ML24003A834
| ML24003A834 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crystal River  |
| Issue date: | 12/07/2023 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NRC-2631 | |
| Download: ML24003A834 (1) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Crystal River Unit 3 Nuclear Generating Plant License Termination Plan Docket Number:
(n/a)
Location:
teleconference Date:
Thursday, December 7, 2023 Work Order No.:
NRC-2631 Page 1-35 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433
1 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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
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PUBLIC MEETING
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CRYSTAL RIVER UNIT 3 NUCLEAR GENERATING PLANT LICENSE TERMINATION PLAN
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- THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 2023
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The meeting convened via Video-Teleconference, at 5:00 p.m. EST, Lynn Ronewicz, Meeting Facilitator, presiding.
NRC STAFF PRESENT:
LYNN M. RONEWICZ, NSIR/DSO/ISB ANDREW TAVERNA JACK PARROTT TIM BARVITSKIE NEIL SHEEHAN SHAUN ANDERSON ALSO PRESENT:
BRYANT AKINS, ADP CR3
2 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 C O N T E N T S Welcome............................................3 Opening Remarks....................................5 NRC License Termination Regulatory Process.........9 NRC Inspection and Oversight Program..............15 Crystal River Unit 3 License Termination Plan.....21 Public Comments and Q&A...........................30 Closing Remarks...................................36
3 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 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 5:00 p.m.
MS. RONEWICZ: Welcome, everyone. This is the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public comment meeting to describe the license termination process and the NRC's review of the license termination plan for the Crystal River Unit 3 Nuclear Generating Plant.
Good evening. My name is Lynn Ronewicz, and I am an Information Security Specialist in the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, but I am also an NRC meeting facilitator. And I will be helping to facilitate tonight's meeting.
I am joining you virtually from Microsoft Teams, so I will be working with the NRC staff in the room to ensure we hear all your comments and questions.
As will be described in greater detail by Neil Sheehan, Region I Public Affairs Officer, after the conclusion of my short opening remarks, the purpose of this meeting is to receive public comments on the license termination process and the NRC's review of the license termination plan for the Crystal River Unit 3 Nuclear Generating Plant.
This meeting is a hybrid meeting which
4 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 means the NRC is hosting this public meeting in person at the Citrus County Chamber of Commerce, Crystal River, Florida, and also virtually by Microsoft Teams.
Tonight's meeting is a common gathering meeting. The NRC is holding this meeting specifically to obtain public feedback on a regulatory issue, which is the review and possible approval and implementation of the license termination plan required for the decommissioning of the Crystal River Unit 3 Nuclear Generating Plant.
If you are joining us online via Teams or if you have called in using the Teams bridgeline, please be sure to keep your microphone muted unless you are called on to speak. As a note, however, we have automatically disabled all microphones. When we call on raised hands of virtual attendees during the public comments and questions, I will enable your microphone when I call your name.
You will then need to unmute yourself to speak. Please then re-mute your phone after you speak. Also during the question and answer portion, we will take about four questions in the room first and then we will alternate virtually to hands raised.
And we'll go back and forth that way.
We have disabled chat messaging for this
5 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 meeting because we want to hear all questions and comments verbally for the court reporter transcription.
If at any point during tonight's meeting you are having Microsoft Teams issues, I wanted to provide the bridge number if anybody wants to write it down. The bridge number is 301-576-2978. The passcode is 540972190.
The NRC's agency-wide documents access and management system known as ADAMS Accession Number of the Slide presentation is ML23335A081.
The meeting is being transcribed by a court reporter as indicated. That's all for me now.
And I am going to hand it over to Neil Sheehan.
MR. ANDERSON: Thanks, Lynn. I'm actually going to take it over from here.
Good evening, everyone. My name is Shaun Anderson from the NRC's Office of Nuclear Materials and Safety and Safeguards, or NMSS, in Rockville, Maryland.
As you may be aware, Crystal River Unit 3 is undergoing a decommissioning process. In December of 2022, Crystal River submitted their license termination plan by Accelerating Decommissioning Partners, which is NRC's licensee for the LT plan.
6 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 The plan was submitted in -- supplemented in June 2023 and initially accepted for NRC review.
And that's why we're here tonight to get your public comments on the license termination plan for us to consider as part of our review.
If you're here for any other purposes, please refrain and hold your comments for a more appropriate venue so that we can hear from the local community. And for those in the room, if there is an emergency, we will exit between the two exit doors to your left or the one where everyone came in, and we'll reconvene at the parking lot adjacent to the building.
And if you are planning to use the restrooms, the restrooms are located again behind the door where you entered on the left-hand side.
Next slide, please. Before we go any further, I do want to reiterate or mention again that this meeting is being transcribed and will be made publicly available as far as a meeting summary for this meeting.
During this presentation, we will provide an overview of how the NRC conducts and oversees the decommissioning process as well as our review process for the license termination plan.
Bryant Akins from ADP will cover the
7 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 contents of the LTP and provide an overview of the current decommissioning status and activities at Crystal River. And before coming back for us first, provide an overview of NRC's licensing termination process.
After that, we will ask for comments from the elected state and local officials or any representatives from the Native American Tribes who may be present with us tonight, and we will also double-check online. And then Neil Sheehan and Lynn Ronewicz will be facilitating the public comments during the portion of this meeting. And we will give instructions at that time so that everyone can have an opportunity to provide any comments or speak to us both in person and online.
We hope that everyone has an opportunity to provide comments. We do want to remind everyone that the facility will close at 8 o'clock so we do want to make sure we get all the comments in at that time -- before that time.
Next slide, please. Joining me today, there are several NRC staff from various parts of the agency in person and online, most who have extensive experience with the decommissioning process and the regulations and across the country for our nuclear
8 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 power reactors.
Again my name is Shaun Anderson. I am the Chief of the Division of Decommissioning Branch and the Division of Decommissioning Uranium Recovery and Waste Programs.
I have the pleasure of working with a lot of highly technical staff across the Agency and within our division.
Here with me today I have Jack Parrott and Tim Barvitskie, our project managers coordinating the technical and license reviews of power reactors across the U.S. and are the project managers for the Crystal River Unit 3 facility here.
I also have Andrew Taverna who is joining us online who is a decommissioning reactor inspector, who is located in King Prussia, Pennsylvania. He is here with us virtually. He is going to provide us the inspection program that verifies that safety is being maintained during decommissioning.
And finally, I have Neil Sheehan, who is our public affairs officer for Crystal River, and he will be facilitating the public comment portion of the meeting. And he is here with us today in person.
Again, I thank everyone for joining us today. We are interested in hearing your comments for
9 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 the Crystal River LTP, and I am going to pass it over to Tim, who is going to kick us off with a presentation.
MR. BARVITSKIE: Next slide. Thanks, Shaun. As part of the decommissioning process, the NRC oversees each stage of radiological cleanup and making final surveys to verify the site meets our strict specifications.
Once the NRC terminates the license, the bulk of the site may be used for other purposes as identified by the licensee in accordance with any state or other local approvals.
However, until that time comes, the NRC will be here to inspect the decommissioning activities throughout the entire process. In fact, the NRC will continue to provide oversight for the independent spent fuel storage installation, or ISFSI, until fuel is removed from the site.
Next slide, please. This graph shows the NRC's extensive experience in the decommissioning of commercial facilities throughout the years.
Specifically, the NRC has regulated the completion of decommissioning at over 80 complex material sites, research and test reactors and commercial power plants over the last 20 years, including overseeing 14 power
10 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 reactors as they completed the decommissioning process.
The most recent of these are the La Crosse and Zion Nuclear Power Stations, who had their licenses terminated earlier this year.
Next slide, please. Crystal River is planning to conduct the safe dismantling and decontamination of the Crystal River Unit 3 Nuclear Generating Plant to reduce residual radioactivity so that the property may be released for use under unrestricted conditions and the license terminated.
Under the NRC's decommissioning regulations, the site will be considered acceptable for unrestricted use if the residual radioactivity that is distinguishable from background does not exceed 25 millirem per year, including that from all exposure pathways and the residual radioactivity has been reduced to levels that are as low as reasonably achievable, or ALARA.
Fourteen reactors that have completed decommissioning have typically been a small fraction of the 25 millirem per year limit. For comparison, on average, Americans receive a radiation dose of about 620 millirem each year, half of that dose comes from natural background radiation, mostly from radon and
11 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 also cosmic rays and the earth's natural radioactivity. The other half comes from manmade sources of radiation, including the use of medical, commercial and industrial sources.
In general, a yearly dose is 620 millirem from all radiation sources has not been shown to cause humans any harm.
Next
- slide, please.
The NRC's unrestricted release criteria established the radiological dose limits associated with decommissioning but did not prescribe a specific end state for decommissioning facilities. So you could end up with two end states shown on the slide, both of which would be considered to be decommissioned radiologically.
The sites shown on the slide were decontaminated and released for unrestricted use. As can be seen on the left slide, some sites, such as Maine Yankee, elected to dismantle and remove the majority of the structures, while others, such as RANCHO SECO on the right side chose to decontaminate the structures remaining on the site to a level that allowed for unrestricted release and then left a number of their structures standing at the site.
Both of these approaches are acceptable
12 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 under the NRC's decommissioning regulations, and it is ultimately up to the licensee working within our state and local requirements or other agreements to determine what the final condition of the reactor site will be.
Under the approach outlined in the current LTP for the Crystal River site, the ISFSI, including the security building, is only allowed inside the restricted area scheduled to remain at the time of license termination.
All other above grade structures will be removed, and the site will be graded. The remaining licensed property outside of the restricted area will be surveyed and released back to Duke Energy Florida.
Next slide, please. This slide gives an overview of the NRC's decommissioning program and highlights the opportunities for public involvement throughout the process.
The first six steps are two phases that have been completed at the Crystal River site with some dismantling and demolition still be performed.
Since permanent shutdown in 2011, ADPS continually has been decommissioning their facility.
During this time, NRC inspectors have been onsite providing oversight via decommissioning and spent fuel
13 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 inspection programs.
Crystal River is currently in the third phase of decommissioning after receipt of the LTP.
And as Shaun has already mentioned, we are here today to collect any comments you may have related to their plan.
Before we open the floor to public comments, let's discuss more about the specifics of the LTP and the NRC's inspection program during decommissioning.
Next slide, please. Each nuclear power reactor of licensee is required to submit a license termination plan prior to, or along with, their application for termination of the license.
The LTP is required to be submitted at least two years before termination of the license and must include the following.
Site characterization information that is used to understand the environmental and radiological conditions of the Crystal River site in order to appropriately prepare for cleanup activities as well as identification remaining dismantlement activities associated with decontamination and dismantlement to get to the final configuration of the site.
The plan also includes plans for site
14 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 remediation that describes how the Crystal River site will be remediated to reduce the residual radioactivity so that the property may be released for use under unrestricted conditions and includes a detailed plan of final radiation surveys that demonstrates to the NRC that residual radioactive material does not exceed NRC criteria for termination of the license.
The plan includes an updated site specific decommissioning cost estimate to ensure NRC has adequate assurance that the licensee has sufficient funds to complete the radiological decommissioning of the site and also includes a supplement to the environmental report, which includes an evaluation of site specific environmental impacts from decommissioning activities to ensure that they will not result in any significant environmental change associated with the licensee's proposed termination activities.
During the review of the LTP decommissioning, the NRC continues to maintain oversight of the licensee's activities. This is where Andrew will provide us with more details of the NRC's decommissioning and spent fuel inspection programs.
Next slide, please.
15 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 MR. TAVERNA: Thanks, Tim, the inspection program for decommissioning reactors is based on the licensee meeting NRC regulations license-based documents and guidance documents such as NUREGs as appropriate.
The one thing about guidance documents like NUREGs that they are such -- they are just guidance documents unless the licensee makes it part of their licensee, such as conditions or tech specs.
The program office at NMSS will perform licensing reviews as well as safety evaluations of licensee amendments.
Regional inspectors like myself we perform onsite and remote inspections. The onsite inspections typically involve direct observations of licensing activities and remote inspections include remote documentation reviews as well as calls and discussions with the licensee.
MS. RONEWICZ: Could I interrupt for just a moment? And I know we have a hands raised. There seems to be the echoing. And I'm not sure, maybe what the hands raised person was going to mention also.
You're echoing Andrew, and I don't know if anything can be done.
MR. TAVERNA: It's just the delay from
16 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 when I'm speaking to the mic in the conference room.
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay. And the person that had their hand raised, I'm assuming maybe that's what you were going to comment on.
COURT REPORTER: This is the court reporter. It is also a bit difficult for me to understand who is saying what. Would it be possible for Ardath Prendergast to mute when there's someone remote calling in or speaking?
MR. ANDERSON: Absolutely.
COURT REPORTER: Because that's what's --
thank you so much.
MR. TAVERNA: Okay. Is that better?
MS. RONEWICZ: It's better now.
MR. TAVERNA: Okay.
MS. RONEWICZ: And I don't see the hand raised anymore so I think -- hopefully we're good.
MR. TAVERNA: Okay. Where was I? So I'll start from the program office. The program office staff will perform licensing reviews as well as safety evaluations and proposed licensee amendments.
So the regional inspectors like myself we perform onsite and remote inspections, onsite meaning direct observations of licensee activities.
Remote inspections include documentation
17 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 reviews and calls and discussions with the licensee.
This is all to ensure that the licensee is following the regulations and license requirements. And after that we document the results and inspection reports along with any violations that might be found.
Enforcement actions as well as dispositioning of violations are done in accordance with NRC enforcement policy, which is available for the public to review.
Next slide, please. The inspection program is outlined in Inspection Manual Chapter 2561 titled Decommissioning Power Reactor Inspection Program.
Once the fuel is removed from the vessel, the licensee enters into the program. We inspectors perform oversight and verification of the decommissioning project at the site, and the program ends when the license is terminated at the site.
Next
- slide, please.
So the NRC decommissioning reactor inspection program overall objective is to obtain information through direct observation and verification of licensee activities to determine whether or not the work that they are doing is being done safety, that spent fuel is safely and securely stored onsite and that the site operations and license termination activities are in conformance
18 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 with applicable regulatory requirements, licensing basis, licensee commitments and management controls.
Next slide, please. So decommissioning activities that we look at, we observe a variety of activities and licensing programs. The inspections are typically multifaceted and intrusive. We look at a lot of things. The programs that are assessed by inspection include plant status, modifications, maintenance, surveillances, fire protection, rad protection and transportation.
As the amount and complexity of the decommissioning work increases, so does the number of inspections will also increase. An example of a complex decommissioning activity that we observed previously at Crystal River, we observed GTCC ways from reactor internals being moved and stored in a canister on the ISFSI pad.
GTCC is Greater-Than-Class C. It's a significant level of rad levels for waste and that was stored safely. We looked at how it was controlled, how it was moved. And no safety significance of more than minor issues were identified during that operation.
Next slide, please. So the region, like myself, inspectors developed a master plan so to speak
19 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 in advance of performing the annual inspections by considering what activities the licensee might be undertaking during the upcoming year, and we coordinate the scope and timing of these inspections with the program office.
The inspection effort includes reviewing the licensee correspondence, previous inspections, then we perform the inspection. We identify any findings or violations, and we communicate these to the licensee during exiting.
Again, as I said before, dispositioning of violations are in accordance with NRC enforcement policy.
Now one thing I want to say, with regard to scheduling inspections, we typically schedule one or two inspections per quarter. And, again, as I said, previously in the previous slide, that depends on the work activities. And we increase our frequency due to complexity or if the site is having issues like multiple violations, repeat violations.
The master schedule is very tentative.
Activities in decommissioning slide frequently to various reasons from like the work taking longer than projected, staff (inaudible) et cetera. It is essential to have good and open communication with the
20 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 site to ensure and understand what is going on there.
As you saw in the previous slide, you saw that we had biweekly calls with the licensee.
Typically an inspector and a project manager from the NRC will be on the call discussing activities. That varies from site to site, and it depends on what is going at the site. Some sites have weekly calls.
Other sites have monthly calls. So it just depends on what's going on.
Next slide, please. And after the inspection is completed, we perform a debrief of the findings from the inspection to NRC management. And then the report is issued within 30 to 45 days after the inspection is complete.
Thirty days are for solo inspections.
Forty-five days are for team inspections. As you can see here on the slide, the inspection reports are available through ADAMS. And you can look at previous inspection reports that have been sent out. And you use that docket number there to search for any previous inspection reports.
And now that completes my presentation.
And I will hand it over to the site, please. Thank you.
MR. ANDERSON: Thank you, Bryant.
21 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 MR. AKINS: I'll come stand up here. Jack is going to run the slides. My name is Bryant Akins.
I'm a rad protection manager. Most in this room know me.
For those that are on audio and other places, I'm a hometown guy from Crystal River, born here. My family has been here, still here. And we live here. In this plant I started work back in 1983 as a contractor. Shortly thereafter, permanent with Florida Power Corporation.
I subsequently moved over to Progress Energy, who bought the nuclear plant. And after that Duke Energy bought the plant. I stayed in the same position as rad protection manager with him.
And when we selected NorthStar Decommissioning Services for decommissioning the plant, demolishing the plant, I accepted a job as rad protection manager again in the same position with NorthStar Services. So I've been with them since they took over in October of 2020.
On the slide, you can see the progress from the time we had a construction permit in 1968, operating license in '76, started operating March of 1977 and final reactor shutdown was September 2009.
Then we moved the fuel in May of 2011. And then
22 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 announced permanent cessation of operations, basically declaring we wanted to decommission the plant, in February of 2013.
We completed that spent fuel move in January of 2018, so all the spent fuel was moved out to a safe storage area out in the independent spent fuel storage area and is safely stored there now.
The NRC approved a partial site release for our site. It was very huge. For some reason decided when we were doing our license application, we would just encompass all the land that Florida Power owned and put that in the license. It was 4,700 acres.
And we have taken the non-impacted land, surveyed it, made sure it was clean, applied to the NRC to take that out of our license. So we have already removed 3,854 acres out of our license. And we have about 884 left. And that's part of the license termination process now is to look at that land area, survey it, and make sure it's clean, make the confirmatory surveys behind us from the NRC. They will then analyze all our data and our application.
And if everything goes successful, then they will terminate removing either as a partial site release or will in the future remove the ISFSI and all the fuel
23 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 and that's when we'll terminate the license from the site.
Next slide, please. Next slide. There we go. So we're looking at some photos here of the plant, how it was originally taken over when NorthStar got here. The plant was off of this area you are looking at was where the large transformers that fed high voltage electricity from the plant out to the grid. And this is what it looked like.
Next slide, please. And we started with that. And then here you can see the outbuildings for different shops and maintenance shops and transformer areas being removed and devised. Then that equipment was safely picked up, put in trucks and railcars and removed from the site.
The materials we're showing here were all clean or non-radioactive and taken offsite to either a landfill or a scrap yard to recycle materials.
Next slide, please. And here is what the slide on the part on the left, that photo shows how the plant was originally taken over. And then next to it is the slide that shows how we went to the turbine building and taken all the interior portions of that out. And it's a skeleton, and we have removed that all the way to the ground.
24 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 Next slide, Jack, please. So here on the left, you can see our emergency feed pump building made out of some very thick concrete, and on the right is demolishment of that building, removing the concrete, rebar and other equipment out of there.
Next slide, please. And then again, this shows the plants and the sides of it and how we've got cranes out there and take down this thing piece by piece safely, put it into railcars, trucks and various things and take it offsite.
Next slide, please. So here is the interior of the turbine building and equipment and large equipment that is in most plants that generate electricity. It's very large in size, hundreds of tons. It takes a lot of specialty people to disassemble this, get it out safely and/or cut up this into pieces and put it into carts.
In these areas, the turbine will be able to be worked on to remove any residual contamination, make sure it's clean and then get it ready to take it to Philadelphia.
Next slide. And you can see the skyline changes as they took the exterior of the building off all the way until we just got a skeleton and getting ready to take it down.
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 Next slide. And here is the turbine building as it's being taken apart, demolished and chopped over. And one on the right there, it has the whole three-fourths of the building are down in the basement. And then we have large equipment goes into those areas, picks up that metal, cuts it up, puts it in the trucks and/or railcars and sends it out.
And for me it's very interesting to see this work because I was all about building and running the place. I was here, like I said, when I was fairly young when they started building it, seeing it go together. And to see it taken apart like this to me is very interesting, how they go in with big equipment. It's like competence related stuff, you know. And they can do this fast and efficient. And it's not your normal way of a nuclear plant taking apart pieces of equipment. It's quite different.
So NorthStar had the expertise to do this.
And we're glad we chose them.
Next slide. And here again it looks at the north. NorthStar is taking down the turbine building and the skylights. You can see the afternoon with the sunset and the skyline going down.
Next slide. This is the interior for the auxiliary building. And some of the systems in there,
26 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 you can see it's packed with pumps and pipes and large stuff on the left. And then the slide on the right is as we've taken all of that material out and started shipping it off, loading it in railcars and/or trucks and leaving the site.
The good thing and in most of these areas we were able to successfully decontaminate these systems. We didn't have to ship it in rad material or handle it and get it out. And that's a really good craftsmen that come from demolition that can do this inside a building with large equipment and do it safely.
Next slide, please. Again, this found in that seawater room, some of the larger equipment for the pumps and pieces of equipment down there. It's a little A-frame framed so when you kind of walk through this area, you can barely get through it. Now it's a large open room, just concrete walls and ready going into the license termination process.
So to get to that process, you remove everything. When you get down to bare basement walls, that's where we'll do the surveys. That's where the license termination will leave the plant. It's only the basement walls. Everything above about 20 foot high from the floor, everything up to the top of the
27 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 building will leave site and it either goes for waste disposal or recycling to landfills.
Next slide, please. And like I was saying, they've got some neat toys with all this decommissioning stuff. In my job, I don't get to drive any of those. I wish I could. They won't let me.
And they go in with good stuff, and they can do so much work so fast inside a building where you wouldn't expect it. And you're used to seeing people with hand tools, and they drive in with big equipment to make a path, make it safe. And then they can take out large volumes of heavy sealed concrete, materials and equipment and get it loaded and gone.
Next slide, please. And at the end is material removal. This is one of the very important things for license termination. This is how you keep buildings clean. So when you get ready to terminate the license, you have no radioactive material left.
You take the radioactive material. You cut it out, pull it apart, cut it up and you put it into these really heavy duty bags. They are shipping approved bags. This material, steel, concrete, whatever, you put it in there. You latch it down.
It's sealed. And then it's transported out of the
28 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 building where there's no radioactive material on the outside or can be moved to the outside of the building.
Next slide, please. This is how we do it.
This is inside the reactor building. And you're looking from up on the polar frame down into the reactor cavity and e-rings, things like that. So that's how it looked with a lot of equipment in there, steam generators and large pumps.
Those steam generators, you know, they are 60 some feet long, 14 foot diameters. And the first time ever for taking these, we took these long wire --
a piece of wire rope and slice these things into pieces and were able to package them. And that sounds like, okay, that can be done except they were 15,572 tubes that were cut. And they're hanging there like toothpicks.
Can you imagine holding a pack of toothpicks from the outside and trying to keep the middle ones from falling? That was quite a feat. So they applied some putty like material. It was gummy, and it hardened, and it kept all those in place. They brought it up and put a sack around it like those other sacks, put it inside that, transported it out on a truck. And these were many, many tons to do this
29 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 work. They're not lightweight.
Next slide, please. And this is the picture after those have been removed, those (inaudible) removed. And the hole in the floor over here was where there used to be a reactor. So that's been pulled out and has been packaged. To do that, they took all the internals in there of the reactor.
Of course, the fuel is gone. But there is a lot of high radiation in internals.
They took
- those, pulled them out underwater, cut all those in pieces, selected how they're going to package it and then packaged it back inside the reactor vessel, put a grout like concrete in it, and then took that wire rope again and sliced it into three pieces and pulled those out, packaged them into approved transport containers.
Next slide. And here they are. You can see the portion of the reactor being lifted on the slide on the left, and the Apollo crane bins put it into the white containers and that's how it will be shipped by barge to West Texas and be disposed out there as rad waste.
That's the end of my presentation. Thank you, Jack.
MR. BARVITSKIE: Thanks, Bryant. So this
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 slide provides an overview of the NRC's steps and review of the LTP. Since the LTP is incorporated into the facility license as an amendment, there is an opportunity to request a public hearing on the license amendment associated with the plan. So this is where we would like your comments.
As part of the NRC's ongoing review of the technical, financial and environmental aspects of the Crystal River LTP, the staff may ask the licensee for additional information in order to determine whether the plan meets the information needs outlined in the decommissioning regulations and associated regulatory guidance.
If the plan demonstrates that the remainder of the decommissioning activities will be performed in accordance with the NRC's regulations, is not detrimental to health and safety of the public and does not have a significant effect on the quality of the environment, the Commission will approve the plan by a license amendment subject to whatever conditions and limitations the NRC deems appropriate and necessary.
The NRC will continue to inspect the site and will perform independent confirmatory radiological surveys and sampling to verify the licensee's results
31 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 to ensure the residual radioactivity levels meet the NRC requirements for unrestricted use of the land and remaining structures.
Next slide, please. The Crystal River LTP and supporting documentation is accessible electronically from the NRC's agency-wide documents, access and management system, ADAMS, at the accession numbers listed on the slide.
You can go to the NRC's website at nrc.gov to access ADAMS and perform a search for the accession numbers listed to access the LTP and supporting documents.
Next slide, please. In closing, the public comments on the Crystal River LTP will be accepted during this meeting and by mail at the address listed on this slide. You can also go to the federal rulemaking website at regulations.gov and perform a search on the associated docket identifier, which is NRC-2023-0174 to provide formal comments on the Crystal River LTP. Please note that comments are due by March 7 of 2024.
Next
- slide, please.
(Simultaneous speaking) facilitate the public comment portion of the meeting.
MS. RONEWICZ: Thank you. We are now
32 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 going to open the meeting up for public comment. We request you keep your comments or questions at three minutes for the first round of comments to allow all those interested in speaking an opportunity. We will go back for a second round of comments as time permits.
I will be watching Teams for raised hands and coordinating with the NRC staff in the room to allow both audiences an equal opportunity to speak.
We will take about four questions in the room and then about four questions virtually and alternate that way.
To get a clear and accurate transcript of everything said, please be sure to introduce yourself first, including your affiliation if you have one, before you begin your question or comment. Please speak loudly and clearly.
If you are in the room with the NRC, you must use a microphone so everyone tuning in via Teams and phone can hear you speak. The NRC staff in the room will guide people one by one to the microphone to speak.
We are starting in the room, but ask people on Teams to raise their hand by clicking on the hand icon on the top or bottom of their Teams screen.
And if you are on the phone, you can raise your hand
33 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 by pressing star 5. If you are on the phone, you will need to press star 6 to unmute yourself. So now we will go to the room.
MR. SHEEHAN: (inaudible) for the NRC, we'd like to start here in the room first. And again, we'd like to get a few comments here and then we'll switch to those online.
Let's start first of all if there are any elected officials who are present who would like to make any comments? We'd like to try to keep to three minutes or so for each comment. No?
Do any of you want to check online to see if there are any elected officials?
MR. RONEWICZ: Are there any elected officials? If so, please raise your hand, and I will unmute your mic. No hands raised.
MR.
SHEEHAN:
Hearing
- none, any representatives of agencies who would like to speak at this point? Okay. Seeing none, anybody in -- any member of the public that would like to speak at this point, offer comments? Any Native American, representative of Native American groups that would like to speak? No? Okay.
Well, Lynn, if you would like to go ahead and switch to online to see if there are any comments
34 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 there?
MS. RONEWICZ: Sure. There are no hands raised yet, but let's go ahead and anybody that is joined virtually, please raise your hand if you would like to speak. And once your hand is raised, I will call your name, I will enable your mic, and then you will unmute yourself to speak.
And so far no hands raised, but we'll give it a little bit of time. And no hands raised yet.
We'll go back to the room.
MR. SHEEHAN: And we'll go back to the room and get another opportunity if anybody would like to offer comments. It must be a very good license termination plan. All right.
Well, seeing no comments in the room, we'll try it one more time online, Lynn, and if not, we'll turn it over to Shaun to wrap up.
MS. RONEWCIZ: Sure. Again, no hands raised yet, but maybe we'll give it 30 seconds or so.
Anybody that would like to comment or ask a question, please raise your hand. And there are no hands raised at this time.
MR. SHEEHAN: Okay. Well, the comment period will remain open as we already mentioned. So there will still be an opportunity to send in written
35 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 comments to communicate with us through the other channels. So feel free to do that. But at this point, I will turn it back over to Shaun to close things out. So thank you.
MR. ANDERSON: Thanks, Neil. And thanks, everyone for supporting this meeting. Thanks to the Citrus County Chamber of Commerce for giving us the facility to host our meeting and then also the community of Crystal River.
Again, the commentary period will be open until March 2024 so please provide any comments that you may have. For us, we will still be in the room.
We'll stay in here for approximately the next hour or so just in case anyone trickles so we can make sure we address any comments from the community while we're still here.
We'll go ahead and end the public meeting and the virtual meeting at this time. Thanks for all of those who have supported virtually. That's it.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went off the record at 5:44 p.m.)