ML25148A332

"Draft Meeting" is not in the list (Request, Draft Request, Supplement, Acceptance Review, Meeting, Withholding Request, Withholding Request Acceptance, RAI, Draft RAI, Draft Response to RAI, ...) of allowed values for the "Project stage" property.

May 15, 2025, Summary Public Meeting to Receive Comments on the Second Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for Point Beach Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2

ML25148A332
Person / Time
Site:	Point Beach
Issue date:	06/05/2025
From:	Kevin Folk NRC/NMSS/DREFS/EPMB1
To:	Stephen Koenick NRC/NMSS/DREFS
References
EPID L-2020-SLE-0002
Download: ML25148A332 (1)

Text

MEMORANDUM TO:

Stephen S. Koenick, Chief Environmental Project Management Branch 1 Division of Rulemaking, Environmental, and Financial Support Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards FROM:

Kevin T. Folk, Sr. Project Manager Environmental Project Management Branch 1 Division of Rulemaking, Environmental, and Financial Support Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards

SUBJECT:

MEETING

SUMMARY

PUBLIC MEETING TO RECEIVE COMMENTS ON THE SECOND DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR POINT BEACH NUCLEAR PLANT, UNITS 1 AND 2, MAY 15, 2025 (EPID NUMBER: L-2020-SLE-0002) (DOCKET NUMBERS: 50-266 AND 50-301)

On May 15, 2025, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff conducted a public meeting to provide the preliminary results of the staffs supplemental environmental review regarding the subsequent license renewal application for Point Beach Nuclear Plant Units 1 and 2, as documented in its second draft supplemental environmental impact statement. Enclosed is the summary of the meeting. If you have any questions or comments, please contact me via email at kevin.folk@nrc.gov.

Docket Nos. 50-266, 50-301

Enclosure:

As stated cc: w/encl:

see next page CONTACT:

Kevin Folk, NMSS/REFS/EPMB1 301-415-6944 June 5, 2025 Signed by Folk, Kevin on 06/05/25

ML25XXXXXXX OFFICE PM:EPMB1:REFS LA:REFS BC:EPMB1:REFS PM:EPMB1:REFS NAME KFolk AWalker-Smith SKoenick KFolk DATE 5/29/2025 5/29/2025 6/3/2025 6/5/2025

Enclosure U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Summary of Public Meeting

Title:

Public Meeting to Receive Comments on the Second Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement Regarding Subsequent License Renewal for Point Beach Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2 Meeting Identifier: 20250516 Date of Meeting: Thursday, May 15, 2025 Location: Webinar; Rockville, Maryland Type of Meeting: Comment-Gathering Meeting Purpose of the Meeting:

To provide the results of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff's supplemental environmental review and associated consideration of new information for the Point Beach Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2 subsequent license renewal (SLR) application, as documented in the second draft supplemental environmental impact statement (SEIS), and provide an opportunity for public comment on the NRC staff's findings.

General Details:

The NRC staff held a public meeting to receive comments on its second draft SEIS (Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) ML25069A710) as part of the Point Beach Nuclear Plant SLR environmental review. The meeting was a virtual meeting held via Microsoft Teams on May 15, 2025, which started at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) and ended at approximately 5:08 p.m. EDT.

The meeting began with an overview of the goals and objectives of the meeting, review of meeting ground rules, and an introduction of the NRC staff, followed by a presentation by the NRC staff on the license renewal process and the updated preliminary findings in the second draft SEIS. The presentation emphasized that comments on the second draft SEIS were sought so that the NRC staff could consider them to support preparation of the final SEIS. During the meeting, there was an opportunity for attendees to ask clarifying questions about the NRC staffs presentation and review process in addition to an opportunity to provide oral comments on the second draft SEIS.

Approximately 40 people attended the meeting. This count includes the NRC staff in attendance. Participants included members of the public, representatives from industry and consulting firms, representatives from non-governmental organizations, and representatives of NextEra Energy.

Summary of Presentation:

The NRC staff began its presentation with an overview of the status of the Point Beach renewed operating licenses and regulatory developments that have occurred since 2020.

NextEra Energy Point Beach submitted its SLR application for Point Beach in November 2020.

2 The NRC staff issued a draft SEIS for public comment in November 2021, for a 45-day public comment period, which ended January 3, 2022. The SEIS was a supplement to the NRCs 2013 Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants (LR GEIS, Revision 1 of NUREG-1437).

On February 24, 2022, the Commission issued several orders (CLI-22-02, CLI-22-03, and CLI-22-04) that impacted the NRCs environmental review process for SLR including the November 2021 draft SEIS for Point Beach. The Commission determined that the 2013 LR GEIS did not consider SLR. Therefore, the NRC staffs SLR environmental reviews, including the environmental review for Point Beach SLR, did not adequately address the environmental impacts for the SLR term.

These orders then were followed by a Staff Requirements Memorandum (SRM-SECY 0024) on April 5, 2022, that directed the NRC staff to conduct rulemaking and to update the 2013 LR GEIS to fully address the environmental impacts of SLR.

The NRC staff issued a proposed rule and draft revision 2 of the LR GEIS for public comment in March 2023. The NRC staff then completed the rulemaking in August 2024 and published Revision 2 of the LR GEIS and the associated final rule revising its environmental protection regulations. The final rule updated the list of potential environmental impacts associated with the renewal of an operating license for up to an additional 20 years, which could either be an initial renewal or one term of SLR.

At the request of NextEra, the NRC staff provided its plan in August 2024 to complete the Point Beach environmental review, which included preparing a supplement to the November 2021 draft SEIS, in accordance with Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations Section 51.72 of the NRCs regulations.

The 2025 second draft SEIS considers new information associated with SLR and including the new and modified issues from Revision 2 of the LR GEIS.

A supplement to the 2022 Safety Evaluation Report will also be issued to reflect NextEras annual update information to the NRC.

The current renewed operating license for Point Beach Unit 1 expires on October 5, 2030, and the license for Unit 2 expires on March 8, 2033. If SLR is granted by the NRC, it will be for an additional 20 years beyond the expiration dates cited.

It was stated that the purpose of the now revised LR GEIS is to address issues common to all nuclear power plants (i.e., Category 1 issues). The NRC staff prepares a nuclear plant-specific SEIS to evaluate issues that are specific to a particular facility (i.e., Category 2 issues). The staff also reexamines the generic conclusions reached in the LR GEIS to determine if there is any new and significant information that would change those conclusions.

Based on the second draft SEIS preliminary findings, the impacts for all resource areas analyzed by the NRC staff for the proposed action (i.e., Point Beach SLR) were determined to be SMALL. For historic and cultural resources, the preliminary finding is that SLR would not adversely affect known historic properties. For federally protected ecological resources,

3 the staff determined that the proposed action may affect but is not likely to adversely affect several species including the northern long-eared bat, tricolored bat, piping plover, and monarch butterfly. There would be no effect on essential fish habitat, and the proposed action would not be likely to destroy, cause the loss of, or injure any National Marine Sanctuary resources in the waters of Lake Michigan.

Next, the presentation summarized the staffs consideration and findings for the new issues associated with greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. For the new Category 1 issue, Greenhouse gas impacts on climate change, the NRC staff determined that the impacts of Point Beach SLR on climate change would be SMALL. For the new Category 2 issue, Climate change impacts on environmental resources, the staff presents its analysis in Section 3.15.3.3 of the second draft SEIS. The analysis considers the potential effects of climate change on environmental resource areas that may also be directly affected by Point Beach SLR.

As for cumulative effects, they are discussed in Section 3.16 of the second draft SEIS. The cumulative effects analysis considers and describes the incremental effects associated with Point Beach SLR when combined with the effects of other actions on the same environmental resource conditions.

In terms of alternatives to the proposed action, the NRC staff evaluated three replacement power alternatives in detail during the review including new nuclear generation, natural gas combined cycle, and a combination of technologies including nuclear, solar, and wind generation, as well as the no action alternative.

The NRC staffs preliminary recommendation remains unchanged from the November 2021 draft SEIS-the adverse environmental impacts of SLR for Point Beach for an additional 20 years are not so great that preserving the option of SLR for energy-planning decisionmakers would be unreasonable. Thus, the environmental review identified no environmental impacts that should preclude continued operation.

Further, the presentation noted that the NRC does not make the decision as to whether a nuclear plant should continue to operate. The decision lies with the nuclear plant owner/operator, State regulators, and other relevant energy-planning decisionmakers The staff explained that the second draft SEIS was published and filed with the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency on April 11, 2025. On April 18, 2025, a notice was published in the Federal Register informing the public that the second draft SEIS was available, which began a 45-day comment period.

Finally, the staff summarized the various means of providing comments and obtaining additional information regarding the Point Beach SLR application, including the project webpage at https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applications/point-beach-subsequent.html.

Public comments on the Point Beach second draft SEIS were due June 2, 2025. In addition to providing comments at the public meeting, comments could be: (1) mailed to Office of Administration, Mailstop TWFN-7-A60M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; (2) submitted online using the Federal Rulemaking website at regulations.gov (Docket ID: NRC-2020-0277); or (3) submitted electronically by email to PointBeach-SLRSEIS@nrc.gov.

4 Public Participation Themes:

May 15, 2025, Virtual Meeting Three speakers provided comments during the meeting. The NRC staff received comments on a range of topics including: climate change and the effects of heavy rainfall, storms, lake levels, and wave action on the stability and relicensing of the plant; waste management including concerns on additional waste generation and the safety and security of spent fuel; reactor safety issues such as embrittlement and surveillance; tritium releases and the impact on vulnerable populations; and thermal effluent discharge and the effects on thermophilic organisms in Lake Michigan. One speaker thanked the NRC staff for holding a public meeting and for updating information in the second draft SEIS in response to his prior comments on the 2021 draft SEIS.

A complete accounting of the comments provided during the meeting can be found in the meeting transcript which is available in the NRCs ADAMS public electronic reading room under the accession numbers listed below, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html.

Action Items/Next Steps:

The NRC staff will consider the comments received during the public comment period as part of the review of the Point Beach SLR application. The NRC staff will include an analysis of comments in Generic Environmental Impact Statement for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants, Supplement 23, Second Renewal, Regarding Subsequent License Renewal for Point Beach Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2, Final Report (NUREG-1437).

References:

May 15, 2025, Meeting Meeting description and agenda - ML25129A168 NRC staff environmental presentation - ML25128A046 Meeting transcript - ML25148A217