ML22292A263
| ML22292A263 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Palisades  |
| Issue date: | 09/22/2022 |
| From: | Marlayna Vaaler Doell Reactor Decommissioning Branch |
| To: | |
| Doell M, 301-415-3178 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML22292A260 | List: |
| References | |
| NRC-2079 | |
| Download: ML22292A263 (97) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Public Meeting on the Palisades Nuclear Plant Post-Shutdown Decommissioning Activities Report Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: South Haven, Michigan Date: Thursday, September 22, 2022 Work Order No.: NRC-2079 Pages 1-97 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + +
4 PUBLIC MEETING ON THE PALISADES NUCLEAR PLANT POST-5 SHUTDOWN DECOMMISSIONING ACTIVITIES REPORT 6 + + + + +
7 THURSDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 22, 2022 9 + + + + +
10 The public meeting convened at Lake 11 Michigan College, 125 Veterans Boulevard, South 12 Haven, Michigan, and via Videoconference, at 6:00 13 p.m. EDT, Sarah Lopas, Facilitator, presiding.
14 PRESENT 15 SARAH LOPAS, Facilitator; Medical Project 16 Manager, Office of Nuclear Material Safety 17 and Safeguards (NMSS) 18 SHAUN ANDERSON, Chief, Reactor Decommissioning 19 Branch, Division of Decommissioning, 20 Uranium Recovery, and Waste Programs 21 (DUWP) 22 MARLAYNA DOELL, Decommissioning Project Manager, 23 DUWP 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
2 1 RHEX EDWARDS, Decommissioning Inspector, 2 Material Control, ISFSI, and 3 Decommissioning Branch, Division of 4 Nuclear Materials Safety, Region III 5 BRUCE WATSON, Special Assistant, DUWP 6 TRENT WERTZ, Senior Financial Analyst, Division 7 of Rulemaking, Environmental, and 8 Financial Support 9
10 11 ALSO PRESENT 12 KATHRYN BARNES, Don't Waste Michigan 13 JAN BOUDART, Nuclear Energy Information Service 14 KAY CUMBOW 15 ERIC DAWSON, Nuclear New York 16 DIETMAR DETERING 17 LYNNE GOODMAN 18 PAUL GUNTER, Beyond Nuclear 19 KEN HARRINGTON, Covert Township 20 JIM HOPF, Generation Atomic 21 KEVIN KAMPS, Beyond Nuclear 22 MICHAEL KEEGAN, Don't Waste Michigan 23 CONNIE KLINE 24 ALBERT LEWIS 25 SHAWN McCOMB NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
3 1 ALAN MEDSKER, Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal 2 ERIC MEYER, Generation Atomic 3 PAUL MONTGOMERY 4 RYAN PICKERING, Mothers for Nuclear 5 IRIS POTTER, Michigan Safe Energy Future 6 CRAIG SCHULTZ, Michigan Safe Energy Future 7 SUSAN SUNSHINE 8 TIMOTHY SMYTH 9 KURT WEISMUS 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
4 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 (6:02 p.m.)
3 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks again for everyone 4 who's coming out tonight. My name is Shaun Anderson, 5 I'm the chief of the Reactor Decommissioning Branch in 6 NRC's Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 7 Safeguards, NMSS, in Rockville. We're trying to be 8 better for our hybrid meetings, and we have a virtual 9 setup tonight with this public meeting. So, we do 10 have a virtual meeting facilitator.
11 We'll be going over some of the ground 12 rules that we have today, and we also have an online 13 meeting feedback form that we do want to collect your 14 feedback after the meeting. So please, if you have 15 any feedback, please continue to provide that to us.
16 Before we get started, some of the safety aspects, if 17 we have an emergency tonight, exit doors are to the 18 left, and there's also out front, and to the right.
19 And restrooms are out the door right in 20 front of us all the way to the right hand side of the 21 hallway. Sarah, can you hear us online?
22 MS. LOPAS: Hi, I can.
23 MR. ANDERSON: Awesome. You want to kick 24 us off with the ground rules?
25 MS. LOPAS: Sure, yeah. So, good evening NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
5 1 everybody, welcome to the post shutdown 2 decommissioning activities report for the Palisades 3 Nuclear Plant, the public meeting on that. My name is 4 Sarah Lopas, my day job is a medical project manager 5 for the NRC's Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 6 Safeguards, but I'm also an NRC meeting facilitator.
7 So, I'm going to be helping out tonight.
8 I'm coming to you from our headquarters in 9 Rockville, Maryland, so I'm going to do my best to 10 coordinate with Shaun and Marlayna and the whole NRC 11 staff there in the room with you in Michigan. So, as 12 Shaun mentioned, this meeting is a hybrid meeting.
13 That means that the NRC is there hosting the meeting 14 in person at the Lake Michigan College in South Haven.
15 But I'm also obviously hosting this meeting live via 16 Microsoft Teams.
17 The NRC has three types of public 18 meetings, categories of public meetings I should say, 19 and they're kind of based on how much public 20 interaction is involved in these meetings. And so 21 tonight's meeting is a comment gathering meeting, 22 that's the most interactive public meeting we have.
23 And that means that we're holding this meeting 24 specifically to obtain public feedback on a regulatory 25 issue, which is tonight we're looking for comments on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
6 1 the Palisades post shutdown decommissioning activities 2 report.
3 If you're joining us via Teams, or you've 4 called in using the Teams phone in information on your 5 cell phone, or whatever, you will notice you don't 6 have access to your microphone at this time. That's 7 because when we get to the public comment portion of 8 the meeting, that's when I'll be enabling your 9 microphones if you want to speak at that time. So, 10 when we get to that point, I'm going to explain how to 11 raise your hand virtually, and that will signal to me 12 that you want to speak.
13 I won't do that now, I'll wait to do that 14 when we get to the comment portion. If at any point 15 tonight you have issues with your Teams, go ahead and 16 close out of Teams and rejoin, try to rejoin. If you 17 still have problems, then I'm going to encourage you 18 to try to call in. So, there is a phone number 19 associated with this Teams meeting. If you have a 20 piece of paper handy you may want to jot it down, or 21 a pen.
22 While you're grabbing your pen, or 23 whatever pencil, I'll note that when we get to the 24 public comment portion of the meeting, and you're 25 having trouble maybe trying to make a comment, we'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
7 1 have a slide up on the screen that will have this 2 phone number, so you'll be able to see it, and call in 3 using your cell phone at that time. So, here is this 4 phone number in case you want to write it down. It's 5 3015762978.
6 And there is a pass code associated with 7 it, it's 770089805, and then you'll hit the pound.
8 Again, and this phone number can also be found on the 9 NRC public meeting notice, so if you google NRC public 10 meetings, you'll get a public meeting schedule page, 11 and find this meeting there, and this phone number and 12 bridge line passcode are at the bottom of that public 13 meeting notice.
14 The other thing I'm going to give you 15 tonight is the ADAMS Accession number for the slides 16 that we're sharing tonight. If you end up having to 17 get off Teams, and you need to pull them up on your 18 computer, so again, you can use any browser of your 19 choice, I don't want to say Google. But the accession 20 number for our slides tonight are ML22262A303. And 21 then the last thing I'll mention tonight is because 22 the NRC staff is really looking for your public 23 comments on the PSDAR, we are recording tonight's 24 meeting, it's being transcribed by a court reporter.
25 So, we can get a nice transcript of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
8 1 tonight's meeting. So, in order to get a clear 2 transcript and an accurate transcript, we're going to 3 remind you to introduce yourself before you start 4 speaking. If you have an affiliation, state your 5 affiliation. We're going to ask you to keep your 6 phones muted, keep disturbances down to a minimum in 7 the room.
8 Because the audio in the room can really 9 kind of pick up everything, and our court reporter is 10 calling in as well, so that's going to be really 11 important. And then when you're in the room 12 especially, make sure you're very clear and loud and 13 speak slowly and clearly into a microphone. And I 14 think that's all I have in terms of opening ground 15 rules, so I'll hand it back to Shaun.
16 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks Sarah. So what we 17 also want to do for this meeting is provide a 18 background, and make sure everyone is understanding 19 what the purpose of the meeting, to gain some 20 comments. So, Bruce Watson here, he's our special 21 assistant, also subject matter expert on 22 decommissioning at the NRC. So, Bruce do you mind?
23 MR. WATSON: Yes, thank you Shaun. As 24 Shaun said, my name is Bruce Watson, and I'm in the 25 division of decommissioning uranium recovery and waste NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
9 1 programs at headquarters. Again, the purpose of 2 tonight's meeting is to get your comments on the 3 Holtec PSDAR for Palisades plant. We're required to 4 hold this meeting by regulation, and we are required 5 to hold one meeting in the vicinity of the facility.
6 So, here we are in person to hold this 7 meeting, and this is required by NRC regulations.
8 Marlayna will get into the discussion on the details 9 of the PSDAR, but it is a communication tool to let 10 everybody know, including the NRC, the state, the 11 local community and the local citizens, on what the 12 plans are for decommissioning the plant. It is a high 13 level report that the NRC will review for content.
14 It is not a license amendment, or 15 licensing action, so we don't approve it. So, it is 16 just a report to us, but we have certain requirements 17 we have the content of it. And maintenance, the 18 schedule, an update on the cost estimate, and an 19 affirmation they can do the decommissioning within the 20 environmental envelope that is already existing for 21 the plant. So, there is already an environmental 22 review for the plant.
23 I know many of you may be here thinking 24 that we're going to be talking about potential restart 25 of the plant. We're not going to talk about that.
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10 1 The NRC is an independent safety regulator, we have 2 not received an application for any restart of the 3 plant, and so we have no knowledge to share with you.
4 The only thing I can assure you is that the NRC is an 5 independent safety regulator, we will make sure that 6 the plant is decommissioned safely.
7 And if it is approved for the plant to 8 restart, we will make sure that they meet the highest 9 standards of safety to operate the plant. But right 10 now we can't comment on it, because we have no 11 application, or anything else. Like I said, our job 12 is the safety regulator, that's what role we will play 13 in the entire situation. So, with that I'll turn it 14 back over to Shaun.
15 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks Bruce. For those 16 here, we have one microphone that we're working with 17 in the room, so please bear with us as we go through 18 some of the public comments that you all have, we will 19 try to make sure that we can facilitate the microphone 20 going around the room. But we do want to make sure 21 that those online can actually hear us. I do want to 22 recognize a couple members here. David Castelveter in 23 the back, he's our director of Office of Public 24 Affairs.
25 If there's any follow-on comments and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
11 1 questions, his team can help everyone out to issue 2 that feedback. And also I want to recognize Jared 3 Heck up here in the front, he's our deputy director 4 for Division of Nuclear Materials and Safety in Region 5 III in Illinois. Him and his regional inspectors are 6 providing for oversight and inspections at Palisades 7 for both the decommissioning process and the storage 8 of spent fuel in the dry fuel storage facility.
9 Next slide please. So, here again, the 10 purpose of this meeting is to get your feedback on the 11 PSDAR. I know there has been previous meetings 12 associated with this topic for decommissioning of 13 Palisades, and thanks for the efforts of the Palisades 14 Community Advisory Panel to support everyone, and for 15 knowledge and information about these activities.
16 We'll give some short background on the NRC's 17 decommissioning process and experience.
18 And also show how the NRC continues to 19 maintain oversight throughout the whole 20 decommissioning process. For those who are not here, 21 or haven't heard some of this information before, we 22 do want to make sure that everyone has the common 23 understanding as we move forward. We'll also cover 24 the contents of PSDAR, as well as the NRC's review 25 process, and also get into the comment period for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
12 1 everyone to provide us comments on the PSDAR that's up 2 for our review.
3 With that, if you can go to the next 4 slide? Again, just to introduce some of the people 5 here on the panel. My name again is Shaun Anderson.
6 While decommissioning I'm excited to work with all the 7 experienced staff that I have, and the experienced 8 staff in the field, and working with them for 9 decommissioning. You already met Bruce Watson, 10 previous chief, and also has a wealth of experience in 11 the decommissioning program, and also for our reactors 12 themselves.
13 Marlayna Doell, the project manager for 14 Palisades. She also has a wealth of experience in 15 operating reactors, and also coordinated to put this 16 meeting together. And finally Rhex Edwards, he's our 17 senior health physicist here, also in Region III he's 18 actually the lead decommissioning inspector for 19 Palisades. Also comes with a wealth of experience 20 from Zion, La Crosse, and also 400 power stations.
21 So, we have a lot of experience, a lot of 22 information that we'll be able to share with you all 23 today. With that, I think Marlayna, you're going to 24 kick us off.
25 MS. DOELL: All right, thanks Shaun.
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13 1 Again, my name is Marlayna Doell, I am a 2 decommissioning project manager out of our 3 headquarters office in Rockville, Maryland. I 4 actually work remotely in Rapid City, South Dakota.
5 So, I'm on a little bit a time share still today, but 6 I'm glad to be able to join you here tonight.
7 I only took over as the decommissioning 8 project manager for Palisades this past summer after 9 they had permanently shut down. But I'm very excited 10 to be able to have the opportunity to work on this 11 project, and work with this community as we continue 12 to plan for the decommissioning of the site. So, 13 thank you again for being able to join us here tonight 14 to talk about their PSDAR.
15 Before we get too much into the specifics 16 of the Palisades site, I just wanted to provide a 17 brief overview, since I know many of you have had this 18 topic discussed before, just of our decommissioning 19 program, and to highlight some of the opportunities 20 for public involvement throughout the process.
21 Generally the transition of a plant has several steps.
22 The first one is notification from the licensee to the 23 NRC of permanent cessation of operations, and 24 permanent removal of fuel from the reactor vessel.
25 The NRC received the certifications from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
14 1 Palisades on June 13th of this year. Following that, 2 there's also a step for submittal of the PSDAR, and an 3 associated public meeting, which is obviously why 4 we're here tonight. In the case of Palisades, their 5 PSDAR was submitted back in December of 2020 as part 6 of the documentation that supported the license 7 transfer from Entergy to Holtec Decommissioning 8 International, or HDI.
9 But we do not officially begin the NRC 10 review of the PSDAR until that transfer went into 11 place in June. So, we are now just in the beginning 12 stages of the official review of the Palisades PSDAR.
13 I wanted to note that NRC oversight continues 14 throughout the decommissioning process. Although the 15 resident inspector is no longer present at Palisades, 16 we have a host of other oversight activities that kick 17 in once the fuel is permanently removed from the 18 reactor vessel, and Rhex will be talking about many of 19 those things later on.
20 Throughout this process, there'll be 21 several opportunities where the NRC will have to 22 review, and approve changes to the plant, mostly in 23 terms of the licensing basis. The areas that are most 24 subject to change sort of early in this transition 25 process are changes to the emergency plan, changes to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
15 1 the security plan, changes to some of the site 2 staffing, and technical specifications to better 3 reflect the fact the site is in a decommissioning 4 status.
5 And changes in the risks associated with 6 a plant that is no longer operating. Throughout this 7 process we prioritize decommissioning, and spent fuel 8 management coupled with -- I'm sorry. We do 9 prioritize looking at these changes throughout the 10 decommissioning process. All of these activities are 11 based on past practices at several other 12 decommissioning sites that have entered the process.
13 Some of them recently, some of them many years ago.
14 We have a whole set of guidance documents, 15 regulations and procedures that we use to make sure 16 that we're providing effective oversight of the 17 decommissioning of the site, and the same set of 18 experience and all this background knowledge will be 19 used to help safely decommission Palisades.
20 So, currently, Palisades is in the early 21 stages of the transition from operating to 22 decommissioning. This process includes depowering, 23 and draining several systems.
24 Realigning the site programs, and staffing 25 to support the planned decommissioning activities, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
16 1 requesting NRC approval to make several changes to 2 reflect the decommissioning status of the plant. An 3 important part of the planning effort, the PSDAR is 4 designed to inform the NRC staff of the expected 5 strategy, and schedule for major decommissioning 6 milestones.
7 This information helps guide the agency's 8 oversight, and licensing activities. The purpose of 9 soliciting feedback on the PSDAR is to highlight any 10 areas of specific concern, or to bring forward 11 information that may be relevant to the NRC staff's 12 review of the PSDAR. One of the main areas where 13 we're often interested about hearing public feedback 14 is regarding potential impact on the community related 15 to environmental considerations during 16 decommissioning.
17 Such as traffic congestion, demolition 18 noise, the methods for disposing waste from the site, 19 etcetera. So again, as part of the meeting tonight, 20 I want to invite everyone to let us know if there are 21 any specific comments you have related to the plans 22 outlined in the PSDAR for decommissioning the plant.
23 So, what we do with the comments is we will take all 24 of them, whether they're provided tonight, or through 25 our online portal, which we'll talk about later in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
17 1 presentation how to make comments via the 2 regulations.gov.
3 These comments will all be taken into 4 consideration as part of the NRC's review of the 5 PSDAR. And we often like to take a lot of those 6 comments to know that there's items of specific 7 interest, so during future interactions, and future 8 meetings on the decommissioning of Palisades, we have 9 an idea of the items of specific concern. All right, 10 before I discuss the specifics that are in the 11 Palisades PSDAR, I just want to provide a general 12 overview of the content that NRC regulations require 13 be in a PSDAR document.
14 They're outlined on this slide, and as I 15 already mentioned, the primary things are the main 16 decommissioning milestones in the schedule, and to 17 provide the public with a general overview of the 18 licensee's plans, and strategy for decommissioning 19 the site. The estimated cost for decommissioning, and 20 spent fuel management are also included as part of the 21 PSDAR.
22 And within the decommissioning cost 23 estimate, the PSDAR must contain an affirmation that 24 decommissioning can be completed within the site's 25 existing environmental assumptions, and associated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
18 1 reports, or the updates to these assumptions will be 2 made as needed in support of decommissioning the 3 facility. All right, this is an overview of the 4 content of the Palisades PSDAR, and the estimated 5 costs that are provided in the current version of that 6 document.
7 So, according to the PSDAR, HDI is going 8 to remove the remaining Palisades spent fuel to an 9 expanded ISFSI by 2025 with a plan to begin 10 dismantling the plant in 2035, and completion of 11 radiological decommissioning by 2041. Specifically 12 under the approach outlined in the current Palisades 13 document, HDI will place Palisades under a period of 14 safe storage, or dormancy once the remaining spent 15 fuel has been removed from the fuel pool, and this 16 period of dormancy will last until 2035.
17 After that HDI will pursue an active 18 dismantlement approach, with the goal of returning the 19 majority of the site to use as an unrestricted site by 20 2041. So, the portion of the site that contains the 21 independent spent fuel storage installation, or ISFSI, 22 will remain under the NRC license, and will have 23 continued oversight until such time as all fuel is 24 removed from the site.
25 At which time ISFSI will also be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
19 1 decommissioned under its own de commissioning plan.
2 The decommissioning funding available for Palisades is 3 currently sufficient to complete radiological 4 decommissioning, and terminate the NRC license outside 5 the ISFSI. The NRC will continue to monitor these 6 funds, which is under the control of an independent 7 trustee, to ensure that there will be reasonable 8 assurance that adequate funds are available to safely 9 complete radiological decommissioning at Palisades.
10 All right, and in addition, the PSDAR does 11 contain the statement that I mentioned, saying that 12 all the environmental impacts projected during the 13 decommissioning of the site are bounded by previous 14 environmental analysis, or the updates to those 15 documents will be made if needed. All right, now I'm 16 going to turn it over to Rhex to talk a little bit 17 more about the oversight at Palisades during the 18 decommissioning process, as well as some of our spent 19 fuel management activities.
20 MR. EDWARDS: Thank you Marlayna, and good 21 evening. My name is Rhex Edwards, I am the lead 22 decommissioning inspector at Palisades, and I've been 23 involved with numerous activities at the site as it 24 transferred from operations to decommissioning status.
25 Next slide please. You've already got it up.
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20 1 Although difficult to read here, this slide 2 illustrates the proposed decommissioning schedule at 3 Palisades as provided in the post shutdown 4 decommissioning activities report.
5 And I wanted to highlight this page as a 6 source of information you can refer back to regarding 7 the decommissioning schedule at the plant going 8 forward in the future. Palisades is still early in 9 the decommissioning process, although there are some 10 activities onsite that we've been following closely, 11 and we are performing inspections, or planning to 12 perform inspections as they transition into a safe 13 storage condition at the site.
14 As well as making preparations for 15 removing all the fuel in the dry cask storage.
16 Throughout decommissioning, and this entire schedule 17 here, the key objectives of the NRC's decommissioning 18 inspection program are to one, ensure that the spent 19 fuel is being safely, and securely stored onsite. And 20 two, that decommissioning activities themselves are 21 being conducted safely.
22 And three, that site operations, and 23 license termination activities are performed 24 consistent with NRC regulations, and the NRC approved 25 license for Palisades. The frequency, and scope of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
21 1 inspections that we perform is usually related to the 2 phase of decommissioning at the site. For example, 3 when the facility is in a dormancy period shown here 4 between 2026, and 2035, there'll be less inspections, 5 than say what would be performed during an active 6 dismantling period between 2036, and 2041.
7 We purposely schedule inspections during 8 periods of high risk activities. Inspections are 9 primarily performed by Region III inspectors, however 10 we will supplement ourselves with specialists in 11 needed areas, such as spent fuel storage, emergency 12 preparedness, fire protection, security, etcetera. If 13 there are non-compliance issues, we do have the 14 ability to take enforcement action against Palisades.
15 And our inspection reports, like before, 16 will continue to remain publicly available. And if 17 you need help finding those, or if you're curious how, 18 we can help you access those, please see one of us 19 after. Next slide please. This slide is just a 20 zoomed in picture of the previous slide, and it 21 focuses on the current schedule of activities in the 22 near term.
23 As indicated here, the decommissioning 24 inspection program began once Palisades certify that 25 fuel was permanently removed from the reactor vessel.
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22 1 And also shown on this slide, highlighted in the blue 2 squares there are some currently planned activities 3 that are in preparation, or underway. The first one 4 I'll highlight is the site modifications box.
5 That's on the way presently, that involves 6 de-energizing, and draining equipment that is not 7 necessary for safe storage, or future decommissioning.
8 That also includes disposing of unneeded material, and 9 general housekeeping to prepare that site again for 10 long term storage until active dismantlement. The 11 second box there is in the independent spent fuel 12 storage installation row.
13 And that has to do with the expansion of 14 the independent spent fuel storage installation as 15 Marlayna mentioned earlier. And that goal is to 16 ultimately accommodate the remaining fuel that's in 17 the spent fuel pool, and place it in the dry cask 18 storage. Palisades has a fully operational 19 independent spent fuel storage installation. To 20 assist the construction of that facility, we've been 21 performing inspections there.
22 We've monitored the operation of it, and 23 additional loadings that have happened since the first 24 loading. And those inspections are going to continue 25 for as long as fuel is still onsite. We have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
23 1 inspectors that specialize in spent fuel storage.
2 They will be there during the construction, and the 3 expansion of that pad, as well as during key fuel 4 movement activities, when they're placing fuel into 5 the dry cask storage out of the spent fuel pool.
6 In addition to the onsite spent fuel 7 storage inspections, we also have specialists that 8 will go into the fabrication facilities that 9 manufacture the dry cask storage components, and we 10 have one of those inspections actually occurring this 11 week. Once all the fuel is out of the spent fuel 12 pool, and into dry cask storage, I'd just like to 13 reiterate that we'll be there for as long as that fuel 14 is there to periodically monitor the operation of that 15 facility.
16 Continuing to ensure that it's safely 17 operated, the fuel will remain secure. The 18 capabilities of the emergency preparedness program 19 will assess the radiological conditions of those 20 facilities, as well as the material condition of both 21 the dry cask storage systems themselves, and the 22 storage pad that's supporting those casks. I'll now 23 hand it back to Marlayna, who will discuss the NRC's 24 review process of the post shutdown decommissioning 25 activity report.
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24 1 MS. DOELL: All right, thank you Rhex.
2 So, we have a couple more slides to cover, and I just 3 want to reiterate sort of the review process that is 4 currently underway for the Palisades PSDAR. As Bruce 5 has already mentioned, consistent with our 6 regulations, the PSDAR is not something that the RNC 7 formally approves. The transition for operation to 8 decommissioning, and does not involve a change to the 9 facility's license, and therefore the Palisades PSDAR 10 is not an official licensing document.
11 Therefore the review that we are currently 12 doing is what you call an acceptability review. The 13 review will be documented in a letter that's sent back 14 to HDI that documents any concerns, or other 15 questions, and goes through the different parts of the 16 PSDAR to show how the information provided meets the 17 NRC regulations for what's required to be in a PSDAR.
18 We only accept the PSDAR if the submittal meets the 19 criteria the agency established in the decommissioning 20 regulations.
21 And the associated guidance documents, 22 some of which are noted on the slide, and all of these 23 are publicly available. As far as the review process 24 goes, we're currently looking at the Palisades PSDAR, 25 if we have questions, or any other comments, or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
25 1 concerns, we'll reach out directly to HDI. As part of 2 that process, some licensees will update the PSDAR.
3 Any updates to the PSDAR during the NRC's 4 current review phase will be incorporated into the 5 acceptance memo that we will draft after the end of 6 the comment period. Subsequent updates to the PSDAR 7 are not uncommon. We do see that from time to time as 8 schedules change, or some of the overall strategy 9 shifts for a site, if that occurs for Palisades, we 10 will not necessarily host another public meeting, or 11 produce another acceptance memo related to the PSDAR.
12 But all of those updates will be made 13 available publicly, as well as notifications made to 14 the state, and other stakeholders. I finally wanted 15 to note that in accordance with the NRC regulations, 16 part of the reason that the PSDAR is submitted is that 17 the plant is not allowed to take any major 18 decommissioning actions until 90 days after the NRC 19 officially begins review of the PSDAR.
20 So, as I've noted, even though we had this 21 document since 2020, we only officially began the 22 review on, I believe June 29th. So, the 90 day window 23 for Palisades will end here just a couple days on 24 September 29th, after which time they are permitted to 25 take major decommissioning activities, which was the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
26 1 startup span, or other activities that are on a larger 2 scale than what would be envisioned in that first 90 3 days while the review is underway.
4 All right, and finally before we get to 5 the open portion of the meeting, I just wanted to note 6 that comments on the PSDAR will be collected obviously 7 during tonight's meeting as part of the transcript, 8 which will all be made publicly available, and this 9 meeting will be summarized in that publicly available 10 meeting summary, nominally within 30 days. We also 11 have other methods for providing comments, which are 12 summarized on this slide.
13 You can submit them by mail, someone does 14 still check the mailbox, and I asked. And you can 15 also go onto the federal rule making site at 16 regulations.gov if you search for the docket ID that's 17 listed on this slide, that will bring you to the 18 actions, and there's a form that you can fill out to 19 provide public meetings. Comments are currently being 20 accepted until December 27th. So, we still have a 21 couple months for anyone to provide formal comments 22 that maybe wasn't able to attend the meeting tonight, 23 or provide comments in other ways.
24 All right, so I think we're actually at 25 the end of our prepared remarks or the evening. If NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
27 1 there are other questions that we're not able to 2 address tonight, or comments, you can definitely reach 3 out to our Office of Public Affairs. Their 4 information is listed here on the slide. I also want 5 to note that the backup notes for this presentation, 6 if you have downloaded them from the internet, or from 7 our agency document system, 8 I do have a backup slide, and I'll put it 9 up briefly, that has links to a bunch of different NRC 10 documents as well as specific documents for the 11 Palisades PSDAR. So, if you are looking at these 12 electronically, you can hopefully leverage some of 13 those links, and not have to search through the NRC's 14 public site in order to find this information. So, 15 with that, I think we have reached the part of the 16 meeting where I'm going to hand this back over to 17 Shaun to kick off the comment gathering portion of the 18 meeting.
19 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks Marlayna. I'm 20 actually going to kick it off to Sarah. Before we get 21 into the comment period, we are going to ask for 22 comments from members of congress, elected, or state 23 local officials, representatives of local Native 24 American tribes, and the Palisades community advisory 25 panel. We're going to start from in the room first, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
28 1 and then we're going to transition to those that may 2 be online, and are not present with us today.
3 Sarah, did you want to kick us off with 4 some of the ground rules there before we get started?
5 MS. LOPAS: Yeah, thanks, Shaun. Right.
6 So, I'm going to explain how everybody can raise their 7 hand. If they can hold off raising hands just for a 8 moment, because, as Shaun mentioned, we want the first 9 people to raise their hand to be any elected state or 10 local government officials, any representatives in 11 local Native American tribes, and of course anyone 12 speaking on behalf of the Palisades Community Advisory 13 Panel.
14 So, those are the three groups of people 15 that I want to raise their hands right now to start.
16 So, a couple of things, depending on how many people 17 we have commenting, we're looking at probably about a 18 three to four minute time limit for your comments.
19 One thing I want to point out, I'll be kind of keeping 20 track of that time, so I'll be politely cutting you 21 off at around four minutes, so just keep that in mind.
22 The other thing is we are not going to 23 allow people to cede time to others. So, if you raise 24 your hand, or step up to the microphone, please be 25 prepared that you are speaking, you're not ceding your NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
29 1 time. We're simply just going to get through 2 everybody that wants to speak tonight. We're going 3 until 8:00 o'clock, so let's hear from everybody at 4 least once, then we'll go for round two.
5 So, if you were planning on getting 6 comment time ceded to you, you're just going to have 7 to wait until we go for our second round. So, with 8 that being said, so with those elected state, and 9 local officials, representatives from Native American 10 tribes, or anyone speaking on behalf of the Palisades 11 Community Advisory Panel, you can go ahead and hit the 12 hand icon.
13 If you're on Teams, you're going to hit 14 the hand icon, and just click it once, that will raise 15 your hand, I'll be able to see that your hand is 16 raised. If you are on the phone, if you've called in, 17 and you're on the phone, you're going to press star 18 five, and that's going to show me that you have your 19 hand raised. Once I see hands raised, and we do do 20 comments on Teams, I'll be enabling your microphone.
21 So, what you're going to need to do is 22 after I enable your microphone, you are going to have 23 to unmute yourself. If you're on Teams, you click 24 once on your microphone icon, just click once, don't 25 double click. Because that will unmute you, and mute NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
30 1 you again. Just one click, unmute yourself. If 2 you're on the phone, you're going to press star six to 3 unmute yourself on the phone.
4 And the other thing to remember if you've 5 called in on your phone, and you've muted yourself on 6 your phone, unmute yourself on your phone, because 7 maybe you double muted yourself technically, right?
8 I think that's it. So, Shaun, I guess I'll go to you 9 in the room to see if there's anybody in the room 10 that's raised their hand that's one of those officials 11 that we want to hear from first, so I'll hand it over 12 to you first.
13 MR. ANDERSON: I'll start from the top.
14 Members of Congress? Elected state, and local 15 officials? All right, representatives of Native 16 American tribes? And finally the Palisades Community 17 Advisory Panel? All right Sarah, I have no hands 18 raised here.
19 MS. LOPAS: Okay, and I've got somebody on 20 the phone here, so I've got an 8853 phone number here, 21 and I'm going to allow your microphone. And you will 22 need to press star six I believe. 8853, I see you're 23 muted, you just have to unmute yourself by pressing 24 star six. Phone number, last four digits of 8853, 25 your microphone has been enabled, make sure that your NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
31 1 own cell phone is unmuted as well, and then you'll 2 also have to press star six to unmute yourself.
3 Okay, well I do see that your microphone 4 is enabled. I apologize if you're having trouble. If 5 you're unable to join the Teams online, I can suggest 6 maybe hanging up, and calling back in if possible, and 7 we will get back to you. But I wanted to give you one 8 more try to press star six to unmute your microphone.
9 This is phone number with the last four digits of 10 8853. I think we got somebody unmuted, start talking 11 8853.
12 MS. SUNSHINE: Hello, are you there?
13 MS. LOPAS: Yes, we hear you now. Okay, 14 just speak up loudly, and introduce yourself, thank 15 you.
16 MS. SUNSHINE: All right. My name is --
17 I didn't know if you could, actually I'm on my land 18 line. That's because I couldn't get it to work on my 19 cell, so I thought I might just be listening. My 20 question is how often is it going to be a problem of 21 keeping that closed, or can't we -- you said we can't 22 talk about that exactly. I mainly just wanted to find 23 out if I could be heard, I didn't know I was going to 24 be first.
25 MS. LOPAS: Okay, so, let's get your NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
32 1 question out of the way, but can you first introduce 2 yourself, and then repeat your question specifically?
3 I need a little more detail on that question. So, 4 please introduce yourself, your affiliation, we were 5 asking for people with PCAP at the moment, but you're 6 unmuted, it took a while, so we'll get you through.
7 So, please introduce yourself, and then repeat your 8 question.
9 MS. SUNSHINE: Okay, my name is Susan 10 Sunshine. I'm known as the Earth Poet, I'm an 11 activist with nuclear, water, and a whole bunch of 12 other things. I'm very concerned because of things 13 that are going on all over the world with nuclear.
14 And I know we're going to need to protect ourselves 15 here, and that was my main concern. Is how long this 16 will stay closed, or if they can close it all the way, 17 and not temporary.
18 MS. LOPAS: All right, thank you, Susan, 19 I'm going to go ahead and disable your microphone.
20 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks, Susan. Thanks, 21 Sarah. Currently, right now, our focus at this 22 meeting, this is focusing on the PSDAR, with a focus 23 on the next activities, and steps to support the 24 shutdown of the facility. I'm not sure if anyone else 25 wants to add any comments to that. All right, and if NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
33 1 you have no more hands raised, we can start with the 2 first person in the room, and if you want to queue up 3 the first person that's virtually online as we start 4 our comments here.
5 And the first person I have is Iris 6 Potter, and we'll come around to you, and provide you 7 the mic.
8 MS. POTTER: Good evening NRC staff, 9 citizens, and PCAP members who are here, or virtually.
10 My name is Iris Potter, Michigan Safe Energy Future 11 Kalamazoo Chapter, and I live in the 40 mile radius 12 from zone. Even though you already answered Mr.
13 Watson, one of the questions, not really a question, 14 you already addressed it that if HDI, or another 15 applicant was to apply, that it would be pretty easy 16 it sounds like for a possession license to go from 17 that to an operating.
18 But I am still going to go ahead with my 19 full comments. PSDAR plan is important, but Holtec 20 International as we know has a buy for a DOE plant to 21 run an operating plant, and has other options with SMR 22 developments in the works. This comes from when 23 Palisades was not operating, nor does HDI have a 24 license, according to NRC documents. But I am sure 25 that can be changed, as we have already learned. We NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
34 1 want HDI, the NRC, and other parties to know that we 2 strongly oppose reopening Palisades.
3 Which has serious problems worth millions 4 in repairs, which we have said for years, nor any new 5 reactors there, an SMR, or whatever. For five years 6 we were told it was to shut down, and it is. So, 7 let's get with the PSDAR. How does it plan to reopen?
8 Would some parts be decommed, and others not to make 9 room for an SMR? Or does the plan become fully move 10 time wasted. The cost estimates are almost three 11 years old.
12 According to NRC regulations, there must 13 be financial assurance quote that a full decom can be 14 done with funds available, but not in this case. The 15 NRC's website states 612 million as the highest cost 16 for decom, and this plan is already above that. We 17 know that with cost overruns, etcetera, it could be a 18 billion. Where is the decom money to come from if the 19 MDT funds are gone, and going more quickly due to HDI 20 getting an exemption for two things?
21 Spent fuel management, and site 22 restoration. They've already drawn down 166 million.
23 I believe that HDI said they would raise funds during 24 dormancy, and wait for the MDT to increase interest 25 wise. The funds of the public rate payers with no NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
35 1 reporting to us, and it's already been drawn down. A 2 legal concern we raised, along with our state attorney 3 general, is there's no third party oversight, and no 4 public reporting.
5 How will HDI become to be held fully 6 accountable to the people? If finances become too 7 heavy, who's to say we couldn't get into a bail 8 situation with tax payers left with it? And is the 9 parent company HDI, or HDI LLC viable? Also, we are 10 unaware of any contingency funds for unforeseen costs 11 such as fire, or radiological accident. The use of 12 subcontractors will also allow (audio interference).
13 It appears there will be a lack of real 14 time information, and only (audio interference) now 15 that the fuel rods are in the pool, I don't know when 16 we'll get reports. So, we continue to strongly oppose 17 barging across the lake, which is in (audio 18 interference) dumping of any materials into the lake.
19 Only a three feet dig for a full radiological clean 20 up, because how would tritium, and other toxins be 21 found?
22 We strongly request a full new environment 23 impact statement, and cleanup as needed, and not use 24 the 14 year old guide. HDI is not bounded by as 25 stated in the plan. We strongly request adequate NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
36 1 inspectors onsite, and then full time work with the 2 local municipalities to review the emergency planning.
3 Although we're not bound to it, and we hope that there 4 is enough adequate security at the plant.
5 We also know that most likely, the NRC, 6 and HDI have agreed to this plan already. Will our 7 voices be heard? I hope so, but I don't know, because 8 the Coalition did file legal intervention, which the 9 NRC refused to hear. So, really we're forced to 10 solely rely on HDI, and the NRC to protect us. This 11 is the public's Lake Michigan, and Great Lakes.
12 The drinking water for millions, our land 13 forever, our recreation, and our tourism revenue, not 14 a place for playing games, or mistakes. We are 15 watching, and involved. I love Lake Michigan so much, 16 which is why I always will speak to protect it. Thank 17 you.
18 MR. ANDERSON: Thank you Iris. A lot of 19 comments, a lot of questions in what you had. We can 20 talk -- Bruce, did you want to make a response first?
21 MR. WATSON: One part in that, part of the 22 NRC's role is to, and requirements are that there is 23 reasonable amount of money in the decommissioning 24 trust fund. And it is a trust fund that is maintained 25 by an independent trustee. And so we also require NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
37 1 beyond the PSDAR, annual reporting on the status of 2 that trust fund. It's required to be reported to us 3 at the end of March of each year for the previous 4 year.
5 That information is publicly available, 6 and we do respond to that, whether it's adequate, or 7 not, we may ask for questions, and we do a financial 8 analysis to ensure that the fund is going to be 9 reasonably adequate. Reasonable assurance that 10 there's adequate funds to decommission the entire 11 plant in accordance with their plan that they plan to 12 follow. Which includes this ten year safe store, 13 which will allow for the funds to grow.
14 And obviously they are managing the spent 15 fuel, which costs money, and a lot of that will be 16 returned to them from the Department of Energy. And 17 also I wanted to respond that site restoration is a 18 responsibility of the state. Once the license is 19 terminated, they will negotiate with, or have 20 negotiated at this time possibly with the requirements 21 that the state will have for the site restoration, and 22 what the site will look like after the completion of 23 the decommissioning.
24 So, I just wanted to respond to a couple 25 of your items. The funding issue is publicly NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
38 1 available each year. And so we monitor that, as I 2 said annually. And we want to make sure that -- our 3 role is to make sure there is adequate funding, 4 reasonable funding to complete the decommissioning.
5 MR. EDWARDS: Thanks Bruce. I also just 6 wanted to address the status of the license. I want 7 to be clear that there is an NRC license at Palisades, 8 it presently is for decommissioning, not to support 9 operations. So, I want to be clear there is a 10 license. On the decommissioning funding, there are 11 inspections that are performed that, we have a 12 specialist at headquarters that oversees submittals, 13 and inspectors are out in the field.
14 They are looking at what's actually 15 happening in the plant, and matching that up with what 16 the expense reports are saying. And I think on the 17 restoration, or the remediation of site, and how far 18 down they dig, really the answer is you have to dig 19 enough to where you meet radiological release 20 criteria. It's not necessarily going to be a certain 21 value, it's as deep as it has to be in order to show 22 that you've met this criteria. Thank you.
23 The foundations are removed typically 24 three feet below grade, but then if say there was 25 something in the soil that would be above, you'd have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
39 1 to continue to dig, and remove that as deep as it is 2 to be able to meet this criteria.
3 MS. LOPAS: Hey, NRC folks, I just want to 4 remind you that we're hearing -- there's questions 5 that are being asked in the audience we can't hear, so 6 please repeat them before answering them, so that we 7 can understand what you're answering. Sorry, thank 8 you.
9 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks Sarah, appreciate 10 that. That was a clarification on whether three feet 11 was the maximum I guess. And Rhex was providing 12 additional clarification. Can we go to the next 13 question that you have online?
14 MS. LOPAS: Yeah, Connie Kline, I'm going 15 to go ahead, and enable your microphone. So, I went 16 ahead, and enabled your microphone Connie Kline, and 17 up next will be Ryan Pickering. So, Connie you just 18 need to unmute yourself by clicking once on your 19 microphone icon.
20 MS. KLINE: Can you hear me?
21 MS. LOPAS: Yes, we can.
22 MS. KLINE: Okay, good. I have a couple 23 of questions, I'm going to ask the one that's most 24 related to the former speaker. At the last Palisades 25 meeting, Holtec indicated that there would be a ten NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
40 1 year decommissioning pause due to insufficient funds.
2 How exactly is that allowed to happen? So, that's one 3 question. I'm going to ask all the questions, and 4 then if you can just repeat them to answer them, I 5 think that would be the easiest.
6 So, that's one question about 7 decommissioning funding. I'd like to know what 8 happens to the spent fuel pool, or what's being 9 planned to happen to the spent fuel pool water, and 10 any other radioactively contaminated, or chemically 11 contaminated for that matter, water that's onsite. I 12 would like to know how much spent fuel is currently in 13 the pool, and how much spent fuel is in dry cask.
14 And the last question is I'm presuming 15 that the cask vendor is Holtec, and I'd like to know 16 what casks are being used. So, do you need me to 17 repeat any of those, or --
18 MS. LOPAS: You had a question about the 19 deficit, and decommissioning funding, what's going to 20 happen to the water in the spent fuel pool, how much 21 spent fuel is currently in the pool, and in dry casks, 22 and then what dry casks are going to be used, is that 23 --
24 MS. KLINE: Yes, and I'm presuming that 25 the vendor is Holtec, the dry cask vendor.
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41 1 MS. LOPAS: All right, just give us a 2 second Connie, I'm not in the room, but I'm guessing 3 a microphone is being passed to NRC staff.
4 MS. KLINE: That's fine, thank you very 5 much.
6 MR. WATSON: Yes, this is Bruce Watson, 7 thank you for the question --
8 MS. KLINE: I can barely hear you.
9 MR. WATSON: Let me respond to a couple of 10 the questions you've asked at the first part of your 11 talk. The NRC regulations require that the 12 decommissioning be completed in 60 years. It 13 typically takes about ten years to complete the 14 decommissioning, it is what the average has been in 15 the past, but it can be done much faster. So, Holtec 16 decided to go to a safe store situation for ten years 17 is not unusual.
18 And so, that will allow the fund to grow, 19 because there are strict requirements on the 20 investment capabilities in the NRC regulations. So, 21 they can't do any speculative investments, and they 22 have to meet certain requirements for interest rate 23 increases each year. So, in waiting ten years, yes, 24 the fund will grow at a certain rate. So, but they 25 also could wait longer if they chose to.
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42 1 And so, we have sites that are going to 2 wait 50 years, and then start the decommissioning.
3 So, from that perspective, they apparently want to do 4 the decommissioning fairly reasonably quick. With 5 respect to spent fuel pool water, and other water from 6 the plant, the plant has been authorized since the 7 plant was originally licensed to release water that 8 has been filtered, and run through a process control 9 program.
10 It is monitored before it is released, it 11 is diluted as it's being released, and those are in 12 the plant license today. What's going to be -- what 13 amount of water, or the amount of water that may be 14 released in the future is going to be up to Holtec to 15 decide what they plan to do with it. But they are 16 authorized by both the NRC regulations, and by the 17 environmental protection agency to meet their 18 requirements for the release of all effluence from the 19 plant.
20 Both air, water, both radiological, and 21 for chemical materials, so --
22 MS. KLINE: Excuse me one second while 23 we're on this.
24 MR. WATSON: Can you state your --
25 MS. KLINE: Where is it anticipated that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
43 1 this water is going to be released?
2 MS. LOPAS: Bruce, this is Connie Kline 3 speaking, Connie Kline, sorry.
4 MS. KLINE: The plant operated for almost 5 50 years I believe, and it released water to Lake 6 Michigan over that time period, and did it compliantly 7 with the NRC, and the EPA regulations to Lake 8 Michigan. With that I'll turn it over to Rhex, who 9 will respond to some of the spent fuel questions.
10 MR. EDWARDS: Thanks Bruce, and I'll try 11 to be brief, and just answer your questions directly.
12 The number of casks that are loaded with spent fuel 13 presently in the ISFSI is 49. I don't off the top of 14 my head know the number of fuel assemblies that are in 15 the spent fuel pool. I would estimate approximately 16 25 additional casks will be loaded to move all the 17 fuel out of the pool, and into dry cask storage.
18 That's an estimate, and could change, but roughly 25.
19 And then speculating a little bit about 20 what casks would be loaded in the future, they most 21 recently have loaded the Holtec HI-STORM FW systems, 22 and I assume they will plan to continue to load those 23 going forward to move all fuel into dry cask storage.
24 MS. KLINE: Was that F as in Frank, and W 25 as in woman?
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44 1 MR. WATSON: That's correct, FW as in 2 flood, and wind.
3 MS. KLINE: Okay, thank you so much.
4 MS. LOPAS: Great, thank you Rhex. All 5 right, Shaun I'm going to hand it back to you in the 6 room, okay?
7 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks Sarah. Do we have 8 anybody online that wanted additional response from 9 the NRC? Okay, Kathryn Barnes.
10 MS. BARNES: My name is Kathryn Barnes, 11 and I'm with Don't Waste Michigan. And I've been 12 following Palisades for decades, and I'm aware of the 13 transfer from Consumers Energy to Entergy after 14 Consumers Energy promised they'd make repairs to the 15 plant. Entergy decided they didn't need to repair it, 16 so those repairs were never made, and that's why 17 Palisades should never, never, never be restarted.
18 It's embrittled, it's aging, it's dangerous.
19 I had a sigh of relief when it was shut 20 down before it blew up, because that was always on my 21 mind that it would blow up. Now I don't think that 22 decommissioning should be put on hold, period.
23 Because one of the problems with Palisades was they 24 had some underground piping leaks, where they had 25 radiological water that was filtering through the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
45 1 plant down that was put in pipes underneath the plant, 2 which was a bad design to begin with, but they were 3 leaking.
4 And by the time they caught the leak, 5 there was tritium underneath the plant. So, there's 6 tritium underneath that plant. The only way that you 7 can get that tritium out is to take the plant down, 8 and then dig out the contaminated soil. And the 9 sooner that's done, the better. It should have been 10 done, I don't know when that happened, 15, 20 years 11 ago when they found out about it.
12 What they did was they put different 13 piping, to repipe, bypass the underground pipes. But 14 that's not good enough just to leave that in the 15 ground, and they need to remove all of it. Like you 16 said, maybe more than three feet, maybe it's gone down 17 to 20 feet, 100 feet whatever. They have monitoring 18 wells around the plant, but not between the plant, and 19 Lake Michigan, and that bothered me.
20 I mean why don't you have monitoring well 21 on this side to see if that tritium is going in the 22 lake? So, that's a problem, and I think this 23 decommissioning should not be ever left up to Holtec.
24 I think the NRC should not say okay, you do what you 25 want with the water, you can release whatever in the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
46 1 air, do what you want, that's not it. You've got to 2 watchdog them, or they will do what is just the 3 easiest.
4 Today before I came here, I took a hike up 5 to the dog beach with my Alaskan Huskie. And there's 6 a place, I mean it's very insecure, anybody can walk 7 in any place around there, I mean it's just totally 8 insecure. And also there's a terrible dead stench.
9 I couldn't see dead deer, or anything, but it smells 10 like death up there, it's horrible. So, I'd like to 11 know what's causing the death smell there.
12 And the wind was blowing in very strongly 13 from the lake, but it wasn't blowing the dead stench 14 away, it was real strong. So, I'm concerned about it, 15 and I think that it's going to take a lot of 16 oversight, and I don't think it should be put on hold, 17 and definitely, definitely never start that time bomb 18 up again. That's what I have to say, and I'm very 19 passionate about it.
20 I did start work after Fukushima, after 21 seeing that, it was the cracking, and all that 22 radioactive water going out into the ocean, which is 23 still happening. That could be the Great Lakes 24 easily. So, if you see the beach, it's way up, the 25 water level is higher, it's almost sitting right up to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
47 1 the plant now. And I think it's a very volatile 2 situation, and we need to be concerned not only about 3 the people that live here, the people downwind, I mean 4 that could go all the way to Canada, if there was a 5 blowup.
6 And also for our future generations, which 7 are really important, and are going to have to deal 8 with the mess we made.
9 MS. LOPAS: All right, thank you Ms.
10 Barnes.
11 MR. ANDERSON: Thank you for that, and we 12 can make sure that we address your tritium concerns.
13 I do want to make sure that everyone remembers that 14 this meeting is being transcribed, and we can make 15 sure we take that back.
16 MR. WATSON: This is Bruce Watson again.
17 One thing I want to mention is that when the NRC 18 establishes the criteria for releasing the site, and 19 terminating the license, we take into account an all 20 pathways analysis, which includes any potential ground 21 water contamination, what residual activity is left 22 behind in the soil, make sure that it meets our 23 criteria for the dose criteria so we can release the 24 site from the license.
25 In the PSDAR, it is Holtec's stated NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
48 1 intention to release the site for unrestricted use, 2 which means they'll meet our dose criteria, and that 3 would include an all pathways analysis be performed by 4 then in their license termination plan. We will 5 review that license termination plan to ensure it is 6 technically good, and it will be incorporated as a 7 license amendment.
8 So, it becomes the requirement for them to 9 comply with in order to reach the license termination.
10 But it would include the monitoring of the entire 11 site, and any residual activity that would be 12 remaining. So, it would also include the ground water 13 issue. So, thank you.
14 MR. ANDERSON: And for those in the room, 15 Craig Schultz, it looks like you're coming up next, so 16 if you just wanted to prepare for it sir.
17 MS. LOPAS: Okay, all right, Ryan 18 Pickering, if you could unmute yourself, your 19 microphone has been enabled, and just start by 20 introducing yourself, state your affiliation if you 21 have one. Ryan Pickering.
22 MR. PICKERING: Thank you Sarah. My name 23 is Ryan Pickering, I am a researcher, and a volunteer 24 with Mothers for Nuclear. We're a pro nuclear 25 advocacy group. I was quoted in the Palisades NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
49 1 newspaper about this facility over the past few months 2 as a group of researchers have been looking into this 3 opportunity, and I want to point out that this plant 4 is located in an area that can serve both MISO, and 5 PJM interconnections.
6 And that has national security 7 implications, and I appreciate how seriously everyone 8 is taking this opportunity, especially with MISO 9 announcing last year that they're short on their power 10 generation supply. So, I appreciate everyone's 11 professionalism given this opportunity. I want to 12 point out to some of the folks who are talking about 13 safety, restarting Palisades will save lives, American 14 lives.
15 Because we will use less of other types of 16 energy that are more dangerous. And this is something 17 that is deeply good for America, and I appreciate 18 everyone's seriousness when it comes to protecting 19 American lives. I want to continue to advocate for 20 the workers who still want to work at this plant.
21 This has been a challenging time for the few that I've 22 met, and thanks for everyone for respecting working 23 class people, and our effort to make this country 24 affordable.
25 And I will end my comment by saying that NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
50 1 I appreciate everyone working together in these times, 2 and we can -- especially young people see the 3 opportunity for an abundant energy future, and it's 4 our responsibility to provide that to the young people 5 of this country, because we have discovered something 6 very important here. And we look forward to building 7 new nuclear, and building advanced nuclear, and 8 building a hydrogen economy, and young people get it, 9 and we appreciate that our government is providing 10 leadership at this time, thank you.
11 MS. LOPAS: Thank you Ryan.
12 MR. ANDERSON: Thank you Ryan, thanks 13 Sarah.
14 MR. SCHULTZ: My name is Craig Schultz, 15 I'm with Michigan Safe Energy Future. I live 50 miles 16 from the plant. It's amazing to me that today that 17 the decommissioning trust fund has less money in it 18 today than it had in 2007. The money was drained down 19 when the ownership was transferred to Entergy, the 20 money has not been recovered to this date, and the 21 decommissioning trust fund has less money than Holtec 22 estimates is required, and hence the dormancy period.
23 We're relying on the stock market to pump 24 up that decommissioning trust fund. All the people in 25 this room that live in west Michigan have enjoyed the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
51 1 benefits of this power for 50 years, and yet we want 2 to kick the process of decommissioning down to our 3 children and grandchildren. I find that despicable.
4 We created a mess, it's our responsibility to clean it 5 up.
6 We enjoyed the benefits of power from that 7 plant, it's our responsibility to take responsibility 8 for the contamination at the site. And that includes 9 the decommissioning trust fund. Now, Entergy funded 10 the decommissioning trust fund at the minimum 11 requirement by the NRC. When we asked them, they 12 specifically said we are funding that exactly how the 13 NRC requires. And yet here we are, 50 years of 14 operation with not enough money in the decommissioning 15 trust fund.
16 So, my comment to the NRC is please revise 17 your requirements, so that when a plant ends its 18 operation, we're not requiring our children and grand 19 children to fund the cleanup. It's just very mean of 20 us to leave that legacy for our children. I will make 21 a comment, I think it's a little disingenuous that a 22 few days after Holtec took possession, or ownership of 23 the plant, they applied to reopen the plant.
24 We've been planning for five years, the 25 NRC, Entergy Corporation, there's years of planning to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
52 1 safely bring the plant to cessation, and decommission 2 it. And then days after Holtec takes possession, they 3 apply for a grant to reopen the plant. So, there's 4 not enough money in the decommissioning trust fund 5 right now, the short fall will be paid by people who 6 didn't enjoy the benefits of the power. And then 7 we're taking tax payer money from the federal 8 government perhaps to reopen the plant.
9 All the while the corporations were 10 profiting. I expect better from the NRC. The 11 accountability for making the profits, they should be 12 paying their fair share for the decommissioning, and 13 the safety, and the maintenance of the plant. So, we 14 went for years under the assumption the plant would be 15 permanently closed in May of 2022, and there were a 16 lot of deviations, or allowances from the NRC to skip 17 improvements to the plant related to fire safety, also 18 maintenance of critical systems was allowed to slip.
19 So, the plant is in very poor condition 20 today, or much poorer condition than it would have 21 been if the NRC had required the plant to maintain its 22 regulations. But those deviations were granted to the 23 plant, and now if the plant does restart with federal 24 funds, the taxpayers are paying for the maintenance 25 that should have been taken care of by the for profit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
53 1 corporation.
2 And again, I hold the NRC responsible for 3 their part in that. We have rules for safe operation, 4 and maintenance of the plant, and I expect the NRC to 5 hold the for profit corporations accountable for that.
6 MS. LOPAS: Okay. Shaun, I'm going to ask 7 you to repeat, was that Craig Schultz who just 8 commented?
9 MR. ANDERSON: Correct.
10 MS. LOPAS: Okay, I just wanted to make --
11 it was hard to hear, for the benefit of the court 12 reporter. And just a reminder, for the folks in the 13 room, when you introduce yourself, just wait to start 14 speaking until you have that microphone right close to 15 your mouth, because it is a little bit tough to hear 16 when the microphone isn't close. So, thank you. Are 17 we ready for -- sorry Shaun, go ahead.
18 MR. ANDERSON: I just wanted to make sure 19 if anyone from the financial group had anything to 20 say. I know we've already covered the financial piece 21 there. Just as a reminder, we have an application in 22 front of us related to the restart of the facility, 23 any additional comments here? No? Thank you for the 24 comments, we will take that back. Just one 25 clarification, is Ken Huntington here? I couldn't NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
54 1 tell if you wanted to have a comment, or not tonight.
2 Harrington, is that a yes? Well, not 3 right now, I have you coming up next, I just couldn't 4 see the yes, or no here. Sarah, you want to go next?
5 MS. LOPAS: Yeah, so just a reminder, if 6 you are on the phone press star five to raise your 7 hand, and I'll be able to see that you want to make a 8 comment if you're on the phone, star five. I've got 9 four people lined up, so next person here on the Teams 10 meeting is Eric. Eric, you can go ahead, and unmute 11 yourself.
12 MR. MEYER: Well, thank you very much.
13 Yes, my name is Eric Meyer, I'm a city councilor, and 14 the executive director of Generation Atomic. Yeah, 15 calling in tonight to remind everyone with what's at 16 stake with this facility here, and what a huge 17 opportunity it is to restart it, both in terms of 18 economic health of the region, but more importantly 19 the health-health.
20 The health impacts, already seen a 21 dramatic increase in the use of fossil fuels from 22 closing palisades down as power shifted to coal, and 23 fossil fuel, other fossil fuel facilities. It's the 24 equivalent of getting rid of all of the wind in the 25 state of Michigan, and really shouldn't be acceptable NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
55 1 from an environmental, or air pollution standard, 2 especially considering the communities that are 3 located near those fossil fuel plants a lot of times.
4 And how they're disproportionately 5 affecting minorities. So, that's -- I know we're here 6 to talk about decommissioning, and so I apologize for 7 changing the subject on it, but I do think that the 8 safer thing to do, and the NRC is worried about 9 safety, is to restart the facility, because of all of 10 the air pollution, and climate impacts that will be 11 avoided as a result. So, thank you so much, and good 12 luck going forward.
13 MS. LOPAS: Thank you Eric. Shaun?
14 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks Sarah, walking over 15 here to Ken.
16 MR. HARRINGTON: Thank you, Ken 17 Harrington, Covert Township supervisor. Just a brief 18 question here. I know the decommissioning is in its 19 early stages, but so far has the NRC noted any non-20 compliance issues major, or minor so far at this 21 juncture that warrants attention right now?
22 MR. ANDERSON: Great, good question. I'll 23 open it to senior inspector.
24 MR. EDWARDS: So, I'll repeat the 25 question, and those online please give me feedback if NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
56 1 you can't hear me okay. The question was have we 2 observed any non-compliance at the site? And I 3 presume sir, that's from the time they've permanently 4 shut down, and entered decommissioning. I'll preface 5 that all of our inspections are currently in progress, 6 and we don't make decisions on those until the end.
7 Rest assured, we were bringing up 8 observations to them that may not be compliance issue, 9 but maybe something we think they could improve upon.
10 They are taking our feedback, they're placing that 11 into their corrective action program, and addressing 12 those questions, or possibly concerns that we might 13 have. But the final answer to your question will be 14 in an inspection report to be written yet, and our 15 final conclusions are not yet done yet.
16 I hope that gives you a little bit of an 17 understanding of where we're at. There's more 18 inspections to happen this year, we've got inspections 19 in October, November, and possibly beyond this year.
20 And we'll issue our report here towards the end of the 21 year. So, appreciate the question, thank you.
22 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks Rhex. And for those 23 in the room, Kyle Demager should be queued up next.
24 Sarah, to you.
25 MS. LOPAS: Okay. So, the next person I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
57 1 have on teams is Dietmar Detering. Dietmar, I've 2 enabled your microphone, so just unmute yourself with 3 a single click. Dietmar are you there? Just one 4 click on the microphone icon on Teams should unmute 5 you. And if that's not working, let me try one more 6 trick up my sleeve. Let's see.
7 MR. DETERING: Yes, this works, thank you 8 very much Sarah. My name is Dietmar Detering, I'm a 9 pro nuclear environmentalist, and we heard some 10 comments here about -- concerns about the 11 decommissioning process, and what could happen. My 12 question to the commission is what are the actual 13 dangers aside from somebody eating the spent fuel, 14 which hopefully is not going to happen, that would 15 result?
16 We hear a lot about the standards that the 17 NRC has that have to be followed in the 18 decommissioning process, but what are the actual 19 risks, and what are the worst case scenarios, and how 20 likely are they? If you can elaborate on that. These 21 fears are somewhat related to the costs that have come 22 up here. It is indeed very expensive to decommission 23 a nuclear power plant.
24 And I go back to why that is, it's the NRC 25 guidelines. And I believe these guidelines are still NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
58 1 on the disqualified linear no threshold hypothesis.
2 This hypothesis has been disqualified for decades now 3 in the science community. My question to the NRC is:
4 when do you start following actual science? That 5 means ditching the NRC, and treating radiation, in 6 particular low level radiation, as the low risk that 7 it actually is posing?
8 We have real scientific evidence on the 9 dangers of air pollution, eight million people die 10 every year from air pollution. Shutting down a 11 nuclear power plant, or making nuclear power plants, 12 including their decommissioning so expensive that no 13 new nuclear power plants are being built is causing 14 more air pollution as a result, because other fuels 15 are being used.
16 And we have real science on the risk of 17 climate change, again making nuclear more expensive 18 including making decommissioning more expensive will 19 lead to more climate risks. These are facts that are 20 evidenced by real science, and the NRC is making its 21 decisions, and the guidelines on decommissioning 22 effecting the cost of nuclear power based on outdated, 23 some people say fraudulent science, which is the LMT.
24 And we have to balance real science with 25 real science on radiation, and not some fake science NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
59 1 that has been cooked up some 90, or 100 years ago on 2 fake evidence. So, these are my questions. A, what 3 are the actual dangers, arguing with real science?
4 And when is the NRC using actual science to make their 5 guidelines, and to oversee things like decommissioning 6 power plants for example? Thank you.
7 MS. LOPAS: Okay, thank you Dietmar.
8 MR. WATSON: This is Bruce Watson, I'll 9 try to respond to some of those questions. Number 10 one, the plants are decommissioned safely, there is a 11 certain amount of nuclear risk because of the nuclear 12 fuel, but that is managed, and placed into safe 13 storage in the dry storage containers. There's 14 radiological risk, which you've talked about, with 15 exposures to people, and entering the environment.
16 And also there's an industrial safety risk 17 of dismantling the plant, and we expect the licensees 18 to maintain a good safety program, adequate safety 19 program that no one gets injured, or a fatality 20 occurs. So, that area is regulated by OSHA. Specific 21 to your questions about radiation risk, the NRC 22 commissioners set the policy for the radiation risks.
23 They follow pretty much the International 24 Committee on -- ICRP, International Commission on 25 Radiation Protection. They are this scientific group NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
60 1 that is worldwide experts that provide recommendations 2 on radiation exposures within the United States. We 3 also have the NCRP, which is the National Council on 4 Radiation Protection, and they formulate 5 recommendations on radiation exposure.
6 Which go to the president, who also issues 7 the federal regulation guidelines or the U.S.
8 government to follow. So, all of this is based on 9 their science, and their facts of radiation risk. And 10 so the commission establishes that policy in following 11 the recommendations of the scientific community. So, 12 I know that's probably not the answer you wanted to 13 hear, but that's the current policy, and we're 14 obligated to follow it, so thank you.
15 MS. LOPAS: All right Shaun, back to you 16 in the room.
17 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks Sarah, going to 18 room, Kyle Demager.
19 MS. LOPAS: And Shaun, I just want to 20 remind everybody, it's 7:17, let's try to stick to 21 that kind of four minute time limit in terms of 22 comments. I don't know how many people you have in 23 the room that want to comment, but I know we're going 24 to get more online here. So, thanks.
25 MR. ANDERSON: Yeah, and no Kyle Demager, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
61 1 so let's do Kurt Weismus.
2 MR. WEISMUS: My name is Kurt Weismus, can 3 you hear me online? Okay. I co-own some property in 4 Covert, just a few miles away from Palisades. I'm 5 recently separated from the Navy, spent five years as 6 a (audio interference) went to CBRD specialist school 7 in Fort Leonard Wood, and then ten years on board U.S.
8 submarines, I've got some familiarity with nuclear 9 power plants.
10 And as far as the trust, or the amount in 11 the trust goes, I really don't think you guys have 12 enough, and is there a plan to increase that in the 13 near future? And as far as cleaning up any nuclear 14 waste, or your guys' dry cask system, do you know if 15 they've looked into, since Michigan's a marijuana 16 state, have you looked into using hemp plants like 17 they have done in Chernobyl, for cleaning up any 18 nuclear waste?
19 And has anybody come up with an idea to 20 use the 30 decommissioning submarines for the Los 21 Angeles class, and Ohio class submarines? Maybe you 22 guys could make a dry dock facility or something. And 23 I just really think you guys should try to keep this 24 plant open. I know some people have some differing 25 opinions.
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62 1 But we've got I96 getting connected at 31, 2 so we might be getting a lot more electric vehicles 3 coming in, and out of the area, it would be nice to 4 have that extra power. And last, but not least, 5 whether you want to decommission, or keep the plant 6 going, I think it's pretty sad that we didn't have 7 very much government representation here tonight, and 8 hope everybody contacts their local reps to change 9 that.
10 MR. EDWARDS: Thanks for your feedback.
11 This is Rhex, but just as a reminder, some of the 12 questions, and some of the approaches that would be 13 more appropriate for Holtec to answer those questions, 14 we are the safety regulator.
15 MR. WATSON: This is Bruce Watson again.
16 I just wanted to respond to a few of your comments, 17 and first of all thank you for your service to the 18 country I the U.S. Navy. There's quite a few people 19 here who also served, including our number one 20 inspector here, Rhex. But as I said, we do monitor 21 annually the decommissioning trust fund, and if 22 there's shortfalls, then we will be addressing that 23 with Holtec international to make sure it is growing 24 at the proper rate, and it will meet the requirements 25 to clean up the site.
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63 1 With respect to the nuclear waste issues, 2 I know you mentioned the Los Angeles class submarines, 3 those are decommissioned at Puget Sound, and yeah --
4 MR. WEISMUS: To my knowledge they're 5 still good.
6 MR. WATSON: Yeah, just the comment was 7 the life of them could be extended even longer than 8 they're doing right now, for the Los Angeles class 9 submarines, right? Yeah. So, we really can't comment 10 on that, that's the Navy's issue. But I appreciate 11 the comment. We are involved in some of the 12 decommissioning of the surface ships for naval 13 reactors.
14 And we do have a connection with them in 15 that respect. So, I think that's about all I can say 16 right now.
17 MR. ANDERSON: Thanks Bruce, back to you 18 Sarah.
19 MS. LOPAS: Okay, up next we have Timothy 20 Smyth. Timothy, your microphone has been enabled, so 21 just unmute yourself. You just click on the 22 microphone icon once if you have that ability. All 23 right, let me try my trick up my sleeve, and let me 24 see if this is going to help you. All right, now are 25 you able to unmute yourself, Timothy Smyth? All NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
64 1 right, Timothy, I'm going to ask you, if you're having 2 issues, to maybe try to hang up.
3 Disconnect from Teams, maybe you can call 4 in, and raise your hand, try to call in from the 5 phone, okay? Hang on one second everybody. I'm going 6 to get our next person up, will be Jan Boudart. I'm 7 going to allow your microphone, and Jan you should be 8 able to unmute yourself now. And you just click on 9 the microphone icon.
10 MS. BOUDART: I believe I am unmuted.
11 MS. LOPAS: You are, go ahead, thank you.
12 MS. BOUDART: I wonder if someone could 13 direct me to the place in the NRC regulations where 14 you specify the investments that the decommissioning 15 fund must conform to that ensure that it will increase 16 in value. I think this is extremely chancy, but then 17 I don't understand what you have in mind when you say 18 that you control their investments such that they're 19 not taking risks.
20 I don't believe it's possible to invest 21 money without taking risk. So, I'm absolutely puzzled 22 by that, and I would like to know chapter, and verse 23 where the NRC has that assurance. You said it was in 24 the regulations somewhere, or maybe not the 25 regulations, but somewhere in the NRC documents. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
65 1 I wanted to comment that Shaun, whoever he was, 2 assumed we knew who he was, and he didn't do an 3 adequate introduction of himself.
4 Therefore I have no idea who he was, 5 because I'm not party to the knowledge of the people 6 involved, and so on. And I also wanted to agree with 7 Kurt on maybe the one issue that Kurt, and I might 8 agree on is that -- wait, was it Kurt? Yeah, Kurt 9 Weismus, the only thing we could possibly agree on is 10 that it's very sad that more government officials were 11 not here, and more representatives of the people.
12 People who were elected to represent us 13 don't come to this kind of an essential meeting to 14 hear the essential, and passionate opinions of their 15 constituents. We find -- I'm a member of a Nuclear 16 Energy Information Service, and we have regular 17 meetings where we invite -- they're educational 18 meetings. We have regular educational meetings where 19 we invite elected officials, and their staffers to 20 come to our meetings.
21 And we review nuclear issues in our state, 22 and they don't come. So, I certainly agree with that, 23 although everything else he said, I disagree with.
24 So, I'd like to know what these financial assurances 25 are. I do not believe in those. And I'd like Shaun NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
66 1 to give us a better introduction, and I do think it's 2 sad that more government officials are not here, and 3 that's my comment.
4 MS. LOPAS: Thank you Jan.
5 MR. ANDERSON: I apologize, I thought I 6 introduced myself twice in the introductions. But I'm 7 Shaun Anderson, I'm the chief of reactor 8 decommissioning for the NRC. Six months within the 9 decommissioning side of the house, been at the agency 10 17 years on the operating side of the house. And to 11 answer the question on financial assurance, we do have 12 a member of staff that's online that wants to provide 13 you a response there.
14 MR. WERTZ: Yes, this is Trent Wertz. I'm 15 the senior financial analyst in the Division of 16 Rulemaking, Environmental and Financial assessment.
17 And to your point, you are correct, there is no 18 guarantee when you invest money that you're going to 19 make money. But specifically to answer your questions, 20 the regulations are 10 CFR 50.75, it spells out in 21 general terms that the licensee doesn't control their 22 investments.
23 They have what they call a master trust 24 agreement with another outside firm, it's typically 25 the New York Bank of Mellon, and they have an NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
67 1 agreement with that entity, that that trustee will 2 make prudent -- there's what they call a prudent 3 investor clause that prevents them from -- it doesn't 4 prevent them from investing in speculative things, and 5 things that might cause it to lose value.
6 But they try to invest in safe securities, 7 investments, whatever they deem fit. And see that 8 point, that's why at this point every two years, we 9 get a report from the operating reactors, and every 10 year from reactors in decommissioning on the 11 performance of the decommissioning trust funds, where 12 they are, and if there is a deficiency they have to 13 tell us in that report how they're going to fix it, 14 and get it to where it's still supposed to be.
15 So, again, the regulation is 10 CFR 50.75H 16 to be specific if you want to look that up. I hope 17 I've answered your question.
18 MS. LOPAS: Thank you Trent. Shaun, I'm 19 going to hand it back to you.
20 MR. ANDERSON: All right, Kevin Kamps.
21 MR. KAMPS: Hello everybody, my name is 22 Kevin Kamps, and I serve as radioactive waste 23 specialist at Beyond Nuclear. I'm also on the board 24 of directors of Don't Waste Michigan, representing the 25 Kalamazoo Chapter, advisory board of Citizens for NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
68 1 Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, and yeah, so 2 the first thing I wanted to say is there's been a 3 fraud perpetrated on the public.
4 A swindle, a con job, the list goes on.
5 We've been lied to. In December of 2020 Holtec, and 6 Entergy said there's going to be a license transfer, 7 and it's based on Entergy shutting the plant down for 8 good. And 30 days later, once fuel has been removed 9 from the core, Holtec will take over the license, the 10 site, and will decommission. And I'd like to thank 11 the NRC for writing me on July 17th of this year to 12 let me know that in fact that is what has happened.
13 On June 28th took over the license, took 14 over the site, it's a possession only license.
15 Entergy has removed fuel from the core, put it in the 16 storage pool, and there's no operating license left.
17 So, I'd just like everybody in the room to know at 18 NRC, and at Holtec, in the governor's office, and the 19 energy secretary's office that a license amendment to 20 operate this plant is applied for. We will be on it 21 legally.
22 At every turn it will be challenged, just 23 as this plant was challenged before it was built by 24 the likes of Maynard Kaufman for one example, out here 25 in Bangor. The likes of Sandy Adams in Kalamazoo, who NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
69 1 collected petition signatures against this plant 2 before it was built. The resistance to Palisades goes 3 back way more than 50 years, and we're not going to 4 stop showing up.
5 And we certainly are upset about Holtec 6 taking over this plant under false pretenses. Taking 7 it over on June 28th of this year, and then eight days 8 later secretly applying to the U.S. Department of 9 Energy for a billion dollars, or more in federal tax 10 payer money to continue operating this plant for 11 several more years until 2031 when the current 12 extended license ends.
13 For 80 years, for 100 years as NRC likes 14 to entertain, we're going to challenge all of this.
15 So, those are old reactor challenges that we will 16 engage in. Krishna Singh's (phonetic) trial balloon 17 to build one or more small modular reactors, in this 18 very room back in April, I said over my dead body. I 19 stand by that. So, it's too bad that we had to find 20 out on September 9th that Holtec had made application 21 on July 5th for this federal bailout.
22 It's demanding a state bailout, and we're 23 going to challenge all of this. We're going to 24 challenge the bailouts, we're going to challenge the 25 license, and I know this meeting, I just had to get NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
70 1 all that out, because this meeting is so absurd.
2 We're talking about a post shutdown decommissioning 3 activities report, and a decommissioning cost 4 estimate.
5 We don't even know how long Holtec plans 6 to operate this plant. All the dates in the PSDAR if 7 Holtec gets its way are obviously wrong, right? And 8 if they operate this old dangerous plant for years, or 9 decades longer, the radioactive contamination is going 10 to be worse. There's going to be more waste onsite to 11 manage. How can the decommissioning cost estimate 12 mean anything?
13 So, the absurdities are quite grand, and 14 we're going to fight all these dangerous proposals.
15 I guess I'm at my four minutes, so I'll just close 16 because one of the speakers by phone brought up saving 17 lives. And I'd just like to point out Palisades has 18 the worst embrittled reactor pressure vessel in the 19 United States, perhaps the world. Arnie Gundersen, 20 our expert nuclear engineer during our interventions 21 here over the years, and decades, just the other day 22 said it's probably the most embrittled in the world.
23 So, if you fire this plant back up, you've 24 got the embrittlement of the reactor pressure vessel, 25 you have the lid that Consumers Energy in 2006 said NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
71 1 needed replacement, it's not been replaced. The year 2 is 2022 now. The steam generators need to be replaced 3 for the second time. The control rod drive mechanisms 4 have failed since 1972. Again on May 20th of this 5 year, which led to Entergy permanently shutting down 6 the plant 11 days early.
7 So, you've got one of the most dangerous 8 reactors in the country, or in the world. And NRC's 9 own crack two report --
10 MS. LOPAS: Hello Kevin, this is five 11 minutes, so we're going to have to move on, I'm sorry.
12 I'm trying to be fair, because we do have a number of 13 people in line to comment, and you didn't acknowledge 14 that you were at your four minutes about a minute ago.
15 So, I apologize for that, but I'm going --
16 MR. ANDERSON: You're going to have to 17 talk a little later after we get through all the 18 comments.
19 MS. LOPAS: Yeah, absolutely.
20 MR. ANDERSON: Go ahead Sarah.
21 MS. LOPAS: Okay, so up next, I have 22 enabled Alan Medsker's microphone. Alan, you just 23 have to unmute yourself.
24 MR. MEDSKER: Okay, thank you very much.
25 My name is Alan Medsker, I am a volunteer with NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
72 1 Campaign for a Green Nuclear Deal. I am a pro nuclear 2 environmentalist, and I'll keep my comments short 3 here. The most dangerous nuclear plant is one that 4 you either shut down, or don't build in the first 5 place. And that's because when we don't have nuclear, 6 everything else that we can use to provide reliable 7 large scale power requires us to burn stuff.
8 And that pollutes the air, and ends up 9 killing people. So, I am in full support of continued 10 operation of Palisades either as it was, with 11 appropriate maintenance, and upgrades, or with new 12 nuclear reactor technology, advanced reactors, either 13 way. Because I know that once the nuclear plant comes 14 online, it displaces, and it alone displaces dirty 15 fossil fuels unless you have the ability to build 16 hydroelectric dams.
17 Because those are really the only two 18 clean energy sources that can displace fossil fuels.
19 And we need to displace a lot of fossil fuels, because 20 they are killing us. So, I know that that's a little 21 bit off topic, and I just really appreciate the work 22 that the NRC does, and thank you for the opportunity 23 to speak up.
24 MS. LOPAS: Thank you Alan. Shaun, I'll 25 hand it back to you.
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73 1 MR. ANDERSON: Okay, thanks Sarah. Albert 2 Lewis. This is the last person that we have that's 3 signed up, and we'll go back to Sarah to doing the 4 remaining comments online, and then we'll come back to 5 the room if there's any additional.
6 MR. LEWIS: Hello, I'm Albert Lewis. I've 7 got a book here that shows at five miles from that 8 plant, you're in danger. What are you going to pay 9 us? You're putting us in danger again, now. We were 10 happy you got rid of the damn thing. I'm not going to 11 say a whole lot, but it's time to get rid of that mess 12 you've got. I just talked to a guy that worked there, 13 he said that'll never open again, and he's worked in 14 there, and he's got another job.
15 Half of them have got other jobs, and the 16 other half of them are retired. You don't need that 17 thing. And that plume that goes off, our weather has 18 changed since that thing has been in there. That's 19 about all I got to say, but I got the book right here 20 with the truth. You put me in the danger zone, I live 21 five miles from it, I'm not going to tell you what my 22 farm is worth, because I'll get taxed on it.
23 MR. ANDERSON: Thank you Albert.
24 MR. LEWIS: I don't want to be pushed out 25 with that plant blowing up. My kid welded on it 30 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
74 1 years ago, and the inspector told him, he said this is 2 only good for 30 years. And it's 20 years over right 3 now.
4 MR. ANDERSON: Appreciate it, thanks for 5 your comments Albert. Sarah, did you want to --
6 MS. LOPAS: Shaun, yeah, we've got a 7 number of people on Teams, so I'm going to kind of 8 strictly enforce the four minutes, if you can do it in 9 less than four minutes, we'll be even happier. Lynne, 10 your microphone has been enabled, please introduce 11 yourself. Lynne, just unmute yourself. If you are 12 unable to unmute yourself, I'm going to try one more 13 thing for you. Now try to unmute yourself Lynne.
14 MS. GOODMAN: That worked.
15 MS. LOPAS: Great.
16 MS. GOODMAN: My name is Lynne Goodman, I 17 was previously involved in decommissioning nuclear 18 plants, and I live in the eastern part of the state of 19 Michigan. I have two types of comments. The first is 20 that as a Michigan resident, especially one that's 21 downwind from Consumers Power, they're shutting down 22 Palisades, that means I am now breathing more 23 pollution, and so my health is being impacted by that.
24 And so, I really think that the plant 25 should seriously be considered for restart, so that we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
75 1 are putting less polluted air into the state of 2 Michigan. The second topic I wanted to speak on is 3 decommissioning cost. The decommissioning cost for 4 Palisades seems rather low to me. And while in 5 general, based on the past ten years of economics, if 6 you leave money sit it makes money faster than 7 inflation.
8 But when you're in an inflationary time 9 period, it is very difficult to meet the delta as far 10 as that you're earning more money than costs are going 11 up. So, I really think that a good, hard look needs 12 to be done at the decommissioning cost estimate, that 13 the assumptions need to be well monitored with what's 14 going on in today's economic situation as far as 15 whether, or not the amount of money will increase to 16 cover the costs. That's it.
17 MS. LOPAS: All right, thank you Lynne.
18 Give me one second everybody, moving as quickly as I 19 can. Okay, next up in line we have Jake, Jake you 20 should be able to unmute yourself, and please 21 introduce yourself, and state your affiliation.
22 MR. LACE: Hey there, can you hear me?
23 MS. LOPAS: Yes.
24 MS. LOPAS: Hey, my name is Jake Lace, a 25 local community member in love with logic, and facts.
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76 1 And I just had a short question for the NRC in that if 2 the proper plan came forward, and the proper operator 3 came forward, what are the legal avenues for the NRC 4 to reissue the original operating license, or 5 something along the same lines as the original 6 operating license?
7 MS. LOPAS: Shaun, can we talk about that 8 at all, or -- just wondering. Hold on, can't really 9 hear you Shaun, speak up, sorry.
10 MR. ANDERSON: Sorry, can you hear me now?
11 MS. LOPAS: Yes.
12 MR. ANDERSON: We do want to focus on the 13 PSDAR as we move forward today, but if that's 14 something that could always come before the agency, 15 that's something that we will all come together, and 16 look at as an agency on determining how we want to 17 move forward, or how we should move forward. Anybody 18 want to add anything?
19 MR. WATSON: Yeah, I think -- this is 20 Bruce Watson. What the agency is doing right now is 21 evaluating how we might entertain an application, and 22 what probably should be in it, and we have our normal 23 safety reviews that we would do for an application.
24 So, I don't think there's any -- right now we're going 25 through the evaluation phase, so we don't really have NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
77 1 an answer for the question. So, it's just where we 2 are.
3 It's fairly new in the process, we 4 announced this program recently, so it's too early to 5 tell.
6 MR. ANDERSON: And just a reminder for 7 everyone in the room, what we're trying to do is 8 finish, we have about a half dozen individuals on the 9 phone that haven't spoken just yet, and if we are able 10 to get through everyone, we do want to go for second 11 rounds if anyone else has additional comments.
12 MS. LOPAS: Okay, all right, up next we 13 have Michael Keegan. Michael, you should be able to 14 unmute yourself, and just state your affiliation, and 15 introduce.
16 MR. KEEGAN: Hello?
17 MS. LOPAS: Hi?
18 MR. KEEGAN: Can you hear me? Thank you.
19 A very interesting kabuki dance, I'd like to welcome 20 the public relations commercials from the four quote 21 unquote environmentalist groups. I take issue with 22 the exemptions on the decommissioning trust fund that 23 Holtec applied for in December 2020. A year later, 24 the NRC approved that to allow them to start to tap 25 the decommissioning trust fund, and they don't even NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
78 1 have to notify the NRC when they do it.
2 Several nuclear power plants have asked 3 for the same exemption. Stop giving exemptions, make 4 the rule. How about a rule making? Promulgate the 5 rule where there can actually be some public hearing 6 on this process. This amounts to the looting of 7 funds, and the funds are going to be exhausted. And 8 the community is being left holding the bag. Holtec 9 is a limited liability corporation.
10 Once they money is gone, it's gone. I 11 take particular issue with the 166 million dollars for 12 this nuclear fuel management. At the same time 13 they'll be tapping the DOE, because they're the 14 injured party because the DOE didn't make good on a 15 contract. Those monies should be put back in the 16 decommission trust fund. You can't tap that same need 17 twice. Holtec needs to stop putting it in their 18 pocket.
19 I take issue with the PSDAR, the plans to 20 build a port right at Palisades, that's a major 21 environmental undertaking, which will need an 22 environmental impact statement. Barging high level 23 nuclear waste on the Great Lakes, barging steam 24 generators on the Great Lakes, that's not going to 25 happen. You need to understand that, we're not going NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
79 1 to put up with that, so just get that out of your 2 head.
3 We need real time monitoring at the plant, 4 because the community is at risk of releases from the 5 plant, and the NRC, and Holtec will not come clean.
6 So residents need real time monitoring where they can 7 audit it, and regarding this kabuki dance, what a 8 mockery you've made of this whole process. My God, 9 this is just to chase the money. So, those are my 10 comments, and regarding what the NRC is looking at 11 their policy, how to go about bringing the license 12 back, amendments, what have you.
13 Rest assured we will be suing you in 14 federal court. So, thank you very much, Michael 15 Keegan, Don't Waste Michigan, I've been reviewing this 16 plant for 40 years. And if somebody's thinking about 17 buying this sucker, they need to think again. Thank 18 you.
19 MS. LOPAS: Thank you Michael. All right, 20 next, Timothy Smyth, we have you back on again, see if 21 you can unmute yourself Timothy.
22 MR. SMYTH: Hi, can you hear me?
23 MS. LOPAS: Yes.
24 MR. SMYTH: Hi, I just wanted to indicate 25 my support if there's a possibility of bringing back, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
80 1 or restarting the plant. I think it would be with the 2 environmental challenges, in terms of energy 3 production, especially in Michigan and the Midwest, I 4 think it would be an important thing to do to help 5 both the environment and the economy.
6 I do want to point out a couple of things 7 that have been brought up. One is I think people who 8 are concerned about the civil credit program, and the 9 Inflation Reduction Act that was passed last year need 10 to bring that issue up with the elected 11 representatives, including many in Michigan who voted 12 for that legislation last year. I'll also note on the 13 issue of decommissioning, in terms of shipping spent 14 fuel, or medium level radioactive waste, irregardless 15 of what the NRC approves, the government of Canada, 16 and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has already 17 approved that as a means of transport for plants on 18 the Canadian side of the border.
19 And perhaps people, if they're saying it's 20 going to be over their dead bodies, they need to start 21 talking to the Canadian embassy in Washington D.C.,
22 and starting a conversation with them. Because the 23 government of Canada has already done this, and 24 indicated they're going to do it again. So, I 25 understand it's a U.S. process, but I don't think NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
81 1 people should be making blind assertions like this is 2 going to not happen over their dead bodies, because it 3 already is happening. And that's all for my comments.
4 MS. LOPAS: Thank you Timothy. All right, 5 Paul Gunter, you should be able to unmute yourself.
6 MR. GUNTER: Hello, this is Paul Gunter of 7 Beyond Nuclear. I'm in Tacoma Park, Maryland. Just 8 to cut to the chase, I've been following the 9 decommissioning issue, as it provides an opportunity 10 for the subsequent license renewal of nuclear power 11 stations. It's been recognized by a federal lab that 12 there are a lot of knowledge gaps, technical, and 13 scientific, in terms of what you -- how much safety 14 margin you have left in these aging nuclear power 15 plants when you want to extend them another 60, to 80 16 years.
17 And one, Pacific Northwest National Lab 18 provided was that the decommissioning process provides 19 an opportunity to harvest strategic materials that 20 could open up analysis to just how aging is affecting 21 nuclear power stations, that you want to project 22 operations another second license renewal for 20 23 years. And if -- I'm wondering if Bruce could tell me 24 right now, we've been going over this issue at a 25 number of decommissioning opportunities.
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82 1 And we don't seem to see the resources, or 2 the scheduling happening for harvesting materials from 3 decommissioning nuclear power plants who have 4 notorious embrittled reactor pressure vessels. And 5 this is the opportunity that Palisades provides, and 6 Bruce, if you could just give us an idea of how much 7 money is currently available for strategic harvesting 8 from reactor pressure vessels.
9 MR. WATSON: Okay. Mr. Gunter, I 10 appreciate your question. As usual, Mr. Gunter, and 11 I have had numerous conversations about this 12 particular issue at a variety of public meetings. And 13 the key thing here I think is that the licensees for 14 the most part are cooperating with the industry. And 15 by that I mean NRC, and the Electric Power Research 16 Institute for doing testing, and taking samples of the 17 plants, and having them analyzed for the aging 18 management issues.
19 In particular I know the NRC collected a 20 number of electrical cables that were first available 21 at Oyster Creek so we could do the analysis on those.
22 However, I know there was coupons, and other samples 23 taken from the Zion plant, which is at the final 24 stages of decommissioning, and those are being 25 analyzed by, I believe the Electric Power Research NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
83 1 Institute. So, the industry is taking on that issue 2 because they also want to prove that these plants are 3 safe for the long term also.
4 So, their program in concert with the 5 NRC's selective program for aging management, we do 6 collect data on it. I don't have a budget number, I 7 think to your specific question about funding. But I 8 do know we do fund quite a bit of research in this 9 area. I know we also talk with the international 10 programs in other countries about their analysis, and 11 collecting samples from their plants that they have 12 shut down.
13 So, we also are creating databases for 14 this information. So, I'm sorry, I don't have a 15 specific number for the budget that's being used in 16 this area. But I can assure everybody that between 17 the NRC and the Electric Power Research Institute, 18 this issue is being addressed, but it does take time 19 to have these types of samples analyzed. If they come 20 from real components, you have to wait until the 21 plant's shut down to collect them, so it takes time.
22 But I agree with Mr. Gunter in the need to 23 do that type of program, and it is underway both by 24 the NRC in selected areas, along with the Electric 25 Power Research Institute, as I said, who is the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
84 1 industry's research arm, and independent agency, I 2 guess I'll call it our non-profit group that does that 3 type of work. So, thank you for your question.
4 MS. LOPAS: Okay, there were a couple 5 people that were on the phone that had raised their 6 hand to speak, and we accidentally unmuted you, and 7 then we disabled your microphone. So, if you were 8 sitting here on the phone, and you heard that your 9 microphone was enabled, and then all of a sudden it 10 wasn't, go ahead, and press star five again. Just to 11 let you know, we're not trying to cut you off, there 12 was a little miscommunication between myself, and 13 somebody who is helping me out on Teams here.
14 Okay, great, I see the two phone numbers 15 popped up, thank you guys both. Okay, so we are 16 approaching 8:00 o'clock, we're going to take the 17 three comments that we have here in Teams, and then 18 Shaun, I'll hand it back to you to see if there's any 19 new comments in the room. But I'm going to ask that 20 there'll be no more Teams raising of hands besides the 21 folks that have already had their hands raised.
22 So, Eric Dawson, I'm going to allow your 23 microphone. Give it a second Eric, there you go.
24 MR. DAWSON: Hi, can you hear me?
25 MS. LOPAS: We can, yes.
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85 1 MR. DAWSON: Hi, my name is Eric Dawson, 2 I'm from Group Nuclear New York. I'll try to be 3 brief. As we all know, building a new nuclear power 4 plant is a long, drawn out process, as is its 5 decommissioning. Inflation driven by energy price 6 heights is at a 40 year high, and the demand to reduce 7 carbon emissions is at an all-time high. Meanwhile 8 nuclear power is obviously the most reliable form of 9 zero emission energy, and it has provided the vast 10 majority of zero emission electricity in Michigan.
11 The cheapest policy, unlike 12 decommissioning to minimize carbon emission, and 13 minimize electricity prices is simply to not shut down 14 any fully operational zero emission power plants like 15 Palisades. The Biden administration is pro nuclear, 16 Holtec wants to reactivate Palisades, and Governor 17 Whitmer supports them. For these reasons, the 18 decommission process of Palisades should be delayed.
19 Thank you.
20 MS. LOPAS: Okay, thank you. I'm going to 21 go ahead, and enable the microphone of I believe it 22 was 4513, the last digits of 4513. And make sure you 23 unmute yourself -- yeah, we can hear you.
24 MS. CUMBOW: My name is Kay Cumbow, and 25 I'm a concerned citizen in Michigan, and I live in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
86 1 Brown City Michigan, or in the area of Brown City, 2 Michigan. And had a couple questions for staff, which 3 was when are written comments due? And also will a 4 record of this meeting be available, and how will we 5 be notified of that?
6 Also then I wanted to say if I understood, 7 I think it was Timothy, if I understood him correctly, 8 he indicated that Canada had already barged lethal 9 irradiated fuel on the Great Lakes. And if so, did 10 they so secretly? Because I'd appreciate knowing the 11 source. Because I think that all residents of the 12 Great Lakes need to know that. So, I wanted to say 13 that Palisades has a very bad history on safety 14 issues.
15 Both with worker contamination, and lack 16 of safety culture. In the early 1970s, also the core 17 barrel moved, the internals of the reactor. The plant 18 was online as much as it was offline the first -- in 19 the early years of Palisades. So, that's not very 20 economic at all. And they were talking about testing 21 the coupons, there's only one coupon left in 22 Palisades, and they will not take it out to test it.
23 And we would love them to take it out, and 24 test it, it's just they used them all up so quickly, 25 and Palisades was declared so embrittled that it was NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
87 1 supposed to be shut during the 1990s, and they just 2 kept running it without checking the coupon. So, that 3 would be a great idea to check that. I also wanted to 4 say that it's crazy to attempt to restart this plant.
5 It's long been known as one of the two 6 worst embrittled reactors in the world. Also when 7 this plant was sold to Entergy, there was an agreement 8 with the Michigan Public Service Commission to fix a 9 series, a lot of very serious safety issues. And that 10 list was just thrown out the window. So, this 11 reactor, also I wanted to say that this reactor, when 12 operating, like all nuclear reactors, releases 13 radionuclides, and radioactive substances into the 14 air, and into the water.
15 And many of those bioaccumulate in the 16 food chain, and that includes algae, and that includes 17 garden vegetables, and animals, and animals that we 18 eat. So, if people go deer hunting, perhaps there is 19 some of those deer. Some of those concentrate tens of 20 thousands of times, some of them hundreds of thousands 21 of times. Humans are at the top of the food chain, I 22 wanted to know if Lake Michigan will be checked 23 immediately outside of the plant, and also immediately 24 upstream, and downstream to be checked for radioactive 25 contamination.
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88 1 And I wanted to say that nuclear power is 2 not clean, or safe. Benjamin Sovacool has done some 3 very good reports on the whole front end of the 4 nuclear fuel chain, on uranium mining, and milling, 5 and processing. That's all powered by coal, and it's 6 highly contaminated, including in the Great Lakes.
7 From the uranium mining in Elliot Lake, Ontario, but 8 also in Detroit, and other places in Michigan, and the 9 Great Lakes where secretive research, and work for the 10 DOE was conducted.
11 Uranium fires broke out in these places, 12 workers worked in these places with uranium dust in 13 their work place, and --
14 MS. LOPAS: Kay, I'm going to have to stop 15 you there, because we're at four minutes, and I want 16 to give Marlayna, or Shaun a chance to answer when are 17 comments due, and how can you access the transcript of 18 tonight's meeting. Okay, thanks.
19 MS. CUMBOW: Thank you.
20 MR. ANDERSON: I'll give Marlayna the 21 opportunity.
22 MS. DOELL: Hi, this is Marlayna Doell, 23 again, I'm the project manager for Palisades at the 24 NRC. Comments on the PSDAR are due by December 27th 25 of this year. Any comments submitted on the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
89 1 regulations.gov site are available on that site, and 2 can be viewed as soon as they're submitted. A 3 transcript of this meeting will be included with the 4 meeting summary, which we'll be putting together.
5 And that will all be publicly available, 6 and also distributed via the Palisades Listserv 7 distribution, which is something that you can sign up 8 for on the NRC's website. It takes a couple of steps, 9 it's hard to walk through without showing you, if 10 anyone needs help joining the Listserv, I'm happy to 11 help, reach out to me after the meeting, and I can 12 walk you through joining that site, and you will be on 13 the list for not just this meeting summary, but any 14 NRC correspondence that is sent out to the Palisades 15 site.
16 MS. LOPAS: Thank you Marlayna. Okay, I 17 have one more phone commenter here, somebody with the 18 phone number last four digits 1375. You should be 19 able to speak.
20 MS. McCOMB: That is me, I am Shawn 21 McComb. I am calling as a concerned citizen, I live in 22 Kalamazoo, Michigan, my mother lives in South Haven, 23 Michigan. I'm calling to say my comment. I agree 100 24 percent that nuclear energy is not clean. First of 25 all, we're risking contamination of one of the largest NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
90 1 fresh water aquifers in the world, the Great Lakes.
2 Putting nuclear coolant, using the lakes as nuclear 3 coolant increases the temperature of the lakes.
4 Affects the fisheries, so that we are less 5 likely to have the fish for our economy with regards 6 to having people come to fish. Why are we risking one 7 of the largest water aquifers in the world with 8 possible radiation contamination, which could last 9 generations? So, there are a lot of alternatives, we 10 could use the waves, there's technology to use the 11 waves on lakes, and on rivers, and on oceans.
12 There's technology to get energy that way.
13 There's geothermal, there's solar, there's a lot of 14 different possibilities for getting energy, including 15 some things we just don't need to have energy for that 16 we could be using our own personal energy for. I mean 17 little things that could make the difference. But I 18 know that's neither here, nor there, I am against the 19 recommissioning of Palisades because of its history of 20 poor safety.
21 There have been many -- there have been 22 physicians in the area who said they would never even 23 swim in the water near there, and maybe not in the 24 Great Lakes. So, that is my comment.
25 MS. LOPAS: Okay, thank you Shawn. Okay, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
91 1 even though I said no more hands please, now I really 2 mean it. No more hands, don't make me take out my mom 3 voice here at work. So, we're going to take these 4 last two comments here on Teams, and then I'm going to 5 go back to the room to check with Shaun to see if 6 there's any new last final comments in the room.
7 So, let me go ahead, and allow the mic of 8 this phone number 8106, the last four digits. You 9 should be able to unmute yourself. Hold on a second, 10 yeah Shaun?
11 MR. ANDERSON: Yeah, just after this last 12 comment, what we would like to do, is we do want to 13 provide a summary for everyone, just want to have 14 everyone aware of what we heard, and what we want to 15 bring back, and then we'll close out the meeting. But 16 go ahead Sarah.
17 MS. LOPAS: Yeah, sounds good. Okay, 18 8106, did you get yourself all unmuted?
19 MR. MONTGOMERY: Yes, can you hear me?
20 MS. LOPAS: We can, go ahead.
21 MR. MONTGOMERY: Hello, here's my comment.
22 My name is Paul Montgomery, I am a mechanical, and an 23 aerospace engineer, I have a PHD from Stanford 24 University. I don't work in, or for the nuclear 25 industry, and I live in the bay area. And I'm NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
92 1 speaking for myself, and for all of our children. I 2 want to make the following points.
3 When nuclear plants are closed, they are 4 replaced by fossil fuels. One can look at the example 5 of Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in New York about 6 15 months ago, that's exactly what happened. The 7 history is there. Secondly, the Palisades plant I 8 believe is completely safe. It has some nuclear fuel, 9 the used nuclear fuel is stored onsite even for 10 extended periods, and it's completely safe.
11 In the history of nuclear power, no one 12 has ever been hurt, and this is fuel for future 13 generations of nuclear power plants. The latest IPCC 14 WG3 climate report states that a 90 percent increase 15 in nuclear capacity is needed by 2050 to limit global 16 warming by 1.5 degrees. And lastly, removing base 17 load plants like nuclear plants in favor of so called 18 renewables leads inevitably to the sort of instability 19 that we're seeing in California, and Texas, and 20 Europe.
21 So, I ask you to follow the science, and 22 the relative benefits of nuclear over all other types 23 of energy. And for all of these reasons I would like 24 to state my support for restarting the plant. Thank 25 you for your time.
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93 1 MR. ANDERSON: Thank you Sarah. What we'd 2 like to do is have Bruce provide a little summary of 3 what we've learned today, and what we heard from 4 everyone who provided their comments.
5 MR. WATSON: Yes, thank you, this is Bruce 6 Watson again.
7 MS. LOPAS: Hang on a second, wait, hang 8 on, sorry guys, I apologize, I was muted, and I was 9 talking and you'd think a facilitator knows better.
10 I'm sorry, we have Jim Hopf, and that is our last 11 comment here. So, Jim, you should be able to unmute 12 yourself.
13 MR. HOPF: Can you hear me?
14 MS. LOPAS: Yes, we can, go ahead Jim.
15 MR. HOPF: Thanks. My name is Jim Hopf, 16 I'm with Generation Atomic, a grassroots pro-nuclear 17 power organization. I'm asking NRC to do everything 18 it can to facilitate restarting the Palisades plant.
19 This is in line with NRC's mandate under the Atomic 20 Energy Act to serve the general welfare of the public.
21 Resuming operations of Palisades will significantly 22 reduce future CO2 emissions, and air pollution, and 23 will enhance the reliability of the regional grid.
24 It will save a large number of high paying 25 jobs in the local area. It will also probably reduce NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
94 1 future power costs. A majority of the people and 2 political leaders in the area support the restarting 3 of the plant. Thank you.
4 MS. LOPAS: Okay, Shaun, sorry about that.
5 Thank you for your comment.
6 MR. WATSON: Yeah, thank you, Sarah. This 7 is Bruce Watson again. I thought I'd just provide a 8 few high level comments, or summaries that we heard 9 from the comments tonight. Overall, there were 24 10 comments presented by various individuals both in here 11 in the room in person, and on the computer. The first 12 one I heard, first comment that we've heard, there's 13 numerous comments to keep the plant shutdown, but also 14 comments to encourage the restart of the plant.
15 I'm just going to repeat that the NRC is 16 a safety regulator. We don't make any decisions on 17 the restart of the plant, other than it has to be done 18 safely, along with decommissioning, we ensure it is 19 done safely. Department of Energy is the promoter of 20 energy in the country, so they're the ones who are 21 entertaining this recent policy act that came out.
22 There was concerns about the decommissioning trust 23 fund here at Palisades, cost overruns.
24 And then a potential need to strengthen 25 the regulations. Another area was the concerns about NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
95 1 the Palisades deferring plant maintenance, and some 2 modifications, and I'm just going to comment that if 3 the plant is to restart, it would have to be done 4 safely. So, all those maintenance, and modifications 5 would likely have to be fixed before the NRC would 6 relicense the facility.
7 Concerns about ground water monitoring, 8 and the cleanup of the site, those will be described 9 in the license termination plan in very good detail.
10 That will also be a document the public can comment 11 on, and opportunity for hearing because the license 12 termination plan is a license amendment. I heard some 13 concerns about the safety of the decommissioning, and 14 the overall inspection program that the NRC conducts 15 during decommissioning.
16 I'll just comment that we have a dedicated 17 reactor decommissioning inspection program. It's 18 being implemented, and you can see right now that we 19 are here frequently, even though the resident 20 inspector just left, we are here frequently, and it's 21 based on the activities that do go on at the site.
22 And we have frequent communications, both Marlayna and 23 Rhex with the licensee, on what are the plans, meeting 24 plans, and longer term plans, so we can plan those 25 inspections.
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96 1 One of the things that has been brought up 2 is harvesting of strategic materials, specifically 3 vessel embrittlement has been brought up numerous 4 times tonight. I'm sure the NRC is monitoring that 5 situation, and looking at that strategically, and with 6 our technical people, and engineering people to make 7 sure the reactor vessel, pressure vessel is safe to 8 continue operations should that decision be made.
9 And then lastly I heard concerns about the 10 plant effluents on the environment, and the Great 11 Lakes. I can confirm that the Canadians did authorize 12 barging of large components, such as steam generators 13 on the Great Lakes. I don't know about spent fuel, 14 because I know I was talking with the U.S.
15 representative for that area of northern Michigan a 16 number of years ago when the Canadians proposed that.
17 So, I don't know if they really ever did 18 it, but I know they approved that type of 19 transportation. So, with that, those are the high 20 level comments. I'm sure I can't go back into any 21 details at this time with the time constraints we have 22 on the meeting, so I want to thank you for coming in 23 tonight. And I'll hand it back to Shaun.
24 MR. ANDERSON: I just want to thank 25 everybody for allowing us to come out tonight, and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1716 14th STREET, N.W., SUITE 200 (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20009-4309 www.nealrgross.com
97 1 also thank you for being courteous, and providing 2 everyone enough time to provide their responses. But 3 with that, we'll adjourn the meeting. Thank you.
4 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 5 off the record at 8:10 p.m.)
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