year, what you find, you find in 2044 Indian Point 2's decommission trust fund becomes insolvent. In 2044, it becomes insolvent. And when a decommissioning fund becomes insolvent, there's no money left in it. So Holtec or nobody else is going to take money out of the surplus.
There is no surplus anytime a decommissioning fund becomes insolvent.
So we have a problem with inflation. As a matter of fact, any time, for Indian Point 2, where the average annual inflation rate is larger than 0.8 percent, Indian Point 2's decommissioning trust fund becomes insolvent.
The second thing --
MR. KLUKAN: I'm sorry, your time has expired. I apologize, I know you had more. I believe it would be appropriate at this time to give those written comments and the NRC will incorporate them into the record. Or you can wait and to see if there's more time at the end of the meeting.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. SPECTER: I'd like to continue later if -- if the others went over as well.
MR. KLUKAN: The audience is my time to call it. I'll wait until your time to come again.
So, under the rules, everybody gets three minutes at the mic. This is a public board meeting, and I think we're going to end, we'll have plenty of time for everyone who wants to speak.
So, let's just go through the other people.
And what's left, and you'll get a second opportunity.
MR. SPECTER: It's a start.
MR. KLUKAN: Okay. All right?
MR. SPECTER: I will return later if you'll allow me.
MR. KLUKAN: All right. I'll do my best.
All right.
MR. SPECTER: Thank you.
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you, everyone. Okay.
Our next speaker is ticket number --
PARTICIPANT: Is there no comment from the NRC?
MR. KLUKAN: Hold on one second. I'm sorry. You're absolutely right. I apologize.
They're consulting now. Give it one
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 moment. You can begin.
MR. TURTIL: I'm sorry. Okay, yes.
Thank you. My name -- Rich Turtil, as I introduced myself earlier.
I just wanted to acknowledge, Mr. Specter, I wanted to acknowledge your comments about inflation.
And we'll be taking a look at that certainly.
But, we also, I want to, of course, mention that the anticipated 2 percent real rate of return, which is reflected in the $2.4, the current balance of $2.4 billion among the three different DTFs, also reflects that increase over inflation.
That reflects, the 2 percent real rate of return is that, that you would know, incorporates consideration for inflation.
So, between your comment and what we know as the compounding of these investments, I'll take --
we'll be taking a close look at that.
MR. SPECTER: I remain to be convinced.
MR. TURTIL: Okay. But do please, make
-- ensure your comments get into us. Thank you.
MR. KLUKAN: All right. Thank you. Our next speaker is ticket number three, which is Tina Volz-Bongar. I apologize again for any
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 mispronunciation. But, ticket number three.
MS. VOLZ-BONGAR: Thank you. I am here primarily to ask the NRC to use its agency to do whatever it can to follow the risk assessment issued by the New York State -- by New York State, there are three agencies, to shut off the gas of the outgoing pipelines while decommissioning occurs.
I want to point out to you after a report was issued by the OIG that the NRC went back and issued
-- and reviewed the OIG's report. And in doing so, interviewed Rick Kuprewicz, who is one of the premier national pipeline safety experts in that.
And I'm going to give you the transcript that's mentioned in this report. He goes through the absolute catastrophic risks of having this pipeline next to the plant.
Everyone likes to say, as soon as those fuel rods are out of the spent fuel pool, there is no risk. That is unilaterally untrue.
The risk exists right now. And if -- I lived through 9/11. I think all of us did. We saw those towers come down.
Those buildings were built to resist planes. But, they didn't resist the fuel of those
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 airplanes.
So, when you say to me, oh, we can resist the airplane, you know, the impact of an airplane, I think oh, just like the Trade Center did.
You know, so anyway, I'd like to submit this official transcript. Because in it, you have actually -- go into the report that was done by the NRC about itself and the OIG.
There are these recommendations made.
And one of them is to look at the recommendations as an agency that you make.
We are looking at a PSDAR that was done in 2019. So, we don't have any of the information that was done, any of this reporting, in the PSDAR.
The pipeline is not mentioned in it. You know, and really the NRC at some point is going to have to take responsibility for allowing a risk assessment that didn't really properly cover the dangers that we live with every day.
I can see Indian Point from my second floor. This is real to us. You know, you're going to go back to D.C.
You need to really shut this down.
(Applause.)
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much for your comment. Okay. So, our next speaker will be ticket number six. Ticket number six, which is Mark Fry.
MR. FRY: Good evening. My name is Mark Fry. I live not far from here. I thank you very much for providing this opportunity to comment.
I've lived in the river towns of Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow and Scarborough Manor and Ossining for a total of 44 years. And I sailed on the river for ten years.
I have sailed past Indian Point many times.
And sometimes as often as four times a week. So, I know the facility very well.
First of all, let me tell you, I'm very happy to see you out here on the long process that the NRC has decided it's time to shut this reactor down.
I appreciate all of the work that Holtec has done and all you have done to, up too now, to ensure that it will be done safely.
And as an added benefit of redevelopment, I'll be very happy to see all of those acres returned to productive use. It will be a wonderful place to live.
And I'm happy to see the standards you are
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 adopting is for unrestricted use without additional control. Essentially it will be very much on the way, maybe what's encountered 412 years ago.
There's going to be a quiz at the end of what I'm saying. Now, the answer is September 14, 1609. September 14, 1609 is the answer to the quiz.
Now, what some of you already know, based on that answer, the question is, exactly when Mark, did Henry Hudson sail this river a quarter of a mile away from us?
And the answer is, all together now, September 14, 1609. What he saw then, is brilliantly represented by the Hudson River School of Painters.
The Jasper Proxy Museum in fact is just about two miles south of us.
And it was a pristine beautiful river.
It's America's most beautiful river. And you have weighty responsibility to help us all bring it back to the pristine -- more, even more pristine beauty that we experienced back then.
I should probably note, I published these three accounts, which goes back to the Pleistocene era.
So, I've got a very good handle on what happened in the last 400 years.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I'm a member of Clearwater, Scenic Hudson, Riverkeeper, and the Hudson River Boat and Yacht Club Association. I do not speak for Clearwater, Scenic Hudson, or Riverkeeper.
But, I wanted to have to tender to you, I spoke with Jerry Silverman who is the President of Hudson River Boat and Yacht Club Association. He regrets that he could not attend tonight, nor could Scott Roth, the public relations director.
But, he did ask me if I may just make one very quick comment. To emphasize that they very much agree with the request of Riverkeeper to ask Holtec, to ask you to require Holtec to revise the cleanup plans to reflect all of the undertakings that have been made in the settlement with New York State Public Service Commission and others in the public service commission proceedings.
I'll leave it at that for now. But, that's the most important point that all of those agreements that Riverkeeper worked so very hard on.
And I know that Richard Webster, their legal director, is here this evening. All of us would like to see all of those undertakings incorporated by you, the NRC, so that there's clear federal control
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 of exactly what's done. Thank you very much.
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. All right.
Thank you for those comments again.
Our next ticket is number ten. Number ten, that is Matt Salton.
MR. SALTON: Hello. Can you hear me? My name is Matt Salton. I am speaking on behalf of Hudson River, City of Clearwater. I promise, there's no quiz on my behalf.
I'd like to talk a little bit about the issues of transportation. What we have at Indian Point is almost 2000 tons of highly radioactive waste.
And we have a somewhat thought out plan on how to deal with it. The issue is that the plan in the PSDAR is to ship this waste from here in the Hudson Valley down to West Texas.
At the current moment, it is not easy to do this. It's fraught with danger and with peril.
You can barge it down the Hudson River past New York City, through New York harbor, and down.
Currently, the docks are not strong enough to do this. I know they're looking into building stronger ones because of the weight.
You can put it on a train. But, the trains
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 also have some resistance to this immense weight in the transport gap.
Trains have a history of derailing. And would then put for any communities in the path of that train at risk.
You could drive it. Although some roads are not able to hold that weight. By law, you're not allowed to drive it on those roads by that way, including New Jersey.
The issues of bringing it to West Texas, beyond the danger of the communities along the path, is an issue of justice.
The communities in West Texas will now be receiving our waste that they did not produce, simply because they do not have the resources to fight back against it. They did not ask for it. And they do not consent to it.
The main issue with consolidated interim storage, is that it is de facto permanent storage.
It is the responsibility of the NRC and the United States to find a permanent federal repository, of which there is none currently on the books or in the near future.
These consolidated interim storage
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 facilities will become de facto permanent facilities.
And they are not prepared to do so.
We ask that the decommissioning process happen in safety and austerity. Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for those comments.
We will now have ticket number two. Ticket number two and that is Amy Rosmarin.
MS. ROSMARIN: Hi. My name is Amy Rosmarin. Before doing work on a construction site, standard safety practice is to first shut off the gas.
Before there is any decommissioning activity at Indian Point, the gas must be shut off.
Furthermore, it is irresponsible and outright crazy to let Holtec and Entergy decide when or if to turn off the gas. Their motivations are money, not safety.
On another point, I'd also like to know what the NRC is going to do, so that Indian Point does not become a radioactive Love Canal.
It is not safe to allow radioactive above ground structures to simply be buried under three feet of dirt. And allowing radioactive surface and piping, et cetera, to be buried onsite, like you did at Connecticut Yankee and Main Yankee.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Will the underground part of the spent fuel pool and the reactors to be -- will they be removed or will they remain onsite?
That's a question. You know, and I just want to finish this, there needs to be total remediation, otherwise Indian Point will become a radioactive Love Canal.
So, I want to know if the underground portions of the spent fuel pool, and the reactors, are they going to remain onsite?
MR. WATSON: Are you done?
MS. ROSMARIN: Yeah. Yes.
MR. WATSON: Okay. I just want to make sure you're finished before I respond.
MS. ROSMARIN: Yes.
MR. WATSON: Okay. First of all, at Maine Yankee and Connecticut Yankee, in particular, Connecticut Yankee had what they called the big dig.
They removed millions of cubic feet of dirt and because of underground contaminated pipes, which were also removed. They also removed all the underground substructures that were contaminated.
And only left behind clean foundations.
And so these, the dirt and materials that
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 they removed, were obviously a contributor to the groundwater issue they had there at that site. And these sites are all cleaned up.
Our dose analysis includes all pathways analysis. Whether it's through the soil, through the groundwater, through the erosion of the soil, through growing of crops there, and possibly drinking the water from the area.
And so, it includes a complete dose assessment of the entire site. So, they have to prove to us that there -- the residual radioactivity, including the subsurface, meaning the stuff below ground, meets the criteria for the cleanup for us to terminate the license.
Or, to be perfectly clear, shrink the site down to the dry fuel storage. And this occurred at both Maine Yankee and at Connecticut Yankee, and at all the other reactor sites that have been cleaned up and decommissioned.
So, it's a --
MS. ROSMARIN: So, -- so they will be removed?
MR. WATSON: It will be removed, yes.
It's the only way you can meet the dose criteria and
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the NRC requirements for meeting the unrestricted use of site, which is what the Holtec PSDAR says they're going to meet.
These details will all be spelled out in the license termination plan, which has yet to be developed and issued. It will probably be out in a number of years.
They have to submit it two years before the termination of the -- the request for termination of the license.
And it will be a very thick document. It will be very technical. It will include all of the dose modeling, and how they're going to do the measurements.
And we will be there to inspect throughout the entire process, to make sure the site is cleaned up. Okay? Thank you.
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your questions and comments. Our next speaker will be ticket number
- 62. Ticket 62, Marie Inserra.
MS. INSERRA: Hello. Thanks for the opportunity to say something. My name is Marie Inserra. I live in Peekskill, New York, within a very short distance from Indian Point.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I'd like --
Sure. Okay. I'd like to start by quoting the NRC's mission statement. To license and regulate the nation's civilian use of radioactive materials.
To provide reasonable assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety. And to promote the common defense and security and to protect the environment.
So, some questions from me. Can we reasonably assume that we're adequately protected when we have been left to coexist with the Indian Point Energy Center for 59 years without a viable evacuation plan?
Can we feel -- can we feel assured in regard to the promotion of the common defense when the configuration system for the onsite arrangement of those casks at Indian Point is such -- is it really a more vulnerable outcome, outline for terrorism?
Not something that we could possibly copy the example of European countries where they're using much more robust casks and putting them in hardened buildings.
And I wonder, since a lot of the conversation has made it obvious that the cask choice
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 has some -- has a lot to do with transport. And I feel very strongly that we shouldn't be undertaking that.
This is a very dangerous situation transport casks with all that radioactive material on a barge and then across country to sites that have been selected. Many of which are in areas of fossil fuel extraction. So, they are more prone to earthquakes.
And we're dumping this on communities, usually indigenous communities, communities of color, Hispanic communities, who already suffered the blunt of a lot of nuclear industry, based with the nuclear industry.
Should we also feel safe when we -- that the com -- with the common wisdom regarding high burn off fuel has been that this highly radioactive fuel should really be allowed seven years to cool.
Now, we're being told it's going to be done in a much, much shorter time frame. How safe is that?
I don't feel comfortable about that.
And then other issues, remediation of the soil. If we're not going to do a really good job of it, then it's not going to be adequate.
And we live here. And we have to live with that. I do think onsite storage long term in tight
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 casks is really the way to go. And we have examples that have been quoted before.
My other big concern has been quoted many times by other speakers. And that is the pipeline, which isn't even mentioned in the PSDAR.
Three pipelines, two under the plant and one huge pipeline, and the previous, I think the previous speaker, two previous speakers back mentioned, shutting off the gas before you do anything.
It's just common sense.
But, the fact that these pipelines were permitted, the aim pipeline, the 42-inch pipeline was permitted based on information that's really questionable.
And that many, there have been, especially the NRC's findings and the Inspector General's investigation, which found that -- that the information was really retrofitted to give us the -- how the expected or the desired result.
This needs to be investigated. And I'm encouraging you to take all of those points of the mission statement seriously to protect the public.
And to put that above profits of this plant. Thank you.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 (Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your comments.
Our next speaker is ticket number 58, which is Richard Webster.
MR. WEBSTER: Yes, hello. I'm Richard Webster. I'm from Riverkeeper. Again, thanks for you all to come out and thanks to you for holding this meeting.
I had comments about the PSDAR in our report. And I have it in writing and give -- submit comments.
But, just a few points. First of all, we do -- we do note, as previously mentioned, that the AIM pipeline was not mentioned at all in the PSDAR.
But in the state draft proposal, there are some requirements on that. And that's come to the illustration of why you have not had the joint proposal requirements incorporated into the PSDAR.
For instance, another requirement is to go down to millirems, or up to 25 millirems dose. And there are some requirements on the financial side as well in terms of the financial restrictions.
And I think it's much better to have everything rolled into one document rather than a
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 document of the state and another document for the feds.
And then, you know, have the people on each side confused, having two documents to work from. So, I would appreciate -- I look forward to a response on that.
Now, on the casks, I think there's a little confusion about this. I know there was a problem in New Jersey at Oyster Creek where one of the lids came off during pressure testing.
And there was some little exposure there.
I'd like to know what happened? Why it happened, and what -- what other measures have been taken to prevent a recurrence.
In terms of cask inspections, I've been told the casks, once they've been fully loaded, have a visual inspection.
I don't quite understand how that works, because it's my understanding that there's a multipurpose canister in the center of a concrete over pack and some metal.
So, it seems to me that the -- the critical containment is in the bottom of this canister wall.
And I don't see how you can inspect that without using some other method other than visual.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 So, I don't know, that's something should be done. And then finally, I do understand that at Oyster Creek also accepted with Lacey Township and required some sort of pit or an over-pack to be on standby in case of cask failure.
And I don't know the requirements of how that works. So, I would appreciate some enlightenment on how that works.
And -- oh yeah, finally, there's a big cost difference in the PSDAR between IP2 and IP3. Given the two reactors are -- are functioning equivalent, it's hard to understand how that happened, why that's the case?
And I'd like to have that explanation too, please. Thank you.
MR. KLUKAN: Tony, you want to provide some information on his Oyster Creek questions?
MR. DIMITRIADIS: Sure. Thank you for your question about Oyster Creek. You had a question and you have made a statement about a lid coming off.
That's not -- that's not what happened.
The licensee was doing hydrostatic testing. And one of the valves came lose and went up.
And it did have some contamination at some of the
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 levels.
One of the individuals did slightly get contaminated. They decontaminated him and so on.
But, the lid did not come off.
MR. WEBSTER: So, what's being done to prevent further on that?
MR. DIMITRIADIS: We did have follow up inspections. And the licensee actually did an all stop. And took numerous corrective actions to prevent cuts for that.
MR. WEBSTER: What were the --
MR. DIMITRIADIS: I'm sorry?
MR. WEBSTER: What were the various insights?
MR. DIMITRIADIS: I don't have a list of them in my mind right now. But, one of them is to ensure that the way that the pressure attachment is attached on it, it was improved to put a number of brackets on there so that it wouldn't come off, basically. Among other things.
MS. WARNER: We take very active authority that was put on that.
MR. WEBSTER: Okay. Thanks.
MS. WARNER: And also to answer a little
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 bit about the dry cask storage inspection, so how we do inspect it is from the beginning to the end.
So, at the beginning, at the part -- during fabrication, NRC headquarters staff goes out and looks at how they're fabricating the casks.
Once they're onsite, we do take a look at a sampling of their loading, to see how they're loading it into the casks, sealing it up and putting it on pads.
And then later on, we do have aging management inspections. And we do this once the site is after its initial period and evaluation.
Does that help a little bit?
MR. WEBSTER: Yes. So, explain to me how the aging management inspections were done.
MS. WARNER: Now, it's inspect -- it isn't an inspection procedure. I'm not sure if it's fully effective yet. It was in draft form.
And we will be implementing it by NRC headquarters staff once the site is beyond the initial period of operation.
MR. WEBSTER: How is it done for the current casks?
MS. WARNER: Currently, we're still implementing that into our inspection procedures,
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 because the sites are now just getting going beyond that initial period.
MR. WEBSTER: So, do I understand it then, that for the casks that have been, at sites like Oyster Creek and Indian Point, that have been loaded maybe ten years ago, there's been no aging management inspections?
MS. WARNER: We do management inspections that are required once the site is, I believe it's 20 years at this time. So, it's not at this time, I don't believe at Indian Point more than 20 years.
MR. WEBSTER: Okay.
MR. KLUKAN: So, thank you for your comments. And we'll also allow you some additional time at the end for follow up.
MR. WEBSTER: I'm looking for answers.
MR. KLUKAN: I understand.
MR. WEBSTER: I've asked a question. As you said, I've just --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. KLUKAN: There is another time to do that. It's only fair to the other speakers. So, I'll allow you to speak again at the end. So --
MR. WEBSTER: I don't want to speak again.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I want answers.
MR. KLUKAN: I understand -- wait, wait, wait. I understand you're becoming angry. Unless I remove -- at some point, I call all the names who haven't commented yet. Those people have questions as well.
So, a lot of you came tonight to be able to talk. I'd like to give those people a fair chance.
Every single one of them came to be listened to.
And then, if after time --
PARTICIPANT: But he didn't receive that.
He was within his time.
MR. KLUKAN: His time was up.
MR. WEBSTER: Yeah. But, was -- I finished well within my time, to provide time for answers.
MR. WATSON: And you had follow up questions too. I --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. KLUKAN: Right. I want to -- I don't want to -- I want to do it efficiently and effectively for everyone.
PARTICIPANT: And you're talking.
You're talking. You're talking.
MR. WEBSTER: I'm not making thoughts.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 These are my initial questions. If you noted my initial questions, and I'm still waiting answers to my initial questions.
I haven't asked a single follow up.
MR. WATSON: Well listen. We've listened to your questions. We're trying to answer the ones that we can fairly quick that you --
MR. WEBSTER: Okay.
MR. WATSON: That we feel like you want urgent answers to, such as the Oyster Creek question.
We've done that. I was going to respond to one of your other questions. And then maybe we'll get back to them.
But, the -- the point I want to make to you is that the New York State and Holtec agreement, the NRC is not privy to that. We're not a partner in that.
And I think that the level of details that are in there are probably not appropriate for a PSDAR, which is basically a broad outline of what their plans are for the decommissioning.
I do believe that such as the dose criteria and other things that they've agreed to, will eventually be in the license termination plan, because
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 they're going to have to demonstrate to the state that they're going to meet those.
So, I think it's, at this point it's too early to have those types of details in the PSDAR.
But, I do expect many of them will be in the license termination plan so that they can demonstrate to the state that they're going to do things that they agreed to.
So, I appreciate your comments. So, thank you very much.
MR. WEBSTER: Thank you. Anything on Lacey Township? How does that work? The over-pack and the fit?
MS. STERDIS: So this is a meeting that's focused on Indian Point. And so I don't think it's appropriate for us to get into those discussions. But we will take your comment back and we will work to get you an answer to some of those questions as it pertains to Indian Point. Those negotiations are --
MR. WEBSTER: The question on Indian Point, do we need the same contingency plan at Indian Point?
MS. STERDIS: For the -- so we don't believe what we agreed to at Oyster Creek was necessary
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 for safety. We believe there's a path forward should there be down road and a very long time from now a need to deal with some kind of problem with the cask that we cannot even foresee at this time based on our design on our aging management programs and on the oversight that we're doing. But just like everything that's in the joint proposal was not important to Lacey Township and didn't get negotiated, they had different priorities and you did too. So we do have a plan for how we will deal with problems that should there down the road be any issues with the canisters.
MR. WEBSTER: Good. We would appreciate knowing what it is. Thank you.
MS. STERDIS: Oh, I can tell you what it is. It will be a -- there will be a way that we would encompass the canister in another layer if we needed to, to make it safe. There's -- we've talked about that on the Pilgrim NDCAP meetings. There's information out there publicly that talks about that.
MR. WEBSTER: Okay. Maybe we should --
I'll give my copy. We should follow up after this.
Thank you.
MS. STERDIS: Yes, that's fine.
MR. KLUKAN: Okay.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 (Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: So what I'm going to try to do because I don't -- we don't know if this is going to work or not. I want to get through everyone in the room who has signed up to speak. I want to get through everyone in the room who has signed up to speak first before I go to the phone for fear that it may not still be working.
But we will try to go to the phone after we get through everyone who speaks. That's why I'm trying to make sure that everyone who came into the room tonight gets an opportunity to speak that wanted to because I will have to go to the phone at some point.
All right. So our next speaker is number 57, and that is -- well, Paul, did you donate your ticket? Okay.
So Michel Lee.
MS. LEE: Good evening. Whoops. I'm not very good with tech here. I'm just going to hold it.
I feel like I should start singing. You know, it's really dawning on me listening here perhaps there's the following problem.
The NRC staffers feel very impinged because the site has to be decommissioned. You have limited options for dealing with the waste. There's
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 no long-term repository in sight.
The interim waste site which Holtec has proposed, unless there's some sort of a very corrupt thing going on, that may not go forward. The state of New Mexico is opposed to it. The state of Texas is opposed to it because the way it will be transported in that region.
There are extreme environmental justice issues. In fact, it's really rather despicable to think that -- to propose the idea of taking these tens of metric tons of nuclear waste from sites that have benefitted financially supposedly from it for years and dumping it on a low income minority community that is already subject to egregious levels of pollution from other nuclear activities as well as the Permian Basin activities as well as heavy mining. These populations are poor. They're sick, and they have very little political power.
So let me tell you that the environmental rights movement around the country is mobilizing to oppose that site. So let's just pretend that some sort of ethics come into play here and that does not open up. The waste is going to be here for a very long time.
And in fact, even if that site does open
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 up, I'm just going to read some things from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. Take off my glasses here. However, transporting large quantities of spent nuclear fuel has not been done in this country and will require significant planning and coordination by DOE, although they note that there have been small scale movements by Navy fuel. The Board observes, unresolved technical issues could significantly delay or impeded the implementation of a national transportation program for radioactive waste, another thing.
The large size, broad scope in geological
-- geographic distribution, da, da, da, da, make resolving the technical and integration issues associated with a nationwide transportation effort a significant challenge. And then the Board goes on to identify 23 technical issues regarding spent fuel for every site in the country that needs to be addressed.
So please, I'm just asking NRC to start being honest with the public and hold the licensee to be honest as well. Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much for your comment. Our next speaker will be number 56, 56,
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Shanna Geiringer.
MS. GEIRINGER: Hello. My name is Shanna Geiringer. I'm a representative of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater as well as a student at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie and a resident of New York City. I just wanted to bring up a concern that I have and echo a concern that others have made previously about inadequate site remediation.
The preliminary PSDAR indicates that Holtec does not plan on remediating the -- sorry.
Holtec does not plan on remediation after known groundwater and -- sorry -- after known -- after radiological contamination that has been known to occur
-- that has been known in groundwater and Hudson River.
And the plans for remediation of the soil is also quite superficial. I just wanted to -- I'm very concerned about this and wanted to -- and hope that the Board can ensure that the decommissioning process will result in clean groundwater and soil for the communities surrounding Indian Point such as Peekskill which already is subject to health hazards due to Indian Point. Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. WATSON: I was just going to comment
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that we already answered the question on the cleanup, that the cleanup will include the entire site, including the subsurface. I also want to mention that we are also looking very hard into the groundwater issues. We had a knowledge management transfer -- it's what we call a knowledge management transfer session at the NRC because our research department, the Office of Research, has been looking at the groundwater issues over the years at Indian Point and had been studying it very rigorously.
And next week, we're having -- some of my staff are joining Katherine next week at Indian Point.
And in particular, my groundwater expert is coming to review all the data and all the previous reports that have -- and sampling data and everything so we have a complete understanding of the groundwater issues and how those will be remediated and looked at through
-- by Holtec and what their plans are. So we have a lot of activities planned along those areas to get very involved in the groundwater issues. So thank you.
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. The next speaker will be Steve Hopkins, number 59. Steve Hopkins, number 59. Going once, twice. Number 59. Okay.
Our next speaker will be number 54, Susan Shapiro.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MS. SHAPIRO: Good evening. I think it's time that you and everyone here get a reality check about Indian Point and what you guys are talking about decommissioning. There's a lot of BS being spoken here today that I'd like to clear up.
First of all, Indian Point is not like any of the other sites that you mentioned. It's not soil.
It's cracked bedrock. We know and you know that there's pollution of radioactive effluent that goes down the size of the Empire State Building under Indian Point. It's leaking into the Hudson River.
So your cleanup, I'm glad your expert is coming. I'd like it later on to give me that person's name because if you don't show those maps, you don't know what's going on here. Okay. Let's have another reality check.
This waste is not going anywhere. It's staying here on site. Your promise and Holtec's promise to the elected officials and people of this community that this site is going to be cleaned up in three years or that it's ever going to be able to be restored back to being used for any unrestricted purpose is just straight bullshit. That's what it is.
And it's time to have that reality check.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Let's have an honest conversation. Let's not be talking about the joke. You said the reason we want to use these bad, low level casks for Holtec, why you've approved it is because those are -- we want to transport it.
You know very well you're lying. Those Holtec casks were never designed for transport.
They're not approved for transport. They're not approved for high burnup fuel. So that's a lie that you're continuing to tell the public. Stop it. It's not okay.
This will never be a green field. It's not even a brown field. It's a black field. It's contaminated forever. Indian Point has more waste on this site, more groundwater contamination than probably any other plant in the country and you know it. So stop lying to us.
Reality check, that this -- you can't move this waste. There's no transportation to move it.
There's no place on the planet to move it. The nuclear industry doesn't know what to do with the waste.
That's the truth. It's got to stay where it was made.
It's got to be stored as safely as possible using best technology available where it was made.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Reality check, you can't transfer liability. You can't transfer. You can't waive liability of Entergy who created the problem. While you created it by allowing them to continue to leak radiation into the ground, there was a decision made to allow for the strontium and the cesium to continue to lead instead of cleaning it up. And you well know that in 2005. It continued until this plant shut down.
It's still in the ground.
Reality check, the high burnup fuel cannot be moved out of the spent fuel pools for at least seven years. For you to even say three years is a lie, and it's inconsistent. And stop lying. It's ridiculous.
Financial viability of Holtec, let's have a reality check there. They're a shell company.
They're going to go belly up. They're going to go bankrupt.
Who's going to hold the bag on this cleanup? You're giving us their -- our money. You're giving them our money. That's not okay. I have two more things.
We continue to have to need an evacuation plan. You're going to allow them to dig on the site where there's high level of gas, pipelines with all
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that and deconstruction activities. You wouldn't let a person dig anywhere near a pipeline -- a small pipeline. And you're going to allow all this construction activity and deconstruction activity on the site with the pipes still open? That's ridiculous.
It's time to stop that.
And the PSDAR is an insufficient document as it does not deal or even mention the pipeline in any way. And once again, the biggest lie of all is that this waste at Indian Point is not part of the decommissioning. The waste is a federal government responsibility. You should not be using our money to do anything with this waste. Thank you.
(Applause.)
MS. SHAPIRO: I'd like the name of the person who's in your decommissioning, your groundwater expert that you said is coming. Who's the team?
Because if you think that this site can be cleaned up, you don't know what you're talking about. Who's the person? What's the person's name?
MR. WATSON: It's a member of my staff, Randall Fedors.
MS. SHAPIRO: Say it again.
MR. WATSON: Randall Fedors.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MS. SHAPIRO: Fedors? Do you have a number for him?
MR. WATSON: He's in the phone book. It's on the NRC website. You can find him.
MS. SHAPIRO: Fedors?
MR. WATSON: Yeah.
MS. SHAPIRO: F-E-T-T-E-R-S?
MR. WATSON: F-E-D-O-R-S.
MS. SHAPIRO: Thank you.
MR. WATSON: He's a groundwater expert and actually did Yucca Mountain and other very complex facilities. He's a well published groundwater hydrologist.
MS. SHAPIRO: I can't hear what you're saying.
MR. WATSON: Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, he is a groundwater expert. He's well published. And he's actually the lead groundwater person for Yucca Mountain. And so he's coming -- yeah, so I'm just saying --
MS. SHAPIRO: And you know Yucca Mountain failed because the court said that the groundwater was going to be contaminated and it could not be protected.
MR. WATSON: We need to do an assessment
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 of what we think can be done and what Holtec is going to do about it.
MS. SHAPIRO: So have you provided him --
MR. WATSON: So I'm not committing to any MS. SHAPIRO: -- with all the maps? Do you have all the maps of all the leaks that we have that you provided us in the past? Are you giving him the full file of what's going on in -- what's has happened in Indian Point?
MR. WATSON: Yes, we are going to be looking at the entire file at the site. So thank you very much.
MS. SHAPIRO: There have been maps that we've seen since 2002 of groundwater contamination at Indian Point. There are a large variety of maps. If you need copies of them, I'm happy to provide them.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Thank you again for those comments. Our next ticket is number 53, Susan Van Dolsen. I'm now going to erase this board and put up the new ticket numbers. So that's what I'm doing.
Please, whenever you're ready.
MS. VAN DOLSEN: Hi. My name is Susan Van
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Dolsen. Thanks for letting me speak. As Indian Point transitions to this decommission phase, we residents are extremely concerned about the new threats to our safety.
We have not had our concerns addressed by the NRC in the past, so we aren't optimistic that tonight will be any different. I've been to NRC meetings for at least seven years and have raised issues about the pipeline. And they have fallen on deaf ears.
The pipeline approval is based on false information, should never have been approved or put in service. There is a mistaken belief that now the reactors are shut down, we should not have any more worries. That couldn't be further from the truth.
Decommission will involve heavy equipment. And anyone who begins any construction activities knows it is wise and necessary to shut off the gas. But the PSDAR from Holtec didn't even mention the gas pipelines.
Will the gas be shut off or not?
Nationally recognized pipeline expert Richard Kuprewicz prepared a report for the town of Portland several years ago and has commented on this pipeline for at least eight years. On March 19, 2020, the NRC
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 convened a meeting after the OIG released its report about the egregious miscalculations in the Entergy and NRC risk analyses. Mr. Kuprewicz's statements at that meeting include, quote, rupture is an imperfection that is in the pipeline that causes almost instantaneous mechanical failure of the pipe, either at the weld or pipe body.
This failure occurs in microseconds but basically ruptures as the pipe fractures in tremendous force because of the compressible nature of gas. And so you generate these huge craters and pipe shrapnel that may or may not ignite. More likely, it will ignite.
It can generate its own ignition source.
But you end up with releases of massive force that generate and throw tons of dirt and pipe steel around.
And then it will end up generating usually a fire ball.
So what does the NRC think will happen during decommission when the radioactive material or all those material you're talking about being buried under the soil? What's going to happen if the pipeline ruptures and all of that is spewed around as Mr.
Kuprewicz stated?
Certainly this must be taken very
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 seriously, and the gas must be shut off. We know that there are many other agencies in the federal government that need to weigh in, and we are working with them and our federal representatives. And this must be remedied as soon as possible. Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your comments.
Our next speaker will be ticket number 8, and that is Susan Lifer or Leifer.
MS. LEIFER: Can I give him my time?
MR. KLUKAN: So he already spoke. You can give it to someone who hasn't spoken yet. We're likely going to --
MS. LEIFER: Okay, good.
MR. KLUKAN: Okay.
MS. LEIFER: Hi. My name is Susan Leifer, and I live in Pleasantville. I've leaved in this area for over 40 years. I'm very concerned about the state of overseeing.
We've had two resident NRC people in Indian Point. We're now giving this thing over to Holtec which is not experienced, has had a bad record of lying, bribing, cutting corners. And we're leaving us with no resident person in the vicinity living next to the
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 plant.
I understand we have a pipeline that's not being watched. We have a decommissioning that's not being watched. I don't understand what is going to happen to this.
(Applause.)
MS. LEIFER: Anybody want to talk to it?
MR. WATSON: I'm sorry. Do you have a question?
MS. LEIFER: Yes, the question is, how in the world can you possibly engage in the idea of not protecting us better? Just because it's not your responsibility, it's somebody else's responsibility?
MR. WATSON: No, the NRC takes responsibility. We are authorized under the Atomic Energy Act as amendment to be an independent safety regulator of the nuclear industry. And it's not only to reactors, but special nuclear materials --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. LEIFER: But it doesn't end when you leave. It's still dangerous. It still has --
MR. WATSON: Well --
MS. LEIFER: It still has gas. If you live in that vicinity, there's no evacuation plans.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 If something happens in Indian Point, New York State is going to go down. And if New York State goes down, the whole country is going to wobble.
New York State -- the 50-mile radius for any kind of thing that will happen includes all your airports, includes all of Manhattan, includes a great many other places. You're going to put 20 million people in jeopardy because this doesn't have to be watched anymore?
MR. WATSON: Well, all I can really respond to is that the plant is in a much safer situation now that the plant is shut down and --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. LEIFER: But with the gas pipeline, it's not any much safer.
MR. WATSON: The gas pipeline has been there for a long time --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. LEIFER: Yes, two old gas pipelines that are ready to go and one new high pressure gas line.
MR. WATSON: I really don't know how to (Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. LEIFER: So everybody is washing their
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 hands of it.
MR. WATSON: No, the NRC will do its role for safety of the site.
MS. LEIFER: Right.
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. LEIFER: And then when you leave, it's not safe anymore.
MR. WATSON: Well, we will continue to inspect the site, including --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. LEIFER: Will you have --
MR. WATSON: And we will continue to inspect the fuel to make sure it stays in a safe condition.
MS. LEIFER: Will you have resident people on site?
MR. WATSON: There's no need to have resident people there full time, especially --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. LEIFER: I would disagree with that.
MR. WATSON: Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your comment.
Our next ticket will be number 51, Courtney Williams.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes. I just have a few questions that I'm hoping to get brief answers. One, how many times does the word, pipeline, appear in the PSDAR? How many pipelines run under the property at Indian Point?
How many nuclear power plants have been decommissioned within 4,000 feet of an elementary school? Has a school ever been contaminated by decommissioning activities? How would we know if our schools were contaminated by decommissioning activities?
MR. WATSON: The first question was, how many times is the pipeline mentioned in the PSDAR?
It is none. It's a document that may address all the safety issues. It's mainly a report on their plans.
We will continue to inspect the plant. We have reviewed the pipeline and it was determined to be safe for the operation of the plant. It will remain safe for the --
MS. WILLIAMS: I do want to get --
MR. WATSON: Excuse me. Let me finish my
-- your answer.
MS. WILLIAMS: So you answered that one with zero.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. WATSON: Yeah, and I'm trying to answer your --
MS. WILLIAMS: And how many pipelines are there?
MR. WATSON: I'm trying to answer your questions. Okay?
MS. WILLIAMS: I think you're trying to run down the clock on my questions.
MR. WATSON: No, there's no time period on me. I can respond as long as I choose. I'm sorry.
MS. WILLIAMS: Oh, that didn't happen with MR. WATSON: But well, no, I'm not going to respond long for anyone. Okay.
MS. WILLIAMS: Oh, okay.
MR. WATSON: But the plant is determined to be safe with the pipeline there. It'll be safe during decommissioning. We'll continue to inspect the areas of those plants. The plant has been refueled and modified numerous times over the year without impacting the pipeline. We'll continue to make sure that's done. The pipeline company will make sure the pipeline will remain safe.
MS. WILLIAMS: And there's -- how many
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 pipelines were there?
MR. WATSON: I believe there's --
MS. WILLIAMS: You're saying pipeline, singular.
MR. WATSON: I believe there's two or three.
MS. WILLIAMS: Two or three? Okay.
MR. WATSON: One of them crosses part of the property and one is a little farther out. And then I think one crosses some part of the road that's used for transportation. So we'll continue to look at those areas in making sure that any precautions that need to be taken in consultation with the pipeline are taken into account by Holtec. I'm trying to remember your other questions.
MS. WILLIAMS: How many --
MR. WATSON: Schools near -- elementary schools nearby, I believe there's one adjacent to the property at Vermont Yankee. I'm not necessarily familiar with all the plants, but I know there's one adjacent to Vermont Yankee.
MR. DIMITRIADIS: It's closed.
MS. WILLIAMS: The elementary --
MR. WATSON: Yeah, and it's closer than
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the other one, yeah.
MS. WILLIAMS: -- school is closed?
That's interesting.
MR. WATSON: And it remained safe during all decommissioning activities there. So --
MS. WILLIAMS: My --
MR. WATSON: -- you have too many questions for me to recall, but I'm trying to --
MS. WILLIAMS: So my other one was how do you know if contamination takes place at an elementary school?
MR. WATSON: The plant will continue to have an extensive environmental monitoring program throughout the decommissioning. And so they will continue to monitor the environmental and ensure that radioactive materials or materials that are released from the plant are free of radioactivity.
MS. WILLIAMS: And has an elementary school ever been contaminated by decommissioning activity?
MR. WATSON: Not from an NRC facility.
MS. WILLIAMS: But it has happened?
MR. WATSON: Well, I can only speak for the NRC. For the NRC facilities, this is true. I
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 believe there may have been one DOE facility that may have contributed --
MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, that would be Zahn's Corners --
MR. WATSON: Yeah, but that's not --
MS. WILLIAMS: -- Middle School.
MR. WATSON: -- an NRC regulated facility.
So I really can't speak to that.
MS. WILLIAMS: Okay.
MR. WATSON: So thank you very much.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your comments.
Our next speaker will be ticket number 60, number 60, and that is John Sullivan.
MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you. I just want to start with a quick question or a quick answer that the NRC is funded by Congress but is required by law to recover 90 percent of its costs through fees that it charges for its licenses and permits. Is that accurate?
MR. WATSON: I don't recall the exact number.
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. SULLIVAN: I'm getting a shake of the
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 head from the gentleman back there. And in fact, the industry that is being regulated is paying the agency that is regulating it, right?
MR. WATSON: That's not how Congress set us up. That's not how we're set up.
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. SULLIVAN: I understand that. I understand this is law and this is not you guys. Okay?
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. SULLIVAN: You guys are employees like many of us are.
MR. WATSON: The fees do not fund our budget. The fees go back into the Treasury. And we are authorized an annual budget --
MR. SULLIVAN: Right, right. So --
MR. WATSON: -- from the Congress each year.
MR. SULLIVAN: So you're not going to get MR. WATSON: There's no direct --
MR. SULLIVAN: -- Holtec coming and pay you money. It's going to go to Treasury, and Treasury then will fund you.
MR. WATSON: Yeah, there's no direct
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 turnaround fees to the NRC.
MR. SULLIVAN: All right. So I'll just summarize real quickly what I wrote which I started with the AEC back in '47 and about how basically our policy has been aggressive development of nuclear, first nuclear weapons. And then in '54, we had private civilian reactors. And it wasn't until '74 actually when even under Richard Nixon they had to admit the AEC was so corrupt that you guys were born. The NRC was established by law.
I went into a couple of incidences that you guys had. The day of Fukushima, you guys extended the Vermont Yankee license by 20 years even though there was a leak under the plant. The GAO actually set up a shell company that you guys gave the license permits to that you never saw. And it allowed them to acquire enough to make a dirty bomb.
So the whole point being basically that it's set up so that expansion is the whole driving force here. Okay? I'll read the last paragraph. It's important to understand that from the beginning and up to the most recent incident, it was decreed where Holtec was given a slap on the wrist for not following the NRC recommendation, an incident that allowed a
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 worker to be splashed with coolant water, that the primary goal of the NRC as with the AEC before it is the expansion of nuclear power.
Public safety concerns only come to the forefront when the expansion is threatened. So it makes sense that the PSDAR does not include funding for offsite monitoring of radioactive tests in schools nor adequate funding nor notification for coordination of the local emergency and government response, nor that Holtec did not know the gas pipelines under the plant when it was granted the license transfer, nor is there any attempt to seriously slow the effects of the decommissioning on the active gas pipelines. The only provision is that Enbridge will be notified or that an important violation of federal law and certainly environmental justice the NRC is considering granting a permit for a CIS facility in the primary basin.
Funding and measures to protect the environment and public will threaten the U.S.
government's fiction that nuclear can be safe and cheap but be of no concern to its citizens and continue to grow despite growing evidence to the contrary. And we have begun to count the cost of long-term storage
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 of spent fuel. So thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your comment.
Our next speaker will be ticket number 1, ticket number 1, Henry Kelly. Thank you.
MR. KELLY: Okay. My name is Henry Kelly.
My wife Corrine and I live in Ossining, roughly ten miles south of Indian Point, for 35 years. I have multiple comments and questions.
The PSDAR issued back in 2019 -- thank you
-- has not been updated. I find that kind of strange, and I'd like to know why given the importance of this.
And that's a question you can hold to the end.
That document meticulously quotes some timelines, disturbingly avoided the outline of risks and the planning analysis that would be expected if a demolition project involving material radiologically contaminated for decades. The added risk of co-located high pressure gas pipelines is not even mentioned. The term, community public safety, was never once even mentioned in the document.
Holtec cites the NRC generic environmental impact statement, yet Holtec says decommissioning of nuclear plants poses no added risk while the NRC GEIS
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 itself clearly states the decommission increases the risk of potential release of radiological material.
See Section 4.3.9.2 of NUREG-0586, Supplement 1. It says that when you decommission because you're not doing standard procedure causes there to be more opportunity for release.
If decommissioning of nuclear power plants is so without risk and the materials involved are so mundane and undangerous, why is it so expensive to do this work? The answer, while avoided in the PSDAR, is simple. It's the radiation.
Winds, rain, storms will hit the site during decommissioning. Material will become airborne and adrift offsite. There's no smell, no taste, no sound, not visible, but poisonous to humans.
Where is the document that describes how the surrounding communities will be protected from and, if necessary, alerted to an incident that impacts public health? The NSC does not mandate Holtec to provide and operate offsite radiological monitoring.
Why? Why is that possible if you're going to be tearing up this site and you're going to be getting stuff airborne that there's no plan for offsite monitoring?
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 (Applause.)
MR. KELLY: Holtec should be installing or need to install multiple rings of sensors out to 15 miles of all directions around Indian Point as well as airborne sensors over the site itself to continuously report on amounts and directions of isotopes moving off the site. The public needs open access to that information as well. On the ground --
(Applause.)
MR. KELLY: On the ground at the site itself, will all materials be immediately put in containers or covered and put in open piles? There's nothing in the PSDAR that says anything about this.
And what physical intervals will monitor instruments placed on the site?
What stop work protocols will be in place if radiological levels rise? And what emergency response plans will be in place? Twenty-four/seven monitoring must be required for work of this magnitude that impacts the health and future of tens of thousands of people in surrounding communities.
This is simply part of the job, and it should be part of the cost. Public safety is job number one. It's not an afterthought.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 (Applause.)
MR. KELLY: The NRC, you folks, have an obligation to the community, to the citizens to ensure that. Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: All right. Thank you for your comment. Our next speaker --
PARTICIPANT: There was a question about monitoring.
MR. WATSON: I think we answered that before that the environmental monitoring program will continue at the plant.
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. WATSON: Well, I wouldn't go into that detail at this particular meeting because it includes the existing program as it exists today. They'll continue that program for monitoring the plant, all the effluence, and all the activities associated with the decommissioning activities. The licensee is required to comply with all federal standards, whether they're NRC's, EPA's for dust or fugitive dust emissions or whatever. But they have to still comply with our requirements in 10 CFR 20 for all effluence from the site.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 They also have a program for monitoring and ensuring that radioactive material is not released through the materials that they release from the plant and to treat the things that are contaminated as contaminated material and dispose of them as radioactive waste. So in the same respect that I understand his concerns and people's concerns, but nothing is really going to change with the plant being decommissioned. The licensee is still going to be responsible for monitoring and controlling all effluence from the plant --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. WATSON: -- whether they're through the air. They have existing monitors. Through discharges from the liquid processes, they have monitors and have technical specifications and environmental requirements for those. So I don't know that I can answer in any more detail than that at this point. So I'm just saying that things are still --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. WATSON: The plant remains safe as it was in operations for these types of programs and will continue into decommission. So I mean, that's the simplest answer that I can give you is that things don't
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 change. They're going to continue to monitor and we'll continue to inspect the plant to make sure they're complying with those standards. Okay?
So I appreciate the concerns, but things aren't really going to change for the long term here with the decommission. It's been done safely at over 80 complex material sites in the country, almost 80.
And also that includes 10 power reactors. We're in the process of completing 4 other power reactors. And so we've demonstrated that our program works and it protects the people and the environment.
And so I don't know how else I can answer the question. So I appreciate it. I understand the concerns. But we have programs in place to make sure that these types of things do not occur. Okay. Thank you.
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. It looks like we will not be able to go to the phone tonight. So as a result, based on these number of speakers, we will likely have extra time. So if you have additional questions, you can ask them after we finish our additional round. Okay? So our next speaker number ticket 52, ticket 52, Judy Allen.
MS. ALLEN: Hello. Thank you for having
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 this meeting and letting us talk. We did manage to shut down Indian Point which is an accomplishment for the people, the 20 million people in the 50-mile radius of Indian Point. And I applaud everything that everybody has said. I especially would like to echo everything that Susan Shapiro said. So could you please mark that down twice.
My only -- I only have a couple of things here. I wanted to say that I think it's very important that the NRC pay attention to the gas line. It may not have showed up originally in Holtec's plan. But I really think that that's major.
The spent fuel casks that are, like, a half inch to five-eighths inch thick are very substandard.
In Europe, I believe, they have spent fuel casks that are 10 to 20 inches thick. And if the NRC can do anything about improving the spent fuel casks so that we could have better ones, that would be great.
The only other thing that I want to say is that I hear what you say about monitoring the groundwater. However, Indian Point is on the shore of the Hudson River. The Hudson River is an estuary.
It goes both ways. When the radioactive contamination flows out into the Hudson River, it's
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 drifting down and then it's drifting up and then it's drifting back down again. And I just wonder whether you have a plan to address that contamination aside from the groundwater.
And -- oh, I already said that about the gas. So I guess that's it. So I would like to know about how do you address the contamination in the Hudson River? Thank you.
MR. WATSON: Well, first of all, we have to establish that there is contamination in the river.
PARTICIPANT: That's been established.
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. WATSON: Okay. We'll have to revisit that then. We'll take a look at your comments and look at that. There are certain releases that are authorized by regulations, and we understand that we've also taken some actions on the previous groundwater issues.
And so like I said, we're going to be looking at those very -- sorry, I'm running out of words here. But we're going to be taking a very hard look at the groundwater issues. And that's why I said we're starting our investigation next week with my staff taking a thorough review so we make sure we understand
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 all the issues so we can understand with Holtec so that those do get properly addressed. So thank you for your concerns.
PARTICIPANT: Where will we find that information?
MR. DIMITRIADIS: Public inspection reports.
MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Thank you again for your questions and comments. Our next speaker will be ticket number 61, and that is Marilyn Elie.
MS. ELIE: I'd like to thank you for being here tonight. I'd also like to thank our congressional representatives who compel this meeting since it's not on your list of required public outreach. Listening to you tonight has certainly been very valuable, so thank you.
I have -- I have three questions really.
The first one has to do with your letter on July the 27th which is in regard to how you will be planning your oversight activities.
It answers so many questions. So my question to you is really -- and it was listed in IMC 2561. Why has it taken us so long to get this information? And why don't more people have it? It
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 came into my mailbox on the 27th. And this has to do with the inspections that you will be doing, questions that people have been asking since we knew the plant was going to close.
Now we have a Decommissioning Oversight Board now. If you can't communicate with the public, they are supposed to do that. So how are you communicating with the DOB? Nobody on the DOB, or even if they did get it, didn't get it in time to get it out to us. It's been months since we knew the plant was closing.
And on July the 27th, right before this meeting, you sent out a letter that details what you're going to inspect, how often it's going to be. And thank you for the information, but why are you so slow? Okay.
How are you going to communicate with the DOB in my first question.
The second question, I'm going to just follow up on Judy. First of all, I also want to concur with Susan Shapiro's remarks. So you can mark that down in your column for three. And I'll speak with Judy's monitoring.
I want to go back into that because there is a pool underneath Indian Point in the bedrock which
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 shattered, as Susan mentioned. That pool is radioactive and it is contaminated. There is no mention of this in the PSDAR.
There's no plan about how that pool of radioactive contamination will be remediated. We need to know. Are we just going to cap it? Is that the plan with Holtec?
What is the plan? Do you have a plan?
If it is, is it in your -- buried in your files somewhere? And when are you going to share it? That's the second question.
Judy mentioned that the Hudson flows both ways. Yes, it does. And I asked this question to the NRC before, and the answer I have gotten is that you only monitor what goes in the river downstream.
Well, there are plants upstream that get their water from the Hudson. Those plants are Poughkeepsie, Wappingers Falls, Highland, Port Ewen, Village of Rhinebeck, East Fishkill, and parts of Hyde Park. They use that water for their drinking.
Now we know it's not a question we have to investigate. There are sample wells on the ground that measure how much contamination is flowing from the groundwater into the Hudson. Water will sink at
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 some level, and dilution is not the answer to pollution.
(Applause.)
MS. ELIE: A radioactive isotope is not going to be -- it's not going to dissolve. And if someone inhales it, if someone is swimming and recreating in the Hudson and swallows it, they have inside of them a radioactive isotope that potentially is cancer causing. Now I think everybody on this board
-- I can't say you know. I don't know what you know.
But having that water go into the Hudson and saying, well, the volume of the Hudson is so vast.
You're not putting sugar in the water that dissolves.
You're putting in and allowing Holtec to have radioactive isotopes flow into a drinking water for seven different communities.
And should there be a problem with water or anything else, New York City also has this as a backup supply. So that's my second question. What are you doing about the river that flows both ways and the communities upstream from Indian Point and monitoring?
How can you not -- how -- just I'm not going to repeat what Ed said because he was very eloquent.
But my question is all it says in the plan to close Indian Point is that monitoring will continue. That
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 is not acceptable.
That elementary school needs a monitor.
The workers have their dosimeters. What do the rest of us have for something that is invisible and deadly?
So that's my third question and I'd like an answer.
Thank you.
(Applause.)
MS. ELIE: DOB was the first question.
MR. DIMITRIADIS: Yeah, so the letter dated July 27th, 2021, is that what you're --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. ELIE: Yes, yes, two days ago.
MR. DIMITRIADIS: That's a letter that I believe I signed, Anthony Dimitriadis, second page.
MS. ELIE: It's to Mr. Baroni and it's signed by -- sorry -- Anthony M. --
MR. DIMITRIADIS: Dimitriadis, that's me.
MS. ELIE: -- Dimitriadis, yes.
MR. DIMITRIADIS: The purpose of the letter is for the NRC, myself and my staff, to communicate to Mr. Baroni and his staff the changes in our oversight that goes from the ROB to the Inspection Manual Chapter 2561 which is the power reactor decommissioning program. And it just reminds
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 everyone, especially Mr. Baroni and his staff, of where the inspection procedures and all the processes, including members of the public so you can see that, where the inspection procedures are listed. So you can take a look at everything in those procedures.
They're all public. And basically, it reminds Holtec what program we will be conducting --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. ELIE: The question I have for you is, yes, your letter is very clear. And it certainly gave me somewhat more confidence that there will be monitoring because that question has not been answered satisfactorily since we knew Unit 3 -- Unit 2 and Unit 3 was closing. Has anybody in this room heard anything like he's describing?
MR. WATSON: Let me respond --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. ELIE: And I understand that this is for your one community to -- or one agency to the other.
But you have a responsibility to communicate to the public and you're not doing it.
(Applause.)
MR. WATSON: Let me respond to you this way. Right now, the two units at Indian Point, Unit
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 2 and 3, are under the offices --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
PARTICIPANT: Speak into the mic, please.
MR. WATSON: Sorry. Right now, the two plants, Indian Point Unit 2 and Unit 3, are under the offices -- Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation and have been under the reactor oversight program. This was in my slides. And we're transitioning to the inspection program. Okay?
So this is a change in the inspection program. This letter formally notifies the licensee that we're making this change. It's not that we haven't been looking at the decommissioning, but we've been under the ROP as the process for the inspection program. All this letter does is it outlines the fact that we haven't changed and here are our plans for future inspections because at the end --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. ELIE: You know, I'm going to stop you right there.
MR. WATSON: No, no. I'm saying at the end of the school year, the site will be transferred from NRR which Mr. Guzman is the project manager to my organization which is --
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 (Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. ELIE: I understand that. The letter was very clear. However, it has the information that we have been asking for, for months. And you have decommissioned ten power plants. You told me that.
This is not a new reg. This is not something new that was just invented.
MR. WATSON: But it wasn't appropriate --
applicable until we actually made the formal notification from changing from the ROP now to IMC 2561.
MS. ELIE: But we didn't --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. WATSON: -- simple process that we've gone from one inspection program to the other. That's all the letter is displaying. And that's an official change in our inspection program --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. WARNER: And I should point out --
MS. ELIE: And how will you communicate in the future with the DOB?
MR. WATSON: With the?
MS. ELIE: With the Decommissioning Oversight Board which has a responsibility --
MR. WATSON: We can have a discussion with
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 those -- with the DOB representatives. And we are planning to improve our communications with them in the future. We need to get more coordination.
They're fairly new. And also we've always volunteered to come and talk with them and never invited. We made that very clear today. So --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. ELIE: Well, I will look forward to that.
MR. WATSON: You're making pretty much --
you're asking good questions. But we're in the process of making the transition from operations to totally to decommissioning. And that's the normal process we follow.
MS. ELIE: I understand it's your normal process. My third question had to do with the river that flows both ways. How is the Nuclear Regulatory Commissioning monitoring the river for upstate communities that get their water from the Hudson? Your policy in the past has been only downstream monitoring.
MR. WATSON: I'll have to look at that.
MR. DIMITRIADIS: We look at the environmental monitoring program that the licensee has.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MS. ELIE: Look at what?
MR. DIMITRIADIS: The environmental monitoring program. Like, we said this a number of times. We look at -- as part of our inspection, we look at the licensee's environmental monitoring program on a routine basis.
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. ELIE: I've asked this question before, and I have been told that you only monitor downstream.
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. ELIE: So what I'd like to know is, has that changed?
MR. WATSON: I just can't respond to your question. I have to actually look into it. But like I said, the environmental monitoring program will continue. We'll continue with looking at water, the vegetation, all aspects of the environmental monitoring program as required of the plant. It hasn't changed since the plant has gone into decommissioning.
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. ELIE: Well, I would appreciate some information about that.
MR. WATSON: -- includes not only the
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 downstream but upstream if that's where the effluence goes. And so give us the opportunity to look at that.
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MS. ELIE: And I do hope -- yes, and I will stop now. I do hope that you will certainly look at that contaminated pool of water underneath the plant that has not appeared in any of the documents. Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Our next speaker will be ticket number 12, ticket number 12. That is Karl Jacobs.
MR. JACOBS: Hello, everybody. My name is Karl Jacobs. I'm a former employee at Indian Point, Unit 3. I was responsible for the reactor vessel, responsible for the upper and lower internals, repairs, also for FOSAR for the vessel and also for removal and inspections, a ten-year ISI.
The concern I have, and deals with both Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3, the handling and removal of the lower internals. The lower internals for Unit 2 has over 200 broken baffle -- excuse me, baffle bolts. The formers have not been inspected.
The baffle bolts hold the baffles in place
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 which is a structural component. When you're lifting the lower internals -- and I've done this at Indian Point -- and placed it in the stand, it's a highly radioactive component which you all know. You probably know. It's probably 50 R in contact.
I've taken these parts out, 10 R, 15 R, which are pretty hot to handle. When you take this out, you could have a load shift. You could have these bolts fail, baffles shift, and you're going to cock the lower internals in place.
There is not much clearance, okay, between the vessel wall and the lower internals when you're removing them. So there are no evaluations being done for removing the lower internals, okay, when you have degraded -- which it is, okay -- structural components.
That's extremely important.
When you're removing the lower internals for decommissioning, all right, and you break water
-- and which I did there just for normal operations.
And I'm talking an inch or two. I've set off the alarms at Indian Point inside which is expected. All right. That's how hot this component is. So if the NRC is not requiring special evaluations for components that are highly radioactive, that are degraded, you're
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 missing something. Okay. So I just want to --
(Applause.)
MR. JACOBS: -- bring that to your -- Okay.
You should have safety evaluations done by Holtec and CDI, whoever is going to do that work, okay, especially on degraded components. And the lower internals at any point too, they know where the broken bolts are.
They know the locations. So you can do that evaluation.
If you're going to pay Westinghouse, the designer, that's proprietary information. It's a problem. For Indian Point 3, you guys have -- not you guys. No inspection was ever done. You don't know what's broken. You don't know where the locations are and what the stresses are for load lift on that. So hopefully that information is helpful to Holtec.
Hopefully you guys take that into consideration, that you need safety evaluations for radiological degraded components in this.
(Applause.)
MR. JACOBS: Thank you.
MR. KLUKAN: All right. Thank you for those comments and that information. Our next speaker with ticket number 9, Margo Schepart.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MS. SCHEPART: Wow. If that was not an incredible demonstration and endorsement of why we need citizen oversight regarding the decommissioning process, wow. I mean, obviously to you, you can see that this room is filled with people who have an amazing amount of institutional memory and scientific knowledge. I've been living in this community for over 60 years. I've been teaching in this community for over 30 years.
I'm just one person. I'm, like, really, really, really impressed. So certain things have been repeated over and over and over again.
The radiation monitoring, that's a concern. I understand that you have something in place, but it's not enough. I know from speaking to scientists that the kind of radiation monitoring that we need in the elementary school, it's not just sticking the Geiger counter there.
I know that it's very, very specific. And don't feel bad if you don't know what that is. I don't know what that is. But that's why we need the input of people who do know what it is. And that's why Holtec clearly doesn't know what it is. And it's just so important that we tap into all of the expertise and
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 all of the knowledge and all of the memory of people in the community who have been working for no pay on this issue and gathering information because they care and because -- not because they're being paid.
So my question to you is I just found out from you that the post-shutdown plan isn't the be all, end all, that now we have this license termination plan.
So my question is we've identified issues, okay, concern about the radiation monitoring, concern about the pipeline not even being mentioned in the post-shutdown plan of Holtec, concern about financial risk to New Yorkers, that New York taxpayers will be left holding the bag. Price Anderson will kick in that if there's a problem with any kind of an accident, considering demolition going on with pipeline explosion possibilities, and the radioactive waste on site which until humanity comes up with a way to neutralize the radioactive waste which I think will happen.
I'm little optimistic about that. That's got to happen and we'll figure out how to get rid of plastic at the same time. But until that happens, we have to use absolute best practices to deal with whatever we have sitting there on site.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 (Applause.)
MS. SCHEPART: It is way, way, way too dangerous to move it. And so my question is, is the
-- these concerns, are they going to make it into that license termination plan? Okay. They're not mentioned in the post-shutdown plan.
But are they going to be mentioned and in writing and set in black and white so that nobody can backpedal on those that we've all stated -- you've heard it a million, million times. And we're not going to let this go. This is not going to slide.
All of the things that people -- we know what we're talking about. Okay. We have a big combination of knowledge, and we know what we're talking about. I think you're taking us seriously.
I hope you're taking us seriously.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your comments.
Our next speaker is ticket number 11, Nancy Vann.
And that's ticket number 11.
MS. VANN: Hi. My name is Nancy Vann.
And you all usually introduce yourselves, so I'm going to introduce myself just a little bit. I'm a retired Wall Street attorney. I live two miles from Indian
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 Point, and you see I'm walking with a cane.
That's because in 1974, I was one of probably ten people in the United States that was wearing a seatbelt when another car ran into me. If I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt in 1974, I wouldn't be here to talk to you and give you a little bit of information about what I see as the risk assessment that you need to do. There's several risk factors at Indian Point, and I brought some props.
This penny, that's the fuel pools. Those fuel pools, if there was a fire in the fuel pools, we had assessments that show that on some days the radiation and the evacuation area could go all the way up to Canada. Other times, it goes all the way down to Washington, D.C. And that's where the fuel pools that are still there and still will be containing spent fuel for a long time.
This penny, that's the cask and canisters.
Those are deteriorating. I've heard that some of them are already beginning to show signs of wear. Casks and canisters at other sites such as San Onofre have been scrapped using the same type of loading system that Holtec is using at Indian Point. Only at Indian Point, they would scrap the entire length of the cask
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 and canisters, the canisters going into the cask, not just at the top.
The third penny, that's the earthquake risks. You have not one but two earthquake fault lines that run right next to Indian Point. One is the Ramapo fault line and one is the Stamford-Peekskill fault line that intersects with the Ramapo fault line about a mile from Indian Point. According to the NRC's own evaluation of earthquake risk following Fukushima, if you look at the chances of every plant in the United States, what the chances are of them suffering damage from an earthquake, the Plant No. 3, Unit No. 3 at Indian Point is the number one risk for being damaged by an earthquake fault.
Penny No. 4, that's the new pipeline.
It's 42 inches in diameter, and it's extremely high pressure. You've already heard a lot about it, about the evaluation of how far the blast and the firewall could go. It could go past almost all of the control room and that type of thing at Indian Point. That control room will still have to monitor the flow of water into the pool and many other things. How are you going to run a plant without a control room?
This penny is a really old one. That's
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the two other pipelines that run right under the Indian Point plant, not next to it, under it. One is a 26-inch and one is a 32-inch.
Those were put in decades ago, and they have not been checked regularly for faults. We don't know their condition. If the new pipeline exploded or had a rupture, the others would too.
And then the last penny that I brought along, each representing the one cent that I think you credit us with knowing about risk, that's for the decommissioning companies, Holtec and SNC-Lavalin.
I put together a rap sheet for those two companies.
And it was pages and pages and pages long, beginning with a ban of SNC-Lavalin by the World Bank, that they couldn't work on any World Bank financed projects for ten years.
Then there was a TVA bribery scandal against Holtec, after which Holtec applied for tax exemptions in New York using fraud by not even mentioning the fact that they have already been censored. Of course, one of those spectacular events that you might find amusing was that SNC-Lavalin was also convicted for smuggling Gaddafi's relatives out of the Middle East and into Mexico. Now if you take
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 all six of these pennies, how many times do you think you would have to flip to have six of them come heads up, no tails, no problem?
You see to always think that accidents won't happen. But this represents six entirely different risks, and risks aren't just linear. When you have more than one risk, it exacerbates all the other risks.
I would like to challenge any of you to come up here and flip all six and see if they came up the way you wanted it. Maybe one of them would come up tails because it seems like everybody is mainly trying to cover their tails. What we would like is no diminution of the safety requirements.
You say that the safety requirements are going to go on as they are. But I know that Holtec and Entergy before it already applied for exemptions.
As an SEC attorney, an attorney that went before the SEC, I know that there's rules against regulation by exemption. And those exemptions have been granted to every single decommissioning nuclear plant that has ever asked for them.
We should not be giving any exemptions to these actors so that they can cut corners, not do the
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 monitoring, not do the types of careful demolition that needs to be done. And the third thing that we need to make sure we do is to stop the gas flow. We cannot have both new and old pipes with bulldozers and backhoes running around over them.
Parts of Boston were destroyed by a simple error from one engineer that didn't turn off the right valve. And an entire neighborhood went up in flames with their gas lines exploding. Those were little gas lines that came into people's houses.
How are these gas lines going to react?
We have a lot of evidence about that, and I hope that you'll pay attention to it. And just to emphasize that accidents do happen, even at nuclear plants, I follow Ed Lyman who is from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
And almost every day, he reports an accident or an unintended shutdown at some nuclear plant in the United States. That's every day. How many times do we want to risk tossing the coin on that?
And as you've already heard, the decommissioning period is much more dangerous than just when the plants are running which is bad enough. If I was ever as lax as a Wall Street attorney representing my clients in front of the SEC, I would've been fired
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 immediately. The NRC is supposed represent every citizen in the United States to protect our security, to not take risk with our future.
And I challenge you to consider what your responsibility is, the responsibility to get back to people on the staff, to get back to the Commission, to pass along our concerns and really do the work that needs to be done to make this very dangerous project
-- it won't be safe, but to make it as safe as it can possibly be. I'll leave these here. Thank you.
(Applause.)
MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Our last scheduled speaker is Jane Bloomar, ticket number 13.
MS. BLOOMAR: Do I need help with the mic?
Is it too high? Hello. I'm Jane Bloomar, a lifelong resident of New York State, and I'm in favor of nuclear energy. I'm also a friend of Diane Sare who is running for New York State's -- one of New York State's United States Senator positions. She is an independent, and she strongly favors nuclear energy.
It is regrettable that New York State has gone along with the passion and fervor to take down Indian Point without thinking more deeply and more profoundly about the needs of energy for the residents
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 of New York State, the industry of New York State, and the agriculture, the farmers who need electricity to keep the milk and the chickens warm and the cows treated properly as well as the industry in New York, plus our own air conditioning in the summer and our heat in the winter. Going down 25 percent in energy in Westchester County and New York City is a fearsome percentage.
That's one quarter.
We saw what happened in Dallas when the polar vortex hit them. We cannot rely on windmills.
We cannot rely on the sun because the sun only shines every so often and certainly not every day. We don't have, like, cloudy days like today and certainly the wind is not blowing incessantly.
So we are turning in this 21st century of ours to rely on unreliable energy. It is unthinkable for a well-educated populace to be taking this -- taking down Indian Point. However, I realize that the decision has been made to take down Indian Point.
But I would like to point out, and I learned this from Diane Sare, that other circumstances when a nuclear energy plant has been closed, it can be reopened if the nuclear guts have not been removed, if the nuclear reactors are -- and rods, et cetera,
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 are still in place. It is extremely expensive to build a nuclear plant from scratch. Perhaps -- so to decommission this entirely or to decommission it for a period of time while we assess for a year or two what it's like to be without air conditioning or have brown outs or black outs, perhaps that might be one way to go for this.
I do believe -- I did pick up one -- I couldn't hear the last speaker. But I think one of her points was that the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, it does seem like you all ought to be helping educate the public about the values of nuclear energy, not just to limit. Of course we need to limit power, but we need to be educated.
Okay. I believe that's my point. I wish you all well. I wanted to comment also that so many questions seem to be directed at the NRC and not at Holtec. So I do want to raise one question of Holtec.
There has been some question as to whether Holtec will honor the agreement with New York State and stay within the bounds of the money available to take down or close Indian Point. So I speak on behalf of a citizenry who do not want to be stuck with a bill when taking down an energy plant and then end up without
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 bills that we have to pay for an energy plant -- a nuclear energy plant that is gone. Thank you so much.
MS. STERDIS: Okay. This is Andrea Sterdis from Holtec Decommissioning International.
And I just want to confirm that we were active --
MS. BLOOMAR: I'm sorry. I didn't hear you.
PARTICIPANT: We can't understand you.
MS. STERDIS: Is it --
PARTICIPANT: Speak close to the mic.
MS. STERDIS: Real close? That's better.
Okay. My name is Andrea Sterdis, and I work for Holtec Decommissioning International. And I want to give you my assurance that our company is 100 percent committed to fulfilling the agreement that we signed with the State of New York, the local stakeholders, the local government, and others. Absolutely.
MS. BLOOMAR: I'm sorry. With the masks and everything, I really didn't get what you said.
MR. WATSON: Let me try to answer for her.
MS. BLOOMAR: Say it again?
MR. WATSON: Maybe I'm a little clearer.
MS. BLOOMAR: Say it again?
MR. WATSON: Yeah, Andrea said that Holtec
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 is 100 percent behind the agreement that they signed with the state and local governments and others and they're going to fulfill their agreement to do that.
MS. BLOOMAR: That is reassuring. I like your card.
MS. STERDIS: I'll give it to you.
MS. BLOOMAR: Okay. Thank you so much.
Any other comment? Thank you.
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you, everyone. So we've now have gone through everyone who signed up to speak. We have about five minutes left. The only person I really got off was you. So -- and let him close us out and then we'll end the meeting. So please.
MR. SPECTER: Thank you for the additional time. I'm mainly interested in whether or not --
PARTICIPANT: Can you state your name?
MR. SPECTER: Oh, my name is Herschel Specter. I'm a professional engineer in the state of New York with a master's degree from MIT, a former diplomat at the International Atomic Energy Agency, and also the original federal licensor project manager for licensing Indian Point 3. I have a long history at this plant.
So I have questions for my colleagues.
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 I'm not happy with what I read about what the NRC has done. So you might consider me a bit of a crank.
But this crank is worried about the various decommissioning funds possibly becoming insolvent.
And as I mentioned previously, if a decommissioning fund becomes insolvent, it has zero money left. So it has no money left to fix anything.
I've also expressed the opinion writing to you folks that money from the DOE from the Waste Act Fund is just not realistic. You don't know Holtec has no control over it. You don't know how much come or when it might come.
And in fact, some of the analyses I've already submitted to the Commission show the insolvencies after 2030, you have Holtec is assuming and the NRC accepts that after 2030 that DOE will probably be on site removing the fuel. You can be sure they're not going to give anybody any money if there's an overrun. So there is no viable way of doing financial remediation that shows up in any of the NRC documents or in the PSDAR.
That being the case, I turn my attention to other scenarios where the different decommissioning trust funds might become insolvent. And I would point
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 that no such alternative scenarios were presented in the PSDAR. They were all successful.
And no such scenarios were presented by the NRC in a safety evaluation or in the Commission's final memorandum and order. All we have is one scenario per Indian Point 1, another for 2, and another one for 3. So let's talk about that for a minute.
In the case of all three plants, the decommissioning model assumed a starting date of October 31st, 2019. And whatever money was in the decommissioning funds that day was run through the rest of the analyses, all the way out to 2062. I already know in my communications with the staff that the staff did not set that particular date.
That date as far as the staff knows was set by Holtec. And yet if you look at different dates, you get different results. If you look at a date now, things look good. We're up to 2.4 billion dollars.
But in fact, and the Commission has made this very clear, the amount of money in the decommissioning funds fluctuate because the markets fluctuate. And I presented a graph in my presentations and submissions to the Commission that there were dates, both before and after October 31st. And if you
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 plug them through, the decommissioning funds become insolvent.
As a matter of fact, back in December 31st, eight months prior to the Holtec chosen date, you plug that date in, all three decommissioning trust funds, and you point to 1, 2, and 3, become insolvent if you use the Holtec model, and I did. I used exactly the same assumptions, the same input data, same structure.
All I did was change the date and therefore the amount of money that was reported by Entergy for that date, and they all went bust.
So how could it be realistic to pick one date that will be representative for the next 40 years for all three plants? That's question number 1. So I think the model is unrealistic and therefore cannot be relied upon to form the basis, a reasonable assurance, you can do the license transfer.
It's not representative. It's a single date. And the Commission itself and its own safety evaluation talks about fluctuations up and down. It is not reflected in the analysis. So the analysis is unrealistic.
And secondly, talking about the fluctuation because of only selecting one date, but
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 the second part of that is that all this emphasis on one date, that supreme date, October 31st, you never bring up the market variations from that point on.
But they do go on. Sometimes it's favorable.
Sometimes it's not.
So the whole model that Holtec used, unchallenged by the Commission as far as I know, never ran another different scenario, you end up with a bunch of failure scenarios. And the failure scenarios end up with insolvent decommissioning funds and there's no recovery. That's a problem.
MR. TURTIL: So --
MR. SPECTER: And if you're not -- let me finish. And if they're not solvent, you still have work to do. And I've even calculated what kind of --
hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of unfinished decommissioning tasks yet to be done. What do we do?
So I'm disappointed that the staff didn't have the curiosity to generate alternative scenarios.
As a former regulator, I didn't look for just when things were successful. The applicants do that for me.
What I look for is how can they fail. I want to know is there another scenario out there that
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 gives me a result where the decommissioning funds become insolvent. Now the staff didn't do it. Holtec didn't do it. I did it.
I submitted it, and I've gotten zero feedback. And why? Isn't it the staff's job to be curious, to look for ways in which things can fail or to ask, is it realistic to pick one day and say that casts a shadow for 42 years?
And by the way, in those 40 some odd years, I'm going to ignore inflation. I'm going to ignore the ups and downs of the market. And I say no.
MR. TURTIL: If I can just very briefly (Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. SPECTER: I can't hear you.
MR. TURTIL: If I can be very -- I'll just be very brief. You made reference to one day. I'm a little --
MR. SPECTER: October 31st.
MR. TURTIL: -- stymied by that date. So let me explain why. Holtec has taken a position that the applicant before the transfer communicated it --
within the PSDAR, communicates partial site -- partial termination -- help me out with the right terminology
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433
-- in 2033 for -- I believe it's for each -- for all three of the sites. I want to make sure I'm correct on that.
And then, of course, as DOE starts to potentially -- because no one is very certain --
potentially start to initiate retrieval of spent fuel and ultimately finish that transaction for each of the three sites, ultimately the year target of 2063 where there would be full complete -- except for the -- excuse me. Everything would be complete at that point in theory. There is no certainty with Department of Energy retrieving that fuel.
But with these dates and these target amounts for license termination that staff performed that analysis knowing -- keeping a real rate of return to two percent of the funds. And those funds currently are 630 million for Unit 1, 790 million for Unit 2, and 990 -- let me finish -- 990 million for Unit 3 in the DTS totaling about 2.4 as of December of last year.
With those funds in mind and with the activities that they intend to perform, from that point forward, staff concluded that there was reasonable assurance that the licensee, Holtec, would be able to complete those stages of decommissioning, from license termination,
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 from site remediation license termination activities to ultimately --
MR. SPECTER: Okay.
MR. TURTIL: -- spent fuel management and then --
MR. SPECTER: I totally disagree with you, sir.
MR. TURTIL: But the point that I want to make, that I really want to reinforce is that Holtec will be reporting by March 31st of each and every year to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Let me finish.
And just like any other long-term plan, they were reporting that which they've expended on decommissioning, that which their new -- their reassessment on what will be required to complete license termination and the funding that is available for that.
MR. SPECTER: Where from?
MR. TURTIL: Excuse me?
MR. SPECTER: Where does that funding come from?
MR. TURTIL: Well, the funding --
MR. SPECTER: Suppose you say three years down the road --
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 MR. TURTIL: Let me finish.
MR. SPECTER: -- and you find out that they're not living up to -- it's more expensive.
MR. TURTIL: So year by year, and I hear the concern. And I --
MR. SPECTER: Yeah, all right. What do you do about?
MR. TURTIL: -- appreciate the concern.
But year by year, the staff and the licensee --
MR. SPECTER: Right.
MR. TURTIL: -- are reviewing. And when there appears to be --
MR. SPECTER: That's not my question.
MR. TURTIL: But when there appears to be a gap --
MR. SPECTER: Yes?
MR. TURTIL: -- the licensee will say, this is how we shall fill that gap. And there are methods they can do that.
MR. SPECTER: Well, you have to determine whether or not if there is a gap and what all the causes are and will there be another one next year and the year after, in other words. Where does the money come from to fill the gap so the decommissioning can go on?
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 And obviously, it'd have to come from Holtec.
MR. TURTIL: Well, that's a starting point. If there is a --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. SPECTER: Or Holtec just declares bankruptcy --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. SPECTER: -- which you can't control.
MR. WATSON: Can we let him finish, please?
MR. SPECTER: No.
MR. TURTIL: There is a --
MR. WATSON: Let Mr. Turtil --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. SPECTER: No, I'm sorry, sir. The actual situation is that Holtec did not put up a penny.
It's all the people's money. And Entergy never put up a penny --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. SPECTER: -- except a bridge loan.
Let me finish.
MR. WATSON: Sir, that's a different topic.
MR. SPECTER: Well, no, it's not to me a
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 different problem. The problem is --
(Simultaneous speaking.)
MR. SPECTER: -- where's the money going to come from. And I haven't seen a penny come out of Holtec. And I don't know that they have the financial wherewithal.
And when the Commission says, well, look, Holtec has enough money to do the job. In fact, what it is, Holtec is only going to have enough money because the ratepayers put up the money. And if they don't do a good job, I don't see them volunteering to make up the difference.
You know how you're going to solve this?
If Holtec signed a document and said, no matter what, Holtec will make it good. They haven't done that, no.
So we haven't seen a black and white commitment. And finally, other utilities have done exactly what I said, that when there's any chance that the public might be put at risk, the utilities have stood up and said, we will not have the public at risk.
And you know what those utilities are? They're utilities that are staying in their area like Commonwealth Edison does it.
But if they're merchant operators, they're
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 going to leave town. They have no long-term commitment to New York, and Holtec has no long-term commitment.
Their commitment is to making money.
They're not long-term, interested in the welfare of New Yorkers like other utilities who stay in the area. So we have a problem particularly aggravated by the fact we have a merchant, formerly Entergy, utility who's already leaving town and a replacement who has no commitment that I know of to the long-term welfare of New York. Sorry. I don't accept what you said.
MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your comments.
So before I turn it over to Bruce to close out the meeting, this is more. But the people on the call, this is not the way we want it. This is clearly you were meant to have an opportunity to speak tonight and that didn't happen. And for that, on behalf of the entire NRC, I apologize.
I've been told that it was a weather-related issue. I don't have any further details on that situation other than my understanding is there were lightning strikes. I don't have all the answers.
But the point is here is that this did not
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 go the way it was supposed to. And for that, wholehearted apology. Okay. And with that, I'll turn it over to Bruce to finish us off.
MR. WATSON: Yeah. Thank you, Brett. I just want to make the same apology that we intended to have people on the phone. Apparently, there were some weather-related issues that affected the Verizon phone system that was set up. So we'll have to -- as an agency, have to take a look at that and revisit that issue.
Just a few comments, kind of summarize some of the concerns. I'm not going to tell you this is a comprehensive list of things I heard or what the staff heard. But I just have a list of things I was going to mention just to summarize the meeting.
We heard concerns about the gas line --
gas pipeline and of course the safety consequences of that and possibly with the decommissioning issues.
One thing that's concerning to the people was the fact the gas line was not mentioned in the PSDAR. There were concerns over the reduction in the emergency planning and fire protection programs.
There were concerns over the financial estimate basis and the adequacy of the decommissioning
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 trust funds for the long term. But one of the things I'm going to mention is that the state regulates those issues, not us. We just make sure we have a final --
we have reasonable assurance that there is adequate funding.
So we have -- there were concerns over spent fuel casks and of course high burnup fuel. There were concerns about the groundwater and remediation, especially concerns about the Hudson River. There were concerns about the radiological releases during decommissioning.
A concern that the PSDAR does not include the New York State and Holtec agreement. But we believe that some of those -- those issues should be addressed in the future with the license termination plan, especially when it comes to the dose criteria that we're agreed to. Concerns about overall decommissioning and disassembly of the plant, especially with the degraded components.
I heard some concerns about our communications with the state oversight committee and actually with the local community. So there's some opportunities there. There were concerns about Holtec abilities to perform and completely decommission the
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(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 plant and their use of the decommissioning funds.
So like I said, that's not a complete list, but it kind of summarizes what I heard, what the staff heard tonight. So I really want to thank you all for coming out. Safe travels home, please. Safe travels.
And I really want to thank you for coming out tonight and our opportunity to hear your concerns over the post-shutdown decommissioning activities report. So thank you very much, and good night.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 9:14 p.m.)
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