ML21238A010

Transcript for Virtual Public Meeting Held on August 18, 2021, Regarding Indian Point Energy Center Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report

ML21238A010
Person / Time
Site:	Indian Point
Issue date:	08/18/2021
From:	Brenda Montoya Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards
To:
Sturzebecher K
References
EPID L-2021-LRO-0031
Download: ML21238A010 (70)

Text

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 1 EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021 2:28 pm CT Coordinator: Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode until the question-and-comment session of today's conference. At that time, you may press star 1 on your phone to ask a question or make a comment. I would like to inform all parties that today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Brett Klukan. Thank you.

You may begin.

Brett Klukan: Good evening, everyone. My name is Brett Klukan. I am the Regional Counsel for Region I of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. However tonight I will be facilitating the public comment portion of this meeting.

As will be discussed more during the NRC's initial presentation, the purpose of this meeting is to receive public comment on the IPEC post-shutdown decommissioning activities report.

I will provide instructions for how members of the public can enter the speaker queue after the NRC's opening presentation. In addition, you can

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 2 make comments via the WebEx question and answer feature. During the public comment session. I will read those comments out loud for the benefit of those participating in the meeting solely via the teleconference bridge.

We would like to begin the public comment portion of the meeting tonight with those members of the public who were unable to offer comment at the July 29 meeting. Finally, I would note for your awareness, the audio of this meeting will be transcribed.

With that, I now like to turn it over to Bruce Watson. Thank you.

Bruce Watson: Thank you, Brett. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome. Thanks for attending. We are required to hold a public meeting on the post-shutdown decommissioning activities report for each reactor that shuts down and submits a PSDAR, as we would call it, to be held by regulations. We are required to hold a public meeting in the vicinity of the reactor, and this was accomplished on July 29.

So, this is a follow-up meeting intended to allow those who were not able to attend the in-person meeting held July 29. As this is the primary purpose of our meeting, I just wanted to reiterate, what Brett asked is that we allow those that were at the public meeting and provided comments to allow those that have not had the opportunity to speak first.

Again, welcome. We're here to answer your questions. We have a number of NRC experts on the line with us. I'll be asking them to assist with answering some questions that we believe we'd like to answer. And so, with that, we're here to listen to your comments on the Indian Point post-shutdown decommissioning activities report.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 3 And again, my name is Bruce Watson. I'm chief of the Reactor Decommissioning Branch in the Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards. My branch is responsible for the licensing and oversight of the projects. And we also support the Regional Office in the inspection process.

So Tony Dimitriadis is here tonight also. He is the branch chief for the decommissioning group, along with the senior inspector, Katherine Warner.

So with that, let's go to the next slide. This is our agenda. Obviously, we've done the welcome and the discussion and right now we're on the NRC presentation. And after I am done, I will turn the meeting over to Brett.

Next slide, please. Currently in our program there are 26 power reactors undergoing decommissioning. Seventeen of those are in what we would call active decommissioning. This includes the three Indian Point plants now.

With the Holtec PSDAR the plants are moving into a direction to have the plants dismantled and fully decommissioned.

There are nine plants in safe store and those are in a safe condition about the country. Unit 1 was in safe store for a number of decades until recently when the plant was purchased by Holtec and they plan to decommission it along with Units 2 and 3.

Currently, there are seven announced shutdowns of other reactors in the country, so the decommissioning program continues to grow.

On the pictures on the left is a picture of Maine Yankee before the decommissioning and a picture of Maine Yankee after the decommissioning.

And of course, the picture on the bottom shows the independent spent fuel storage facility as it is today at the site.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 4 Next slide, please. Our mission is to ensure that decommissioning is performed safely. And we will be reviewing the process of the decommissioning until it has been completely radiologically decommissioned, and the licenses terminated. And by terminated at this point we will be terminating the license footprint down to the surrounding area around the dry fuel storage, which will remain under license.

One key thing I want to remind everybody is that the NRC safety oversight continues with the licensing and inspections until the license is terminated.

And this is not only just for the reactor decommissioning, but also for the independent dry fuel storage facility. We will continue to inspect that until the fuel is removed from the site.

Recently, the Reactor Oversight Program was transferred to Inspection Manual 2561, which is the dedicated inspection program for reactor decommissioning.

Next slide, please. On May 11, 2021, Entergy certified the permanent cessation of Unit 3 operations and the permanent removal of the unit of the fuel from the reactor. They did the same thing for Unit 2 on May 12, 2020.

With these two certifications, the plant is not allowed to reload the fuel and restart the plant operations.

Another thing you need to know is that the Holtec PSDAR was submitted to the NRC as supplemental information to the License Transfer Application on December 19, 2019. So, it has been in the public domain for quite a while.

Next slide, please. The PSDAR must contain information required by regulation. The Regulatory Guide 1.185, which is a publicly available on our Web site, nrc.gov, provides guidance on content and the format for the

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 5 PSDAR. After the licensee submits its certification and permanent removal of the fuel from the reactor vessel, the radiological decommissioning can start as long as it's allowed by the plant's license.

The decommissioning activities must not endanger the public health or safety or the environment.

Next slide, please. A summary of the Holtec PSDAR can be summarized in basically four bullets. Spent fuel will be transferred to dry cast storage by 2024. They expect to complete the decommissioning of the site by 2023. The decommissioning trust funds are adequate to complete the decommissioning.

There's approximately $2.4 billion in that fund.

And the last thing they have to do in the PSDAR is they provided the environmental impacts will be less than previously issued in the Environmental Impact Statement and the site-specific assessment is also in the PSDAR.

The NRC began formal review of the Holtec PSDAR on May 28, 2021. This is after the license was amended, making Holtec the new site owner.

Next slide, please. So, a couple of key facts about license termination. We will continue to inspect the site and to ensure the site is safely decommissioned.

We will continue to inspect the spent fuel and dry storage to ensure it is safe and secure until the fuel is removed.

Also, the licensee must submit to us a license termination plan and it must be submitted to the NRC at least two years prior to requesting license termination. The LTP, or license termination plan, is approved by license amendment after NRC review.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 6 There is a public meeting and there is also the opportunity for hearing on the amendment process for the LTP.

Next slide, please. So, a couple of reminders. We are here to listen to your comments on the Indian Point PSDAR. We will do our best to answer your questions. We may not be able to answer all questions, but we will do our best to answer questions.

The meeting is being transcribed and will be publicly available. A meeting summary will be published and will be publicly available for you to review.

Next slide, please. Before I end, I'd like to point out a couple of New York reactor decommissioning projects that have been completed. One includes the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant, which is on Long Island.

At the public meeting on the 29th, I mentioned that the spent fuel, the fuel from the plant, was transferred to Peach Bottom. But I believe that was really the Limerick plant, which used the boiling water fuel. So the fuel was removed from the Shoreham Plant so there is no dry storage.

On your right is a picture of the State University of New York at Buffalo Research Reactor. This is a complex reactor used for a variety of purposes at the University of Buffalo. And this was decommissioned and completed and now is a greenfield a few years ago.

Next slide, please. So how do you provide comments to this meeting? Well, you provide them by providing them verbally to us at this meeting because the meeting is transcribed. You can send in your comments by mail. And this is the address you will need of the office administration. And this information is

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 7 also in the Federal Register notice and the meeting notice that we have on our Web site.

And then finally you can submit your comments through the federal rulemaking Web site, which is regulations.gov. The key thing you need to know here is that you need to put the NRC Docket ID in your search, which is NRC-2021-0125.

And I just want to remind everybody that all comments are due by October 22 of this year. So the comment period, you still have a few months in order to get your comments in.

So next slide, please. If there are any future questions about the Indian Point or this meeting, you can refer them to Neil Sheehan, the Office of Public Affairs in our Region I office. Neil can be reached - you can see his email address here. It is neil.sheehan@nrc.gov. And there's his phone number. And, of course, he is one of our Region I public affairs officers.

So, with that next slide, please. I will turn it over to Brett and go into the meeting rules and how he'd like to facilitate the meeting. So, thank you very much.

Brett Klukan: Thanks, Bruce, I appreciate it. So before we open the meeting to comments by members of the public, we will start with any elected officials or representatives of elected officials, including any representatives of Native American Tribes who would like to offer prepared statements or just to be recognized that they are attending the meeting this evening.

And we will begin with Tribal representatives. So, if you are a Tribal representative or official or a representative of the Tribal official who would

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 8 like to offer a prepared remark or to stand "and be recognized" please press star 1 on your phone. You will be then asked to state and spell your name and affiliation, then press the pound key to return back to the meeting. Otherwise, you will be unable to hear the meeting until the time delay finishes. And you can star 2 if you later decide to leave the queue.

So again, star 1 to enter into the queue and I'll turn it over to the moderator to open up the line. Right now, we're only looking for Tribal representatives.

Coordinator: Thank you. At this time, we will hear from Geri Shapiro. Your line is open.

Geri Shapiro: This is Geri Shapiro from Senator Gillibrand's office, senior advisor. I am listening on the phone. I just would like to comment. It would be really good.

I am trying to get on the WebEx, which is supposed to be easy. I've been doing it for 20 minutes and I must have 17 things on that just say various things that I have to click or do or whatever and things that just bop around, but I'm going to listen. But there should be an easier way to get on. Thank you.

Brett Klukan: Thank you, Ms. Shapiro. Maybe one of our staff can reach out to you separately to see if we can help correct the problem. But I apologize, you're experiencing what you are.

Geri Shapiro: They could take over. But there should be an easier way. I'm on Zoom phone calls and stuff like that I would tell you, you know, most days really I don't do in public meetings so that they're just - I don't know whether anybody else is having trouble but there shouldn't be this. But yes, somebody can call me, and they can take over my personal computer and do whatever. But I will listen to all the questions and I will read the transcript.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 9 Brett Klukan: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. And we will get someone to get in touch with you. Okay. Thank you very much. And again, we apologize for - thank you for attending and we apologize you're experiencing problems.

Are there any other Tribal representatives or other elected officials who would like to either be recognized at this time or to offer prepared remarks? Again, press star 1 on your phone. Again, that is star 1 on your phone to be added to the queue. And we'll get those representatives a few seconds here to enter into the queue.

Coordinator: So far I'm showing no additional comments at this time.

Brett Klukan: Okay. Are there any state representatives or any county or local elected officials who would like to stand and be recognized or to give prepared remarks at this time? Again, star 1 on your phones to enter into the queue.

Coordinator: Next you will hear from, and I apologize if I'm mispronouncing, but I have (Sandy Gayliss). Your line is open.

(Sandy Gayliss): Thank you. I think you can hear me now.

Brett Klukan: We can hear you. Thank you.

(Sandy Gayliss): Okay. I would just like to follow-up with Geri Shapiro. I can't get on it either.

So maybe a less complicated service would be very helpful to other people.

That's all. I'll be listening to comments. Thank you.

Brett Klukan: Again, we apologize for the technical problems you're experiencing. But thank you for listening into the phone call this evening. And I think we have another speaker, moderator?

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 10 Coordinator: We do. Our next comment will come from Susan Spear. Your line is open.

Susan, we're unable to hear you in conference. Please shut the mute feature on your phone.

Susan Spear: Hi. Susan Spear. I am listening on behalf of Westchester County Executive George Latimer. I'm very interested in the comments and we'll pass them on to him. Thank you.

Brett Klukan: Thank you very much for attending this evening. Any other elected officials we will give another couple seconds here if you'd like to stand to be recognized or if you'd like to offer prepared remarks at this time. Again, it's star 1 on your phone. It looks like we have one more.

Coordinator: We do. Next, we will hear from Lisa Hochman. You may proceed.

Lisa Hochman: I just wanted to say I'm listening on behalf of the Westchester County Board of Legislators.

Brett Klukan: Thank you very much for listening in this evening and participating in the meeting. We appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks to all of those who have stood up to be recognized so to speak. Thank you again for participating in the meeting this evening.

Okay. With that said, let's now turn over to the public comment portion of the meeting. Now as mentioned at the outset, we would like to start with those who did not have an opportunity during the July 29 meeting to give comments to the NRC. So if you did not, if you are a member of the public who did not previously have an opportunity to offer comments at the prior July 29 meeting, please press star 1 on your phone now to be entered into the queue.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 11 Alternatively you can also enter comments into the question and answer function in the WebEx box if you are logged into WebEx as well. And again in lieu of or in addition to speaking this evening, you can make use of the question and answer function.

In terms of the order of speakers that will be determined by the order in which people enter into the speaker queue. In order to give as many people an opportunity to speak this evening. I'm probably going to, based on the number of people I see in there right now, we will keep it around four minutes. Again, if we have extra time at the end of the meeting, people can speak again.

I will hold up a card when you have 30 seconds remaining just to give you some time to wrap up. I don't want to interrupt your train of thought, but I will ask you to conclude at the end of those minutes. Again, if we have extra time at the end, we can go through, you know, another round for those who would like to add onto their comments.

So while people are entering into the queue or have an opportunity to enter into the queue, I'm going to start with a question that we received -- I'll put down this card -- a question we received in the question and answer function.

So the question from (Tina Banger), and I apologize if I am mispronouncing your name, is why will the environmental impact be less than that previously issued - less than the previously issued EIS or environmental impact statement? Why no exclamation or why no explanation? And again, the question is why will the environmental impact be less than the previously issued EIS? Why no explanation? And I'll turn that over to the staff.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 12 Bruce Watson: What we presented was what the statement in the PSDAR that Holtec has given to us. As I stated, the staff began their technical review of the PSDAR.

We will complete that review over the next few months, and we'll be looking at that specific area in particular.

However, generally, the environmental impacts are less with decommissioning because number one, you're not using the quantity of water for cooling of the site. And there's obviously other changes in the environment from, you know, the plant shutting down that are no longer - effluents are reduced from the plant because it's no longer operating.

So those are a couple of the minor things, a couple of things that can support that statement. But we'll be looking at it thoroughly. Our environmental reviewers will be taking a very hard look at that particular section of the PSDAR. Thank you.

Brett Klukan: Thank you for the question. So, the moderator will now turn over to our first speaker in the queue, please.

Coordinator: Thank you. Next, we will hear from Jacquelyn Drechsler. Your line is open.

Jacquelyn Drechsler: Hello, this is Jacquelyn Drechsler. Can you hear me?

Brett Klukan: We can. Thank you.

Jacquelyn Drechsler: Okay. Hi, Brett. Glad that we have this opportunity. However, we have tried to get on to the WebEx like the other elected officials, and we cannot get on to WebEx.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 13 So anyway, I will start with my four minutes. So, I'm very concerned that you at the NRC have picked a company known as Holtec and given them the license for decommissioning of the Indian Point. I believe that they're in a rush to close and we know that the nuclear waste needs to cool down. And I don't believe that they're giving enough time for that. I also am very concerned that they have potential plans to move the nuclear waste, which they absolutely should not do.

I'm also extremely concerned about the 42 inch high pressure gas pipeline known as (AIM) that for some reason the NRC and SERC and maybe PIMSA and the PSC and all of you people who have these acronyms have maybe had your heads up your asses because - each other's asses, because there's no reason for that pipeline to be there.

It's very dangerous. It needs to be entirely shut down. That pipeline needs to be removed. Indian Point is on a fault line, an earthquake fault line. We've known this for years, years and years. And there should be no gas pipelines there at all.

The other big concern that I have is that there's tons of radiated water underneath Indian Point, which leaks into the Hudson. The Hudson River is the river that is known as the river that flows both ways. The radiated isotopes are in the water. They do flow both ways. Many things can be taken out of the water, but that cannot be.

There are many towns upstate, further upstate. They are the Seven Towns they're called that rely on the drinking water from the Hudson River. And I am very concerned that this closure is not going to be taking into account the huge radiation leaks that are under Indian Point.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 14 I think that's pretty much what I'd like to say. I'm not sure what my time is because I can't see your card because I'm not on WebEx. So, do I have any time left?

Brett Klukan: You do. You have about two minutes.

Jacquelyn Drechsler: Okay. So then let's talk about Holtec. They are famous for their inferior products. I have a better warranty on my Anderson windows than we are getting with Holtec on their canisters.

They cannot see the canisters. They cannot monitor those canisters and know if and where there are leaks. This bowling team configuration - you know, Indian Point is still a terrorist target. Security may be good on the ground, but I don't know about other kinds of security. And I really don't believe that the kind of configuration that you're all planning on is the safest thing for 20 million people.

So, I will - I think I will at this point get off. I think I've made it clear the few points that I'm very, very concerned about. I do appreciate very much that you all did make another opportunity for people to speak after the last episode that didn't go very well. And it's actually not going very well because we can't get onto WebEx although I've gotten onto WebEx an awful lot.

So hopefully you'll work these kinds of details out so that the public really can engage a little bit more. This is something that I found - you know just the fact that you picked 4 o'clock, 4 o'clock in the afternoon on a working day for people to be able to do this, it kind of dismisses many of the public. But anyway, thank you very much. And I'll give up the rest of my time to someone else like my twin sister, Jocelyn. Thank you.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 15 Brett Klukan: Thank you very much for your comments. We really appreciate it. And again, I want to - hopefully I won't be saying this - it might be the case I'll be saying this a lot. We apologize for any problems you're experiencing with WebEx.

Again, we have feedback forms that will go up on our Web site for the meeting after this. So, you know, please feel free to take advantage of that to let the agency know how you feel about this.

Jacquelyn Drechsler: I will. And I will be putting in written comments as well.

Brett Klukan: Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Jacquelyn Drechsler: So, Brett, thank you.

Brett Klukan: Thank you. Okay. So again, I just want to - it seems like people might be having some issues getting into the speaking queue. Again, you want to press star and then 1 on your phone to get entered into the speaker queue. Again, if for whatever reason you're having trouble getting into the speaker queue, but you're on WebEx, I can also read your comment out loud. Granted, I recognize that's not what you want to do probably but we can make it work.

But again, it's star 1 to be entered into the queue. And at this point I'm opening up the queue to everybody. So whoever is on the meeting who would like to speak this evening, press star 1 now. And that will give me a sense of how many people in total we have.

All right. So anyone, whether you spoke before or not, enter into the queue now so we can know how many people we have. Okay? And moderator, could we have our next speaker, please?

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 16 Coordinator: Absolutely. Next, we will hear from Jocelyn Decrescenzo. So, your line is open.

Jocelyn Decrescenzo: Hi there. Thank you so much for this opportunity to speak. And thank you, Brett. We all seem to be having problems with WebEx and there's not a thunderstorm or an electrical storm going on. So we know it's WebEx not the weather. Maybe a different system could be used next time so everybody' can join equally.

I'm very concerned about many things. For instance, how many plants does Holtec plan to decommission inside Indian Point 1, 2 and 3 or during this decommissioning of Indian Point 1, 2 and 3, do they have other plants that they're going to be working on as well or is it just that specifically?

Holtec has a very big bad record of criminal behavior for which it has been or still is in the process of being sued. Holtec has been known for exceptionally shoddy and flimsy metal containers for their dry cast storage. They cannot check for leaks, cracks, any kind of maintenance to do on their casks once they're in place. And these casks are very thin. I think they're one inch. It's kind of ridiculous. It's a ridiculous thing.

Holtec as well has no guaranty of any sort on their product for which they get paid very well up on the front end and they make a huge profit from on the backend. So, they're actually, considering the $2.4 billion, I'd say they're triple dipping here. And it's pretty hard that it's on the people's backs for them to do that.

The NRC itself cannot make any guaranties of public health and safety regarding Holtec products, which are known to be of inferior quality. I think the NRC said they can't guaranty more than 20 to 25 years' worth of any kind

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 17 of minimal guaranty on products that are supposed to contain and make, say, 250,000 years of radioactive material.

The NRC, well, a couple of other things. As far as my research has shown, it takes 12 years before the rods can cool down enough to be moved. And I'm concerned that Holtec is so eager to start work in seven years of starting to move, then pushing forward with that. To me that seems an already negligent action.

Let's see. I am very concerned that the NRC is once again flying by the seat of its pants on a wing and a prayer with no thought-out safety plan for the public health and well-being or for the workers doing the decommissioning. And there are no evacuation plans for emergencies. In fact, there are no plans, pretty much how the NRC ended up creating all these nuclear plants without having plans of what to do with the waste. So, it just seems - it's specific to the NRC, I guess.

I'm very concerned about the pipelines landing at Indian Point. The gas in that pipeline has to be totally shut off throughout the span of the shutdown, whether it's 20 years or 30 years or whatever, that needs to be shut down and not moving. Fukushima is considering letting all the radiated water go right into the ocean. And I'm just wondering if at some point Holtec is just going to say, oh, well, I guess maybe we'll do that too. Somebody else got away with it. Maybe we can do that too.

It seems to me that without actually saying it, Holtec, Entergy, the NRC, FERC and perhaps the PSC, probably, are all tumbling around in bed with each other. And I'm gravely concerned for the public health and well-being and safety. And I thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 18 Jacquelyn Drechsler: And if you could answer the question that was asked at the beginning, we would appreciate that.

Jocelyn Decrescenzo: Right. About how many plants, Holtec is in the process of decommissioning in size or concurrent with Indian Point 1, 2 and 3.

Brett Klukan: Okay. Thank you for your questions and comments.

Jocelyn Decrescenzo: Thank you.

Brett Klukan: I'll turn it over to Bruce.

Bruce Watson: Yes. The other plants that Holtec has purchased and became the licensees for include the Pilgrim Plant in Massachusetts and the Oyster Creek Plant in New Jersey. In both of those cases, like Indian Point, they retained a number of the plant staff to do the decommissioning work. So they have a highly qualified staff to do that.

At Indian Point 1, 2 and 3, they're in the process - an application has been made from Entergy to sell the Palisades Plant in Michigan to Holtec. And that's expected - I guess the plant purchases are sometime in 2022. So, with the addition of Palisades, Holtec will be decommissioning one Pilgrim, two Oyster Creek, the three Indian Point Plants.

And number six would be Palisades beginning sometime in 2022 should the NRC approve the license transfer. So, thank you. I hope that answers your question.

Jacquelyn Drechsler: Wait. You said number six. Did you mean number four is the Palisades in Michigan or are there six?

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 19 Bruce Watson: No.

((Crosstalk))

Jocelyn Decrescenzo: It's the Pilgrim's, the Oyster Creek, Indian Point 1, 2 and 3 and the Palisades in Michigan.

Jacquelyn Drechsler: Okay.

Jocelyn Decrescenzo: So, I think they have their funds in a lot of pies there.

Jacquelyn Drechsler: Are they going to be using as many local people who know Indian Point Plant to be working on the decommissioning?

Bruce Watson: Their business model is to have highly qualified people, which includes retaining a number of the Indian Point staff. And they've done the same thing at Pilgrim and at Oyster Creek. And it's the same business model they plan to use for Palisades. So, they have some high qualified people doing the decommissioning.

Jocelyn Decrescenzo: Okay. And then the last question here is with them - with Holtec actually decommissioning basically four nuclear power plants, who is going to be oversighting them to make sure that things aren't getting lost in the mix while they're doing four all at the same time?

Bruce Watson: Well, it's a really simple answer. In Region I, which is in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, they have responsibility for oversight of the Pilgrim, Oyster Creek and Indian Point sites, just like they had oversight of those plants

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 20 during operations. So the NRC oversight will continue for the safety and security of those plants and to ensure the decommissioning is done safely.

The other plant that I mentioned, Palisades, is in Michigan. That will be overseen by our inspection staff in Region III out of Chicago, Illinois. So, we have plenty of health physics inspectors, decommissioning inspectors to perform the decommissioning inspections and ensure the work is done safely.

So thank you.

Jocelyn Decrescenzo: And how are those inspectors supposed to inspect things that can't actually be inspected, like those canisters.

((Crosstalk))

Bruce Watson: There are methods that - there are technology methods to inspect those casks and they continue to be upgraded and developed as the time goes on. But they are inspected frequently, and they can be inspected and are inspected.

We've done some research with the Electric Power Research Institute on how to measure those things inside the cask and the cask inside the shield. So thank you very much.

Jocelyn Decrescenzo: Thank you.

Brett Klukan: Okay. Moderator let's - thank you for those questions and comments and then let us move on to our next speaker, please.

Coordinator: Thank you. Next, we will hear from Paul Blanch. Your line is open.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 21 Paul Blanch: Hi. This is Paul Blanch. I'm having the same problem with the WebEx. Can you hear me?

Brett Klukan: We can hear you. You're coming through clear.

Paul Blanch: Perfect. Okay. A couple of questions I've been trying and trying and trying to get a direct answer from the NRC. Either I get no answer, or I'll get right back to you. And I'm going to limit it. I did send some questions in in writing.

But I think these are very important questions and I think there are relatively easy answers and I expect someone to be able to answer it directly. They are simple yes/no responses and I don't want to; I'll get back to you, Mr. Blanch.

This has been about nine months.

Now does the NRC, along with Holtec, as they've claimed in many other documents, including I believe the PSDAR, that the integrity of the canisters or that failure of the canisters is not credible. Is that still a valid statement that the NRC supports?

Darrell Dunn: So, this is Darrell Dunn. Can you hear me?

Bruce Watson: Yes. Go ahead, Darrell. Sorry.

Darrell Dunn: Okay. Sorry. I was wondering if you guys were going to call on it. So, yes, Mr. Blanch, we are aware of your questions and we have prepared a response to your question and that is that the letter that answer is in is going through concurrence. And I wish it had been made publicly available prior to this meeting.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 22 But there are two parts of your question. The first is what is a credible event?

And that has been determined by a commission ruling originally in 2001. So a credible event is an accident or a natural phenomenon or some other type of event that has a probability of greater than one times 10 to the minus 6 per year, so a greater than a 1 in a million chance per year of occurring.

((Crosstalk))

Paul Blanch: Okay. So, if there's a thousand canisters, it's 1 in 1,000 years and if there's 10,000, it's 1 in X number of years. Is that correct? And how long does that...

Darrell Dunn: We're talking about a - we're talking about an event like a tornado, a flood, a drought.

Paul Blanch: No, I'm talking about how long - how long is that non-credible integrity statement, how long is that good for? Because we know these things age and they degrade and does it apply to terrorism.

Darrell Dunn: No. Terrorism is handled by our Part 73 security regulations and there are security requirements for an (unintelligible).

Paul Blanch: I have NRC documents that discusses terrorism and the integrity of the cask and it's not good. And they're Sandia studies sponsored by the NRC. You cannot duck that question that easily by saying, oh, that's a different group within our organization. This is the NRC I'm talking to and I don't want them ducked by saying, oh, that's terrorism or that's national security. No, this is public safety. And the results from the Sandia study show that there will be offsite radioactive material spread, such that the area becomes uninhabitable.

Your own documents.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 23 Darrell Dunn: Go ahead.

Bruce Watson: Darrell, I don't think we want to get into a significant technical discussion here. You know, this is getting way off the Indian Point PSDAR in my mind, you know, because we don't discuss - the PSDAR is not about the cask and cask integrity nor the operational issues.

Now, I understand your concerns, Mr. Blanch. And as Darrell has pointed out, we are providing a written response to your letter. And as he said, it's in concurrence, which means it'll be getting to you soon, as soon as our management approves for them to be issued. So, I appreciate your comment on your concerns about those, but I'd like to really stick to the PSDAR issues.

Paul Blanch: Okay. I understand because that's only 10 months old. But the second question asked, and I've asked Neil and I never get an answer. We all know that there are going to be many, many curies, and a curie is a significant amount remaining on the site within the water be it cesium, cobalt, strontium, other isotopic transuranic.

What is the total number of curies, in a range, that are expected to be left onsite once the plant is turned into greenfield when greenfield has no formal definition. It's the term the NRC uses. So, what is the range of the number of curies? Is that thousands like it is in Maine I believe?

We don't know the answer and I think the public has a right to know the answer. What is going to be left? Are we creating another Love Canal, a radioactive Love Canal? I don't have the answer. I'm not sure the NRC has the answer, but the NRC should have the answer.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 24 And I don't want, you know, concentration or, you know, numbers that, you know, this survey was done, you know, so on and so forth. I've reviewed (Mark Sim) and participated in a residual activity conference, and there is nothing of substance said during that conference.

Bruce Watson: Yes. Let me respond to a couple of your comments there. I understand I was on the parts of - the NRC sponsored a subsurface soil workshop a couple of weeks ago where we discussed how to measure and how to dose model contamination under the surface of the soil.

So let's just be very clear about the number of curies. The 99 point whatever percent of the curies that would be left behind will be in the nuclear fuel, which will be safely stored in the dry fuel storage facility.

I think the second part of your question, if I understood you correctly...

Paul Blanch: Well, that still leaves - even if you get 99 point X percent, that still leaves a few hundred or a few thousand curies, which is...

Bruce Watson: No, no. You didn't let me finish. The license termination plan will be the final document, which will show the total amount of activity based on the annual dose of 25 millirem per year also with the practice of ALARA in all pathway's analysis of the site when it's - when they apply for license termination or in this case, shrinking it down to the dry fuel storage.

Paul Blanch: That still has nothing to do with your...

Bruce Watson: Let me finish. What the PSDAR says is that Holtec intends to decommission the site and release the land around this dry fuel storage for unrestricted release. In order to meet that you have to meet the 25 millirem per year

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 25 criteria plus the practice of ALARA. And I can attest that the first 10 reactors that were decommissioned in the United States were left at only a few millirem per year. And that would be from all pathways, including drinking water, the soil as if the property was used possibly for farming and people living on the land.

So it is a very strict standard that everybody in the United States has met, including the 10 reactors that have completed the decommissioning thus far, along with about 70, what we call complex material sites. So, I appreciate your concerns. We will be responding to your letter that you provided on July

29. Unfortunately, we've got some priorities set on some other letters that came in. But you can be assured that Neil Sheehan and I will be working on providing a written response to your letter that you provided to us on the night of July 29. So, thank you very much, Mr. Blanch.

Paul Blanch: That was that was a great answer, but it didn't even come close to responding to the question I asked. And I think that's an evasive response and an irresponsible response. I asked a number of curies and you're telling me the dose rate at the surface. What's the dose rate, you know?

Bruce Watson: No, sir, I did not say the dose rate at the surface. What I gave you was the total dose from the entire site, from all pathways, whether it's from drinking water, eating food grown on it or resuspension of the soil, all the parameters that go into the - we will be providing that information to you in a written form from the letter that you submitted on July 29.

So, for the time that we have right now, that's the best answer I can give you.

So, thank you very much.

Paul Blanch: Which was a non-answer.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 26 Brett Klukan: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Blanch. It doesn't look like we're going to have time concerns tonight based on the number of people in the queue. And I would ask, again, if you want to speak this evening, regardless of whether you spoke before at the prior meeting, press star 1 on your phone now to be entered into the queue so I know how many people who would like to speak this evening.

But I would just ask that - I'm allowing some back and forth because we don't see - we don't look like we're going have time pressures. So just allow the NRC staff to finish their - even, you know, granted, you may disagree with what they're saying, but let them finish before we move on.

So with that said, moderator, can we have our next speaker, please?

Coordinator: Yes. Next, you will hear from (Tina Voltsbanger). Your line is open.

(Tina Voltsbanger): Hi. Hi, there. I live about a half a mile from Indian Point. And about six years ago I was a spokesperson for our piece deal with the neighborhood association. And when we organized and got people, we had about 130 people on our email list and probably 30 or 50 people in the meetings.

And for four years we had the water, the radioactive isotope from Indian Point on our list. And, you know, just as a grassroots community, concerned citizens, you know, went to the NRC and, you know, anyway, went through the motions and everything else.

I'm hoping that all of the elected officials were on this call listening and everything else will do what needs to be done here and pressure the NRC to have a full-time monitor onsite. It's inexcusable. And I think it's very disingenuous of the NRC to say, oh, we really are concerned and we're really

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 27 going to be monitoring everything and then say, well, we're going to have a part-timer who is going to come in and inspect.

Already the model for environmental and public health is skewed and it's skewed in favor of industry because you leave it up to them to report and make all of these decisions, even if it's monitoring that I'm reading on your Web site. You know, I've read it before. I don't see this information, this important information, being really available to the public. And it should be and we deserve that.

And we should have an ongoing monitoring Web site that the public can look at and we can know what - you know, what are the readings on these wells?

Well, we know that you're doing it and looking at these reports. But what are they? We really need onsite and offsite monitoring. And we need it now because we need a baseline.

And everybody is talking about re-use of the site. Well if you're really looking at the way, you know, the contamination of the site, you say that's going to be some pretty major mining that needs to happen for the contamination to be dealt with unless it's just going to be left there.

But if it is, then that is something that really needs to be part of the public discussion. And I really feel it's up to the NRC to get Holtec to do the - you know, really the proper kind of monitoring that should and needs to take place for our public health. And, anyway, that's what I would like to say.

And the last thing I would say is there is going to be no risk of the gas pipeline if you shut them off and they should be shut down. Thank you very much.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 28 Brett Klukan: Thank you. And I know as well that you posed a question in the question and answer function. So earlier you asked what kind of comprehensive inventory will take place of the contamination at the site or of the site, both the groundwater and bedrock and the existing radioactivity from different operating activities like gas releases.

So, again, thank you for your question and your comment, and I'll turn it over to the staff now.

Bruce Watson: Yes. Well, thank you for the for the comments. One thing I want to really emphasize is that many of the programs that are were in place during the operation of the plant will continue during the decommissioning. And these include an environmental monitoring program.

And so, all of the effluents from the plant will be continued to be monitored.

And also, the area around the plant will continue to have the environmental or what we call the RAMP program also in place. And the inspectors will be inspecting to those programs at least annually.

And so, the environmental program at Indian Point includes, I believe, dozens of monitoring wells around the site monitoring for the groundwater for activity. And of course, there's other environmental monitoring that is in place, including monitors for all the effluents.

So that's just one of the programs that continues after the plant is shut down and continues operation. So, I would turn it over to maybe Tony Dimitriadis or one of his inspectors if they want to add anything to that.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 29 Tony Dimitriadis: Thank you, Bruce. Yes. Let me just kick it off a little bit. So in response to your request about a full-time monitor, I think you're referring to a resident inspector.

So, NRC inspections, like we said, during decommissioning are commensurate with risk significant activities. What does that mean? What that means is that when the licensee conducts certain decommissioning activities, the inspectors observe those activities by being onsite, by performing walk downs and interviewing site personnel, examining things and reviewing procedures and records and just generally being there to do some of the inspections that are onsite commensurate with the risk significant activities.

Now, when I say the risk significant activities, what this means is that once the - because the power reactor decommissioning activities present pure radiological and nuclear safety hazards than similar activities at operating power reactors, we believe that a full-time resident inspector is not an appropriate way to do the inspections.

We believe that the way that we've been doing decommissioning activities for years now is commensurate with the risk significant activities. It's been very effective for years. And my lead inspector, Katherine Warner, who is on the line here, she's an excellent inspector and she's been doing this for a number of years.

And she's identified a number of things that - and by the way when we complete our inspections, we do publish our reports and they are available in our ADAMS program, our agency-wide document management system. And if you don't have access to that, which is relatively easy, you could always Google it. But, Katherine, do you want to cover any of this, please?

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 30 Katherine Warner: Hi. Can you hear me? Very good. I would also add that there is an annual environmental report and an annual effluent report that is also publicly available that has some of that data in there. And then, of course, our inspection reports are published about quarterly right now.

And in addition to being there for a significant activity, we also do periodic review of the programs, which do include environmental monitoring and effluent monitoring. Thanks.

Tony Dimitriadis: One other thing to add is that along with Katherine as the lead inspector, there are other inspectors, the cadre of inspectors with whom we have a variety of expertise available to us in the region who can go and have gone to the sites to perform the decommissioning inspections that we perform.

In addition to the decommissioning inspections, we also have additional inspectors that focus specifically on the spent fuel storage. And so we have those cadre of folks who have expertise in that as well. Thank you.

Brett Klukan: Thank you. So, before we go on to our next speaker, I just wanted to let the audience know that Megan Glander, Senator Schumer's Regional Director for the Hudson Valley, is on the line with us this evening. So thank you for participating in the call.

All right. Moderator, can we have our next speaker, please?

Coordinator: Absolutely. Next, we will hear from Susan Hito Shapiro. Your line is open.

Susan Hito Shapiro: Hello. Can you hear me?

Brett Klukan: Yes.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 31 Susan Hito Shapiro: Okay. I had a very hard time depressing star 1 to begin with so thank you for putting me into the queue. But I have to first of all say that this is a fiasco.

The NRC, this is the second public hearing supposedly for the same issue because you were unable to have an effective webinar basically.

We've all been in COVID for over a year now. We've done many, many webinars, everybody who is on this call. And I don't understand why the NRC can't have a competent call.

This is very reminiscent of the problems that you had with the sirens. It makes you question as a member of the public, it makes me question, if the NRC can't hold a decent webinar or put in proper sirens, how can we feel confident?

How does the public feel confident that you can operate a nuclear plant safely and do proper decommissioning? It's really shocking, I have to say. It's shocking.

And the fact that right now I can't even see who else is on this call, I can only see the panelists, that's unheard of. A public meeting so everyone knows who's here as a public participating and we can't see that. That's the way you set it up. It's a problem.

Getting to the issues though tonight, today, is I want to say once again, it's highly disingenuous for the NRC and Mr. Watson to compare Indian Point to Shoreham, Buffalo reactors or any other reactor in this country. Indian Point is different. It's built on cracked bedrock.

First of all, I'd like you to answer how much nuclear waste was at Shoreham?

How much nuclear waste was at the Buffalo reactor? How much of that waste at those reactors was high burn-up fuel? How much money did the NRC take

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 32 from our public decommissioning funds and give it to store spent fuel at those reactors as they are doing here at Indian Point, diverting our hard-earned decommissioning fund in an improper way?

Please then answer how much nuclear waste is there existing at Indian Point?

How much of that nuclear waste is high burn-up fuel? I'd like answers to those questions but let me continue first.

Now going to the monitoring issue of this groundwater I just read, because Neil Sheehan sent me, because I had posted some comments, that there is a link to the NRC's information about groundwater leakage. And it clearly states that you're not worried about the contamination, the large quantities of contamination, which have been identified previously to be the size of the New York City reservoir and as deep as the Empire State Building.

You're not worried about it because it's below ground and groundwater at the site is not used for drinking water purposes. Well, in New York State, all groundwater has to be potable. So, the NRC is violating New York state law when it states that. And for you to say that you're going to be able to return the site to unrestricted release with known contamination under the plant, knowing that it's there but we don't know exactly where it is because it's in bedrock and bedrock that's cracked abnormally from when you built the plant, is really disingenuous and dangerous to the public.

It also says that the abnormal - this is your own words. The abnormal groundwater tritium released into the Hudson River represents a small, incremental addition to the natural radioactive release. How do you know that? Who's monitoring that? You don't have that information. So prior to doing anything at Indian Point, what we are asking for is a baseline of not only offsite but onsite, contamination of tritium, strontium, cesium, all the

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 33 radionuclides that are in the ground so that we know, and we want it continually monitored and publicly available, so we can be aware of what's going on at the site. When you start moving things around at that site, it's going to be a real mess, especially if you don't know what our baseline is to start with. So, I'm asking that you do that.

I really feel that there's a break from reality with what's going on here. The decommissioning of Indian Point is a big problem because of what the NRC did during the operations of Indian Point. Since 2005, you knew the Spent Fuel Pool 2 was cracked. And your decision was initially to try to clean it up.

But then you said, no, it's causing a bigger problem. We're just going to let it continue to leak into the bedrock.

So, you know that there's even more effluent, nuclear waste effluent, in that ground. So, to tell the public and to tell elected officials that you think that someday this site is going to be released for unrestricted use is totally disingenuous. And it's time for the NRC to talk about reality and for everyone to talk about reality.

Indian Point is a forever contaminated site unfortunately. It's not what I want.

It's not what any of us want. But it's a fact. Unless you magically know how to get effluent out of the ground, out of bedrock, you can't blast it. It will only make it worse. It will only make it airborne. How are you going to get it out without it leaking into the Hudson River, which is already being allowed to do? You're contaminating our river.

So please, the decommissioning plant at Indian Point has to be about containment. We have to contain the site. We have to protect and contain the site, protect and contain the environment. Anything less is not proper decommissioning.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 34 And I believe that the report that you're in the process of approving does not accomplish that, especially since it doesn't even include the gas pipeline. It doesn't even mention the gas pipeline, the three gas pipelines that are running under the site and the impact of moving large equipment, blasting, removing buildings, construction work or de-construction work that you're expecting to take place around those gas pipelines. It's a continuing disaster.

So, we ask you to stop trying to pull the wool over everybody's eyes and let's have a reality discussion about how damaged the site is. Thank you. I'd like some answers.

Bruce Watson: I'm trying to remember what the first comments were. Yes, there are radioactive materials at the site. They will be cleaned up. There are ways to minimize the groundwater contamination by digging up the soil down to the bedrock to remove that. That's been done at a number of sites. Yes, the...

((Crosstalk))

Susan Hito Shapiro: Excuse me, what about in the bedrock? We're talking about in the bedrock, down to the bedrock, in the bedrock.

Bruce Watson: I understand your question. But I just said you can minimize the amount that goes into the bedrock once you remove the soil that is above that. But in the bedrock, it'll have to go through its own natural attenuation. But there are ways to treat groundwater and it's going to be up to Holtec to do that if they're exceeding the EPA guidelines for any contamination of the groundwater.

Secondly, I wanted to mention that I believe they did use high burn-up fuel at the site. And it's not unusual to do that. And so, yes, there is high burn-up fuel

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 35 there. It will be placed in the dry storage along with all the remaining dry fuel storage.

Susan Hito Shapiro: How many years will you seep that into the pools, the high burn-up fuel, the last of the high burn-up fuel, the stuff that was used at the very end? How many years does that mean to stand in the pool?

Bruce Watson: The Holtec plan has the removal of all spent fuel in about three years. I think in the slide I had it was 2024 is when they plan...

((Crosstalk))

Susan Hito Shapiro: Is that what the NRC? I don't care what Holtec says. I care what the NRC regulations are in high burn-up fuel. My understanding is it's a minimum of 5 to 10 years, not 3 years.

Bruce Watson: No, I don't believe that's correct. I believe it's only a couple of years that most fuel has to be allowed to cool down in order to be...

((Crosstalk))

Susan Hito Shapiro: I'm talking about high burn-up fuel.

Bruce Watson: It has to meet certain heat load requirements in order to be placed in dry storage. So if it...

((Crosstalk))

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 36 Susan Hito Shapiro: We're talking about high burn-up fuel, not most fuel. We're talking about specifically high burn-up fuel, not most fuel. So, let's talk about high burn-up fuel.

Bruce Watson: And that would include high burn-up fuel. It requires about two years for the PWR fuel to cool down to be placed in dry storage.

Susan Hito Shapiro: I don't think that's correct. I'd like a report on that. Can you provide us with that report? Because I don't believe that's correct. I believe that's not actually accurate information you're providing. I think you need to give us a report on that. What I asked is how much fuel was at Shoreham and how much fuel was at the Buffalo reactor?

Bruce Watson: That was the other one. The fuel at Shoreham was transferred, as I said in my slides, to...

Susan Hito Shapiro: How much? How much? How much fuel?

Bruce Watson: It was one basic fuel load, which I don't remember how many fuel assemblies that was for that particular reactor. But it was a significant amount of fuel that was transferred to the Limerick site and used because it was only used for a limited time.

Susan Hito Shapiro: How much was at the Buffalo site? I asked how much was at the Buffalo site?

Bruce Watson: Excuse me. Let me finish your answer if you will let me. The Buffalo fuel was removed and taken by the Department of Energy and so that enabled the whole entire plant to be decommissioned.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 37 Susan Hito Shapiro: How much?

Bruce Watson: It is a research reactor. I don't know the quantities off the top of my head.

Susan Hito Shapiro: Okay. So, until you do...

((Crosstalk))

Bruce Watson: It was a large research reactor. But by power reactor standards, it's quite small as far as the amount of fuel that would have been used in it.

((Crosstalk))

Bruce Watson: However, the point I made with my slides is that the decommissioning process can be done safely. It has been done safely in two particular reactor sites in the State of New York. So, I thank you for your questions. I hope I answered them.

((Crosstalk))

Brett Klukan: All right. So, I'm going to just step in here for a second. Susie, just give me one minute like we have plenty of time. There's only one more speaker in the queue. So granted, we're going to go back and let other people have opportunity. So, what I'm asking for the sake of, you know, members of the public listening to this and also for the poor transcriptionists afterwards, is that, you now, you may disagree with what Bruce is saying. And I'm not here to object to that. But I would just ask that you give Bruce the opportunity to finish and then you can continue with your question.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 38 So just let's just keep it at one person talking at a time. Getting louder or trying to overtalk each other doesn't help anyone listening in on the phone or, again, the poor transcriptionist. So, I'm not cutting you off. I'm just saying, let's just give each other - wait until the other person is finished and then we can continue forward because we don't, as of right now, have a time pressure.

All right. You know, I'll ding the bell again and let you continue with your question.

Susan Hito Shapiro: I apologize for speaking over Bruce, but he was not answering my question. He was just deflecting my question. It was frustrating. And I'm frustrated by his response. I'm asking if he doesn't know the answer just say I don't know the answer. Don't try to give me a different answer. I'm asking a very specific question.

How much spent fuel is that Indian Point? How much of that spent fuel is high burn-up fuel? How many tons of fuel do we have at Indian Point compared to Shoreham and Buffalo? But I want to know right now, I'm asking a very clear question. You should know. Somebody on this panel should know if we're talking about decommissioning Indian Point, how much fuel is at Indian Point?

Bruce Watson: Okay. There are approximately 4,000 spent fuel assemblies onsite at the time of shutdown, which is a significant amount of spent fuel. As I was getting to in my discussion with you, was that the amount of fuel that Shoreham was very small in comparison to that and even a smaller percentage at the research reactor at the New York State University of Buffalo. And so that's where I was headed with my answer. So, thank you.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 39 Susan Hito Shapiro: Wait. And you didn't answer the second part. How much of that 4,000 spent fuel components is high burn-up fuel? How much is high burn-up?

Bruce Watson: I do not know. I know some of it is.

Susan Hito Shapiro: So why not? You're supposed to be in charge.

Bruce Watson: Because spent fuel is not my expertise. I mean, I'm here to answer decommissioning questions.

Susan Hito Shapiro: Can you please provide us with the information you are claiming? Since you're in charge of decommissioning, you're claiming spent fuel that's high burn-up fuel can come out of reactors in two years. Will you please provide us with that report?

Bruce Watson: I'll have the staff send that to you.

Susan Hito Shapiro: I also previously asked for the person who is the groundwater expert that you said was going to - with Mr. (Fedors) I believe his name was, was going to get in touch with me. Nobody did. Nobody reached out to me.

Bruce Watson: Now I don't believe you asked him to get in touch with you. You asked for his name so that you could contact him is what I understood. So, I'm sorry if we misunderstood.

Susan Hito Shapiro: So, he was going to get in touch with me. Can you please have him get in touch with me?

Bruce Watson: I will see if he's available. Thank you.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 40 Susan Hito Shapiro: Thank you.

Bruce Watson: Brett, you're on mute.

Brett Klukan: Of course, I am. So, you know, let's add to the difficulty of this night by me talking without hitting the unmute button. What I was saying, Susan, is thank you for your comments and your questions. If any of the questions you put into question answer box in WebEx weren't addressed, you know, feel free to circle back to them after our next speaker.

But again, we have one more speaker cued up. And so, moderator, can we unmute them next and then we can see where we're at in terms of people who want to speak again. So right now, we have one more speaker cued up who has not yet spoken. So, let's go to them next.

Coordinator: Thank you. Next, we will hear from Margo Shepart. Your line is open.

Margo Shepart: Hi. Okay. Before I say what I wanted to say, I want to just kind of piggyback on what Susan was saying and reiterate her point that if you're going to be using previously decommissioned or currently decommissioning plant sites as examples of the success of either the NRC or Holtec and you use examples that are totally not comparable with Indian Point, so such as the examples you used, Buffalo and whatever that other one was, because they're so much smaller, that was Susan's point.

It is really not helpful for you to say in a presentation, well, we are successfully keeping things safe. We are keeping everything under control and we successfully conducted our oversight of these other sites. But if they're so, so different from Indian Point in the amount of radioactive material then really not very useful to have that in your presentation.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 41 The second thing I wanted to say is everyone knows that new equipment in companies everywhere costs money and that companies do not replace equipment unless they are forced to or really, really need to. So with all this conversation about monitoring, I am real interested in what specific monitoring technology is in place at Indian Point right now and when is the last time it was updated or replaced?

That is information in terms of like, I'm not a monitoring expert by any means, but certainly I'm familiar with radiation networks that are using different models of Geiger counters and measurement tools. And I know that they're always updating them and that currently we're actually waiting for one company to come out with their next model.

So, I know that there's monitoring or measurement of water in the wells. I know that there's supposed to be air measurements being taken over there.

What is this? What is this equipment? I'm sure you don't have it off the top of your head. But I'm interested in knowing, you know, what are the name brands and the model numbers of the equipment that's currently being used and when is the last time it was updated?

And how does this compare to what's being used at other sites? Because your results or your conclusions are only as good as the equipment that you're using to come up and say, well, everything is fine, but we don't know. We don't know if it's fine. Because you say, like you said before, it's been very effective, that the oversight you've conducted is very effective. But how do you know it's been effective if your equipment is not updated?

So that just ties into how can the public feel confident that the monitoring and the supervision that you are doing is adequate? You say that it's adequate. You

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 42 say, you know, we're successfully doing this. How do we know? How do we know? How can we feel? How can we feel confident?

And I think I heard somebody say that something was inspected annually. I'm not sure what that was, if it was the groundwater, but that the supervisor - that something was inspected annually. I don't understand. That doesn't make any sense to me how anything can only be inspected one time a year. Just that I did not understand.

And I have one more question regarding Holtec. I don't know if you can answer this. You mentioned that Holtec would treat any contaminated groundwater that comes out of the incredible amounts of sludge, radioactive sludge, that are embedded in the bedrock, that are already embedded in the bedrock. So, removing or mitigating the amount of radiation that's in the soil on top of the bedrock, that's great. But what about what's already in the bedrock?

So, my question is, what is Holtec's actual experience in treating contaminated groundwater? Do they have any track record, you know, at all of treating contaminated groundwater? That's it.

Tony Dimitriadis: Thank you. My name is Tony Dimitriadis. I'm the branch chief for Region I NRC in the Division of Radiological Safety and Security. And my branch is responsible for oversight of Indian Point for decommissioning ISFSI. That means independent spent fuel storage installations and reactor health physics.

And I work with Katherine Warner, who's also one of our lead inspectors for Indian Point.

As far as the monitoring, your question is associated with leaks and things.

There are numerous monitoring wells that are checked for leaks and spills of

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 43 contaminated liquid into the soil. That's been at Indian Point for years. And specific to your questions about - and we agree that the appropriate equipment must be used to ensure that the monitoring is effective and it measures the appropriate radiation that may be - you know, if it's leaking into the soil or the groundwater or wherever, must be used.

We don't have specific information right here. But I can tell you that our inspectors evaluate and examine these monitors and the licensee's program to ensure that the licensee is effectively monitoring any potential releases to the environment. Katherine, would you want to go into a little bit about our procedures, about how we do that specifically?

Katherine Warner: Yes. So, for our procedure, part of it is to walk down some of those samplers that are on site, including air samplers and direct radiation samplers. So we walk those down to make sure that they're physically able to perform its job function. We want to make sure that, for example, trees are not blocking the way of an air sampler in a way that would negatively impact its ability to collect an air sample should something happen.

We also look at groundwater monitoring results and review those and do further walkdowns on the site. So that's part of what we do. And generally, we look at that program annually, coinciding with the annual reports that the licensee releases that I mentioned earlier on the effluent and environmental monitoring. Thanks.

Margo Shepart: I'm sorry. But the question that I asked was, when is the last time - we had our sirens replaced. Okay? So, the sirens that were installed in the early 60s have been replaced. When is the last time the monitors were replaced? You know, what is the current technology? What are those samplers?

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 44 When is the last time those - I'm glad that they're not being blocked by trees but what actually - you know, who made them? How long ago? How old is the actual monitoring equipment, the samplers that are being walked down? And also, can you explain what that means to walk down something? It's like, what do you mean by walking it down?

Tony Dimitriadis: So, for the monitoring, there are actual wells that the licensee actually can take samples and take the water or the soil or whatever, take it to the laboratory and use their equipment to count radioactivity. That equipment is updated on a regular basis. It's not like the sirens that are installed once and then they have to be changed over after 30 years. These things are done on a regular basis for all licensees, typically for a number of reasons.

And people, inspectors, excellent speakers like Katherine, do their job. And they actually - when we say they perform walkdowns, they actually literally walk to each monitoring well to see if it's effective. For example, they walk to areas for the air samplers to see if they are designed to operate in a way for which they were designed. And there are not obstacles and things. Katherine, you can check in here.

Margo Shepart: So, I understand about the physical, the physical obstruction of you want to make sure it's effective so a tree is not blocking it. But how else do you make sure that the equipment itself is effective?

Tony Dimitriadis: We check to make sure that -- and Katherine jump in here any time -- we check to make sure that they're operating and calibrated properly. We check if they're operating their equipment in accordance with the operating manuals and the manufacturer's specifications, things like that. Anything you want to add, Katherine?

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 45 Katherine Warner: And the goal for that is really that it performs its job function regardless of age or making a model. So that is something we look at. And I should note that the TLDs, that's what measures the direct radiation and those are actually changed out quarterly.

Bruce Watson: Yes. If I can just jump in here. The site has environmental tech specs which were in place during the plant operation. Those technical specifications require specific monitoring and specific levels that they have to be able to measure. And so the inspectors inspect the equipment to make sure they're meeting those requirements.

As Tony said, they're calibrated to certain specifications. They're operated according to the operator manuals and the manufacturer's manuals. And so they're required to maintain this equipment. It has to be operable. And so that does mean that they do maintenance on the equipment. And also, if they need to replace an obsolete piece of equipment, they are required to do that in order to maintain the license properly and maintain the safety of the site.

Like I said before, these environmental monitoring requirements, including the groundwater monitoring, is continued up until the site is released. When we make that determination that the it is no longer needed for monitoring the environment because the radioactive material has been removed to meet the unrestricted dose rate criteria.

Another point I wanted to reiterate is that I mentioned that there are groundwater technologies that can be used to remediate the groundwater if needed. Typically, that is done if the groundwater exceeds any EPA requirements for groundwater contamination. And so that is one consideration that should that they ever reach those levels that the licensee would be

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 46 obligated to clean up the groundwater using such technology. So thank you very much for your question.

((Crosstalk))

Bruce Watson: The TLD stands for the thermo luminescent dosimeter. That's one way that licensees utilize a device that estimates the dose that may be received by a person. There are other ones, like the newer ones are OSL, that stands for optically stimulated luminescence. It's a newer technology. TLDs work just as well. We wanted to make sure that you have that information.

Margo Shepart: Thank you. Does Holtec have any experience in treating contaminated groundwater?

Tony Dimitriadis: I don't know. I would suspect that's not their forte. Most companies would hire a specialty company that specializes in that particular area of expertise. So that's not unusual in the industry to have an expert groundwater company do the monitoring.

As a matter of fact, our groundwater expert from my group was there the other week with an inspector with the inspection and spoke with the current consultant that had been used at the site for a number of years, a local vendor.

I can't think of the name of it right now, but they've been monitoring, doing the groundwater monitoring at the site, consulting work for a number of years.

And so, the groundwater expert that I have on my branch in my group that was up there looking at the groundwater issues a few weeks ago, has been thoroughly briefed by them on the situation at Indian Point.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 47 Margo Shepart: Did they also do the clean-up though? You know, does the consulting - who does the actual dirty work of cleaning up radioactive water?

Bruce Watson: It's done all over the country, especially at uranium mill tailing sites. I don't know all the names of the companies, but normally you would hire a specialty company to do that. So, I just don't know the names of anybody right off my head right now. So, I appreciate the interest though.

Margo Shepart: Thank you.

Brett Klukan: Okay. Thank you, everyone, and thank you for those questions and comments.

We've now exhausted the people in our queue so we have extra time remaining so if you'd like to speak again, you know, press star 1 on your phones, particularly if you asked questions in the WebEx.

For those of you who spoke already, and you added questions to the WebEx, if you want follow-up on those questions, you know, feel free to add yourself back to the queue at this time. But again, to be added to the queue, please press star 1 on your phone.

While people are entering into the queue, I just wanted to announce that Lisa Hofflich, the Hudson Valley Regional Director for US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is on the line as well. Again, that's Lisa Hofflich of the Hudson Valley region - who is the Hudson Valley Regional Director for US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. And it looks like we have two speakers in the queue. So, moderator, if you could please unmute our next speaker, please?

Coordinator: Absolutely. Next, we will hear from Herschel Specter. Your line is open.

Herschel Specter: Good afternoon. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 48 Brett Klukan: We can hear you. We can hear you.

Herschel Specter: Okay. Good. I'm looking at Page 36 of Holtec's PSDAR. And at the very top of the page, there's a little table dealing with the amounts of various waste, including the Class A low level waste. And if you would look at that page, you would notice that for Indian Point 1, Holtec is saying that the number of cubic feet of the Indian Point 1 Class A waste is roughly 3.6 million cubic feet.

I've gone ahead and looked at a NUREG. I think it's 13-07, Revision 18. And I even spoke today with one of the authors and they quoted a figure of about

$100 per cubic foot if that waste ends up in Texas. If you multiply the number of cubic feet that Holtec says is for Class A just for Indian Point 1 times 100, you come up with around $300 million.

I can't believe that Holtec has a viable decommissioning cost estimate if it includes a figure that is so huge. So, I am going to ask the NRC. and I've written this already to Mr. Guzman, there is the good reason to check into this number once again, see if it is incorrect and then if it is, take action to correct it, including (sensible) changes that may have to happen within the decommissioning cost estimates themselves.

The numbers in that table, not just Indian Point 1 but also 2 and 3, look extremely high. Or if they're right, then we have a lot of problem coming up with the money because in total it would be over $700 million just to remove Class A radioactive material at that kind of cubic feet. Thank you for your time.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 49 Bruce Watson: I'll just respond in general. One of the biggest costs for decommissioning is the disposal of the waste. And so, you know, they've included the estimate of the amount of waste so that the they can validate whether or not they have reasonable assurance that they have sufficient funds to do the decommissioning.

As I pointed out in my slide, they have approximately $2.4 billion. I would expect that a large portion of that would be for low level waste disposal. I was going to ask (Rich Turtell), I think he's on the line, he's our economist. He reviews those. If you could - if you wanted to make any comments. Rich.

(Rich Turtell): Hi. (Rich Turtell) here. Thanks, Mr. Herschel. I'm sorry I'm -

Herschel Specter: It's okay.

(Rich Turtell): I'm calling you by your first name. Specter, Mr. Specter, so we'll take a look at that comment. I appreciate it. I know the challenge or the opportunities with low level waste disposal having at least two sites in this country whereby waste can be shipped, there's obviously opportunity for negotiation of what those prices might be. And here is now a licensee with some, you know, as we've noted, probably negotiating for five disposal of low level waste from five different plants with the potential of maybe one or two more being added.

So getting a dollar figure for disposal of low level waste certainly can be a challenge to talk to the right folks and figure out what's being negotiated behind the scenes. But that being said, we'll look closely at your comment.

And I appreciate your reaching out.

Herschel Specter: Well let me comment on your comment. Mind you the figures that went into the decommissioning cost estimate were already presented back in December

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 50 of 2019. Whatever negotiations that might be going on now are somewhat irrelevant. Of course, I want to know whether the PSDAR numbers are correct as of the date that they published the PSDAR.

And if they're not and we need to know where we are today. For all I know the prices have gone up although the number I quoted of $100 per cubic foot seems to be quite recent as I spoke with the author today. In any case, while we're on the subject, I don't know how Holtec back in December of 2019 could make an estimate out to six significant figures for each site when I don't believe that even at that time did a survey of the contamination level in the site.

So where do the basic numbers come from in addition to when you multiply it by the dollars per cubic foot? It's mysterious to me that anybody could have such incredible, I'll say precision. I don't know about accuracy, but certainly precision. So that seems to me to be strange.

How in the world did Holtec know back in December 2019 up to six significant figures what the amount of cubic feet at Indian Point 1 would be?

And was there something special about Indian Point 1 because the number of cubic feet they assigned for Class A for Indian Point 1 is much larger than Indian Point 2. And yet the number of years that Indian Point 1 operated was only 12 years. The power level was a lot lower and the plant has been shut down since 1974.

So, all things being equal, one would think that the dollar figure associated with Indian Point 1 for Class A treatment would be way lower than Indian Point 2. But that is not what is reflected in the PSDAR. So, I have difficulty feeling comfortable with what Holtec is doing.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 51 All of these comments are in my letter to Mr. Guzman. Thank you.

(Rich Turtell): I thank you for that. And we'll take a close look at that. I appreciate it.

Bruce Watson: I just want to add that that's a very good question and those are the types of questions we like to hear about the PSDAR. I share your concerns about the volume of waste considering the age of the plant. However, having been at the plant over the last - off and on over the last 30 years, I can tell you that the Unit 1 plant is much bigger just because of the megawatt issue it had.

It was, like I will say, overdesigned dramatically in the size of the capacity of all the support systems. As a matter of fact, they're used partly by Unit 2. And so I appreciate it. And (Richard) will be doing - (Rich) and his group will be doing the financial review. So you have given him a good starting point to take a hard look at it. And I'm sure (Rich) will be passing on your letter to (Rich) in his group for evaluation in their review. Thank you very much.

(Rich Turtell): And if I could reinforce, a colleague has reminded me that just kind of reinforce. I think it's important that the staff we will be looking at this.

Obviously, we have looked at it with a license transfer application. We are reviewing for the PSDAR. And then beyond that, annually, we're looking at any revisit by Holtec and we are looking at their decommissioning funding availability. So, this comes up on a regular basis. We're performing reviews as we speak Herschel Specter: When you do this, Mr. (Turtell), I hope you'll do the following. The cost for each unit, for the Class A stuff is assigned to that particular unit. So we want to be sure that the cost for taking out Class A for Indian Point 1 is only assigned to Indian Point 1. Same thing with 2 and 3. However, what I don't understand if there is a bulldozer running around on the site removing the soil,

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 52 how in the world can an inspector tell, well, here's the boundary line between Unit 1, Unit 2, Unit 3.

They're very closely compacted together. If they grab a cubic foot of soil, which plant does it come from and therefore which decommissioning trust fund does it come from? If it's skewed, then one trust fund is going to overpay and another one is going to underpay. So I don't know how the inspection process can be used, particularly if they only show up every so often.

One of the comments other people are making, how would an inspector know where a cubic foot of Class A waste came from and to be sure, it only was charged to that DTF?

(Rich Turtell): Very good. Thank you for that comment.

(Hershel Specter): You're welcome.

Brett Klukan: Thank you for those questions and comments. Before we go to our next speaker, I would just like to recognize that Theresa Knickerbocker, the mayor of Buchanan, is on the line with us as well this evening. So, thank you for attending. Again, that's Theresa Knickerbocker, the mayor of Buchanan.

So, moderator, with that said, could we have our next speaker, please?

Coordinator: Our next speaker will be Jacquelyn Drechsler. Your line is open.

Jacquelyn Drechsler: Thank you again for the extra opportunity to speak. So, I would like to say a couple of things. I would like to say that the Seven Towns that rely on their drinking water, I want this on the record. There should be a baseline report about radiation in their water. So that if there's leak, knowing that this river

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 53 flows both ways as there are leaks, continuing leaks since 2005, that they should be able to know if there is an uptick during decommissioning.

I also believe that the issue that (Margo Sheppard brought up about up-to-date monitoring, I understand it's through, you know, wells and taking samples back to the lab. But I believe that the air monitoring, air monitoring needs to not only be onsite for the safety of the workers but also in the public arena in places where people congregate and at schools.

And I also believe that there should be third-party citizen scientists monitoring. We do not have confidence in Holtec self-reporting on monitoring. I also believe that this waste as much as possible needs to remain onsite in huge base casks, not in Holtec's crocks. Furthermore, I would like to say that I believe that Paul Blanch has been blacklisted repeatedly about the credible event issues.

And I'm tired of that. I was on another call a couple of months ago where this question was never answered. It needs to be answered. I also want to know when there is going to be a decision made by the NRC and the PSC. There needs to be a decision that we, the public, are aware of when these pipelines, especially the (AIM) pipeline, will be shut down.

And I don't mean just during, you know, certain phases of de-construction. I mean just shut down through the entire de-construction. Okay. So that's another little issue there.

And I do believe also that, you know, I find it a little disingenuous that the person who - someone said that - actually Bruce, you said that when Susan was asking about the water, you said that there are ways to treat groundwater if it exceeds EPA standards. And then in the next breath with someone else

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 54 you said that this isn't Holtec's expertise necessarily, and there may be some outside specialty company that deals with this.

Okay. Good to have extra expertise, but one would think that all of you at the NRC may have some expertise after all of the years and the many years all of you have put in that you would have some idea of this.

I am also a little concerned because I was on the call when Susan asked about Mr. (Fedors), not just the spelling of the name, but that they could be connected because she has a lot of information that you apparently don't seem to have. So, I would expect that you would respect Susan Shapiro enough to get her all of the information and have her be able to meet with this fellow.

You said he was up there a couple of weeks ago. Well she should have been invited to be a part of that. She has a huge amount of expertise as well.

So, I think that is pretty much it for me on my extra comments. And I appreciate the time. If there were any questions in there, I would like them answered. I would especially love to know if there's going to be a chance for citizen scientists monitoring. There's enough citizen scientists in Rockland County and in Westchester that we can do this and that we would trust ourselves more than we would trust Holtec. Thank you.

Brett Klukan: Waiting to see if - making sure that everyone - the staff is there if they wanted to comment. But thank you for your questions, additional questions and comments. We appreciate it.

Bruce Watson: I had trouble finding the button here. But, yes, I was just going to mention that, you know, as far as groundwater monitoring goes, analysis, Holtec uses

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 55 their labs. They also send - I'm sure they send samples off to independent laboratories for analysis.

On top of that, the NRC has two world class laboratories in which we send our samples to. When we do, we split samples with the licensee pay for groundwater sampling. We do that on a periodic basis and when we feel it's necessary. I know we spent a lot of time and effort sampling the groundwater when the leaks were determined a number of years ago. And we sent our samples to two of the national labs that actually run the laboratory accreditation programs in the United States.

So, we have full confidence in the QA work that we do. And also, since Holtec does not do, or any of the licenses, do all of their own lab work. They contract it out to laboratories which are certified to do those types of analysis.

And as Katherine and Tony had mentioned, the groundwater reports are in the annual effluent reports that are provided to the NRC. They are also publicly available and they're available in ADAMS. And so, I'm sure you can find those for Indian Point and for all the other plants around the country.

Lastly, I just want to mention that we don't really get into the commercial side of work. Therefore, we don't recommend or provide any commercial information for groundwater contractors that would do groundwater remediation. All we do is make sure that it is performed safely.

The licensee is responsible for the performance of the contractors. And we remain an independent safety regulator. And we would only look at the effectiveness of their program if they needed to clean up the groundwater. So thank you very much.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 56 Jacquelyn Drechsler: I would just like to know who that was speaking because I can't see anyone. I'm only on the phone.

Brett Klukan: So that was Bruce Watson.

Jacquelyn Drechsler: Okay. Thank you very much.

Brett Klukan: Oh, you're welcome. Okay. So...

Jacquelyn Drechsler: I still have questions that weren't answered there. But thank you.

Brett Klukan: So right now, we don't have anyone in the queue so if you would like to add anything additional at this time, please press star 1 on your phone. Again, that is star 1 to be entered into the queue. We do have additional time remaining.

So, I will give people some time to see if there's anything else they would like to add this evening. So again, that is star 1.

Tony Dimitriadis: Brett, there was a comment earlier about the time of the webinar that we have the WebEx. For folks in the audience, I just wanted to let you know that we picked the time slot here for 4:00 to 7:00 in an effort to try to get people at the end of their business day but also part of the evening.

You know, obviously, we're trying the best that we can to see if we can capture all the audience. We're trying to get as many people as we can. Some people cannot participate solely in the evening. So that's why we picked this time to sort of cover all the, you know, the three-hour slot. And if it needs to go longer then we do that.

Brett Klukan: Thank you for that, Tony. I appreciate it. And again, we welcome your feedback. The feedback will be posted to the meeting Web site or the Web site

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 57 associated with this meeting. Now we have three speakers in the queue. And so moderator, if you wouldn't mind unmuting the top speaker, please.

Coordinator: Absolutely. Next, we will hear from Jocelyn Decrescenzo. Your line is open.

Jocelyn Decrescenzo: Yes, I thank all of you again for this opportunity to make a comment, you know, for a second time. I feel really - I feel a little mistreated by all of you because, again, I can't see anyone because of this failure of a WebEx platform.

I couldn't see any of the charts that you were showing in your PowerPoint presentation. I'm sure it was a lovely little presentation, but it was not visible to me. So, I didn't gain anything really from it.

I'm wondering how, you know, people were asking some very specific questions and you don't have any very specific answers. And I wonder if wherever you are while you're doing this, you have computers available to you so you could look up a fact or a fiction or some number and how does it translate if it's, you know, how many other cubic feet of whatever?

So, I just don't understand how it seems like you are rather ill prepared for the questions that people have asked of you. And to be told, you know, we'll get back to you on that and a letter is in the mail to you or we're working on it, it's just not good enough. I really feel that you are just really disregarding people who have terrific raised concerns about the health and well-being of 20 million people to say nothing of our planet and our rivers and everything else that is here.

And I'm really disappointed. It's the same thing over and over again. You ask for public comments and questions and they're put in. And then they're primarily disregarded. And I resent that. And I'm upset about this. I do appreciate being able to speak tonight, but I think that there are a lot of

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 58 questions that you've equivocated on and basically that you have given some bullshit answers to and it's not a good feeling to listen to. Thank you very much.

Bruce Watson: I'll just respond that, yes, we have provided some specifics. We came here specifically to talk about the PSDAR and the comments on that. So some of the questions we've been able to provide what I'll call a reasonable amount of information in specifics.

But, you know, not knowing those questions in advance, you know, it's very difficult to just throw out a number. As we've said, there's a number of them we don't know. But we do accept written comments and we'll do our best to get back to you. So, thank you.

Jocelyn Decrescenzo: Thank you.

Brett Klukan: Thank you again. Moderator, could we have our next speaker, please?

Coordinator: Yes. Our next speaker is Herschel Specter. Your line is open.

Herschel Specter: Once again, thank you. I'm going to again refer to the HDI PSDAR. And if you would look at Table 3-6 this is the ideal fuel acceptance allocation, a very important table by the way.

If you look at that table under Unit 1, the very first fuel assemblies if I read the table correctly, the first ones to be removed happen in 2048 and then a year later, 2049, the remaining fuel assemblies are removed.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 59 My understanding of how the Department of Energy works with regard to removing spent fuel is that they want the oldest spent fuel to be removed first.

The oldest spent fuel is clearly Indian Point 1.

I did a calculation, which I've already submitted to the commission, saying that the delay in removing the spent fuel for Indian Point 1 depletes the decommissioning funds approximately by $69 million. So, I'm curious as to why the NRC would permit Holtec to delay the removal of the Indian Point 1 spent fuel and not have it the first the first one out the door. It's costing the public money because it depletes unnecessarily the decommissioning funds.

Along with that table if you look at Indian Point 3, and I draw your attention to years 2055 and 2066, there's a marked difference between the number of fuel assemblies that are removed.

For example, in 2055, the table claims 178 fuel assemblies yet the following year it's down to 96, a very big change. However, if you go to the Indian Point 3 decommissioning cost estimates for those two years, the amounts are virtually identical at 14 and a fraction. I think it's $14.8 million for each of those two years.

So, it doesn't seem like there's any correlation between what Holtec charges during those two years and the number of fuel assemblies that are actually being dealt with. So, I find that confusing. And I asked the staff to clarify whether the Holtec's charges for fuel assembly should be fairly constant. And if not, why not? Thank you very much.

Bruce Watson: I was going to ask Tony Dimitriadis if you wanted to take a shot at answering this one?

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 60 Tony Dimitriadis: Sure, sure. Yes. Thank you for your comment. We mean that sincerely by the way. We're going to take a look at that, you know, in detail. But I think what you're referring to is the HDI spent fuel management plan makes certain assumptions that the DOE, the Department of Energy, would commence transferring commercial spent fuel from the industry to a federal facility that may be built at some time in the future.

So I think what you're referring to is that the removal would begin in like 2031 and be complete by 2048 for Unit 2 and Unit 1 would begin in 2048 and be complete in 2049 and for Unit 3, 2049 to 2061. I think that's what you're referring to. But we'll take a we'll take a close look at that.

And it is an estimate and, you know, the PSDAR sometimes would be not this specific, but it can be and obviously it is in this case and it can change.

Herschel Specter: Well if you look at what Holtec put in, they refer to a document published by DOE on this very subject. It's in their references. I can dig it up if you need to have that additional help. But I've looked at that document and it states very clearly, and I have submitted this information already to the commission, it states very clearly that the oldest fuel elements come out first.

So right away we have a problem with Indian Point 1 being the oldest. And when it's deferred all those years, and you can add up the numbers. I've done it. It's close to $69 million additional charges that will be out of the decommissioning trust fund for no obvious reason and apparently inconsistent with DOE guidelines.

So, there are two problems, one of which is the timing of the removal of the Indian Point 1 fuel assemblies or the canisters or however. And the second one is dealing just strictly with Indian Point 3. If you look at it from year to

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 61 year, two consecutive years, very different numbers of fuel elements removed.

No difference in the cost.

And to me, this is very puzzling. So, I urge you to take a close look at that and if they are wrong, have them correct it. Thank you.

Tony Dimitriadis: Thank you so much for your comment. Thank you.

Brett Klukan: Yes. Thank you again. So, moderator, could we have our next speaker, please?

Coordinator: Yes. Our next speaker is Margo Shepart. Your line is open.

Margo Shepart: Hi. This is a real easy question you'll be happy to know. I want to know about the transcript of the first meeting. Is that currently available and where can we access it? And the same thing for the transcript of this meeting. When do you anticipate it will be ready for us to look at?

Bruce Watson: Yes. The transcript from the previous meeting is presently being reviewed.

There's a number of typos in it we're having fixed and it will also go through a management review just so they have time to look at it. But it will be made publicly available. It will be attached to a meeting summary. It will be publicly available in ADAMS, our agency-wide document system. And so...

Margo Shepart: Do you know when? It's already been a pretty long time.

Bruce Watson: I think it will probably be another week or two. And then the same process will be used for this meeting. We have to wait on a contractor to produce the transcript and then we have to edit it to make sure that maybe we get names

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 62 correctly spelled and other misspellings in it and make sure it's an accurate document. So, it will also take about the same time frame.

Margo Shepart: So that time frame...

Bruce Watson: It does take so long but that's the process we have to follow.

Margo Shepart: No, I understand. I understand that it takes a while and I know what's involved. So just for future reference we're talking about like five weeks, six weeks turnaround for a transcript?

Bruce Watson: Yes. I think our contractor that we used in New York at the July 29 meeting had some issues they had to work through that delayed it about a week that we didn't plan on. So, you know, we can only produce the report and edit it when we get it. And we were pushing them to get it to us as soon as possible.

Tony Dimitriadis: But basically what...

Bruce Watson: I appreciate it.

Margo Shepart: Basically what?

Tony Dimitriadis: This is Tony. So basically, less than four weeks.

Bruce Watson: That's our goal.

Margo Shepart: All right.

Brett Klukan: So, it looks like just, you know, following a side chat here for the NRC, it looks like the transcript from the last meeting, July 29, it is in ADAMS right

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 63 now. So you could go look it up and then it will be posted to the - I don't know if it's been posted to the Web site yet, but as a status update, it has been added into ADAMS. So, it will be there and again it will be added.

And likewise, as we said, this will - this meeting will also be transcribed. And likely what we'll do is add the question and answer portion of the WebEx and append that to the transcript as well just to add that to part of the record. So, to answer your question.

Margo Shepart: Is it under Indian Point in Adams? Is there a transcript section? Where would I find it in ADAMS?

Brett Klukan: I'm going to ask - so I'm going to ask the staff to give me the ML number and I'll read that out loud. So, whilst they're doing that, we're going to go on to our next speaker. But then once I have that, I'll read it out loud after our next speaker has concluded. Okay?

Margo Shepart: Sure. Thank you.

Brett Klukan: Okay. Moderator, could we have our next speaker, please?

Coordinator: Yes. Our next speaker is Jacquelyn Drechsler. Your line is open.

Jacquelyn Drechsler: Thank you. So, my sister actually had a comment. I found it very interesting that I'm outside and she is inside and we both had issues with WebEx. Now everything that you have apparently, you've posted on all sorts of Web sites and nothing is really that proprietary. I'm just wondering why, you know, you felt you had to use this WebEx, which I mentioned many, many people are uncomfortable with and doesn't seem to work well.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 64 And I just feel that you need to get down to the people a little bit more. We both had the same comment about this and also that not all comments or questions are answered fully.

My sister had a very unique idea, actually, that she mentioned to me, which is that, you know, you're having - you are kind of insisting on a part-time monitor to be present. You could have a full-time monitor. How much would it cost? Really a pittance when you're talking about this huge trust fund. How much would it cost to have someone live in a little house there and be the full-time monitor and then you have someone who (sells) that person?

Why can't you work with the people a little bit on their ideas to alleviate some of our concerns? I'm thinking, you know, what would that cost, $100,000 a year at the most, not even? And I'm just - you know, we're just wondering why there can't be some other way to accommodate some of the issues that we're all feeling. Thank you very much. That's it.

Brett Klukan: Thank you very much for that for that comment and for your prior comments as well. So, all right. I have the ML number for the transcript from the July 29 meeting. So, I'll give you a second to get pen and paper ready. And I think we will try to post this to the question and answer box as well for those of you on WebEx. But let's start with those of you just on the phone. Okay. So the ML Number is ML21221A, as an alpha, 311. Again, that is ML21221A311. That is the ML number for the prior transcript. And Neil, thank you very much. We posted that as well in the WebEx for those of you able to join the WebEx.

Okay.

So right now, looking back at my queue, we don't have anyone in the queue.

So, I'll give you a couple of seconds here to see if anyone else has any final

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 65 remaining remarks before I turn it over to Bruce for the summary. So again star 1 if you have anything else you would like to add to the meeting tonight.

Okay. I'm not seeing anyone. Moderator, oh, we have one. It looks like we have one more speaker. So could you unmute them, please, moderator.

Coordinator: Yes. Next, we'll hear from Jocelyn Decrescenzo. Your line is open.

Jocelyn Decrescenzo: I just wanted to thank Bret particularly for arranging this for tonight because things seemed to go a little better by phone. It certainly hasn't gone better by the WebEx. But I do appreciate that you have constructed a space where we can, again, voice our opinions and throw out some questions. And I'm really glad that you were able to arrange this. So thank you.

Brett Klukan: You're welcome and I can't take full credit for it. There are a number of staff who helped arrange this call. So, you know, my thanks to them as well for organizing this. And thank you again for participating. Anyone else? Again, any final thoughts or comments? Again, star 1. It looks like we have one additional speaker.

Coordinator: Yes. Next, we will hear from Herschel Specter. You may proceed.

Herschel Specter: Thank you once again for your patience. I have a request. In the first safety evaluation there were a number of pages, I think 10 through 17, that reviewed the request for additional information from Holtec about the large cost difference between Indian Point 2 and Indian Point 3. And it is back and forth between the staff and Holtec.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 66 There were a number of identified sections like, oh, there might be more heating from Indian Point 3 for the spent fuel than Indian Point 2 or there was a special crane and different numbers perhaps for cutting up the reactor vessel.

In any case, what was lacking in the safety evaluation, which I would hope you would correct, is to come up with a list of all the things that Holtec says explains the difference, all the categories, and put dollar figures next to them to see if it adds up to roughly $300 million.

We have a lot of words, but no numbers. And as a matter of fact, one of those numbers is patently incorrect already. There was no need for an additional crane for Indian Point 3. That was about, I think, a $20 million difference. But I can't separate out all the different costs, the words.

I want to know what the numbers are for each reason Holtec claims. And I want to see if that makes sense because sometimes when I can get a number and I check it into the guts of the PSDAR I find that they don't add up. So I need a table of every one of those categories that you list in a safety evaluation, how much for each one and if you have a reference that would be lovely. But I want to do it like an accountant. I don't need words. I need numbers. Thank you.

Bruce Watson: I guess the question I have is that's the SER for the license transfer?

Herschel Specter: Yes. If you read...

Bruce Watson: I just want to make sure - okay.

Herschel Specter: Yes. If you read Mr. Guzman's recent letters to me, he identified, I think it was pages 11 through 17 where the Holtec responses to the questions to the

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 67 RAI were listed. Those are the issues that I would like to have listed with a dollar figure. And if you have a way of me to independently check it out like a reference, look at Table X, Y, Zed in the PSDAR that would be lovely.

But I want to act like an accountant. I want to find out, well, you charged more for Indian Point 3 because the spent fuel was hotter because it came out a year later. I don't know how much that is worth and why. For me, it doesn't make too much sense. You just let it cool a little longer. And how that ends up as a cost figure is mysterious. So, I want to look at all the actual numbers per category. So, give me a table if you will. Thank you very much.

Bruce Watson: Okay. Thanks.

Brett Klukan: Okay. Thank you again. For one last one last go around, anyone else have any final parting thoughts. Again, star 1 at this time. Okay. It looks like - I'm giving it here another second because I don't want to speak too quickly. All right. It doesn't seem like we have anyone else in the queue at this time.

So thank all of you for participating this evening. I apologize again for the problems you experienced with WebEx. We will look into that. Please avail yourselves to the feedback forms we have on the NRC Web site for what you think we should be doing in how we conduct these meetings. So with that, thanks again. And I will continue to Bruce Watson for a summary of the meeting. Thank you.

Bruce Watson: Thanks, Brett. Again, I also express my disappointment in the WebEx issues.

This has been the platform of choice for many of our public meetings. And it just seems unusual that we've had particular issues tonight.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 68 Some of the concerns I heard during the meeting tonight, of course, were with the gas pipeline and its continued operation during the decommissioning. I also heard concerns over the PSDAR financial estimates and some of the costs for fuel disposal along with low level waste disposal. So I really appreciate those. I'm sure we'll be looking into those in our review.

I heard concerns over the spent fuel casks and, of course, high burn-up fuel. I heard many issues, concerns about the groundwater and the ability in the remediation and the monitoring of the groundwater and its concerns about contamination or radioactivity entering the Hudson River and potentially getting into drinking water.

I heard concerns about radiological releases during the decommissioning activities as it relates to the radiological monitoring program and, of course, the concerns about the radiological monitoring program, especially with equipment that may be maintained and maintaining a state of the art in providing accurate measurements.

I also heard concerns about not having a full-time resident NRC inspector at the site. And we will take these comments into consideration as we do our review of the PSDAR along with others.

So, with that I really would like to thank you all for spending your time to attend this meeting. As Tony Dimitriadis said, we tried to balance out the workday along with trying to get the maximum number of people to attend the meeting by choosing these hours. And so we will also take that into consideration for the next public meeting that we would have that would be virtual also.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 69 So as I said, we've completed our public meeting requirement by regulation for the public meeting, which we held in person on July 29. In consideration of the issues we had at that meeting and the ability of people to attend, we chose to have this this meeting as a virtual meeting. And actually, it turned out to be, I guess, a phone meeting for many people. So, again, we'll be looking into that.

As far as PSDAR comment, as we said we will be recording this - not recording but transcribing this meeting. And so that will be publicly available.

I thank Brett and staff for providing the ML number for the previous meeting on July 29. I was not aware that that had gotten into ADAMS yet, but I knew it was in process. So, you're welcome to look at that and review that also.

But as far as the PSDAR comments, like I said, we will be transcribing this meeting so those comments will be captured. You can issue your - send in your comments by mail to the office administration and the address is here again. And of course, all comments can go to the federal rulemaking Web site regulations.gov. And again, the key reminder there is to use the docket ID number, which is NRC-2021-0125.

And the comment period for comments on the PSDAR ends in October, on October 22, 2021. So, you have a few months in order to provide additional comments to us.

So, with that Brett and company, I'd like to close the meeting and thank everybody for participating. If you have additional questions about this meeting or about the PSDAR, you can refer them to Neil Sheehan, one of our public affairs officers at the Region I office. And Neil, his phone number is up here on the slide. And, of course, it's neil.sheehan@nrc.gov.

EIS-US NUCLEAR REGULATORY COM Moderator: Brenda Montoya August 18, 2021/2:28 pm CT Confirmation # 2337619 Page 70 And so with that, I thank you all for your patience and your participation. And we actually had - we have some very good comments to consider as we move forward in our review of the PSDAR. So, thank you again and good night. All right.

Coordinator: That does conclude today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may disconnect at this time.

END