ML21232A235
| ML21232A235 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Indian Point  |
| Issue date: | 08/20/2021 |
| From: | Reactor Decommissioning Branch |
| To: | |
| Karl Sturzebecher, 301-415-8534 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML21232A230 | List: |
| References | |
| EPID L-2021-LRO-0031, NRC-1585 | |
| Download: ML21232A235 (147) | |
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
1 UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 1
+ + + + +
2 PUBLIC MEETING ON HOLTEC INDIAN POINT 3
POST-SHUTDOWN DECOMMISSIONING 4
+ + + + +
5
- THURSDAY, 6
JULY 29, 2021 7
+ + + + +
8 The Meeting convened at the Sleepy 9
Hollow Hotel & Conference Center, 455 South 10 Broadway, Tarrytown, New York, at 6:00 p.m. EDT, 11 Brett Klukan, Facilitator, presiding.
12 PRESENT 13 BRETT KLUKAN, Regional Counsel, Facilitator 14 ANTHONY DIMITRIADIS, Branch Chief, NRC Region I 15 RICH GUZMAN, Office of Nuclear Reactor 16 Regulation 17 RAY LORSON, Deputy Regional Administrator, NRC 18 Region I 19 RICHARD TURTIL, Senior Financial Analyst, Office 20 of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 KATHERINE WARNER, Senior Health Physicist, NRC 1
Region I 2
BRUCE A. WATSON, CHP, Chief, Reactor 3
Decommissioning Branch, Office of Nuclear 4
Material Safety and Safeguards 5
6 ALSO PRESENT 7
ANDREA STERDIS, Holtec 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 1
6:05 p.m.
2 MR. KLUKAN: So let me go through some 3
quick introductions or quick intro remarks to try to 4
make up for the little bit of time we lost. My name 5
is Brett Klukan. I'm normally the regional counsel 6
for Region I of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 7
Commission. But tonight, as I have in past years, 8
will be serving as the facilitator for this meeting.
9 As will be discussed more during the NRC 10 staff's initial presentation, the purpose of this 11 meeting is to receive public comments on the IPEC, 12 or the Indian Point Energy Center Post-Shutdown 13 Decommissioning Activities Report, or PSDAR. In 14 order to accommodate as many interested members of 15 the public as possible during the ongoing COVID-19 16 public health emergency, members of the public, in 17 addition to participating in person, were given the 18 alternative option of participating remotely via 19 teleconference.
20 I now would like to summarize the COVID 21 precautions being implemented for the meeting 22 tonight. Based on Governor Cuomo's July 15th, 2021 23 announcement regarding the lifting of COVID 24 restrictions, it is the NRC's understanding that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 there are no state-imposed COVID restrictions 1
currently in effect for a meeting of this size. It 2
is also the NRC's understanding there are, likewise, 3
no locally-imposed COVID-19 restrictions that would 4
be applicable to the conduct of this meeting.
5 For your awareness, NRC staff and 6
contractors in attendance, if unvaccinated, are 7
required to follow the NRC's Workplace Safety 8
Implementation Plan requirements for COVID-19 9
precautions, including the use of masks and physical 10 distancing. The Centers for Disease Control and 11 Prevention recommend that unvaccinated persons 12 continue to wear masks and physically distance when 13 attending indoor events. Yesterday, the CDC also 14 announced a recommendation that vaccinated persons 15 wear masks in public indoor settings in areas of 16 substantial or high transmission.
17 As of the date of this meeting, as of 3 18 p.m. this afternoon, Westchester County now has a 19 substantial rate of COVID-19 transmission based on 20 data published by the CDC. As such, in keeping with 21 the CDC's recommendations, which the NRC follows and 22 applies to its own staff, all NRC staff and 23 contractors in attendance will be wearing masks 24 during this meeting.
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5 NRC staff and contractors are also 1
required to self-screen for COVID-19 symptoms prior 2
to attending this meeting. For your convenience, 3
the chairs marked with green stickers are six feet 4
apart from each other. Sanitizing wipes and hand 5
sanitizer is also located at the public speaker 6
microphone for your use.
7 For those of you attending the meeting 8
in person, on the registration table just outside 9
the room there's a sign-up list for public speakers.
10 When you registered to speak, you should have 11 received a ticket, the other half of which we 12 collected into a container at the registration desk.
13 The speaking order will be determined by the numbers 14 pulled from this container, the intent of which is 15 that the speaking order be at random.
16 Note that we may also have individuals 17 on the bridge line requesting to speak during the 18 public comment portion of the meeting. If that is 19 the case, then I will incorporate those individuals 20 into the speaker queue in the following manner. Out 21 of deference to those attending in person, after 22 every three in-person speakers, we will call upon a 23 speaker on the phone. I will provide later, after 24 the NRC's initial presentation, instructions for how 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 members of the public participating in the meeting 1
via the teleconference can enter the speaker queue 2
after, again, after the NRC's opening presentation.
3 For your awareness, again, this meeting 4
is being transcribed. The transcriptionist is 5
sitting at the end of the table. So in light of 6
that, I would ask, when it is your turn to speak, 7
please identify yourself. I would also ask that 8
people not speak over each other.
9 A few minor housekeeping matters, and 10 we'll get underway. The bathrooms are just down the 11 hallway. The exits are to either side of the foyer.
12 While cameras are permitted, please try not to 13 obstruct the view of other audience members. And if 14 you would be so kind at this time to please silence 15 your cell phones.
16 And with that, finally, I'd like to turn 17 it over to Bruce Watson to begin the NRC's 18 presentations. Thank you.
19 MR. WATSON: Well, good evening. Thanks 20 for coming. I hope you can hear me clearly through 21 the mask. This is kind of an impromptu change which 22 Brett has announced at 3:00 came into effect for 23 federal workers. But, again, thanks for coming, and 24 we're happy that you came here tonight for the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 opportunity to provide us comments on the Indian 1
Point Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities 2
Report that was submitted to the NRC.
3 We are required to hold an in-person 4
meeting, and so we chose this date a couple of 5
months ago due to the relaxation of the restrictions 6
in the State of New York and the local vicinity.
7 So, while we haven't held an in-person meeting in a 8
while, I want to reiterate that we have been 9
available to the public. Region 1 deputy, Region 1 10 administrator, Ray Lorson, held the annual 11 assessments meeting. It was a virtual meeting to 12 review the final operational phase of Unit 3 in the 13 past year. And also Rich Guzman to my right and I 14 participated in one of the Cortlandt County 15 concerned or interested citizens task force meetings 16 to discuss the license transfer process.
17 So with that, we're going to go ahead 18 and go to the slides. As I said, I am Bruce Watson.
19 I'm chief of the Reactor Decommissioning Branch, and 20 I'm from headquarters in the Office of Nuclear 21 Material Safety and Safeguards. My branch is 22 responsible for the licensing and oversight, 23 licensing oversight of the facility, and so my group 24 will take care of all the licensing actions once the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 plant is transferred to us, the site is transferred 1
to us, from the Office of Nuclear Reactor 2
Regulation.
3 So let's go to the next slide, please.
4 Decommissioning is not new. We have terminated the 5
licenses at ten sites, ten power reactor sites.
6 There are currently, though, 26 power reactors in 7
our decommissioning program. Seventeen of those are 8
in active decommissioning, and that includes now the 9
three Indian Point units. The PSDAR from Holtec 10 basically says they are going into active 11 decommissioning, and so they started to transition 12 the plant. Unit 2 is already well along in the 13 transition of preparing it for decommissioning; and 14 Unit 3 is an earlier phase, having just shut down.
15 I want to point out that there's also 16 nine plants in SAFSTOR, which is the condition Unit 17 1 was in since it shut down in 1974. But it is 18 going to be also going into the process of active 19 decommissioning by the licensee Holtec.
20 There are currently seven plants that 21 have announced that they're shutting down, and so 22 we're waiting to see, when they do shut down, if 23 that really occurs. Four of them are in Illinois, 24 one is in Chicago, and two in California. So we're 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 expecting to hear that, news on those as time 1
progresses.
2 Also, I wanted to mention that we plan, 3
we anticipate, I'm going to use the word anticipate 4
because it's mainly dependent on the licensee to 5
provide us with all the information needed. But we 6
are anticipating terminating the licenses at four 7
plants in the coming year. So we're expecting to 8
terminate the licenses at Zion 1 and 2, the Lacrosse 9
plant in Iowa, and Humboldt Bay in California. So 10 our numbers will be reduced, and that will bring our 11 total number of power reactors that have completed 12 decommissioning, up to 14 that have completed 13 decommissioning.
14 In the picture here is Maine Yankee 15 before decommissioning; and then, of course, that's 16 the picture of Maine Yankee and the only thing 17 remaining is the spent fuel dry storage facility.
18 Next slide, please. The NRC's mission 19 is to ensure that the decommissioning is conducted 20 safely and securely until the license is terminated.
21 NRC safety oversight will continue with licensing 22 activities and inspections until the license is 23 terminated. So the key message here I want you to 24 realize is we're not going away. We're going to be 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 here as long as there is radioactive material under 1
the license.
2 So with that, the site has been working 3
on transferring from the reactor oversight program 4
to the Inspection Manual Chapter 2561, which is the 5
Reactor Decommissioning Program, Inspection Program.
6 And so we have the lead inspector here tonight with 7
us at the table, Katherine Warner, and she's going 8
to be available to answer questions also.
9 The other thing I want to point out is 10 we are continuing to have the resident inspector 11 there until the end of August. So we have kind of 12 duplicate actions going on at the same time.
13 Next slide, please. On May 11th, 14 Entergy certified permanent cessation of operations 15 of Unit 3 and the permanent removal of the fuel from 16 the reactor. And, of course, Unit 2 was certified a 17 year ago. So what does that mean? Well, it means 18 that when they terminate, make these two 19 certifications, they are no longer authorized to 20 removal the fuel from the spent fuel and put it back 21 in the reactor and operate the reactor. In order to 22 do that, they would have to apply for a new 23 operating license. So, in essence, they are in 24 permanent shutdown and the only thing left to do is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 decommission the site.
1 The Holtec PSDAR, or Post-Shutdown 2
Decommissioning Activities Report, was submitted to 3
the NRC as supplemental information to the license 4
transfer application. And it was submitted to us 5
December 19, 2019, so it's been out in the public 6
domain for quite a while.
7 So with that, I just want to point out 8
that our resident inspector, the picture on the top 9
right, were there to observe the final shutdown of 10 Unit 3 and that, you know, it was done safely and 11 the plant continues to be in a safe condition, 12 having been defueled.
13 Next slide, please. The PSDAR is 14 reviewed by the NRC staff. It is a report to the 15 NRC staff. It covers, basically, three things. It 16 covers the site-specific schedule at a high level, 17 which tells us what direction the licensee is going 18 to go with the decommissioning. It also provides 19 the financial information on how to ensure that, to 20 demonstrate to us that there's reasonable assurance 21 that they have adequate funding for the 22 decommissioning, to conduct the decommissioning and 23 complete it within the funding requirements. And it 24 also verifies that the environmental situation is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 going to not be impacted.
1 So after they submit the certifications 2
of permanent removal from the fuel from the reactor, 3
the decommissioning can start, as long as they stay 4
within the operating license, the plant's license.
5 And also the decommissioning activities must not 6
endanger the public health and safety or the 7
environment.
8 Next slide, please. This is a high-9 level summary of what the PSDAR says. It basically 10 says that the spent fuel will be transferred into 11 dry cask storage by 2024. They expect to complete 12 decommissioning by 2033, and that would be all three 13 plants. I have a typo error, actually my own edit, 14 addition error here, but the trust fund is actually, 15 at the end of 2020, had $2.4 billion in it, not 1.8.
16 So sorry for my quick math, but it's a lot more than 17 I have up here. It's $2.4 billion.
18 And, of course, the PSDAR also concludes 19 that the environmental impacts from the 20 decommissioning will be less than those than when 21 the plant was in operation.
22 The staff began a formal review of the 23 Holtec PSDAR on May 28th, 2021. And this was after 24 the license was amended, making Holtec the new site 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 owner of the site. So until that became official, 1
we really couldn't review the PSDAR until that date.
2 So next slide, please. A couple of 3
things I want to talk about here is that we will 4
continue to inspect the plant to ensure the site is 5
decommissioned safely. The NRC will continue to 6
inspect the spent fuel in dry storage to ensure it 7
is safe and secure until it is removed from the 8
site.
9 And, of course, one of the major 10 licensing actions yet to take place is the submittal 11 of the license termination plan. The license 12 termination plan is a very technical document on how 13 the licensee is going to demonstrate to us that they 14 will meet the unrestricted use of the site and allow 15 for the site to be shrunk and license terminated 16 down to the dry fuel storage.
17 Now, what does unrestricted use mean?
18 It means that the owner can use the land for 19 whatever purpose they choose to use it for. It's no 20 longer under NRC control. The only thing that will 21 remain under NRC license will be the spent fuel 22 facility.
23 One of the other things I wanted to 24 mention is that they don't have to submit the LTP 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 until two years before they request license 1
termination, so it may be a while before they do 2
submit the LTP to us. But when they do, we will 3
hold another public meeting. We will solicit public 4
comments on the LTP. And it is a license amendment, 5
so there's also hearing rights for the LTP. And as 6
I said, the LTP is approved as a license amendment, 7
and we will take into account the public comments on 8
that.
9 Next slide, please. Well, hold on. Go 10 back one minute again. Never mind. The picture 11 there was our Region III inspectors at the Zion 12 plant doing surveys to verify that the plant was 13 being cleaned up.
14 Next slide is just a few reminders about 15 this meeting. We are here to listen to your 16 comments on the Indian Point PSDAR. There's a lot 17 of topics we can talk about, technical topics, but 18 we really are here to talk about the PSDAR and hear 19 your comments on those.
20 The NRC staff will do our best to answer 21 your questions. We may not have the answers to 22 everything, but we will listen to your comments and 23 we'll do our best to answer your questions.
24 The meeting is being transcribed. The 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 15 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 another plant.
Next slide, please. Besides this public 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 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 course, you can always send your comments to the 1
rulemakings.gov, and here's the address for that, 2
the link for that. Be sure when you search the 3
Federal Register notice, the regulations.gov, you 4
search for the docket number ID, which is NRC-2021-5 0125. So you might want to take a note of those.
6 The public comment period is going to be 7
closing on October 22nd of this year. We 8
deliberately left it open greater than 90 days, and, 9
actually, it's 120 days to make sure that we did 10 have ample time for people to get their comments in.
11 So with that, next slide. You can 12 always refer your questions to Neil Sheehan. He's 13 back here in the back. He's from our Office of 14 Public Affairs. Neil's email address is here, along 15 with his phone number. And so Neil is available to 16 answer any follow-up questions or any questions on 17 the Indian Point site that you may have.
18 With that, we'll turn it back over -- I 19 guess we want to do some NRC introductions. Yes.
20 So the group up here, you want to start, Rich?
21 Introductions.
22 MR. GUZMAN: Good evening. My name is 23 Rich Guzman. I'm a senior project manager at NRC 24 headquarters. My branch is going to be supporting 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 Bruce Watson in the reviews of the PSDAR. My firm 1
is responsible for the operating and licensing side, 2
and I look forward to your questions.
3 MS. WARNER: Good evening. My name is 4
Katherine Warner. I'm a senior health physicist 5
with NRC Region I, and I am the lead decommissioning 6
inspector for Indian Point.
7 MR. TURTIL: Good evening. My name is 8
Richard Turtil, a senior financial analyst with NRC 9
at NRC headquarters. And we'll be looking over 10 financial review and financials for the facility.
11 MR. LORSON: Good evening. I'm Ray 12 Lorson, the deputy administrator for the NRC's 13 Region I office.
14 MR. WATSON: And, Tony, do you want to 15 introduce yourself? While Tony is coming up to the 16 mike, over here on the side is Karl Sturzebecher.
17 He will be the decommissioning project manager.
18 He's managing the phone line. And, of course, 19 that's Doug Tifft, our Region I state liaison 20 officer.
21 MR. DIMITRIADIS: Good afternoon. My 22 name is Anthony Dimitriadis. I'm the chief of the 23 Decommissioning, ISFSI, and Reactor Health Physics 24 Branch in Region I.
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18 MR. WATSON: And I think, Neil, you've 1
already been introduced. I think that's about it, 2
isn't it? Okay. Brett.
3 MR. KLUKAN: All right. Thanks, Bruce.
4 MR. WATSON: Well, I'll introduce Brett.
5 He already did.
6 MR. KLUKAN: Yes, I introduced myself.
7 So we're not stalled. We're just having some 8
difficulties with the bridge line, so we're kind of 9
stalled. So we're trying to work that out. In the 10 meantime, I'm going to go through the rest of my 11 remarks about how the public comment portion works, 12 and then we'll see where we are at the end of that, 13 okay? I just want to let you know what's happening.
14 So for those of you attending in person, 15 I just want to emphasize that there are no 16 prohibitions against trading your tickets amongst 17 yourselves in the room, okay? Right now, we have 22 18 people in person signed up to speak. However, both 19 individuals, if you are trading tickets back and 20 forth, they have to both be in the room at that 21 time. Someone can't leave and then just donate 22 their ticket to somebody else.
23 Donation of tickets, again, they only 24 can be given to those in person. Obviously, we're 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 also going to be just having problems with the 1
bridge with trying to do that trade and get the 2
person queued up on the bridge would be very 3
difficult for us, given, particularly, the problems 4
we're already encountering.
5 In addition, if an individual has 6
already spoken during the meeting as a result of 7
someone donating their ticket to them, that 8
individual may donate their own ticket to somebody 9
else, but they may not use that ticket to speak 10 again. What that means is this: you get one shot at 11 the microphone for the first round. Once we've 12 exhausted all the speakers, if we have extra time in 13 the meeting, then people can get up to speak again.
14 At this time, people will be limited to 15 three minutes at the microphone. When your number 16 is called, please queue up to this microphone. You 17 can see that there's hand sanitizer and also hand 18 wipes for you to use. Use them as you will.
19 I will give you some advanced warning of 20 when it is your turn to speak. I will write the 21 numbers in the order in which I pick them on the 22 board, okay? If you are participating in the 23 meeting, I'm going to wait to give instructions 24 regarding the bridge line because I'm not even sure 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 if they can hear me yet.
1 Again, please limit yourself to three 2
minutes. There is a countdown clock I positioned in 3
the middle of the room. That will count down from 4
three minutes to, you know, when your time runs up.
5 At that time, I will ask you to please conclude your 6
remarks so we can move on to the next speaker. I'd 7
ask that you bundle all of your remarks together and 8
your questions because, once the clock starts, just 9
like in a congressional hearing, I won't stop the 10 clock.
11 PARTICIPANT: You're talking too fast, 12 and it's very hard to hear.
13 MR. KLUKAN: Okay, all right. So we'll 14 back up because I have the time. You get three 15 minutes at the microphone. The clock will start 16 counting down once you've introduced yourself. At 17 that point, the clock won't start until, it will not 18 pause. So if you ask a question and the NRC starts 19 to respond and it's during your three minutes, 20 that's it, all right? So I would suggest you bundle 21 all of your questions together so that you maximize 22 your amount of the time at the microphone. If we 23 have extra time remaining at the end, we will go 24 back through a second round, okay?
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21 Everyone understand that? You good?
1 Okay.
2 All right. I would ask, if you have 3
something that you want to give to the NRC, that you 4
hand it to me and I'll bring it up to the table, all 5
right?
6 Basic ground rules. While recognizing 7
that many of you have strongly-held opinions 8
concerning the matters to be discussed this evening, 9
I ask, nonetheless, you adhere to civil decorum and 10 that you, in essence, respect each other. So please 11 do not disrupt each other, just as you would not 12 want to be interrupted while you were speaking.
13 With that said, threatening gestures or 14 statements, under no circumstances, will be no 15 tolerated and will be cause for immediate objection, 16 excuse me, ejection from the meeting by local law 17 enforcement.
18 If you feel that you've been threatened, 19 please let me know, please let one of the NRC 20 security staff know, or please notify a local law 21 enforcement officer at the station at the various 22 corners of the room.
23 Before we begin -- well, let me -- it 24 looks like we're still having problems with the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 bridge based on this posture. All right. So we're 1
going to wing it. We're going to start with the 2
elected officials. I recognize that there are some, 3
I think, who may not be able to hear us or give 4
prepared remarks on the phone. I apologize for 5
that, but we do have some elected officials in the 6
room with us this evening, so I'm going to start 7
with them.
8 So just going to go through the 9
recognitions first, and then I'm going to invite up 10 those who would like to give prepared remarks. So 11 in person, we have with us Nicole Virgona from 12 Senator Chuck Schumer's office. Raise your hand and 13 be recognized. Thank you. And then on the phone, 14 hopefully we have Jerry Shapiro from Senator Kirsten 15 Gillibrand's office. We also have Joan Grangenois 16 from Representative Mondaire Jones's office. We 17 also have Brynna Trumpetto for Representative Sean 18 Patrick Maloney's office.
19 Also, we have with us James Creighton, 20 who is a town councilman in the town of Cortlandt.
21 We have Manna Jo Greene of Ulster County, and then 22 we have Susan Spear of Westchester County Executive 23 Latimer.
24 So with that, I would now like to go to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 Joan Grangenois from Representative Mondaire Jones's 1
office, if you'll come to the microphone, please.
2 She's on the phone? Okay, all right. So would any 3
elected officials at this time present in the 4
meeting room like to give a prepared remark at this 5
time?
6 MS. GREENE: What I just passed out was 7
our sample comments, and then attached to them is a 8
very in-depth analysis that we did --
9 MR. GUZMAN: Excuse me, Ms. Manna Jo 10 Greene. If you could just state your name for the 11 transcript.
12 MS. GREENE: Oh, yes, I'm sorry.
13 MR. GUZMAN: Thank you.
14 MS. GREENE: I've done this a hundred 15 times, I should know by now. Manna Jo Greene. I am 16 an Ulster County legislator, and I am also the 17 Environmental Action Director for Hudson River 18 Clearwater.
19 So I'm just going to go through the 20 bullets very quickly. We will be submitting 21 comments in writing. But one of our big concerns 22 are the casks and canisters, that system that will 23 be put into place and is currently in place. These 24 are thin-walled canisters that cannot be inspected.
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24 They're sealed. There are lots of difficulties 1
that, in Europe and other places around the world, 2
they're using much more robust canister systems. In 3
our case, it's half an inch thick steel, and in 4
Europe it's 10 to 20 inches and often in hardened 5
buildings.
6 I seem to bring up high burn-up fuel at 7
every single meeting and annual report and so forth, 8
but I don't think that the question of high burn-up 9
fuel has been adequately addressed. And I think in 10 the PSDAR there's a rush to move very hot and highly 11 radioactive material too quickly.
12 Inadequate site remediation, I'll let my 13 colleague address that. Radiation monitoring. It's 14 my understanding that it's mainly perimeter 15 monitoring, and they're having cases of worker 16 exposure. I think the area where the workers are 17 working needs to be carefully monitored, not just at 18 the perimeter, and also the nearby elementary 19 school.
20 And then pipeline risk, I know that the 21 people here this evening are going to be talking 22 about the AIM and Algonquin pipeline.
23 MS. GREENE: Okay. Thank you. We'll 24 cover the others in writing.
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25 MR. KLUKAN: Do we have any other 1
elected officials in the room who would like to give 2
prepared remarks at this time? Please come to the 3
microphone. Thank you.
4 MR. CREIGHTON: Thank you. My name is 5
James Creighton. I'm a town councilman in the town 6
of Cortlandt, and we are one of the host communities 7
for the Indian Point Energy Center. I'm submitting 8
these comments in connection with your review of the 9
PSDAR, and many of my comments already have been 10 made earlier today. The government said it, 11 particularly Senator Pete Harckham made some great 12 comments, as well as Assemblywoman Sandy Galef and 13 County Legislator Smith and Cortlandt supervisor 14 Linda Puglisi.
15 But I did want to point out a few items 16 that are of great concern to us. Decommissioning in 17 our neighborhood is incredibly important. We have 18 only one shot to get this right. I think it's 19 incredibly important at every site around the 20 country, but we care here. This is our home.
21 Emergency response is critical, and I'm 22 very concerned that there will likely be a request 23 that they pull back on some of the sturdy protocols.
24 And if there were a serious accident at the site, it 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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26 would be a really big mistake to have less security, 1
less protocol in place, rather than more. Our 2
firefighters, our emergency services personnel, and 3
security teams on the site need more help. They 4
need more support, not less.
5 Decommissioning activities take place on 6
a level that it does. These are not normal 7
activities at the site. The site has been run and 8
run by professionals who knew that site inside and 9
out. But the people around there are digging now 10 and doing things that we've never done at that site, 11 and things may happen. There may be things that are 12 unanticipated, and those are exactly the types of 13 things that we're worried about. These types of 14 things we're sure will never happen, but you take a 15 look at how many gas main breaks happen when Con Ed 16 just does routine gas main improvements, and there 17 are gas leaks. It happens. It's not anything 18 anybody wants to happen, they protect against it, 19 but it does.
20 So here in the PSDAR, when you're 21 looking at security, security has to be primary. We 22 need to increase security, not pull back on it. We 23 need to plan. We need to be prepared for every 24 scenario, and your charge, as you've said, is have 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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27 the right level of oversight for safe 1
decommissioning. So this has got to be item number 2
one. Let's not cut back on safety and security.
3 We also need to be assured the financial 4
aspects or the numbers that were provided in the 5
PSDAR are accurate. I don't understand where some 6
of the numbers come from, but I'm not a financial 7
genius. We have somebody on the panel now. But 8
there were items in the PSDAR that talk about spent 9
fuel management and project or construction 10 management, and that's great. The trust funds are 11 the funds that we, the taxpayers and ratepayers, 12 paid in all these years; and Holtec or any company 13 is totally entitled to a reasonable fee and a return 14 on their investment. But it looks like some of the 15 numbers in the PSDAR are either coming up in error 16 or essentially may suspend out the trust fund. And 17 that's a concern. They may be well based, but I'd 18 ask that the financial experts take a look. You've 19 seen the decommissioning in other areas. Make sure 20 those numbers line up. The project management and 21 construction management is not all that different 22 here elsewhere. It may be more complex here. We 23 have a very dense population center nearby, so we 24 want to get this right. If it costs more, great.
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28 Tell us. But we want to make sure that those 1
numbers have a basis.
2 And we appreciate that Holtec wants to 3
do a fast decommissioning, and we very much would 4
like the property returned to a productive nature as 5
fast as possible, so long as it's as safe as 6
possible. We know they want to maximize their 7
profits, and we're sure they won't be cutting 8
corners or you, in your place at this table and 9
looking this over, will ensure that no corner is cut 10 and everything is done and done right and done with 11 an extra level of security and sensibility.
12 Earlier today, you heard pushback on the 13 Federal Register for the nuclear fuel.
14 Decommissioning trust funds should not be used for 15 purposes other than decommissioning. That's just 16 full stop. I don't understand anything beyond that, 17 but, you know, Holtec is entitled to make money 18 doing what they're doing. But the fuel is owned or 19 managed, whoever owns it, I'm sure that there will 20 be a request to the Department of Energy to 21 reimburse them for whatever they have to do to hold 22 on to this fuel that doesn't belong here for in 23 perpetuity.
24 But what we don't want is that money to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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29 come from the federal government and also to come 1
from the trust fund. They shouldn't be paid twice.
2 They should have been paid out of our ratepayer and 3
taxpayer-funded trust fund. This is to clean up the 4
site. It's important to get it right, it's 5
important to do it fully, completely, and, you know, 6
until this geological repository, it's got to stay, 7
I guess, at the site. We'd rather it not be there.
8 But, ultimately, we don't want the trust fund to be 9
used for that.
10 Finally, we need to know that the 11 ratepayer-financed decommissioning trust fund is 12 used before the full cleanup of the site. Anything 13 else would pose a clear fiscal danger to our state, 14 to our communities. We want to make sure that the 15 job isn't done half right because a level that you 16 guys set is only sort of clean. It needs to be 17 really clean. It needs to be clean so that its 18 unrestricted use on that property, meaning something 19 really good and productive can happen there at the 20 Indian Point site. I know that that's your 21 intention, and I'm sure that's the company's 22 intention. But we don't want to be left, we only 23 get one shot at this, and we don't want to be left 24 bearing costs for the results afterwards if it's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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30 only done sort of cleaned up.
1 So the cleanup has to remediate the 2
known contaminants and radioactive isotopes that are 3
leaking from the plant into the groundwater. We've 4
got the wells that we're checking on. The fact that 5
we know that means we know it needs to be cleaned 6
up, so the contamination cleanup should go well 7
beyond just the nominal depth of three feet. I'm 8
glad to refer to the panel earlier today saying they 9
were committed to that being cleaned up beyond just 10 three feet and that it will include a groundwater 11 and the site will really, hopefully soon, be able to 12 be put to good productive use.
13 And with that, we'll say thank you for 14 your time and I appreciate, hopefully, the great 15 work.
16 (Applause.)
17 MR. KLUKAN: So to be clear, that was 18 not intentional, these sound effects. I also want 19 to recognize Tito Davila, who is a senior special 20 advisor for Senator Patrick Harckham, the 40th 21 Senate District in New York. And then also Lisa 22 Hofflich from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is also on 23 the phone.
24 And now we're going to, as I mentioned 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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31 earlier, Joan Grangenois-Thomas from Representative 1
Mondaire Jones's office wanted to give prepared 2
remarks. And so we're now going to try this out, so 3
we're going to hold up her phone to the microphone 4
and see what happens. All right.
5 MS. GRANGENOIS-THOMAS: Good evening, 6
everyone. My name is Joan Grangenois-Thomas. I'm 7
District Director for Congressman Mondaire Jones.
8 And on behalf of the congressman, I want to thank 9
the NRC for hosting the government-to-government 10 meeting earlier and holding this public event and 11 providing us the opportunity to raise the issues are 12 constituents are deeply concerned about.
13 I want to start by highlighting that 14 Indian Point moving from an active facility to a 15 decommissioning one does not alleviate our 16 constituents' concerns or lower the bar for NRC 17 engagement. We hear near daily from members of our 18 community who are concerned about their safety 19 living, working, and sending their children to 20 school in close proximity to Indian Point.
21 Our community also feels like they are 22 the last to know important information about the 23 future of Indian Point when they have the most at 24 stake. The NRC must do more to engage local 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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32 stakeholders bringing them into the decision-making 1
process instead of electing to pacify their concerns 2
after the fact.
3 We very much look forward to hearing how the NRC 4
plans to increase transparency to our constituents 5
by bringing them into the decision-making process as 6
Indian Point moves through the phase of 7
decommissioning.
8 I also want to take this opportunity to 9
highlight in particular the safety concerns our 10 community has regarding the Algonquin natural gas 11 pipeline currently operating in close proximity to 12 Indian Point. We ask that the NRC work with Holtec, 13 Enbridge, and Avista to consider all possible safety 14 precautions that can be taken regarding the use of 15 these pipelines during the decommissioning process, 16 including but not limited to considering partial or 17 complete shut off of the pipeline during 18 decommissioning.
19 Our constituents' concerns extend to the 20 time line of this decommissioning, the processes and 21 technology set to be used by Holtec and approved by 22 the NRC, and the ultimate future of the site. So, 23 again, I want to stress that continued community 24 engagement through this process is paramount. Thank 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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33 you again on behalf of the congressman for this 1
meeting and for this opportunity, and we look 2
forward to hearing your answers to these very 3
important questions.
4 Thank you very much.
5 (Applause.)
6 MR. KLUKAN: Okay. So at this time, are 7
there any other elected representatives, 8
representatives of elected officials or elected 9
officials themselves who would like to give a 10 prepared remark?
11 PARTICIPANT: You have to talk slower.
12 MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Sorry about that.
13 So are there any other elected officials or 14 representatives of elected officials who would like 15 to give a prepared remark at this time, or, and I 16 apologize for not mentioning this earlier, any 17 tribal representatives? If not, we will move on 18 with the public comment portion of this meeting.
19 MR. WATSON: While this is an NRC 20 meeting, we thought that it would be best that -- a 21 lot of questions may be for Holtec International, 22 and so we were going to ask if anybody from Holtec 23 would like to join us at the table just so we have a 24 focal point for questions that might be referred to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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34 them. So other than that, we will still be an NRC 1
meeting, but sometimes there's a lot of questions 2
that should be directed to them, so we invite them 3
to come to the table.
4 So with that, are you ready?
5 MR. KLUKAN: Yes. So just to be clear, 6
Holtec is here, has provided representatives to 7
potentially answer your questions. Holtec is not 8
required to answer your questions. We cannot compel 9
them to answer your questions, but you can direct 10 your questions to Holtec or your comments to Holtec, 11 and then Holtec can decide to choose to respond or 12 not. Again, if Holtec starts responding during your 13 time while it's counting down, that eats into your 14 time. So I would suggest, again, that you bundle 15 your comments together, okay?
16 I will be putting down the ticket order 17 on this whiteboard. But to get us going, the first 18 ticket is number 7, which is Sally Gellert. Sally 19 Gellert, ticket number 7. Is Sally -- oh, okay, 20 good.
21 MS. GELLERT: I'm Sally Gellert from 22 Woodcliff, New Jersey. I didn't prepare a statement 23 today. I just have two talking points you can think 24 about and consider.
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35 Greg Jaczko was the chairperson of the 1
NRC during Fukushima and realized how dangerous it 2
was and how many suggestions for safety were 3
ignored, and he has continued to talk about the 4
dangers operating or decommissioning. For example, 5
he talks about relevant stewardship of waste that 6
shouldn't be moved far. If it needs to be moved a 7
little way to get out of water or an ocean, that's 8
one thing. But transferring it across the country 9
is dangerous to so many counties across our country.
10 We need relevant stewardship to watch it over 11 generation after generation.
12 This is too expensive, and too slow to 13 mitigate climate change. There is a small modular 14 nuclear reactor here. We need dry storage across 15 nuclear energy. That's for you to consider, Holtec 16 folks. And we'll come back to that with the license 17 termination.
18 With respect to our Holtec rep, Lacey 19 Township (inaudible) really more popular with 20 Holtec, as have folks out in San Diego. NRC, keep 21 an eye on them. We don't really trust them.
22 New York and the rest of the world uses 23 thick-walled canisters to keep up with the ASME 24 standards. You don't have that requirement, and we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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36 want those standards imposed. We want thick-walled 1
canisters that will keep this stuff as safe as 2
possible. No exemptions. We're tired of NRC 3
exemptions. We need proof of the financial numbers.
4 We know that this is a private company. There's a 5
lot of limited liability corporations, so we're 6
worried. We'll probably ask the court for direct 7
oversight to force you to do more than rubberstamp 8
(inaudible) you so often are.
9 Questions that came up with the slides 10 were what kind of zoning restrictions can they 11 impose after the license transfer? And why are your 12 inspectors only through the end of August? This 13 decommissioning process is going to go on for a lot 14 longer.
15 And in terms of City of Buffalo, how 16 much waste, you know, what's a comparison? How much 17 more waste can you have at Indian Point after all 18 these years of operation versus those two.
19 Thank you.
20 (Applause.)
21 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your 22 comments.
23 MR. WATSON: I was going to take a 24 couple of comments. Number one, I said that the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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37 resident inspector will be through August but we 1
will continue to inspect the plant and our 2
inspectors will continue to inspect the plant, and 3
that will be at a frequency based on the actual 4
activities at the site and the safety risks of the 5
work that they're doing. So we're going to be there 6
7 MS. GELLERT: Okay.
8 MR. WATSON: -- inspecting the plant.
9 There was another comment I was going to make, too, 10 and it's slipping from --
11 MS. GELLERT: The quantity of waste 12 compared to --
13 MR. WATSON: Yes. The amount of waste 14 is going to be significantly larger because these 15 are very large pressurized water reactors in 16 comparison to the small Buffalo research reactor.
17 But the good news is there's low-level waste 18 facilities that will take low-level waste and accept 19 it for disposal.
20 MS. GELLERT: Well, they have a lot of 21 high burnout fuel there.
22 MR. WATSON: No, the spent fuel remain 23 on site under license and will be continued to be 24 inspected.
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38 MS. GELLERT: And the thick-walled 1
canisters of the ASME standards?
2 MR. WATSON: I'm sorry. I couldn't 3
understand you.
4 MS. GELLERT: Thick-walled canisters, 5
you know --
6 MR. WATSON: Well, the canisters that 7
they're using are the ones that we haven't approved.
8 Unfortunately, they're not the thick-walled 9
canisters that are used in Europe. Those types of 10 canisters are going to have difficulty being 11 transported, where the intent in the United States 12 is to move the canisters to a permanent repository.
13 And so that enables them to be transported.
14 MS. GELLERT: That's a problem. Thank 15 you.
16 MR. WATSON: Okay, thank you.
17 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you again. Our next 18 speaker will be ticket number 5, Robert Stein.
19 Ticket number 5, Robert Stein.
20 MR. STEIN: Okay. Robert Stein. I'm a 21 concerned local citizen, and I appreciate the 22 opportunity to ask you these questions.
23 First of all, I would like to know what 24 basis do you have for assuring us that the fair 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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39 canister design is actually safe, and how long do 1
you expect them to remain safe? Because it is quite 2
possible that we not be able to move the canisters 3
away from the site on the schedule order in the 4
proposal.
5 I would also like to know what plans 6
there are for emergency personnel to train -- I'd 7
like to know about the plans for emergency personnel 8
to be trained and to have drills so that they can 9
handle emergencies, and I would like to know the 10 prospects for evacuation. So far, we have not had a 11 plan, and I know it's terribly difficult.
12 I would also like some assurance that it 13 is being considered the possibility of a serious 14 explosion or fire and be cognizant of the proximity 15 of a gas pipeline and the threat of terrorism if the 16 canisters, thin-walled as they are, are not stored 17 in a very hardened facility. And I understand that 18 there is no provision at this point, please correct 19 me if I'm wrong, to support those canisters inside 20 of the facility.
21 So those are my only major concerns, and 22 I'd appreciate your answers. And I hope you'll 23 consider them and take them into account. I 24 appreciate it.
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40 (Applause.)
1 MR. WATSON: Okay. I'll try to respond 2
to a few of your questions. The first is that the 3
NRC has approved those casks, those canisters. It's 4
in combination with a shielded configuration, which 5
is designed for what we call missile impact, 6
airplane crashes, and other things to not affect the 7
actual spent fuel canister itself.
8 But as far as emergency planning goes 9
and emergency exercises and drills, those are 10 continuing. They just might not be on the same 11 schedule they were before, but the emergency plan 12 and other exercises will continue as planned. And 13 the actual emergency plan reductions will not occur 14 until well into the fuel is cooled off sufficiently 15 that we can't have an offsite exposure accident for 16 an exposure offsite.
17 But there will be an emergency plan in 18 effect throughout the entire decommissioning process 19 and also a fire protection plan, along with fire 20 brigades and other such activities, to ensure the 21 safety of the plant. And we will be inspecting 22 those standards.
23 MR. STEIN: That's great. Will those 24 plans be made public?
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41 MR. WATSON: They actually, yes, they 1
are public. Yes, they're in the technical 2
specification.
3 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you, sir. Thank you 4
very much. So next up we have ticket number 55, and 5
that is ticket number 55 and that is Michel Lee.
6 MS. LEE: Can I switch my number with 7
Paul Blanch?
8 MR. KLUKAN: Noted. So Paul.
9 MR. BLANCH: Thank you very much, 10 Michel, for giving me this time. I've traveled a 11 long way. My name is Paul Blanch. I reside in West 12 Hartford, Connecticut, and I'm a professional 13 engineer, a nuclear expert. And the views I'm going 14 to express tonight do not necessarily support any 15 particular group, but I think my comments are 16 representative of many of the comments of the public 17 that I've dealt with. I'm reluctant to join any 18 particular organization.
19 I think it was inappropriate for the NRC 20 to get up here and tell us lies of Maine Yankee, 21 which was pristine clean. And the inference made by 22 the NRC, I heard the words green field. Green field 23 is not defined in your regulations. It's a 24 misnomer. It's a misleading statement. It should 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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42 not be used by a group as professional as you claim 1
to be. It is a misrepresentation.
2 The other thing you represent by showing 3
the Maine Yankee and that's the same at Connecticut 4
Yankee. I work with both plants. Decommissioning 5
is not done. There are hundreds of acres. However, 6
you say or infer decommissioning is done. There are 7
hundreds of acres that have not been released that 8
have received a partial release. Partial release 9
not even defined.
10 Now, my main point is I've been studying 11 for the past many months all the regulations at the 12 NRC on site remediation. Now, I have provided to 13 Neil Sheehan and some of the other NRC people my 14 concerns, and I know this meeting will not allow you 15 to address my concern with respect to remediation.
16 Is what I'm handing out here and have given to the 17 NRC are a significant bunch of my assumptions based 18 on my research that I want the NRC to confirm and 19 confirm in writing, and they can do it tonight if 20 they want to, but I want confirmation that my 21 assumptions with respect to remediation are, in 22 fact, true; and if not true, I want a response as to 23 why they're not true and no longer proper reference 24 to the regulations.
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43 Now, the NRC, whether you people might 1
know it, might not know it or get, the NRC has a new 2
policy published on March 19th, and it was approved 3
and posted in the Federal Register. And I am making 4
a formal request tonight that, with respect to 5
Indian Point and Indian Point's decommissioning, 6
that this policy be implemented. I will make a 7
formal request such that we can have a town hall 8
meeting, a roundtable meeting, as discussed in the 9
Federal Register with NRC people such that we can 10 have straightforward dialogue which we've never 11 have. All we ever get is, Mr. Blanch, we'll get 12 back to you and all I get is misrepresented 13 statements, as pointed out by the inspector general.
14 I'd just like to ask the audience, 15 members of the public or non-public, who would 16 support an open, I don't want to call it a debate 17 but a roundtable type discussion where we can have, 18 you know, just questions and answers for the first 19 time in --
20 (Applause.)
21 MR. BLANCH: Now, who at the NRC would 22 support such a thing? Is there anyone from the NRC?
23 I don't see any hands.
24 But, anyway, the bottom line is we are 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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44 going to ask for it. My question is, and I expect 1
some type of response and I would like that 2
definition of what is meant by not credible failure 3
of the dry casks, which the NRC refuses to provide.
4 Sorry for running long. Thank you very 5
much.
6 (Applause.)
7 MR. KLUKAN: All right. Thank you very 8
much.
9 We're on to ticket number 4. All right.
10 Ticket number 4 is Herschel Specter. Herschel 11 Specter.
12 MR. SPECTER: Good evening. I apologize 13 to the audience. I have put my back to you. I much 14 prefer to directly talk to you, but that isn't 15 possible tonight.
16 What I want to talk about is the 17 decommissioning cost estimates. On page 26 of the 18 staff safety evaluation, "the site-specific 19 decommissioning cost estimate included in the PSDAR 20 was necessary to complete the review of the LTA,"
21 your words. Therefore, if the decommissioning cost 22 estimates are in error, that is something might be 23 omitted that is important, something that was 24 incorrect and unrealistic assumption, all these 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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45 things, if the decommissioning cost estimates are 1
wrong, then the transfer of the licenses are in 2
jeopardy and may be inappropriate. Therefore, I 3
want to talk about five things, if time permits, 4
that point to serious errors in the decommissioning 5
cost estimate.
6 I want to start with the subject of 7
inflation. Inflation is not considered by Holtec in 8
the PSDAR. I'll give you a page and a quote. Page 9
93 of the PSDAR, Section 4.4 on inflation, I quote, 10 "Escalation of future decommissioning costs over the 11 remaining decommissioning life cycle are excluded."
12 However, if you refer to your own regulations, you 13 will find it is required to include inflation.
14 Thank you very much. I hope I've been 15 heard so far.
16 In particular, please refer to Reg.
17 Guide 1.159, which has a section on inflation 18 required. That's an old document, but, more 19 recently, in a NUUREG, NUREG 1700, on page 14, it 20 also talks about the need for inflation.
21 So since inflation was required, I did a 22 little work and I calculated what the impact of 23 inflation would be on the Indian Point 2 24 decommissioning cost estimates, and the number I 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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46 used for the rate was an average of the 1
decommissioning rate for the last ten years, 1.74 2
percent per year, on average, for the last ten 3
years.
4 When you plug that number in, and I have 5
the numbers which I'll submit to the Commission, 6
when you plug that 1.74 percent number in Holtec's 7
own analysis, increasing your rate every year, what 8
you find, you find in 2044 Indian Point 2's 9
decommission trust fund becomes insolvent. In 2044, 10 it becomes insolvent. And when a decommissioning 11 fund becomes insolvent, there's no money left in it.
12 So Holtec or nobody else is going to take money out 13 of the surplus. There is no surplus anytime a 14 decommissioning fund becomes insolvent.
15 So we have a problem with inflation. As 16 a matter of fact, any time, for Indian Point 2, 17 where the average annual inflation rate is larger 18 than 0.8 percent, Indian Point 2's decommissioning 19 trust fund becomes insolvent.
20 The second thing --
21 MR. KLUKAN: I'm sorry, your time has 22 expired. I apologize, I know you had more. I 23 believe it would be appropriate at this time to give 24 those written comments and the NRC will incorporate 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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47 them into the record. Or you can wait and to see if 1
there's more time at the end of the meeting.
2 MR. SPECTER: I'd like to continue later 3
if -- if the others went over as well.
4 MR. KLUKAN: The audience is my time to 5
call it. I'll wait until your time to come again.
6 So, under the rules, everybody gets 7
three minutes at the mic. This is a public board 8
meeting, and I think we're going to end, we'll have 9
plenty of time for everyone who wants to speak.
10 So, let's just go through the other 11 people. And what's left, and you'll get a second 12 opportunity.
13 MR. SPECTER: It's a start.
14 MR. KLUKAN: Okay. All right?
15 MR. SPECTER: I will return later if 16 you'll allow me.
17 MR. KLUKAN: All right. I'll do my 18 best. All right.
19 MR. SPECTER: Thank you.
20 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you, everyone. Okay.
21 Our next speaker is ticket number --
22 PARTICIPANT: Is there no comment from 23 the NRC?
24 MR. KLUKAN: Hold on one second. I'm 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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48 sorry. You're absolutely right. I apologize.
1 They're consulting now. Give it one 2
moment. You can begin.
3 MR. TURTIL: I'm sorry. Okay, yes.
4 Thank you. My name -- Rich Turtil, as I introduced 5
myself earlier.
6 I just wanted to acknowledge, Mr.
7 Specter, I wanted to acknowledge your comments about 8
inflation. And we'll be taking a look at that 9
certainly.
10 But, we also, I want to, of course, 11 mention that the anticipated 2 percent real rate of 12 return, which is reflected in the $2.4, the current 13 balance of $2.4 billion among the three different 14 DTFs, also reflects that increase over inflation.
15 That reflects, the 2 percent real rate 16 of return is that, that you would know, incorporates 17 consideration for inflation.
18 So, between your comment and what we 19 know as the compounding of these investments, I'll 20 take -- we'll be taking a close look at that.
21 MR. SPECTER: I remain to be convinced.
22 MR. TURTIL: Okay. But do please, make 23
-- ensure your comments get into us. Thank you.
24 MR. KLUKAN: All right. Thank you. Our 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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49 next speaker is ticket number three, which is Tina 1
Volz-Bongar. I apologize again for any 2
mispronunciation. But, ticket number three.
3 MS. VOLZ-BONGAR: Thank you. I am here 4
primarily to ask the NRC to use its agency to do 5
whatever it can to follow the risk assessment issued 6
by the New York State -- by New York State, there 7
are three agencies, to shut off the gas of the 8
outgoing pipelines while decommissioning occurs.
9 I want to point out to you after a 10 report was issued by the OIG that the NRC went back 11 and issued -- and reviewed the OIG's report. And in 12 doing so, interviewed Rick Kuprewicz, who is one of 13 the premier national pipeline safety experts in 14 that.
15 And I'm going to give you the transcript 16 that's mentioned in this report. He goes through 17 the absolute catastrophic risks of having this 18 pipeline next to the plant.
19 Everyone likes to say, as soon as those 20 fuel rods are out of the spent fuel pool, there is 21 no risk. That is unilaterally untrue.
22 The risk exists right now. And if -- I 23 lived through 9/11. I think all of us did. We saw 24 those towers come down.
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50 Those buildings were built to resist 1
planes. But, they didn't resist the fuel of those 2
airplanes.
3 So, when you say to me, oh, we can 4
resist the airplane, you know, the impact of an 5
airplane, I think oh, just like the Trade Center 6
did.
7 You know, so anyway, I'd like to submit 8
this official transcript. Because in it, you have 9
actually -- go into the report that was done by the 10 NRC about itself and the OIG.
11 There are these recommendations made.
12 And one of them is to look at the recommendations as 13 an agency that you make.
14 We are looking at a PSDAR that was done 15 in 2019. So, we don't have any of the information 16 that was done, any of this reporting, in the PSDAR.
17 The pipeline is not mentioned in it.
18 You know, and really the NRC at some point is going 19 to have to take responsibility for allowing a risk 20 assessment that didn't really properly cover the 21 dangers that we live with every day.
22 I can see Indian Point from my second 23 floor. This is real to us. You know, you're going 24 to go back to D.C.
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51 You need to really shut this down.
1 (Applause.)
2 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much for 3
your comment. Okay. So, our next speaker will be 4
ticket number six. Ticket number six, which is Mark 5
Fry.
6 MR. FRY: Good evening. My name is Mark 7
Fry. I live not far from here. I thank you very 8
much for providing this opportunity to comment.
9 I've lived in the river towns of 10 Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow and Scarborough Manor and 11 Ossining for a total of 44 years. And I sailed on 12 the river for ten years.
13 I have sailed past Indian Point many 14 times. And sometimes as often as four times a week.
15 So, I know the facility very well.
16 First of all, let me tell you, I'm very 17 happy to see you out here on the long process that 18 the NRC has decided it's time to shut this reactor 19 down.
20 I appreciate all of the work that Holtec 21 has done and all you have done to, up too now, to 22 ensure that it will be done safely.
23 And as an added benefit of 24 redevelopment, I'll be very happy to see all of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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52 those acres returned to productive use. It will be 1
a wonderful place to live.
2 And I'm happy to see the standards you 3
are adopting is for unrestricted use without 4
additional control. Essentially it will be very 5
much on the way, maybe what's encountered 412 years 6
ago.
7 There's going to be a quiz at the end of 8
what I'm saying. Now, the answer is September 14, 9
1609. September 14, 1609 is the answer to the quiz.
10 Now, what some of you already know, 11 based on that answer, the question is, exactly when 12 Mark, did Henry Hudson sail this river a quarter of 13 a mile away from us?
14 And the answer is, all together now, 15 September 14, 1609. What he saw then, is 16 brilliantly represented by the Hudson River School 17 of Painters. The Jasper Proxy Museum in fact is 18 just about two miles south of us.
19 And it was a pristine beautiful river.
20 It's America's most beautiful river. And you have 21 weighty responsibility to help us all bring it back 22 to the pristine -- more, even more pristine beauty 23 that we experienced back then.
24 I should probably note, I published 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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53 these three accounts, which goes back to the 1
Pleistocene era. So, I've got a very good handle on 2
what happened in the last 400 years.
3 I'm a member of Clearwater, Scenic 4
Hudson, River Keepers, and the Hudson River Boat and 5
Yacht Club Association. I do not speak for 6
Clearwater, Scenic Hudson, or River Keepers.
7 But, I wanted to have to tender to you, 8
I spoke with Jerry Silverman who is the President of 9
Hudson River Boat and Yacht Club Association. He 10 regrets that he could not attend tonight, nor could 11 Scott Roth, the public relations director.
12 But, he did ask me if I may just make 13 one very quick comment. To emphasize that they very 14 much agree with the request of River Keepers to ask 15 Holtec, to ask you to require Holtec to revise the 16 cleanup plans to reflect all of the undertakings 17 that have been made in the settlement with New York 18 State Public Service Commission and others in the 19 public service commission proceedings.
20 I'll leave it at that for now. But, 21 that's the most important point that all of those 22 agreements that River Keeper worked so very hard on.
23 And I know that Richard Webster, their 24 legal director, is here this evening. All of us 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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54 would like to see all of those undertakings 1
incorporated by you, the NRC, so that there's clear 2
federal control of exactly what's done. Thank you 3
very much.
4 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. All right.
5 Thank you for those comments again.
6 Our next ticket is number ten. Number 7
ten, that is Matt Salton.
8 MR. SALTON: Hello. Can you hear me?
9 My name is Matt Salton. I am speaking on behalf of 10 Hudson River, City of Clearwater. I promise, 11 there's no quiz on my behalf.
12 I'd like to talk a little bit about the 13 issues of transportation. What we have at Indian 14 Point is almost 2000 tons of highly radioactive 15 waste.
16 And we have a somewhat thought out plan 17 on how to deal with it. The issue is that the plan 18 in the PSDAR is to ship this waste from here in the 19 Hudson Valley down to West Texas.
20 At the current moment, it is not easy to 21 do this. It's fraught with danger and with peril.
22 You can barge it down the Hudson River past New York 23 City, through New York harbor, and down.
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55 enough to do this. I know they're looking into 1
building stronger ones because of the weight.
2 You can put it on a train. But, the 3
trains also have some resistance to this immense 4
weight in the transport gap.
5 Trains have a history of derailing. And 6
would then put for any communities in the path of 7
that train at risk.
8 You could drive it. Although some roads 9
are not able to hold that weight. By law, you're 10 not allowed to drive it on those roads by that way, 11 including New Jersey.
12 The issues of bringing it to West Texas, 13 beyond the danger of the communities along the path, 14 is an issue of justice.
15 The communities in West Texas will now 16 be receiving our waste that they did not produce, 17 simply because they do not have the resources to 18 fight back against it. They did not ask for it.
19 And they do not consent to it.
20 The main issue with consolidated interim 21 storage, is that it is de facto permanent storage.
22 It is the responsibility of the NRC and 23 the United States to find a permanent federal 24 repository, of which there is none currently on the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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56 books or in the near future.
1 These consolidated interim storage 2
facilities will become de facto permanent 3
facilities. And they are not prepared to do so.
4 We ask that the decommissioning process 5
happen in safety and austerity. Thank you very 6
much.
7 (Applause.)
8 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for those 9
comments. We will now have ticket number two.
10 Ticket number two and that is Amy Rosmarin.
11 MS. ROSMARIN: Hi. My name is Amy 12 Rosmarin. Before doing work on a construction site, 13 standard safety practice is to first shut off the 14 gas.
15 Before there is any decommissioning 16 activity at Indian Point, the gas must be shut off.
17 Furthermore, it is irresponsible and outright crazy 18 to let Holtec and Entergy decide when or if to turn 19 off the gas. Their motivations are money, not 20 safety.
21 On another point, I'd also like to know 22 what the NRC is going to do, so that Indian Point 23 does not become a radioactive Love Canal.
24 It is not safe to allow radioactive 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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57 above ground structures to simply be buried under 1
three feet of dirt. And allowing radioactive 2
surface and piping, et cetera, to be buried onsite, 3
like you did at Connecticut Yankee and Main Yankee.
4 Will the underground part of the spent 5
fuel pool and the reactors to be -- will they be 6
removed or will they remain onsite?
7 That's a question. You know, and I just 8
want to finish this, there needs to be total 9
remediation, otherwise Indian Point will become a 10 radioactive Love Canal.
11 So, I want to know if the underground 12 portions of the spent fuel pool, and the reactors, 13 are they going to remain onsite?
14 MR. WATSON: Are you done?
15 MS. ROSMARIN: Yeah. Yes.
16 MR. WATSON: Okay. I just want to make 17 sure you're finished before I respond.
18 MS. ROSMARIN: Yes.
19 MR. WATSON: Okay. First of all, at 20 Maine Yankee and Connecticut Yankee, in particular, 21 Connecticut Yankee had what they called the big dig.
22 They removed millions of cubic feet of 23 dirt and because of underground contaminated pipes, 24 which were also removed. They also removed all the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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58 underground substructures that were contaminated.
1 And only left behind clean foundations.
2 And so these, the dirt and materials 3
that they removed, were obviously a contributor to 4
the groundwater issue they had there at that site.
5 And these sites are all cleaned up.
6 Our dose analysis includes all pathways 7
analysis. Whether it's through the soil, through the 8
groundwater, through the erosion of the soil, 9
through growing of crops there, and possibly 10 drinking the water from the area.
11 And so, it includes a complete dose 12 assessment of the entire site. So, they have to 13 prove to us that there -- the residual 14 radioactivity, including the subsurface, meaning the 15 stuff below ground, meets the criteria for the 16 cleanup for us to terminate the license.
17 Or, to be perfectly clear, shrink the 18 site down to the dry fuel storage. And this 19 occurred at both Maine Yankee and at Connecticut 20 Yankee, and at all the other reactor sites that have 21 been cleaned up and decommissioned.
22 So, it's a --
23 MS. ROSMARIN: So, -- so they will be 24 removed?
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59 MR. WATSON: It will be removed, yes.
1 It's the only way you can meet the dose criteria and 2
the NRC requirements for meeting the unrestricted 3
use of site, which is what the Holtec PSDAR says 4
they're going to meet.
5 These details will all be spelled out in 6
the license termination plan, which has yet to be 7
developed and issued. It will probably be out in a 8
number of years.
9 They have to submit it two years before 10 the termination of the -- the request for 11 termination of the license.
12 And it will be a very thick document.
13 It will be very technical. It will include all of 14 the dose modeling, and how they're going to do the 15 measurements.
16 And we will be there to inspect 17 throughout the entire process, to make sure the site 18 is cleaned up. Okay? Thank you.
19 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your 20 questions and comments. Our next speaker will be 21 ticket number 62. Ticket 62, Marie Inserra.
22 MS. INSERRA: Hello. Thanks for the 23 opportunity to say something. My name is Marie 24 Inserra. I live in Peekskill, New York, within a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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60 very short distance from Indian Point.
1 I'd like --
2 Sure. Okay. I'd like to start by 3
quoting the NRC's mission statement. To license and 4
regulate the nation's civilian use of radioactive 5
materials. To provide reasonable assurance of 6
adequate protection of public health and safety.
7 And to promote the common defense and security and 8
to protect the environment.
9 So, some questions from me. Can we 10 reasonably assume that we're adequately protected 11 when we have been left to coexist with the Indian 12 Point Energy Center for 59 years without a viable 13 evacuation plan?
14 Can we feel -- can we feel assured in 15 regard to the promotion of the common defense when 16 the configuration system for the onsite arrangement 17 of those casks at Indian Point is such -- is it 18 really a more vulnerable outcome, outline for 19 terrorism?
20 Not something that we could possibly 21 copy the example of European countries where they're 22 using much more robust casks and putting them in 23 hardened buildings.
24 And I wonder, since a lot of the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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61 conversation has made it obvious that the cask 1
choice has some -- has a lot to do with transport.
2 And I feel very strongly that we shouldn't be 3
undertaking that.
4 This is a very dangerous situation 5
transport casks with all that radioactive material 6
on a barge and then across country to sites that 7
have been selected. Many of which are in areas of 8
fossil fuel extraction. So, they are more prone to 9
10 And we're dumping this on communities, 11 usually indigenous communities, communities of 12 color, Hispanic communities, who already suffered 13 the blunt of a lot of nuclear industry, based with 14 the nuclear industry.
15 Should we also feel safe when we -- that 16 the com -- with the common wisdom regarding high 17 burn off fuel has been that this highly radioactive 18 fuel should really be allowed seven years to cool.
19 Now, we're being told it's going to be 20 done in a much, much shorter time frame. How safe 21 is that? I don't feel comfortable about that.
22 And then other issues, remediation of 23 the soil. If we're not going to do a really good 24 job of it, then it's not going to be adequate.
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62 And we live here. And we have to live 1
with that. I do think onsite storage long term in 2
tight casks is really the way to go. And we have 3
examples that have been quoted before.
4 My other big concern has been quoted 5
many times by other speakers. And that is the 6
pipeline, which isn't even mentioned in the PSDAR.
7 Three pipelines, two under the plant and 8
one huge pipeline, and the previous, I think the 9
previous speaker, two previous speakers back 10 mentioned, shutting off the gas before you do 11 anything. It's just common sense.
12 But, the fact that these pipelines were 13 permitted, the aim pipeline, the 42-inch pipeline 14 was permitted based on information that's really 15 questionable.
16 And that many, there have been, 17 especially the NRC's findings and the Inspector 18 General's investigation, which found that -- that 19 the information was really retrofitted to give us 20 the -- how the expected or the desired result.
21 This needs to be investigated. And I'm 22 encouraging you to take all of those points of the 23 mission statement seriously to protect the public.
24 And to put that above profits of this plant. Thank 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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63 you.
1 (Applause.)
2 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your 3
comments. Our next speaker is ticket number 58, 4
which is Richard Webster.
5 MR. WEBSTER: Yes, hello. I'm Richard 6
Webster. I'm from River Keeper. Again, thanks for 7
you all to come out and thanks to you for holding 8
this meeting.
9 I had comments about the PSDAR in our 10 report. And I have it in writing and give -- submit 11 comments.
12 But, just a few points. First of all, 13 we do -- we do note, as previously mentioned, that 14 the Aims pipeline was not mentioned at all in the 15 PSDAR.
16 But in the state draft proposal, there 17 are some requirements on that. And that's come to 18 the illustration of why you have not had the joint 19 proposal requirements incorporated into the PSDAR.
20 For instance, another requirement is to 21 go down to millirems, or up to 25 millirems dose.
22 And there are some requirements on the financial 23 side as well in terms of the financial restrictions.
24 And I think it's much better to have 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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64 everything rolled into one document rather than a 1
document of the state and another document for the 2
feds.
3 And then, you know, have the people on 4
each side confused, having two documents to work 5
from. So, I would appreciate -- I look forward to a 6
response on that.
7 Now, on the casks, I think there's a 8
little confusion about this. I know there was a 9
problem in New Jersey at Oyster Creek where one of 10 the lids came off during pressure testing.
11 And there was some little exposure 12 there. I'd like to know what happened? Why it 13 happened, and what -- what other measures have been 14 taken to prevent a recurrence.
15 In terms of cask inspections, I've been 16 told the casks, once they've been fully loaded, have 17 a visual inspection.
18 I don't quite understand how that works, 19 because it's my understanding that there's a 20 multipurpose canister in the center of a concrete 21 over pack and some metal.
22 So, it seems to me that the -- the 23 critical containment is in the bottom of this 24 canister wall. And I don't see how you can inspect 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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65 that without using some other method other than 1
visual.
2 So, I don't know, that's something 3
should be done. And then finally, I do understand 4
that at Oyster Creek also accepted with Lacey 5
Township and required some sort of pit or an over-6 pack to be on standby in case of cask failure.
7 And I don't know the requirements of how 8
that works. So, I would appreciate some 9
enlightenment on how that works.
10 And -- oh yeah, finally, there's a big 11 cost difference in the PSDAR between IP2 and IP3.
12 Given the two reactors are -- are functioning 13 equivalent, it's hard to understand how that 14 happened, why that's the case?
15 And I'd like to have that explanation 16 too, please. Thank you.
17 MR. KLUKAN: Tony, you want to provide 18 some information on his Oyster Creek questions?
19 MR. DIMITRIADIS: Sure. Thank you for 20 your question about Oyster Creek. You had a 21 question and you have made a statement about a lid 22 coming off. That's not -- that's not what happened.
23 The licensee was doing hydrostatic 24 testing. And one of the valves came lose and went 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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66 up. And it did have some contamination at some of 1
the levels.
2 One of the individuals did slightly get 3
contaminated. They decontaminated him and so on.
4 But, the lid did not come off.
5 MR. WEBSTER: So, what's being done to 6
prevent further on that?
7 MR. DIMITRIADIS: We did have follow up 8
inspections. And the licensee actually did an all 9
stop. And took numerous corrective actions to 10 prevent cuts for that.
11 MR. WEBSTER: What were the --
12 MR. DIMITRIADIS: I'm sorry?
13 MR. WEBSTER: What were the various 14 insights?
15 MR. DIMITRIADIS: I don't have a list of 16 them in my mind right now. But, one of them is to 17 ensure that the way that the pressure attachment is 18 attached on it, it was improved to put a number of 19 brackets on there so that it wouldn't come off, 20 basically. Among other things.
21 MS. WARNER: We take very active 22 authority that was put on that.
23 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. Thanks.
24 MS. WARNER: And also to answer a little 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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67 bit about the dry cask storage inspection, so how we 1
do inspect it is from the beginning to the end.
2 So, at the beginning, at the part --
3 during fabrication, NRC headquarters staff goes out 4
and looks at how they're fabricating the casks.
5 Once they're onsite, we do take a look 6
at a sampling of their loading, to see how they're 7
loading it into the casks, sealing it up and putting 8
it on pads.
9 And then later on, we do have aging 10 management inspections. And we do this once the 11 site is after its initial period and evaluation.
12 Does that help a little bit?
13 MR. WEBSTER: Yes. So, explain to me 14 how the aging management inspections were done.
15 MS. WARNER: Now, it's inspect -- it 16 isn't an inspection procedure. I'm not sure if it's 17 fully effective yet. It was in draft form.
18 And we will be implementing it by NRC 19 headquarters staff once the site is beyond the 20 initial period of operation.
21 MR. WEBSTER: How is it done for the 22 current casks?
23 MS. WARNER: Currently, we're still 24 implementing that into our inspection procedures, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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68 because the sites are now just getting going beyond 1
that initial period.
2 MR. WEBSTER: So, do I understand it 3
then, that for the casks that have been, at sites 4
like Oyster Creek and Indian Point, that have been 5
loaded maybe ten years ago, there's been no aging 6
management inspections?
7 MS. WARNER: We do management 8
inspections that are required once the site is, I 9
believe it's 20 years at this time. So, it's not at 10 this time, I don't believe at Indian Point more than 11 20 years.
12 MR. WEBSTER: Okay.
13 MR. KLUKAN: So, thank you for your 14 comments. And we'll also allow you some additional 15 time at the end for follow up.
16 MR. WEBSTER: I'm looking for answers.
17 MR. KLUKAN: I understand.
18 MR. WEBSTER: I've asked a question. As 19 you said, I've just --
20 (Simultaneous speaking.)
21 MR. KLUKAN: There is another time to do 22 that. It's only fair to the other speakers. So, 23 I'll allow you to speak again at the end. So --
24 MR. WEBSTER: I don't want to speak 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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69 again. I want answers.
1 MR. KLUKAN: I understand -- wait, wait, 2
wait. I understand you're becoming angry. Unless I 3
remove -- at some point, I call all the names who 4
haven't commented yet. Those people have questions 5
as well.
6 So, a lot of you came tonight to be able 7
to talk. I'd like to give those people a fair 8
chance. Every single one of them came to be 9
listened to.
10 And then, if after time --
11 PARTICIPANT: But he didn't receive 12 that. He was within his time.
13 MR. KLUKAN: His time was up.
14 MR. WEBSTER: Yeah. But, was -- I 15 finished well within my time, to provide time for 16 answers.
17 MR. WATSON: And you had follow up 18 questions too. I --
19 (Simultaneous speaking.)
20 MR. KLUKAN: Right. I want to -- I 21 don't want to -- I want to do it efficiently and 22 effectively for everyone.
23 PARTICIPANT: And you're talking.
24 You're talking. You're talking.
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70 MR. WEBSTER: I'm not making thoughts.
1 These are my initial questions. If you noted my 2
initial questions, and I'm still waiting answers to 3
my initial questions.
4 I haven't asked a single follow up.
5 MR. WATSON: Well listen. We've 6
listened to your questions. We're trying to answer 7
the ones that we can fairly quick that you --
8 MR. WEBSTER: Okay.
9 MR. WATSON: That we feel like you want 10 urgent answers to, such as the Oyster Creek 11 question.
12 We've done that. I was going to respond 13 to one of your other questions. And then maybe 14 we'll get back to them.
15 But, the -- the point I want to make to 16 you is that the New York State and Holtec agreement, 17 the NRC is not privy to that. We're not a partner 18 in that.
19 And I think that the level of details 20 that are in there are probably not appropriate for a 21 PSDAR, which is basically a broad outline of what 22 their plans are for the decommissioning.
23 I do believe that such as the dose 24 criteria and other things that they've agreed to, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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71 will eventually be in the license termination plan, 1
because they're going to have to demonstrate to the 2
state that they're going to meet those.
3 So, I think it's, at this point it's too 4
early to have those types of details in the PSDAR.
5 But, I do expect many of them will be in the license 6
termination plan so that they can demonstrate to the 7
state that they're going to do things that they 8
agreed to.
9 So, I appreciate your comments. So, 10 thank you very much.
11 MR. WEBSTER: Thank you. Anything on 12 Lacey Township? How does that work? The over-pack 13 and the fit?
14 MS. STERDIS: So this is a meeting 15 that's focused on Indian Point. And so I don't 16 think it's appropriate for us to get into those 17 discussions. But we will take your comment back and 18 we will work to get you an answer to some of those 19 questions as it pertains to Indian Point. Those 20 negotiations are --
21 MR. WEBSTER: The question on Indian 22 Point, do we need the same contingency plan at 23 Indian Point?
24 MS. STERDIS: For the -- so we don't 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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72 believe what we agreed to at Oyster Creek was 1
necessary for safety. We believe there's a path 2
forward should there be down road and a very long 3
time from now a need to deal with some kind of 4
problem with the cask that we cannot even foresee at 5
this time based on our design on our aging 6
management programs and on the oversight that we're 7
doing. But just like everything that's in the joint 8
proposal was not important to Lacey Township and 9
didn't get negotiated, they had different priorities 10 and you did too. So we do have a plan for how we 11 will deal with problems that should there down the 12 road be any issues with the canisters.
13 MR. WEBSTER: Good. We would appreciate 14 knowing what it is. Thank you.
15 MS. STERDIS: Oh, I can tell you what it 16 is. It will be a -- there will be a way that we 17 would encompass the canister in another layer if we 18 needed to, to make it safe. There's -- we've talked 19 about that on the Pilgrim NDCAP meetings. There's 20 information out there publicly that talks about 21 that.
22 MR. WEBSTER: Okay. Maybe we should --
23 I'll give my copy. We should follow up after this.
24 Thank you.
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73 MS. STERDIS: Yes, that's fine.
1 MR. KLUKAN: Okay.
2 (Applause.)
3 MR. KLUKAN: So what I'm going to try to 4
do because I don't -- we don't know if this is going 5
to work or not. I want to get through everyone in 6
the room who has signed up to speak. I want to get 7
through everyone in the room who has signed up to 8
speak first before I go to the phone for fear that 9
it may not still be working.
10 But we will try to go to the phone after 11 we get through everyone who speaks. That's why I'm 12 trying to make sure that everyone who came into the 13 room tonight gets an opportunity to speak that 14 wanted to because I will have to go to the phone at 15 some point. All right. So our next speaker is 16 number 57, and that is -- well, Paul, did you donate 17 your ticket? Okay. So Michel Lee.
18 MS. LEE: Good evening. Whoops. I'm 19 not very good with tech here. I'm just going to 20 hold it. I feel like I should start singing. You 21 know, it's really dawning on me listening here 22 perhaps there's the following problem.
23 The NRC staffers feel very impinged 24 because the site has to be decommissioned. You have 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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74 limited options for dealing with the waste. There's 1
no long-term repository in sight.
2 The interim waste site which Holtec has 3
proposed, unless there's some sort of a very corrupt 4
thing going on, that may not go forward. The state 5
of New Mexico is opposed to it. The state of Texas 6
is opposed to it because the way it will be 7
transported in that region.
8 There are extreme environmental justice 9
issues. In fact, it's really rather despicable to 10 think that -- to propose the idea of taking these 11 tens of metric tons of nuclear waste from sites that 12 have benefitted financially supposedly from it for 13 years and dumping it on a low income minority 14 community that is already subject to egregious 15 levels of pollution from other nuclear activities as 16 well as the Permian Basin activities as well as 17 heavy mining. These populations are poor. They're 18 sick, and they have very little political power.
19 So let me tell you that the 20 environmental rights movement around the country is 21 mobilizing to oppose that site. So let's just 22 pretend that some sort of ethics come into play here 23 and that does not open up. The waste is going to be 24 here for a very long time.
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75 And in fact, even if that site does open 1
up, I'm just going to read some things from the 2
Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. Take off my 3
glasses here. However, transporting large 4
quantities of spent nuclear fuel has not been done 5
in this country and will require significant 6
planning and coordination by DOE, although they note 7
that there have been small scale movements by Navy 8
fuel. The Board observes, unresolved technical 9
issues could significantly delay or impeded the 10 implementation of a national transportation program 11 for radioactive waste, another thing.
12 The large size, broad scope in 13 geological -- geographic distribution, da, da, da, 14 da, make resolving the technical and integration 15 issues associated with a nationwide transportation 16 effort a significant challenge. And then the Board 17 goes on to identify 23 technical issues regarding 18 spent fuel for every site in the country that needs 19 to be addressed. So please, I'm just asking NRC to 20 start being honest with the public and hold the 21 licensee to be honest as well. Thank you.
22 (Applause.)
23 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much for 24 your comment. Our next speaker will be number 56, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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76 56, Shanna Geiringer.
1 MS. GEIRINGER: Hello. My name is 2
Shanna Geiringer. I'm a representative of Hudson 3
River Sloop Clearwater as well as a student at 4
Vassar College in Poughkeepsie and a resident of New 5
York City. I just wanted to bring up a concern that 6
I have and echo a concern that others have made 7
previously about inadequate site remediation.
8 The preliminary PSDAR indicates that 9
Holtec does not plan on remediating the -- sorry.
10 Holtec does not plan on remediation after known 11 groundwater and -- sorry -- after known -- after 12 radiological contamination that has been known to 13 occur -- that has been known in groundwater and 14 Hudson River. And the plans for remediation of the 15 soil is also quite superficial. I just wanted to --
16 I'm very concerned about this and wanted to -- and 17 hope that the Board can ensure that the 18 decommissioning process will result in clean 19 groundwater and soil for the communities surrounding 20 Indian Point such as Peekskill which already is 21 subject to health hazards due to Indian Point.
22 Thank you.
23 (Applause.)
24 MR. WATSON: I was just going to comment 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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77 that we already answered the question on the 1
cleanup, that the cleanup will include the entire 2
site, including the subsurface. I also want to 3
mention that we are also looking very hard into the 4
groundwater issues. We had a knowledge management 5
transfer -- it's what we call a knowledge management 6
transfer session at the NRC because our research 7
department, the Office of Research, has been looking 8
at the groundwater issues over the years at Indian 9
Point and had been studying it very rigorously.
10 And next week, we're having -- some of 11 my staff are joining Katherine next week at Indian 12 Point. And in particular, my groundwater expert is 13 coming to review all the data and all the previous 14 reports that have -- and sampling data and 15 everything so we have a complete understanding of 16 the groundwater issues and how those will be 17 remediated and looked at through -- by Holtec and 18 what their plans are. So we have a lot of 19 activities planned along those areas to get very 20 involved in the groundwater issues. So thank you.
21 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. The next 22 speaker will be Steve Hopkins, number 59. Steve 23 Hopkins, number 59. Going once, twice. Number 59.
24 Okay. Our next speaker will be number 54, Susan 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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78 Shapiro.
1 MS. SHAPIRO: Good evening. I think 2
it's time that you and everyone here get a reality 3
check about Indian Point and what you guys are 4
talking about decommissioning. There's a lot of BS 5
being spoken here today that I'd like to clear up.
6 First of all, Indian Point is not like 7
any of the other sites that you mentioned. It's not 8
soil. It's cracked bedrock. We know and you know 9
that there's pollution of radioactive effluent that 10 goes down the size of the Empire State Building 11 under Indian Point. It's leaking into the Hudson 12 River.
13 So your cleanup, I'm glad your expert is 14 coming. I'd like it later on to give me that 15 person's name because if you don't show those maps, 16 you don't know what's going on here. Okay. Let's 17 have another reality check.
18 This waste is not going anywhere. It's 19 staying here on site. Your promise and Holtec's 20 promise to the elected officials and people of this 21 community that this site is going to be cleaned up 22 in three years or that it's ever going to be able to 23 be restored back to being used for any unrestricted 24 purpose is just straight bullshit. That's what it 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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79 is.
1 And it's time to have that reality 2
check. Let's have an honest conversation. Let's 3
not be talking about the joke. You said the reason 4
we want to use these bad, low level casks for 5
Holtec, why you've approved it is because those are 6
-- we want to transport it.
7 You know very well you're lying. Those 8
Holtec casks were never designed for transport.
9 They're not approved for transport. They're not 10 approved for high burnup fuel. So that's a lie that 11 you're continuing to tell the public. Stop it.
12 It's not okay.
13 This will never be a green field. It's 14 not even a brown field. It's a black field. It's 15 contaminated forever. Indian Point has more waste 16 on this site, more groundwater contamination than 17 probably any other plant in the country and you know 18 it. So stop lying to us.
19 Reality check, that this -- you can't 20 move this waste. There's no transportation to move 21 it. There's no place on the planet to move it. The 22 nuclear industry doesn't know what to do with the 23 waste. That's the truth. It's got to stay where it 24 was made. It's got to be stored as safely as 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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80 possible using best technology available where it 1
was made.
2 Reality check, you can't transfer 3
liability. You can't transfer. You can't waive 4
liability of Entergy who created the problem. While 5
you created it by allowing them to continue to leak 6
radiation into the ground, there was a decision made 7
to allow for the strontium and the cesium to 8
continue to lead instead of cleaning it up. And you 9
well know that in 2005. It continued until this 10 plant shut down. It's still in the ground.
11 Reality check, the high burnup fuel 12 cannot be moved out of the spent fuel pools for at 13 least seven years. For you to even say three years 14 is a lie, and it's inconsistent. And stop lying.
15 It's ridiculous.
16 Financial viability of Holtec, let's 17 have a reality check there. They're a shell 18 company. They're going to go belly up. They're 19 going to go bankrupt.
20 Who's going to hold the bag on this 21 cleanup? You're giving us their -- our money.
22 You're giving them our money. That's not okay. I 23 have two more things.
24 We continue to have to need an 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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81 evacuation plan. You're going to allow them to dig 1
on the site where there's high level of gas, 2
pipelines with all that and deconstruction 3
activities. You wouldn't let a person dig anywhere 4
near a pipeline -- a small pipeline. And you're 5
going to allow all this construction activity and 6
deconstruction activity on the site with the pipes 7
still open? That's ridiculous. It's time to stop 8
that.
9 And the PSDAR is an insufficient 10 document as it does not deal or even mention the 11 pipeline in any way. And once again, the biggest 12 lie of all is that this waste at Indian Point is not 13 part of the decommissioning. The waste is a federal 14 government responsibility. You should not be using 15 our money to do anything with this waste. Thank 16 you.
17 (Applause.)
18 MS. SHAPIRO: I'd like the name of the 19 person who's in your decommissioning, your 20 groundwater expert that you said is coming. Who's 21 the team? Because if you think that this site can 22 be cleaned up, you don't know what you're talking 23 about. Who's the person? What's the person's name?
24 MR. WATSON: It's a member of my staff, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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82 Randall Fedors.
1 MS. SHAPIRO: Say it again.
2 MR. WATSON: Randall Fedors.
3 MS. SHAPIRO: Fedors? Do you have a 4
number for him?
5 MR. WATSON: He's in the phone book.
6 It's on the NRC website. You can find him.
7 MS. SHAPIRO: Fedors?
8 MR. WATSON: Yeah.
9 MS. SHAPIRO: F-E-T-T-E-R-S?
10 MR. WATSON: F-E-D-O-R-S.
11 MS. SHAPIRO: Thank you.
12 MR. WATSON: He's a groundwater expert 13 and actually did Yucca Mountain and other very 14 complex facilities. He's a well published 15 groundwater hydrologist.
16 MS. SHAPIRO: I can't hear what you're 17 saying.
18 MR. WATSON: Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, he is 19 a groundwater expert. He's well published. And 20 he's actually the lead groundwater person for Yucca 21 Mountain. And so he's coming -- yeah, so I'm just 22 saying --
23 MS. SHAPIRO: And you know Yucca 24 Mountain failed because the court said that the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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83 groundwater was going to be contaminated and it 1
could not be protected.
2 MR. WATSON: We need to do an assessment 3
of what we think can be done and what Holtec is 4
going to do about it.
5 MS. SHAPIRO: So have you provided him -
6 7
MR. WATSON: So I'm not committing to 8
any --
9 MS. SHAPIRO: -- with all the maps? Do 10 you have all the maps of all the leaks that we have 11 that you provided us in the past? Are you giving 12 him the full file of what's going on in -- what's 13 has happened in Indian Point?
14 MR. WATSON: Yes, we are going to be 15 looking at the entire file at the site. So thank 16 you very much.
17 MS. SHAPIRO: There have been maps that 18 we've seen since 2002 of groundwater contamination 19 at Indian Point. There are a large variety of maps.
20 If you need copies of them, I'm happy to provide 21 them.
22 (Applause.)
23 MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Thank you again for 24 those comments. Our next ticket is number 53, Susan 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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84 Van Dolsen. I'm now going to erase this board and 1
put up the new ticket numbers. So that's what I'm 2
doing. Please, whenever you're ready.
3 MS. VAN DOLSEN: Hi. My name is Susan 4
Van Dolsen. Thanks for letting me speak. As Indian 5
Point transitions to this decommission phase, we 6
residents are extremely concerned about the new 7
threats to our safety.
8 We have not had our concerns addressed 9
by the NRC in the past, so we aren't optimistic that 10 tonight will be any different. I've been to NRC 11 meetings for at least seven years and have raised 12 issues about the pipeline. And they have fallen on 13 deaf ears.
14 The pipeline approval is based on false 15 information, should never have been approved or put 16 in service. There is a mistaken belief that now the 17 reactors are shut down, we should not have any more 18 worries. That couldn't be further from the truth.
19 Decommission will involve heavy 20 equipment. And anyone who begins any construction 21 activities knows it is wise and necessary to shut 22 off the gas. But the PSDAR from Holtec didn't even 23 mention the gas pipelines.
24 Will the gas be shut off or not?
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85 Nationally recognized pipeline expert Richard 1
Kuprewicz prepared a report for the town of Portland 2
several years ago and has commented on this pipeline 3
for at least eight years. On March 19, 2020, the 4
NRC convened a meeting after the OIG released its 5
report about the egregious miscalculations in the 6
Entergy and NRC risk analyses. Mr. Kuprewicz's 7
statements at that meeting include, quote, rupture 8
is an imperfection that is in the pipeline that 9
causes almost instantaneous mechanical failure of 10 the pipe, either at the weld or pipe body.
11 This failure occurs in microseconds but 12 basically ruptures as the pipe fractures in 13 tremendous force because of the compressible nature 14 of gas. And so you generate these huge craters and 15 pipe shrapnel that may or may not ignite. More 16 likely, it will ignite.
17 It can generate its own ignition source.
18 But you end up with releases of massive force that 19 generate and throw tons of dirt and pipe steel 20 around. And then it will end up generating usually 21 a fire ball.
22 So what does the NRC think will happen 23 during decommission when the radioactive material or 24 all those material you're talking about being buried 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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86 under the soil? What's going to happen if the 1
pipeline ruptures and all of that is spewed around 2
as Mr. Kuprewicz stated?
3 Certainly this must be taken very 4
seriously, and the gas must be shut off. We know 5
that there are many other agencies in the federal 6
government that need to weigh in, and we are working 7
with them and our federal representatives. And this 8
must be remedied as soon as possible. Thank you.
9 (Applause.)
10 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your 11 comments. Our next speaker will be ticket number 8, 12 and that is Susan Lifer or Leifer.
13 MS. LEIFER: Can I give him my time?
14 MR. KLUKAN: So he already spoke. You 15 can give it to someone who hasn't spoken yet. We're 16 likely going to --
17 MS. LEIFER: Okay, good.
18 MR. KLUKAN: Okay.
19 MS. LEIFER: Hi. My name is Susan 20 Leifer, and I live in Pleasantville. I've leaved in 21 this area for over 40 years. I'm very concerned 22 about the state of overseeing.
23 We've had two resident NRC people in 24 Indian Point. We're now giving this thing over to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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87 Holtec which is not experienced, has had a bad 1
record of lying, bribing, cutting corners. And 2
we're leaving us with no resident person in the 3
vicinity living next to the plant.
4 I understand we have a pipeline that's 5
not being watched. We have a decommissioning that's 6
not being watched. I don't understand what is going 7
to happen to this.
8 (Applause.)
9 MS. LEIFER: Anybody want to talk to it?
10 MR. WATSON: I'm sorry. Do you have a 11 question?
12 MS. LEIFER: Yes, the question is, how 13 in the world can you possibly engage in the idea of 14 not protecting us better? Just because it's not 15 your responsibility, it's somebody else's 16 responsibility?
17 MR. WATSON: No, the NRC takes 18 responsibility. We are authorized under the Atomic 19 Energy Act as amendment to be an independent safety 20 regulator of the nuclear industry. And it's not 21 only to reactors, but special nuclear materials --
22 (Simultaneous speaking.)
23 MS. LEIFER: But it doesn't end when you 24 leave. It's still dangerous. It still has --
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88 MR. WATSON: Well --
1 MS. LEIFER: It still has gas. If you 2
live in that vicinity, there's no evacuation plans.
3 If something happens in Indian Point, New York State 4
is going to go down. And if New York State goes 5
down, the whole country is going to wobble.
6 New York State -- the 50-mile radius for 7
any kind of thing that will happen includes all your 8
airports, includes all of Manhattan, includes a 9
great many other places. You're going to put 20 10 million people in jeopardy because this doesn't have 11 to be watched anymore?
12 MR. WATSON: Well, all I can really 13 respond to is that the plant is in a much safer 14 situation now that the plant is shut down and --
15 (Simultaneous speaking.)
16 MS. LEIFER: But with the gas pipeline, 17 it's not any much safer.
18 MR. WATSON: The gas pipeline has been 19 there for a long time --
20 (Simultaneous speaking.)
21 MS. LEIFER: Yes, two old gas pipelines 22 that are ready to go and one new high pressure gas 23 line.
24 MR. WATSON: I really don't know how to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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89 1
(Simultaneous speaking.)
2 MS. LEIFER: So everybody is washing 3
their hands of it.
4 MR. WATSON: No, the NRC will do its 5
role for safety of the site.
6 MS. LEIFER: Right.
7 (Simultaneous speaking.)
8 MS. LEIFER: And then when you leave, 9
it's not safe anymore.
10 MR. WATSON: Well, we will continue to 11 inspect the site, including --
12 (Simultaneous speaking.)
13 MS. LEIFER: Will you have --
14 MR. WATSON: And we will continue to 15 inspect the fuel to make sure it stays in a safe 16 condition.
17 MS. LEIFER: Will you have resident 18 people on site?
19 MR. WATSON: There's no need to have 20 resident people there full time, especially --
21 (Simultaneous speaking.)
22 MS. LEIFER: I would disagree with that.
23 MR. WATSON: Thank you.
24 (Applause.)
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90 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your comment.
1 Our next ticket will be number 51, Courtney 2
Williams.
3 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes. I just have a few 4
questions that I'm hoping to get brief answers.
5 One, how many times does the word, pipeline, appear 6
in the PSDAR? How many pipelines run under the 7
property at Indian Point?
8 How many nuclear power plants have been 9
decommissioned within 4,000 feet of an elementary 10 school? Has a school ever been contaminated by 11 decommissioning activities? How would we know if 12 our schools were contaminated by decommissioning 13 activities?
14 MR. WATSON: The first question was, how 15 many times is the pipeline mentioned in the PSDAR?
16 It is none. It's a document that may address all 17 the safety issues. It's mainly a report on their 18 plans. We will continue to inspect the plant. We 19 have reviewed the pipeline and it was determined to 20 be safe for the operation of the plant. It will 21 remain safe for the --
22 MS. WILLIAMS: I do want to get --
23 MR. WATSON: Excuse me. Let me finish 24 my -- your answer.
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91 MS. WILLIAMS: So you answered that one 1
with zero.
2 MR. WATSON: Yeah, and I'm trying to 3
answer your --
4 MS. WILLIAMS: And how many pipelines 5
are there?
6 MR. WATSON: I'm trying to answer your 7
questions. Okay?
8 MS. WILLIAMS: I think you're trying to 9
run down the clock on my questions.
10 MR. WATSON: No, there's no time period 11 on me. I can respond as long as I choose. I'm 12 sorry.
13 MS. WILLIAMS: Oh, that didn't happen 14 with --
15 MR. WATSON: But well, no, I'm not going 16 to respond long for anyone. Okay.
17 MS. WILLIAMS: Oh, okay.
18 MR. WATSON: But the plant is determined 19 to be safe with the pipeline there. It'll be safe 20 during decommissioning. We'll continue to inspect 21 the areas of those plants. The plant has been 22 refueled and modified numerous times over the year 23 without impacting the pipeline. We'll continue to 24 make sure that's done. The pipeline company will 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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92 make sure the pipeline will remain safe.
1 MS. WILLIAMS: And there's -- how many 2
pipelines were there?
3 MR. WATSON: I believe there's --
4 MS. WILLIAMS: You're saying pipeline, 5
singular.
6 MR. WATSON: I believe there's two or 7
three.
8 MS. WILLIAMS: Two or three? Okay.
9 MR. WATSON: One of them crosses part of 10 the property and one is a little farther out. And 11 then I think one crosses some part of the road 12 that's used for transportation. So we'll continue 13 to look at those areas in making sure that any 14 precautions that need to be taken in consultation 15 with the pipeline are taken into account by Holtec.
16 I'm trying to remember your other questions.
17 MS. WILLIAMS: How many --
18 MR. WATSON: Schools near -- elementary 19 schools nearby, I believe there's one adjacent to 20 the property at Vermont Yankee. I'm not necessarily 21 familiar with all the plants, but I know there's one 22 adjacent to Vermont Yankee.
23 MR. DIMITRIADIS: It's closed.
24 MS. WILLIAMS: The elementary --
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93 MR. WATSON: Yeah, and it's closer than 1
the other one, yeah.
2 MS. WILLIAMS: -- school is closed?
3 That's interesting.
4 MR. WATSON: And it remained safe during 5
all decommissioning activities there. So --
6 MS. WILLIAMS: My --
7 MR. WATSON: -- you have too many 8
questions for me to recall, but I'm trying to --
9 MS. WILLIAMS: So my other one was how 10 do you know if contamination takes place at an 11 elementary school?
12 MR. WATSON: The plant will continue to 13 have an extensive environmental monitoring program 14 throughout the decommissioning. And so they will 15 continue to monitor the environmental and ensure 16 that radioactive materials or materials that are 17 released from the plant are free of radioactivity.
18 MS. WILLIAMS: And has an elementary 19 school ever been contaminated by decommissioning 20 activity?
21 MR. WATSON: Not from an NRC facility.
22 MS. WILLIAMS: But it has happened?
23 MR. WATSON: Well, I can only speak for 24 the NRC. For the NRC facilities, this is true. I 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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94 believe there may have been one DOE facility that 1
may have contributed --
2 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, that would be Zahn's 3
Corners --
4 MR. WATSON: Yeah, but that's not --
5 MS. WILLIAMS: -- Middle School.
6 MR. WATSON: -- an NRC regulated 7
facility. So I really can't speak to that.
8 MS. WILLIAMS: Okay.
9 MR. WATSON: So thank you very much.
10 (Applause.)
11 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your 12 comments. Our next speaker will be ticket number 13 60, number 60, and that is John Sullivan.
14 MR. SULLIVAN: Thank you. I just want 15 to start with a quick question or a quick answer 16 that the NRC is funded by Congress but is required 17 by law to recover 90 percent of its costs through 18 fees that it charges for its licenses and permits.
19 Is that accurate?
20 MR. WATSON: I don't recall the exact 21 number.
22 (Simultaneous speaking.)
23 MR. SULLIVAN: I'm getting a shake of 24 the head from the gentleman back there. And in 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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95 fact, the industry that is being regulated is paying 1
the agency that is regulating it, right?
2 MR. WATSON: That's not how Congress set 3
us up. That's not how we're set up.
4 (Simultaneous speaking.)
5 MR. SULLIVAN: I understand that. I 6
understand this is law and this is not you guys.
7 Okay?
8 (Simultaneous speaking.)
9 MR. SULLIVAN: You guys are employees 10 like many of us are.
11 MR. WATSON: The fees do not fund our 12 budget. The fees go back into the Treasury. And we 13 are authorized an annual budget --
14 MR. SULLIVAN: Right, right. So --
15 MR. WATSON: -- from the Congress each 16 year.
17 MR. SULLIVAN: So you're not going to 18 get --
19 MR. WATSON: There's no direct --
20 MR. SULLIVAN: -- Holtec coming and pay 21 you money. It's going to go to Treasury, and 22 Treasury then will fund you.
23 MR. WATSON: Yeah, there's no direct 24 turnaround fees to the NRC.
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96 MR. SULLIVAN: All right. So I'll just 1
summarize real quickly what I wrote which I started 2
with the AEC back in '47 and about how basically our 3
policy has been aggressive development of nuclear, 4
first nuclear weapons. And then in '54, we had 5
private civilian reactors. And it wasn't until '74 6
actually when even under Richard Nixon they had to 7
admit the AEC was so corrupt that you guys were 8
born. The NRC was established by law.
9 I went into a couple of incidences that 10 you guys had. The day of Fukushima, you guys 11 extended the Vermont Yankee license by 20 years even 12 though there was a leak under the plant. The GAO 13 actually set up a shell company that you guys gave 14 the license permits to that you never saw. And it 15 allowed them to acquire enough to make a dirty bomb.
16 So the whole point being basically that 17 it's set up so that expansion is the whole driving 18 force here. Okay? I'll read the last paragraph.
19 It's important to understand that from the beginning 20 and up to the most recent incident, it was decreed 21 where Holtec was given a slap on the wrist for not 22 following the NRC recommendation, an incident that 23 allowed a worker to be splashed with coolant water, 24 that the primary goal of the NRC as with the AEC 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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97 before it is the expansion of nuclear power.
1 Public safety concerns only come to the 2
forefront when the expansion is threatened. So it 3
makes sense that the PSDAR does not include funding 4
for offsite monitoring of radioactive tests in 5
schools nor adequate funding nor notification for 6
coordination of the local emergency and government 7
response, nor that Holtec did not know the gas 8
pipelines under the plant when it was granted the 9
license transfer, nor is there any attempt to 10 seriously slow the effects of the decommissioning on 11 the active gas pipelines. The only provision is 12 that Enbridge will be notified or that an important 13 violation of federal law and certainly environmental 14 justice the NRC is considering granting a permit for 15 a CIS facility in the primary basin.
16 Funding and measures to protect the 17 environment and public will threaten the U.S.
18 government's fiction that nuclear can be safe and 19 cheap but be of no concern to its citizens and 20 continue to grow despite growing evidence to the 21 contrary. And we have begun to count the cost of 22 long-term storage of spent fuel. So thank you.
23 (Applause.)
24 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your comment.
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98 Our next speaker will be ticket number 1, ticket 1
number 1, Henry Kelly. Thank you.
2 MR. KELLY: Okay. My name is Henry 3
Kelly. My wife Corrine and I live in Ossining, 4
roughly ten miles south of Indian Point, for 35 5
years. I have multiple comments and questions.
6 The PSDAR issued back in 2019 -- thank 7
you -- has not been updated. I find that kind of 8
strange, and I'd like to know why given the 9
importance of this. And that's a question you can 10 hold to the end.
11 That document meticulously quotes some 12 timelines, disturbingly avoided the outline of risks 13 and the planning analysis that would be expected if 14 a demolition project involving material 15 radiologically contaminated for decades. The added 16 risk of co-located high pressure gas pipelines is 17 not even mentioned. The term, community public 18 safety, was never once even mentioned in the 19 document.
20 Holtec cites the NRC generic 21 environmental impact statement, yet Holtec says 22 decommissioning of nuclear plants poses no added 23 risk while the NRC GEIS itself clearly states the 24 decommission increases the risk of potential release 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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99 of radiological material. See Section 4.3.9.2 of 1
NUREG-0586, Supplement 1. It says that when you 2
decommission because you're not doing standard 3
procedure causes there to be more opportunity for 4
release.
5 If decommissioning of nuclear power 6
plants is so without risk and the materials involved 7
are so mundane and undangerous, why is it so 8
expensive to do this work? The answer, while 9
avoided in the PSDAR, is simple. It's the 10 radiation.
11 Winds, rain, storms will hit the site 12 during decommissioning. Material will become 13 airborne and adrift offsite. There's no smell, no 14 taste, no sound, not visible, but poisonous to 15 humans.
16 Where is the document that describes how 17 the surrounding communities will be protected from 18 and, if necessary, alerted to an incident that 19 impacts public health? The NSC does not mandate 20 Holtec to provide and operate offsite radiological 21 monitoring. Why? Why is that possible if you're 22 going to be tearing up this site and you're going to 23 be getting stuff airborne that there's no plan for 24 offsite monitoring?
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100 (Applause.)
1 MR. KELLY: Holtec should be installing 2
or need to install multiple rings of sensors out to 3
15 miles of all directions around Indian Point as 4
well as airborne sensors over the site itself to 5
continuously report on amounts and directions of 6
isotopes moving off the site. The public needs open 7
access to that information as well. On the ground -
8 9
(Applause.)
10 MR. KELLY: On the ground at the site 11 itself, will all materials be immediately put in 12 containers or covered and put in open piles?
13 There's nothing in the PSDAR that says anything 14 about this. And what physical intervals will 15 monitor instruments placed on the site?
16 What stop work protocols will be in 17 place if radiological levels rise? And what 18 emergency response plans will be in place? Twenty-19 four/seven monitoring must be required for work of 20 this magnitude that impacts the health and future of 21 tens of thousands of people in surrounding 22 communities.
23 This is simply part of the job, and it 24 should be part of the cost. Public safety is job 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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101 number one. It's not an afterthought.
1 (Applause.)
2 MR. KELLY: The NRC, you folks, have an 3
obligation to the community, to the citizens to 4
ensure that. Thank you.
5 (Applause.)
6 MR. KLUKAN: All right. Thank you for 7
your comment. Our next speaker --
8 PARTICIPANT: There was a question about 9
monitoring.
10 MR. WATSON: I think we answered that 11 before that the environmental monitoring program 12 will continue at the plant.
13 (Simultaneous speaking.)
14 MR. WATSON: Well, I wouldn't go into 15 that detail at this particular meeting because it 16 includes the existing program as it exists today.
17 They'll continue that program for monitoring the 18 plant, all the effluence, and all the activities 19 associated with the decommissioning activities. The 20 licensee is required to comply with all federal 21 standards, whether they're NRC's, EPA's for dust or 22 fugitive dust emissions or whatever. But they have 23 to still comply with our requirements in 10 CFR 20 24 for all effluence from the site.
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102 They also have a program for monitoring 1
and ensuring that radioactive material is not 2
released through the materials that they release 3
from the plant and to treat the things that are 4
contaminated as contaminated material and dispose of 5
them as radioactive waste. So in the same respect 6
that I understand his concerns and people's 7
concerns, but nothing is really going to change with 8
the plant being decommissioned. The licensee is 9
still going to be responsible for monitoring and 10 controlling all effluence from the plant --
11 (Simultaneous speaking.)
12 MR. WATSON: -- whether they're through 13 the air. They have existing monitors. Through 14 discharges from the liquid processes, they have 15 monitors and have technical specifications and 16 environmental requirements for those. So I don't 17 know that I can answer in any more detail than that 18 at this point. So I'm just saying that things are 19 still --
20 (Simultaneous speaking.)
21 MR. WATSON: The plant remains safe as 22 it was in operations for these types of programs and 23 will continue into decommission. So I mean, that's 24 the simplest answer that I can give you is that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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103 things don't change. They're going to continue to 1
monitor and we'll continue to inspect the plant to 2
make sure they're complying with those standards.
3 Okay?
4 So I appreciate the concerns, but things 5
aren't really going to change for the long term here 6
with the decommission. It's been done safely at 7
over 80 complex material sites in the country, 8
almost 80. And also that includes 10 power 9
reactors. We're in the process of completing 4 10 other power reactors. And so we've demonstrated 11 that our program works and it protects the people 12 and the environment.
13 And so I don't know how else I can 14 answer the question. So I appreciate it. I 15 understand the concerns. But we have programs in 16 place to make sure that these types of things do not 17 occur. Okay. Thank you.
18 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. It looks like 19 we will not be able to go to the phone tonight. So 20 as a result, based on these number of speakers, we 21 will likely have extra time. So if you have 22 additional questions, you can ask them after we 23 finish our additional round. Okay? So our next 24 speaker number ticket 52, ticket 52, Judy Allen.
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104 MS. ALLEN: Hello. Thank you for having 1
this meeting and letting us talk. We did manage to 2
shut down Indian Point which is an accomplishment 3
for the people, the 20 million people in the 50-mile 4
radius of Indian Point. And I applaud everything 5
that everybody has said. I especially would like to 6
echo everything that Susan Shapiro said. So could 7
you please mark that down twice.
8 My only -- I only have a couple of 9
things here. I wanted to say that I think it's very 10 important that the NRC pay attention to the gas 11 line. It may not have showed up originally in 12 Holtec's plan. But I really think that that's 13 major.
14 The spent fuel casks that are, like, a 15 half inch to five-eighths inch thick are very 16 substandard. In Europe, I believe, they have spent 17 fuel casks that are 10 to 20 inches thick. And if 18 the NRC can do anything about improving the spent 19 fuel casks so that we could have better ones, that 20 would be great.
21 The only other thing that I want to say 22 is that I hear what you say about monitoring the 23 groundwater. However, Indian Point is on the shore 24 of the Hudson River. The Hudson River is an 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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105 estuary.
1 It goes both ways. When the radioactive 2
contamination flows out into the Hudson River, it's 3
drifting down and then it's drifting up and then 4
it's drifting back down again. And I just wonder 5
whether you have a plan to address that 6
contamination aside from the groundwater.
7 And -- oh, I already said that about the 8
gas. So I guess that's it. So I would like to know 9
about how do you address the contamination in the 10 Hudson River? Thank you.
11 MR. WATSON: Well, first of all, we have 12 to establish that there is contamination in the 13 river.
14 PARTICIPANT: That's been established.
15 (Simultaneous speaking.)
16 MR. WATSON: Okay. We'll have to 17 revisit that then. We'll take a look at your 18 comments and look at that. There are certain 19 releases that are authorized by regulations, and we 20 understand that we've also taken some actions on the 21 previous groundwater issues.
22 And so like I said, we're going to be 23 looking at those very -- sorry, I'm running out of 24 words here. But we're going to be taking a very 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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106 hard look at the groundwater issues. And that's why 1
I said we're starting our investigation next week 2
with my staff taking a thorough review so we make 3
sure we understand all the issues so we can 4
understand with Holtec so that those do get properly 5
addressed. So thank you for your concerns.
6 PARTICIPANT: Where will we find that 7
information?
8 MR. DIMITRIADIS: Public inspection 9
reports.
10 MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Thank you again for 11 your questions and comments. Our next speaker will 12 be ticket number 61, and that is Marilyn Elie.
13 MS. ELIE: I'd like to thank you for 14 being here tonight. I'd also like to thank our 15 congressional representatives who compel this 16 meeting since it's not on your list of required 17 public outreach. Listening to you tonight has 18 certainly been very valuable, so thank you.
19 I have -- I have three questions really.
20 The first one has to do with your letter on July the 21 27th which is in regard to how you will be planning 22 your oversight activities.
23 It answers so many questions. So my 24 question to you is really -- and it was listed in 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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107 IMC 2561. Why has it taken us so long to get this 1
information? And why don't more people have it? It 2
came into my mailbox on the 27th. And this has to 3
do with the inspections that you will be doing, 4
questions that people have been asking since we knew 5
the plant was going to close.
6 Now we have a Decommissioning Oversight 7
Board now. If you can't communicate with the 8
public, they are supposed to do that. So how are 9
you communicating with the DOB? Nobody on the DOB, 10 or even if they did get it, didn't get it in time to 11 get it out to us. It's been months since we knew 12 the plant was closing.
13 And on July the 27th, right before this 14 meeting, you sent out a letter that details what 15 you're going to inspect, how often it's going to be.
16 And thank you for the information, but why are you 17 so slow? Okay. How are you going to communicate 18 with the DOB is my first question.
19 The second question, I'm going to just 20 follow up on Judy. First of all, I also want to 21 concur with Susan Shapiro's remarks. So you can 22 mark that down in your column for three. And I'll 23 speak with Judy's monitoring.
24 I want to go back into that because 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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108 there is a pool underneath Indian Point in the 1
bedrock which shattered, as Susan mentioned. That 2
pool is radioactive and it is contaminated. There 3
is no mention of this in the PSDAR.
4 There's no plan about how that pool of 5
radioactive contamination will be remediated. We 6
need to know. Are we just going to cap it? Is that 7
the plan with Holtec?
8 What is the plan? Do you have a plan?
9 If it is, is it in your -- buried in your files 10 somewhere? And when are you going to share it?
11 That's the second question.
12 Judy mentioned that the Hudson flows 13 both ways. Yes, it does. And I asked this question 14 to the NRC before, and the answer I have gotten is 15 that you only monitor what goes in the river 16 downstream.
17 Well, there are plants upstream that get 18 their water from the Hudson. Those plants are 19 Poughkeepsie, Wappingers Falls, Highland, Port Ewen, 20 Village of Rhinebeck, East Fishkill, and parts of 21 Hyde Park. They use that water for their drinking.
22 Now we know it's not a question we have 23 to investigate. There are sample wells on the 24 ground that measure how much contamination is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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109 flowing from the groundwater into the Hudson. Water 1
will sink at some level, and dilution is not the 2
answer to pollution.
3 (Applause.)
4 MS. ELIE: A radioactive isotope is not 5
going to be -- it's not going to dissolve. And if 6
someone inhales it, if someone is swimming and 7
recreating in the Hudson and swallows it, they have 8
inside of them a radioactive isotope that 9
potentially is cancer causing. Now I think 10 everybody on this board -- I can't say you know. I 11 don't know what you know.
12 But having that water go into the Hudson 13 and saying, well, the volume of the Hudson is so 14 vast. You're not putting sugar in the water that 15 dissolves. You're putting in and allowing Holtec to 16 have radioactive isotopes flow into a drinking water 17 for seven different communities.
18 And should there be a problem with water 19 or anything else, New York City also has this as a 20 backup supply. So that's my second question. What 21 are you doing about the river that flows both ways 22 and the communities upstream from Indian Point and 23 monitoring?
24 How can you not -- how -- just I'm not 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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110 going to repeat what Ed said because he was very 1
eloquent. But my question is all it says in the 2
plan to close Indian Point is that monitoring will 3
continue. That is not acceptable.
4 That elementary school needs a monitor.
5 The workers have their dosimeters. What do the rest 6
of us have for something that is invisible and 7
deadly? So that's my third question and I'd like an 8
answer. Thank you.
9 (Applause.)
10 MS. ELIE: DOB was the first question.
11 MR. DIMITRIADIS: Yeah, so the letter 12 dated July 27th, 2021, is that what you're --
13 (Simultaneous speaking.)
14 MS. ELIE: Yes, yes, two days ago.
15 MR. DIMITRIADIS: That's a letter that I 16 believe I signed, Anthony Dimitriadis, second page.
17 MS. ELIE: It's to Mr. Baroni and it's 18 signed by -- sorry -- Anthony M. --
19 MR. DIMITRIADIS: Dimitriadis, that's 20 me.
21 MS. ELIE: -- Dimitriadis, yes.
22 MR. DIMITRIADIS: The purpose of the 23 letter is for the NRC, myself and my staff, to 24 communicate to Mr. Baroni and his staff the changes 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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111 in our oversight that goes from the ROB to the 1
Inspection Manual Chapter 2561 which is the power 2
reactor decommissioning program. And it just 3
reminds everyone, especially Mr. Baroni and his 4
staff, of where the inspection procedures and all 5
the processes, including members of the public so 6
you can see that, where the inspection procedures 7
are listed. So you can take a look at everything in 8
those procedures. They're all public. And 9
basically, it reminds Holtec what program we will be 10 conducting --
11 (Simultaneous speaking.)
12 MS. ELIE: The question I have for you 13 is, yes, your letter is very clear. And it 14 certainly gave me somewhat more confidence that 15 there will be monitoring because that question has 16 not been answered satisfactorily since we knew Unit 17 3 -- Unit 2 and Unit 3 was closing. Has anybody in 18 this room heard anything like he's describing?
19 MR. WATSON: Let me respond --
20 (Simultaneous speaking.)
21 MS. ELIE: And I understand that this is 22 for your one community to -- or one agency to the 23 other. But you have a responsibility to communicate 24 to the public and you're not doing it.
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112 (Applause.)
1 MR. WATSON: Let me respond to you this 2
way. Right now, the two units at Indian Point, Unit 3
2 and 3, are under the offices --
4 (Simultaneous speaking.)
5 PARTICIPANT: Speak into the mic, 6
please.
7 MR. WATSON: Sorry. Right now, the two 8
plants, Indian Point Unit 2 and Unit 3, are under 9
the offices -- Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 10 and have been under the reactor oversight program.
11 This was in my slides. And we're transitioning to 12 the inspection program. Okay?
13 So this is a change in the inspection 14 program. This letter formally notifies the licensee 15 that we're making this change. It's not that we 16 haven't been looking at the decommissioning, but 17 we've been under the ROP as the process for the 18 inspection program. All this letter does is it 19 outlines the fact that we haven't changed and here 20 are our plans for future inspections because at the 21 end --
22 (Simultaneous speaking.)
23 MS. ELIE: You know, I'm going to stop 24 you right there.
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113 MR. WATSON: No, no. I'm saying at the 1
end of the school year, the site will be transferred 2
from NRR which Mr. Guzman is the project manager to 3
my organization which is --
4 (Simultaneous speaking.)
5 MS. ELIE: I understand that. The 6
letter was very clear. However, it has the 7
information that we have been asking for, for 8
months. And you have decommissioned ten power 9
plants. You told me that. This is not a new reg.
10 This is not something new that was just invented.
11 MR. WATSON: But it wasn't appropriate -
12
- applicable until we actually made the formal 13 notification from changing from the ROP now to IMC 14 2561.
15 MS. ELIE: But we didn't --
16 (Simultaneous speaking.)
17 MR. WATSON: -- simple process that 18 we've gone from one inspection program to the other.
19 That's all the letter is displaying. And that's an 20 official change in our inspection program --
21 (Simultaneous speaking.)
22 MS. WARNER: And I should point out --
23 MS. ELIE: And how will you communicate 24 in the future with the DOB?
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114 MR. WATSON: With the?
1 MS. ELIE: With the Decommissioning 2
Oversight Board which has a responsibility --
3 MR. WATSON: We can have a discussion 4
with those -- with the DOB representatives. And we 5
are planning to improve our communications with them 6
in the future. We need to get more coordination.
7 They're fairly new. And also we've always 8
volunteered to come and talk with them and never 9
invited. We made that very clear today. So --
10 (Simultaneous speaking.)
11 MS. ELIE: Well, I will look forward to 12 that.
13 MR. WATSON: You're making pretty much -
14
- you're asking good questions. But we're in the 15 process of making the transition from operations to 16 totally to decommissioning. And that's the normal 17 process we follow.
18 MS. ELIE: I understand it's your normal 19 process. My third question had to do with the river 20 that flows both ways. How is the Nuclear Regulatory 21 Commissioning monitoring the river for upstate 22 communities that get their water from the Hudson?
23 Your policy in the past has been only downstream 24 monitoring.
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115 MR. WATSON: I'll have to look at that.
1 MR. DIMITRIADIS: We look at the 2
environmental monitoring program that the licensee 3
has.
4 MS. ELIE: Look at what?
5 MR. DIMITRIADIS: The environmental 6
monitoring program. Like, we said this a number of 7
times. We look at -- as part of our inspection, we 8
look at the licensee's environmental monitoring 9
program on a routine basis.
10 (Simultaneous speaking.)
11 MS. ELIE: I've asked this question 12 before, and I have been told that you only monitor 13 downstream.
14 (Simultaneous speaking.)
15 MS. ELIE: So what I'd like to know is, 16 has that changed?
17 MR. WATSON: I just can't respond to 18 your question. I have to actually look into it.
19 But like I said, the environmental monitoring 20 program will continue. We'll continue with looking 21 at water, the vegetation, all aspects of the 22 environmental monitoring program as required of the 23 plant. It hasn't changed since the plant has gone 24 into decommissioning.
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116 (Simultaneous speaking.)
1 MS. ELIE: Well, I would appreciate some 2
information about that.
3 MR. WATSON: -- includes not only the 4
downstream but upstream if that's where the 5
effluence goes. And so give us the opportunity to 6
look at that.
7 (Simultaneous speaking.)
8 MS. ELIE: And I do hope -- yes, and I 9
will stop now. I do hope that you will certainly 10 look at that contaminated pool of water underneath 11 the plant that has not appeared in any of the 12 documents. Thank you.
13 (Applause.)
14 MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Our next speaker 15 will be ticket number 12, ticket number 12. That is 16 Karl Jacobs.
17 MR. JACOBS: Hello, everybody. My name 18 is Karl Jacobs. I'm a former employee at Indian 19 Point, Unit 3. I was responsible for the reactor 20 vessel, responsible for the upper and lower 21 internals, repairs, also for FOSAR for the vessel 22 and also for removal and inspections, a ten-year 23 ISI.
24 The concern I have, and deals with both 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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117 Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3, the handling and 1
removal of the lower internals. The lower internals 2
for Unit 2 has over 200 broken baffle -- excuse me, 3
baffle bolts. The formers have not been inspected.
4 The baffle bolts hold the baffles in 5
place which is a structural component. When you're 6
lifting the lower internals -- and I've done this at 7
Indian Point -- and placed it in the stand, it's a 8
highly radioactive component which you all know.
9 You probably know. It's probably 50 R in contact.
10 I've taken these parts out, 10 R, 15 R, 11 which are pretty hot to handle. When you take this 12 out, you could have a load shift. You could have 13 these bolts fail, baffles shift, and you're going to 14 cock the lower internals in place.
15 There is not much clearance, okay, 16 between the vessel wall and the lower internals when 17 you're removing them. So there are no evaluations 18 being done for removing the lower internals, okay, 19 when you have degraded -- which it is, okay --
20 structural components. That's extremely important.
21 When you're removing the lower internals 22 for decommissioning, all right, and you break water 23
-- and which I did there just for normal operations.
24 And I'm talking an inch or two. I've set off the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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118 alarms at Indian Point inside which is expected.
1 All right. That's how hot this component is. So if 2
the NRC is not requiring special evaluations for 3
components that are highly radioactive, that are 4
degraded, you're missing something. Okay. So I 5
just want to --
6 (Applause.)
7 MR. JACOBS: -- bring that to your --
8 Okay. You should have safety evaluations done by 9
Holtec and CDI, whoever is going to do that work, 10 okay, especially on degraded components. And the 11 lower internals at any point too, they know where 12 the broken bolts are. They know the locations. So 13 you can do that evaluation.
14 If you're going to pay Westinghouse, the 15 designer, that's proprietary information. It's a 16 problem. For Indian Point 3, you guys have -- not 17 you guys. No inspection was ever done. You don't 18 know what's broken. You don't know where the 19 locations are and what the stresses are for load 20 lift on that. So hopefully that information is 21 helpful to Holtec. Hopefully you guys take that 22 into consideration, that you need safety evaluations 23 for radiological degraded components in this.
24 (Applause.)
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119 MR. JACOBS: Thank you.
1 MR. KLUKAN: All right. Thank you for 2
those comments and that information. Our next 3
speaker with ticket number 9, Margo Schepart.
4 MS. SCHEPART: Wow. If that was not an 5
incredible demonstration and endorsement of why we 6
need citizen oversight regarding the decommissioning 7
process, wow. I mean, obviously to you, you can see 8
that this room is filled with people who have an 9
amazing amount of institutional memory and 10 scientific knowledge. I've been living in this 11 community for over 60 years. I've been teaching in 12 this community for over 30 years.
13 I'm just one person. I'm, like, really, 14 really, really impressed. So certain things have 15 been repeated over and over and over again.
16 The radiation monitoring, that's a 17 concern. I understand that you have something in 18 place, but it's not enough. I know from speaking to 19 scientists that the kind of radiation monitoring 20 that we need in the elementary school, it's not just 21 sticking the Geiger counter there.
22 I know that it's very, very specific.
23 And don't feel bad if you don't know what that is.
24 I don't know what that is. But that's why we need 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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120 the input of people who do know what it is. And 1
that's why Holtec clearly doesn't know what it is.
2 And it's just so important that we tap into all of 3
the expertise and all of the knowledge and all of 4
the memory of people in the community who have been 5
working for no pay on this issue and gathering 6
information because they care and because -- not 7
because they're being paid.
8 So my question to you is I just found 9
out from you that the post-shutdown plan isn't the 10 be all, end all, that now we have this license 11 termination plan. So my question is we've 12 identified issues, okay, concern about the radiation 13 monitoring, concern about the pipeline not even 14 being mentioned in the post-shutdown plan of Holtec, 15 concern about financial risk to New Yorkers, that 16 New York taxpayers will be left holding the bag.
17 Price Anderson will kick in that if there's a 18 problem with any kind of an accident, considering 19 demolition going on with pipeline explosion 20 possibilities, and the radioactive waste on site 21 which until humanity comes up with a way to 22 neutralize the radioactive waste which I think will 23 happen.
24 I'm little optimistic about that.
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121 That's got to happen and we'll figure out how to get 1
rid of plastic at the same time. But until that 2
happens, we have to use absolute best practices to 3
deal with whatever we have sitting there on site.
4 (Applause.)
5 MS. SCHEPART: It is way, way, way too 6
dangerous to move it. And so my question is, is the 7
-- these concerns, are they going to make it into 8
that license termination plan? Okay. They're not 9
mentioned in the post-shutdown plan.
10 But are they going to be mentioned and 11 in writing and set in black and white so that nobody 12 can backpedal on those that we've all stated --
13 you've heard it a million, million times. And we're 14 not going to let this go. This is not going to 15 slide.
16 All of the things that people -- we know 17 what we're talking about. Okay. We have a big 18 combination of knowledge, and we know what we're 19 talking about. I think you're taking us seriously.
20 I hope you're taking us seriously.
21 (Applause.)
22 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your 23 comments. Our next speaker is ticket number 11, 24 Nancy Vann. And that's ticket number 11.
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122 MS. VANN: Hi. My name is Nancy Vann.
1 And you all usually introduce yourselves, so I'm 2
going to introduce myself just a little bit. I'm a 3
retired Wall Street attorney. I live two miles from 4
Indian Point, and you see I'm walking with a cane.
5 That's because in 1974, I was one of 6
probably ten people in the United States that was 7
wearing a seatbelt when another car ran into me. If 8
I hadn't been wearing my seatbelt in 1974, I 9
wouldn't be here to talk to you and give you a 10 little bit of information about what I see as the 11 risk assessment that you need to do. There's 12 several risk factors at Indian Point, and I brought 13 some props.
14 This penny, that's the fuel pools.
15 Those fuel pools, if there was a fire in the fuel 16 pools, we had assessments that show that on some 17 days the radiation and the evacuation area could go 18 all the way up to Canada. Other times, it goes all 19 the way down to Washington, D.C. And that's where 20 the fuel pools that are still there and still will 21 be containing spent fuel for a long time.
22 This penny, that's the cask and 23 canisters. Those are deteriorating. I've heard 24 that some of them are already beginning to show 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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123 signs of wear. Casks and canisters at other sites 1
such as San Onofre have been scrapped using the same 2
type of loading system that Holtec is using at 3
Indian Point. Only at Indian Point, they would 4
scrap the entire length of the cask and canisters, 5
the canisters going into the cask, not just at the 6
top.
7 The third penny, that's the earthquake 8
risks. You have not one but two earthquake fault 9
lines that run right next to Indian Point. One is 10 the Ramapo fault line and one is the Stamford-11 Peekskill fault line that intersects with the Ramapo 12 fault line about a mile from Indian Point.
13 According to the NRC's own evaluation of earthquake 14 risk following Fukushima, if you look at the chances 15 of every plant in the United States, what the 16 chances are of them suffering damage from an 17 earthquake, the Plant No. 3, Unit No. 3 at Indian 18 Point is the number one risk for being damaged by an 19 earthquake fault.
20 Penny No. 4, that's the new pipeline.
21 It's 42 inches in diameter, and it's extremely high 22 pressure. You've already heard a lot about it, 23 about the evaluation of how far the blast and the 24 firewall could go. It could go past almost all of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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124 the control room and that type of thing at Indian 1
Point. That control room will still have to monitor 2
the flow of water into the pool and many other 3
things. How are you going to run a plant without a 4
control room?
5 This penny is a really old one. That's 6
the two other pipelines that run right under the 7
Indian Point plant, not next to it, under it. One 8
is a 26-inch and one is a 32-inch.
9 Those were put in decades ago, and they 10 have not been checked regularly for faults. We 11 don't know their condition. If the new pipeline 12 exploded or had a rupture, the others would too.
13 And then the last penny that I brought 14 along, each representing the one cent that I think 15 you credit us with knowing about risk, that's for 16 the decommissioning companies, Holtec and SNC-17 Lavalin. I put together a rap sheet for those two 18 companies. And it was pages and pages and pages 19 long, beginning with a ban of SNC-Lavalin by the 20 World Bank, that they couldn't work on any World 21 Bank financed projects for ten years.
22 Then there was a TVA bribery scandal 23 against Holtec, after which Holtec applied for tax 24 exemptions in New York using fraud by not even 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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125 mentioning the fact that they have already been 1
censored. Of course, one of those spectacular 2
events that you might find amusing was that SNC-3 Lavalin was also convicted for smuggling Gaddafi's 4
relatives out of the Middle East and into Mexico.
5 Now if you take all six of these pennies, how many 6
times do you think you would have to flip to have 7
six of them come heads up, no tails, no problem?
8 You see to always think that accidents 9
won't happen. But this represents six entirely 10 different risks, and risks aren't just linear. When 11 you have more than one risk, it exacerbates all the 12 other risks.
13 I would like to challenge any of you to 14 come up here and flip all six and see if they came 15 up the way you wanted it. Maybe one of them would 16 come up tails because it seems like everybody is 17 mainly trying to cover their tails. What we would 18 like is no diminution of the safety requirements.
19 You say that the safety requirements are 20 going to go on as they are. But I know that Holtec 21 and Entergy before it already applied for 22 exemptions. As an SEC attorney, an attorney that 23 went before the SEC, I know that there's rules 24 against regulation by exemption. And those 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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126 exemptions have been granted to every single 1
decommissioning nuclear plant that has ever asked 2
for them.
3 We should not be giving any exemptions 4
to these actors so that they can cut corners, not do 5
the monitoring, not do the types of careful 6
demolition that needs to be done. And the third 7
thing that we need to make sure we do is to stop the 8
gas flow. We cannot have both new and old pipes 9
with bulldozers and backhoes running around over 10 them.
11 Parts of Boston were destroyed by a 12 simple error from one engineer that didn't turn off 13 the right valve. And an entire neighborhood went up 14 in flames with their gas lines exploding. Those 15 were little gas lines that came into people's 16 houses.
17 How are these gas lines going to react?
18 We have a lot of evidence about that, and I hope 19 that you'll pay attention to it. And just to 20 emphasize that accidents do happen, even at nuclear 21 plants, I follow Ed Lyman who is from the Union of 22 Concerned Scientists.
23 And almost every day, he reports an 24 accident or an unintended shutdown at some nuclear 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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127 plant in the United States. That's every day. How 1
many times do we want to risk tossing the coin on 2
that?
3 And as you've already heard, the 4
decommissioning period is much more dangerous than 5
just when the plants are running which is bad 6
enough. If I was ever as lax as a Wall Street 7
attorney representing my clients in front of the 8
SEC, I would've been fired immediately. The NRC is 9
supposed represent every citizen in the United 10 States to protect our security, to not take risk 11 with our future.
12 And I challenge you to consider what 13 your responsibility is, the responsibility to get 14 back to people on the staff, to get back to the 15 Commission, to pass along our concerns and really do 16 the work that needs to be done to make this very 17 dangerous project -- it won't be safe, but to make 18 it as safe as it can possibly be. I'll leave these 19 here. Thank you.
20 (Applause.)
21 MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Our last scheduled 22 speaker is Jane Bloomar, ticket number 13.
23 MS. BLOOMAR: Do I need help with the 24 mic? Is it too high? Hello. I'm Jane Bloomar, a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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128 lifelong resident of New York State, and I'm in 1
favor of nuclear energy. I'm also a friend of Diane 2
Sare who is running for New York State's -- one of 3
New York State's United States Senator positions.
4 She is an independent, and she strongly favors 5
nuclear energy.
6 It is regrettable that New York State 7
has gone along with the passion and fervor to take 8
down Indian Point without thinking more deeply and 9
more profoundly about the needs of energy for the 10 residents of New York State, the industry of New 11 York State, and the agriculture, the farmers who 12 need electricity to keep the milk and the chickens 13 warm and the cows treated properly as well as the 14 industry in New York, plus our own air conditioning 15 in the summer and our heat in the winter. Going 16 down 25 percent in energy in Westchester County and 17 New York City is a fearsome percentage. That's one 18 quarter.
19 We saw what happened in Dallas when the 20 polar vortex hit them. We cannot rely on windmills.
21 We cannot rely on the sun because the sun only 22 shines every so often and certainly not every day.
23 We don't have, like, cloudy days like today and 24 certainly the wind is not blowing incessantly.
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129 So we are turning in this 21st century 1
of ours to rely on unreliable energy. It is 2
unthinkable for a well-educated populace to be 3
taking this -- taking down Indian Point. However, I 4
realize that the decision has been made to take down 5
Indian Point.
6 But I would like to point out, and I 7
learned this from Diane Sare, that other 8
circumstances when a nuclear energy plant has been 9
closed, it can be reopened if the nuclear guts have 10 not been removed, if the nuclear reactors are -- and 11 rods, et cetera, are still in place. It is 12 extremely expensive to build a nuclear plant from 13 scratch. Perhaps -- so to decommission this 14 entirely or to decommission it for a period of time 15 while we assess for a year or two what it's like to 16 be without air conditioning or have brown outs or 17 black outs, perhaps that might be one way to go for 18 this.
19 I do believe -- I did pick up one -- I 20 couldn't hear the last speaker. But I think one of 21 her points was that the United States Nuclear 22 Regulatory Commission, it does seem like you all 23 ought to be helping educate the public about the 24 values of nuclear energy, not just to limit. Of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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130 course we need to limit power, but we need to be 1
educated.
2 Okay. I believe that's my point. I 3
wish you all well. I wanted to comment also that so 4
many questions seem to be directed at the NRC and 5
not at Holtec. So I do want to raise one question 6
of Holtec.
7 There has been some question as to 8
whether Holtec will honor the agreement with New 9
York State and stay within the bounds of the money 10 available to take down or close Indian Point. So I 11 speak on behalf of a citizenry who do not want to be 12 stuck with a bill when taking down an energy plant 13 and then end up without bills that we have to pay 14 for an energy plant -- a nuclear energy plant that 15 is gone. Thank you so much.
16 MS. STERDIS: Okay. This is Andrea 17 Sterdis from Holtec Decommissioning International.
18 And I just want to confirm that we were active --
19 MS. BLOOMAR: I'm sorry. I didn't hear 20 you.
21 PARTICIPANT: We can't understand you.
22 MS. STERDIS: Is it --
23 PARTICIPANT: Speak close to the mic.
24 MS. STERDIS: Real close? That's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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131 better. Okay. My name is Andrea Sterdis, and I 1
work for Holtec Decommissioning International. And 2
I want to give you my assurance that our company is 3
100 percent committed to fulfilling the agreement 4
that we signed with the State of New York, the local 5
stakeholders, the local government, and others.
6 Absolutely.
7 MS. BLOOMAR: I'm sorry. With the masks 8
and everything, I really didn't get what you said.
9 MR. WATSON: Let me try to answer for 10 her.
11 MS. BLOOMAR: Say it again?
12 MR. WATSON: Maybe I'm a little clearer.
13 MS. BLOOMAR: Say it again?
14 MR. WATSON: Yeah, Andrea said that 15 Holtec is 100 percent behind the agreement that they 16 signed with the state and local governments and 17 others and they're going to fulfill their agreement 18 to do that.
19 MS. BLOOMAR: That is reassuring. I 20 like your card.
21 MS. STERDIS: I'll give it to you.
22 MS. BLOOMAR: Okay. Thank you so much.
23 Any other comment? Thank you.
24 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you, everyone. So 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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132 we've now have gone through everyone who signed up 1
to speak. We have about five minutes left. The 2
only person I really got off was you. So -- and let 3
him close us out and then we'll end the meeting. So 4
please.
5 MR. SPECTER: Thank you for the 6
additional time. I'm mainly interested in whether 7
or not --
8 PARTICIPANT: Can you state your name?
9 MR. SPECTER: Oh, my name is Herschel 10 Specter. I'm a professional engineer in the state 11 of New York with a master's degree from MIT, a 12 former diplomat at the International Atomic Energy 13 Agency, and also the original federal licensor 14 project manager for licensing Indian Point 3. I 15 have a long history at this plant.
16 So I have questions for my colleagues.
17 I'm not happy with what I read about what the NRC 18 has done. So you might consider me a bit of a 19 crank.
20 But this crank is worried about the 21 various decommissioning funds possibly becoming 22 insolvent. And as I mentioned previously, if a 23 decommissioning fund becomes insolvent, it has zero 24 money left. So it has no money left to fix 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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133 anything.
1 I've also expressed the opinion writing 2
to you folks that money from the DOE from the Waste 3
Act Fund is just not realistic. You don't know 4
Holtec has no control over it. You don't know how 5
much come or when it might come.
6 And in fact, some of the analyses I've 7
already submitted to the Commission show the 8
insolvencies after 2030, you have Holtec is assuming 9
and the NRC accepts that after 2030 that DOE will 10 probably be on site removing the fuel. You can be 11 sure they're not going to give anybody any money if 12 there's an overrun. So there is no viable way of 13 doing financial remediation that shows up in any of 14 the NRC documents or in the PSDAR.
15 That being the case, I turn my attention 16 to other scenarios where the different 17 decommissioning trust funds might become insolvent.
18 And I would point that no such alternative scenarios 19 were presented in the PSDAR. They were all 20 successful.
21 And no such scenarios were presented by 22 the NRC in a safety evaluation or in the 23 Commission's final memorandum and order. All we 24 have is one scenario per Indian Point 1, another for 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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134 2, and another one for 3. So let's talk about that 1
for a minute.
2 In the case of all three plants, the 3
decommissioning model assumed a starting date of 4
October 31st, 2019. And whatever money was in the 5
decommissioning funds that day was run through the 6
rest of the analyses, all the way out to 2062. I 7
already know in my communications with the staff 8
that the staff did not set that particular date.
9 That date as far as the staff knows was 10 set by Holtec. And yet if you look at different 11 dates, you get different results. If you look at a 12 date now, things look good. We're up to 2.4 billion 13 dollars.
14 But in fact, and the Commission has made 15 this very clear, the amount of money in the 16 decommissioning funds fluctuate because the markets 17 fluctuate. And I presented a graph in my 18 presentations and submissions to the Commission that 19 there were dates, both before and after October 20 31st. And if you plug them through, the 21 decommissioning funds become insolvent.
22 As a matter of fact, back in December 23 31st, eight months prior to the Holtec chosen date, 24 you plug that date in, all three decommissioning 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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135 trust funds, and you point to 1, 2, and 3, become 1
insolvent if you use the Holtec model, and I did. I 2
used exactly the same assumptions, the same input 3
data, same structure. All I did was change the date 4
and therefore the amount of money that was reported 5
by Entergy for that date, and they all went bust.
6 So how could it be realistic to pick one 7
date that will be representative for the next 40 8
years for all three plants? That's question number 9
- 1. So I think the model is unrealistic and 10 therefore cannot be relied upon to form the basis, a 11 reasonable assurance, you can do the license 12 transfer.
13 It's not representative. It's a single 14 date. And the Commission itself and its own safety 15 evaluation talks about fluctuations up and down. It 16 is not reflected in the analysis. So the analysis 17 is unrealistic.
18 And secondly, talking about the 19 fluctuation because of only selecting one date, but 20 the second part of that is that all this emphasis on 21 one date, that supreme date, October 31st, you never 22 bring up the market variations from that point on.
23 But they do go on. Sometimes it's favorable.
24 Sometimes it's not.
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136 So the whole model that Holtec used, 1
unchallenged by the Commission as far as I know, 2
never ran another different scenario, you end up 3
with a bunch of failure scenarios. And the failure 4
scenarios end up with insolvent decommissioning 5
funds and there's no recovery. That's a problem.
6 MR. TURTIL: So --
7 MR. SPECTER: And if you're not -- let 8
me finish. And if they're not solvent, you still 9
have work to do. And I've even calculated what kind 10 of -- hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of 11 unfinished decommissioning tasks yet to be done.
12 What do we do?
13 So I'm disappointed that the staff 14 didn't have the curiosity to generate alternative 15 scenarios. As a former regulator, I didn't look for 16 just when things were successful. The applicants do 17 that for me.
18 What I look for is how can they fail. I 19 want to know is there another scenario out there 20 that gives me a result where the decommissioning 21 funds become insolvent. Now the staff didn't do it.
22 Holtec didn't do it. I did it.
23 I submitted it, and I've gotten zero 24 feedback. And why? Isn't it the staff's job to be 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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137 curious, to look for ways in which things can fail 1
or to ask, is it realistic to pick one day and say 2
that casts a shadow for 42 years?
3 And by the way, in those 40 some odd 4
years, I'm going to ignore inflation. I'm going to 5
ignore the ups and downs of the market. And I say 6
no.
7 MR. TURTIL: If I can just very briefly 8
9 (Simultaneous speaking.)
10 MR. SPECTER: I can't hear you.
11 MR. TURTIL: If I can be very -- I'll 12 just be very brief. You made reference to one day.
13 I'm a little --
14 MR. SPECTER: October 31st.
15 MR. TURTIL: -- stymied by that date.
16 So let me explain why. Holtec has taken a position 17 that the applicant before the transfer communicated 18 it -- within the PSDAR, communicates partial site --
19 partial termination -- help me out with the right 20 terminology -- in 2033 for -- I believe it's for 21 each -- for all three of the sites. I want to make 22 sure I'm correct on that.
23 And then, of course, as DOE starts to 24 potentially -- because no one is very certain --
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138 potentially start to initiate retrieval of spent 1
fuel and ultimately finish that transaction for each 2
of the three sites, ultimately the year target of 3
2063 where there would be full complete -- except 4
for the -- excuse me. Everything would be complete 5
at that point in theory. There is no certainty with 6
Department of Energy retrieving that fuel.
7 But with these dates and these target 8
amounts for license termination that staff performed 9
that analysis knowing -- keeping a real rate of 10 return to two percent of the funds. And those funds 11 currently are 630 million for Unit 1, 790 million 12 for Unit 2, and 990 -- let me finish -- 990 million 13 for Unit 3 in the DTS totaling about 2.4 as of 14 December of last year. With those funds in mind and 15 with the activities that they intend to perform, 16 from that point forward, staff concluded that there 17 was reasonable assurance that the licensee, Holtec, 18 would be able to complete those stages of 19 decommissioning, from license termination, from site 20 remediation license termination activities to 21 ultimately --
22 MR. SPECTER: Okay.
23 MR. TURTIL: -- spent fuel management 24 and then --
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139 MR. SPECTER: I totally disagree with 1
you, sir.
2 MR. TURTIL: But the point that I want 3
to make, that I really want to reinforce is that 4
Holtec will be reporting by March 31st of each and 5
every year to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
6 Let me finish. And just like any other long-term 7
plan, they were reporting that which they've 8
expended on decommissioning, that which their new --
9 their reassessment on what will be required to 10 complete license termination and the funding that is 11 available for that.
12 MR. SPECTER: Where from?
13 MR. TURTIL: Excuse me?
14 MR. SPECTER: Where does that funding 15 come from?
16 MR. TURTIL: Well, the funding --
17 MR. SPECTER: Suppose you say three 18 years down the road --
19 MR. TURTIL: Let me finish.
20 MR. SPECTER: -- and you find out that 21 they're not living up to -- it's more expensive.
22 MR. TURTIL: So year by year, and I hear 23 the concern. And I --
24 MR. SPECTER: Yeah, all right. What do 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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140 you do about?
1 MR. TURTIL: -- appreciate the concern.
2 But year by year, the staff and the licensee --
3 MR. SPECTER: Right.
4 MR. TURTIL: -- are reviewing. And when 5
there appears to be --
6 MR. SPECTER: That's not my question.
7 MR. TURTIL: But when there appears to 8
be a gap --
9 MR. SPECTER: Yes?
10 MR. TURTIL: -- the licensee will say, 11 this is how we shall fill that gap. And there are 12 methods they can do that.
13 MR. SPECTER: Well, you have to 14 determine whether or not if there is a gap and what 15 all the causes are and will there be another one 16 next year and the year after, in other words. Where 17 does the money come from to fill the gap so the 18 decommissioning can go on? And obviously, it'd have 19 to come from Holtec.
20 MR. TURTIL: Well, that's a starting 21 point. If there is a --
22 (Simultaneous speaking.)
23 MR. SPECTER: Or Holtec just declares 24 bankruptcy --
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141 (Simultaneous speaking.)
1 MR. SPECTER: -- which you can't 2
control.
3 MR. WATSON: Can we let him finish, 4
please?
5 MR. SPECTER: No.
6 MR. TURTIL: There is a --
7 MR. WATSON: Let Mr. Turtil --
8 (Simultaneous speaking.)
9 MR. SPECTER: No, I'm sorry, sir. The 10 actual situation is that Holtec did not put up a 11 penny. It's all the people's money. And Entergy 12 never put up a penny --
13 (Simultaneous speaking.)
14 MR. SPECTER: -- except a bridge loan.
15 Let me finish.
16 MR. WATSON: Sir, that's a different 17 topic.
18 MR. SPECTER: Well, no, it's not to me a 19 different problem. The problem is --
20 (Simultaneous speaking.)
21 MR. SPECTER: -- where's the money going 22 to come from. And I haven't seen a penny come out 23 of Holtec. And I don't know that they have the 24 financial wherewithal.
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142 And when the Commission says, well, 1
look, Holtec has enough money to do the job. In 2
fact, what it is, Holtec is only going to have 3
enough money because the ratepayers put up the 4
money. And if they don't do a good job, I don't see 5
them volunteering to make up the difference.
6 You know how you're going to solve this?
7 If Holtec signed a document and said, no matter 8
what, Holtec will make it good. They haven't done 9
that, no.
10 So we haven't seen a black and white 11 commitment. And finally, other utilities have done 12 exactly what I said, that when there's any chance 13 that the public might be put at risk, the utilities 14 have stood up and said, we will not have the public 15 at risk. And you know what those utilities are?
16 They're utilities that are staying in their area 17 like Commonwealth Edison does it.
18 But if they're merchant operators, 19 they're going to leave town. They have no long-term 20 commitment to New York, and Holtec has no long-term 21 commitment. Their commitment is to making money.
22 They're not long-term, interested in the 23 welfare of New Yorkers like other utilities who stay 24 in the area. So we have a problem particularly 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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143 aggravated by the fact we have a merchant, formerly 1
Entergy, utility who's already leaving town and a 2
replacement who has no commitment that I know of to 3
the long-term welfare of New York. Sorry. I don't 4
accept what you said.
5 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you for your 6
comments. So before I turn it over to Bruce to 7
close out the meeting, this is more. But the people 8
on the call, this is not the way we want it. This 9
is clearly you were meant to have an opportunity to 10 speak tonight and that didn't happen. And for that, 11 on behalf of the entire NRC, I apologize.
12 I've been told that it was a weather-13 related issue. I don't have any further details on 14 that situation other than my understanding is there 15 were lightning strikes. I don't have all the 16 answers.
17 But the point is here is that this did 18 not go the way it was supposed to. And for that, 19 wholehearted apology. Okay. And with that, I'll 20 turn it over to Bruce to finish us off.
21 MR. WATSON: Yeah. Thank you, Brett. I 22 just want to make the same apology that we intended 23 to have people on the phone. Apparently, there were 24 some weather-related issues that affected the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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144 Verizon phone system that was set up. So we'll have 1
to -- as an agency, have to take a look at that and 2
revisit that issue.
3 Just a few comments, kind of summarize 4
some of the concerns. I'm not going to tell you 5
this is a comprehensive list of things I heard or 6
what the staff heard. But I just have a list of 7
things I was going to mention just to summarize the 8
meeting.
9 We heard concerns about the gas line --
10 gas pipeline and of course the safety consequences 11 of that and possibly with the decommissioning 12 issues. One thing that's concerning to the people 13 was the fact the gas line was not mentioned in the 14 PSDAR. There were concerns over the reduction in 15 the emergency planning and fire protection programs.
16 There were concerns over the financial 17 estimate basis and the adequacy of the 18 decommissioning trust funds for the long term. But 19 one of the things I'm going to mention is that the 20 state regulates those issues, not us. We just make 21 sure we have a final -- we have reasonable assurance 22 that there is adequate funding.
23 So we have -- there were concerns over 24 spent fuel casks and of course high burnup fuel.
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145 There were concerns about the groundwater and 1
remediation, especially concerns about the Hudson 2
River. There were concerns about the radiological 3
releases during decommissioning.
4 A concern that the PSDAR does not 5
include the New York State and Holtec agreement.
6 But we believe that some of those -- those issues 7
should be addressed in the future with the license 8
termination plan, especially when it comes to the 9
dose criteria that we're agreed to. Concerns about 10 overall decommissioning and disassembly of the 11 plant, especially with the degraded components.
12 I heard some concerns about our 13 communications with the state oversight committee 14 and actually with the local community. So there's 15 some opportunities there. There were concerns about 16 Holtec abilities to perform and completely 17 decommission the plant and their use of the 18 decommissioning funds.
19 So like I said, that's not a complete 20 list, but it kind of summarizes what I heard, what 21 the staff heard tonight. So I really want to thank 22 you all for coming out. Safe travels home, please.
23 Safe travels. And I really want to thank you for 24 coming out tonight and our opportunity to hear your 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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146 concerns over the post-shutdown decommissioning 1
activities report. So thank you very much, and good 2
night.
3 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 4
went off the record at 9:14 p.m.)
5 6
7 8
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