ML083190744

Transcript of Kewaunee License Renewal Evening Scoping Meeting Evening Session, October 22, 2008

ML083190744
Person / Time
Site:	Kewaunee
Issue date:	10/22/2008
From:	Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
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NRC-2475, TAC MD9409
Download: ML083190744 (55)

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Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title: Kewaunee Power Station License Renewal Public Meeting: Evening Session

Docket Number: 50-305

Location: Kewaunee, Wisconsin

Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Work Order No.: NRC-2475 Pages 1-*

NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C.

20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1 2 3

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 + + + + + BEFORE THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

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DOMINION ENERGY KEWAUNEE INC.

KEWAUNEE POWER STATION Regarding the Renewal of Facility Operating License

WEDNESDAY

OCTOBER 22, 2008 7:00 P.M. + + + + +

Town Hall of Carlton N1296 Town Hall Road Kewaunee, Wisconsin 54216

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P R O C E E D I N G S 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. HOLIAN: Good evening. I'm Brian

Holian. I'm the division director for the Division of

License Renewal back in headquarters.

Still consider myself a regional type guy.

I just am back from nine years in Region One which is

outside of Philadelphia and I spent nine years in the

regional office as a manager and before that I had

been nine years at headquarters so I came back and am

now heading up the license renewal program there.

So it's a pleasure to be out here.

With me today is Sarah Lopas the

environmental project manager and we have a

presentation of just 20 slides and I'm going to check

and see really because the crowd is small.

I know we bring out a formal presentation

like this but we don't mean it to be if you don't need

that.

So, you know, we do that and pack up this

stuff and bring it out. Oftentimes we get larger

crowds of people who aren't aware of what license

renewal is about.

That's the purpose of tonight's meeting

really just to describe the license renewal process

and then the second part of the meeting is to take any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 3 environmental questions or comments you have.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 We combine kind of two meetings into one

where we take any questions or concerns that you want

to address in the environmental review that will just

be starting now.

Let me just take a quick check with who we

had a crowd of maybe about 20 people this afternoon

and I see some familiar faces and I welcome you back.

I thank you for coming back to both sessions.

But who was not here this afternoon.

Okay.

So if it's okay with everybody we'll just

breeze right through those 20 slides. It should only

take 20 minutes or so and it's a repeat for some. But

it will be worthwhile and that's how we advertise the

meeting.

You know, I just wanted to before I start

the meeting mention a couple of things.

We do take these public meetings

seriously. In the back of the room we have slides and

if you get bored about these 20 minutes of these

slides there's plenty of reading material if you

haven't picked it up already back on the tables.

There's things from license renewal to

high level waste which I know is a good hot topic here NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 4 and a concern of a lot of people this afternoon so we'll get right into high level waste casks.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And there's stuff on radiation protection.

How much dose does a member of the public get. If

you've heard about the tooth fairy project where

somebody is collecting baby teeth and analyzing it

for, you know, how much radiation people get.

There's a factor, a backgrounder on that

subject back there. There's a booklet on frequently

asked questions on license renewal. How you can be

more involved. So feel free to grab that even now or

at the end of the meeting and take it with you, take

one for your neighbor. That's what it's there for.

And then there's a single sheet of paper

in the back that, a franked envelope, our public

process. You know, the NRC is a public agency, public

safety agency, regulatory agency and we come out to

these meetings, you know, because we want it to be

useful to members of the public.

So if it's not that useful. The time of

the meeting is not right, the location is not right, you don't get what you want out of the meeting put it down there. If it's something positive or negative.

And we try to improve meetings as we go along.

Somebody collects those and grades us.

NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 5 Now with that I'd like to, you know, introduce three other members of the NRC. I think all

three are here tonight again. They were here in the

afternoon session.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 But first off we've got Kevin Barclay out

of Region Three a project engineer. And Kevin has

been with the Regional Three office for a couple years

and spends a lot of time up here at Kewaunee and Point

Beach.

And Vyktoria Mytling in the back. The

public affairs officer out of Region Three a good

contact for if you have any questions about the plant

in the neighborhood, anything going on from, throughout the whole year, you know, Vyka can get you

the right person in the region or at headquarters for

an answer.

And we've got Harold, right. Harold is

back there. Harral Logaras. And Harral is kind of

new back to Region Three but he's been a FEMA employee

and he's worked on the industry side also and he's a

government liaison officer and so he can also point

you to the right contact and right issues in the state

or state contacts. That's part of his job to be an

interface between the NRC and the state.

And I know that one issue on, on taxes and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 6 the independent spent fuel is a good issue for Harold to be up on. So Harral from the region. He's only

been there back about a month and he decided to come

out to this meeting and makes sure he meets the folks

around here. So we appreciate that.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Let's go right into the slide. We can go

from there.

Our purpose tonight is to provide an

overview of the license renewal process and describe

the environmental review process and show our

schedule.

Sarah will be covering all the

environmental parts.

And as I mentioned the main item here is

we have a set of things, like 90 things that we look

at for environmental reasons.

If there's other things that we're not

aware of you should bring those up. Something about

the lake. Something about a fish species. Something

about an animal species here that you think will be

impacted by license renewal you let us know about it.

Next slide. You know, just a little bit

about the NRC. If you're not aware of us, you know, I

know we come out here for public meetings once a year

at least to tell you how the plants in the area are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 7 doing. They're annual assessment meetings.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Lot's of good information if you're, ever

see those advertised just with how well the plant and

how well the region thinks the plant's operating that

year. They'll give you inspection findings, what

they're finding in the field and a good summary.

So we're out there for that. But we take

ourselves from the license renewal process back to the

Atomic Energy Act of 1954. And back then they

licensed the plants for 40 years. You know why 40

years, who was here this, this afternoon, economic

antitrust reasons. Really what, didn't have to do

with a guess of the technical length of the plant or

anything like that. It was mainly antitrust and all

kind of major power plants that were licensed by a

federal agency were given a 40 year life time.

In effect plants replace almost everything

at the plant, you know, even in 30 years now. Some of

the, pressurized water reactors are replaced, the big

steam generators that haven't even been envisioned

replacing when they originally built these plants.

So they replace a lot of equipment in

there. So it's important as you look at license renewal we're not doing a new license for the plant.

We're renewing the existing license. And so you'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 8 hear me talk about that.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 The difference being there we don't review

whether it should be sited in the City of Kewaunee or

outside the City of Kewaunee again. We don't look at

siting. We don't look at emergency planning. I'll

cover that in another slide here.

So that's some of the stuff we don't do

and it's actually written into the license renewal

rule that was, you know, Congress had us look at.

The Atomic Energy Act was smart enough

though back there to say license renewal is a

possibility, you know, NRC you'll have to come up with

a license renewal process.

But back in `54 they said all right 40

years and then we'll look at a license renewal and how

much to extend these plants like 20 years.

You know, we're here talking, we're about

half way through the plants in the whole, across the

United States. We're at about 48 plants out of 104

that have been renewed. We just did one up in New

York a month ago and signed off on their license.

And they're already talking about another

20 years. I don't know if you heard about that. But

it comes up about life after 60 and meaning they're

already starting the research.

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20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 9 It's not us. We don't do too much of it. It's the Department of Energy. And I covered that a

little bit this afternoon.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 You know, the NRC is a safety regulator

and Department of Energy is a promoter of, maybe we

should have a mix of nuclear, coal and gas. That's a

separate government agency a lot bigger than the NRC.

But the NRC is an independent regulator.

It just looks at the safety of the operation.

The other item that Sarah will talk about

more in the other governing statute is the NEPA, National Environmental Policy Act and NEPA came out in

1969 and really it's kind of an educational as I view

it regulation that requires us for any significant

action to do an environment impact statement.

And the commission after that came out

that regulation came out demanded that for every

license renewal the NRC would do an environmental

impact statement.

And so that's one of the documents we're

gathering information on, starting this process as a

matter of fact Monday and Tuesday we had three of our

staff out on Lake Michigan looking at the intake

structure, you know, comparing it to other structures

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 they've seen on impacts from the current plant, you

know, the current years of operation of the plant.

And walking down some of the land use and

issues like that around the plant. So we've already

started our review according to NEPA.

Next slide please. Once again the NRC

commission and I've talked a little bit about this but

to protect the public health and safety, you know, and

the main issue I want to point up here is our job, Sarah and our job, is to make sure that we look at the

aging effects of the plant from 40 years plus one day

out to 60 years. That's what their application came

in for.

Kewaunee came in and said we want a 20

year extension. So we'll look at the safety aspects

of that.

And an important aspect though is that the

safety of the plant is really done by the regional

people. The regional inspectors. Some headquarters

inspectors that go out. There are plenty, the

regional folks out of Chicago that, and the resident

inspectors who live outside the plant and go in day to

day.

And you've got two residents there Steve and Pat. And they write reports up every quarter.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Those are published on the web site. They come to

talk about those at meetings.

So you need to know you have that

availability of those people living in the community

that go to the plant and have unfettered access to

anything they want to look at.

So that's the good part. Safety of the

plant is maintained by, you know, what we do on a day

to day basis through the NRC. And when you look at

the logic for that, well, when it's okay to operate 40

years plus one day it's about the same plan.

You know, the big question we have to

figure out, is it okay for a full 20 years on aging of

the plant. We'll talk about that.

Next slide. Well, they came in the

original 40 years is due to expire in 2013, that's not

too far away when you really look at it.

They're one of the older plants. Not, you

know, not as old. Our first plant that expires in 40

years is on the east coast in New Jersey and that

expires in April of next year.

And it's Oyster Creek. They don't have

their license extended yet believe it or not. We're

done with our review but it's up at the commission

level and there was a hearing involved in that.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Some of the local communities and it's up

before Atomic Safety and License Board panel right

now. It's been there for four or five months. So

they had that extended onto their review. And we're

waiting to, results of that.

They're required to come in at least five

years before expiration of their license to give the

NRC and the state really and other organizations a

chance to weigh in on the safety of the plant. And so

they filed in timely renewal in 2008.

Next slide. The license renewal

application, you know, it's at the local library if

you want to look at it there. It is online. It's

awful big. The four binders are back there on the

table for their license renewal application.

It includes a lot of information. A lot

of it we know about already about how the plant

operates. You know, the plant systems we go out and

inspect left and right.

But they're required to put in specifics

about how it's aged. How they're aging. Do they have

a program in place to check cable aging, you know, electrical cabling. Will they monitor it, test it

frequently enough to pick up any degradation.

We concentrate in license renewal not on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the active components, not on the pumps. We expect

them to be monitoring the pumps and replace those on a

frequency and their normal maintenance rule kind of

takes care of that, another rule that they have to

operate by.

But we look at structures. We look at the

concrete structures. We look at the reactor vessel itself. That's a significant part of your review.

And we look to make sure that they have efforts in

place and programs in place to manage aging.

There's some change to the plant tech, technical specifications. Those are the things they operate day to day, the people in the control room.

If you have a one train down you can only operate

seven days unless you get that train, meaning a pump

and a valve and a system for injecting water back up.

Sometimes they'll do some small technical

specification changes as part of license renewal.

And then finally they'll even have to submit their own part of their environmental report.

The licensee themselves looks at the environment and

how they're impacting it and we take a look at that.

And as I mentioned earlier get some

independent information from the states and counties

and other organizations.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Next slide. You know, as I mentioned it's

a two phased review that goes on. Really we have a

safety review. It's separate reviewers and a separate

branch at Sarah's end on environmental reviewing or

has been associated with the environmental review.

On the safety there it is. We make sure

we look at the aging effects and we do that a couple

ways. We do it from our headquarters reviewers and we

also do it kind of we evolved into bringing some early

reviewers out to the site and they'll come out for an

audit.

We found out that's a better way to look

at some of the documentation that the licensee

references. You know, make sure if they tell us they

have a program in place we want to set our eyes on and

the documentation and what it does.

So we'll start those audits, you know, here shortly.

Environmental review is very similar.

They contact a lot of other federal organizations do

you know any reason why environmentally there's some

issue you've had with the plant or the licensee or

the, just the Lake Michigan area here. What should we

be aware of. Sarah will cover more on that.

Next slide. You know, what don't we do.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I'll just quickly cover that because this gets a lot

of attention and the NRC gets criticized for not doing

a review of these areas.

So I, we lay that right out for you. The

license renewal process does not re look at emergency

planning, security or current, kind of current safety

performance.

You know, we don't take into account hey

they had two yellow findings and one white finding

over the last three years. You know, maybe they don't

deserve to operate another 20 years.

We don't look at it that way.

If they get enough red findings and

unacceptable performance that action may trick safety

matrix, shuts them down as a result of that poor

performance. So that can happen at age 30 of the

plant.

We don't look at that. And we don't look

at it because there's other NRC processes that look at

that.

Emergency planning. A lot of folks, some

folks have taken us to court on that right now. NRC

you should re look at emergency planning. You know, things change.

Well, that rule 5047, you know, tells the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 licensee every ten years when there's a new census you

analyze the impacts of the population and, you know, can you evacuate still, can you shelter in place, can

you effectively inform the population.

Security. Our security requirements post

9/11 they got a lot of attention and a lot of people

say and still say today when you go re licensing re

look at their entire security posture of the plant.

We don't think that's necessary. And a

good example is after 9/11, you know, we had the

potential for airplane impacts on a plant and you had

a potential for, you know, what we looked at was our

current design basis threat, how many people might

attack a plant.

And the NRC looked hard at that after 9/11

and saw, you know, what can we strengthen.

They did. They put more, they forced the

licensees to put more guards in place, more, you know, they called it guards, guns and everything and

training and made them strengthen the perimeter

boundaries. And so you saw some of that now. It's, you know, looking a little more fortified and is more

fortified. So they were ordered to put that in place.

We didn't wait for license renewal and say

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 hey in this time and age things have changed, you

know, we should strengthen that now, enforce them to

do that now.

So that's some of why we don't tie that

into a license renewal review.

Next slide. This is really I won't spend

time on this. It just talks again about the safety

review up top. At the same time you're doing an

environmental two different groups looking at it.

We do get an independent review by our

advisory committee on reactor safeguards. It's a

panel of individuals. Some from industry. Some from

national labs. Some from academia who review the

application, review what exceptions they're taking to

our generic documents on license renewal. We've

learned a lot.

And they call the licensee in for a

meeting and then they call the NRC staff in for the

same meeting and they question both of us. And do an

independent review of license renewal.

And then finally it goes to a decision.

You try to get all this done in 22 months. It's

several thousand hours of review effort to make sure

that kind of each of the systems has an aging

management system.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And it can be delayed by up to five or six

months. I mentioned one if it goes to a hearing

process and you get the courts involved.

Next slide. You know, we talk about on

this slide just two guiding principles. I've kind of

mentioned them already but that the current ongoing

processes are adequate for safety and that the main

aspect that we do on license renewal is aging

management reviews.

I'll go onto the next slide.

Now here I just wanted to stress again

kind of how we got through our review. We will have

teams back at the NRC. I've got several technical

divisions, division license renewal that I'm the

director for has our own experts in materials, has our

own experts in electrical instrument and controls.

We'll look at aspects of the review. We

will contract some out to the national labs to do

independent checks on items like this.

We look at metal fatigue. How many heat

ups and cool downs can a pipe take over a 60 year

period and has the licensee actually, you know, analyzed how many they've had in the first 30 years of

operation and will they be bounded by that.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 mentioned the onsite audits. We will issue a safety

evaluation report. That will be 600 pages.

That's one thing I didn't mention in the

afternoon. I'm trying to make that more readable. I

think it's, you know, it's a big document and it's got

a lot of information in it. A lot of it's repeated

from the licensee's application.

So I'm trying to shorten that up. I don't

think it needs to be such a long evaluation.

As a matter of fact in the press, I didn't

mention it this afternoon, but we actually got

criticized by our office of inspector general last

year. It was 2007 for not making those documents a

little more readable to the members of the public.

One they criticized us for putting too

much information in it from the licensee's application

and then not backing up our statements with enough

indepth.

So we've done some, you know, improvements

to how much and how much we include in there and to

what depth of material. But I wanted to mention that

as an ongoing criticism of even how we do our reviews.

But it's good from the public to know that

there's an independent, independent people looking

over our shoulders.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 What's also important here is the regional

inspections. Not only do my people go out for site

audit, which we found very worthwhile, but the region

sends their own inspection team out. And they'll walk

down a system and say licensee how come you didn't

include this tank in the charging system in the scope

of license renewal.

And the licensee will have to answer that

and make sure that they've scoped in the right amount

of equipment. Did they include everything that they

should in the management of the plant.

What's also important here is that they'll

come back. This plant is going through the process, you know, within five or so years of when their period

expires.

We've had some plants already get their

license renewed and they've only been 25 years into

the process. So their first 40 year period doesn't

end for 15 more years.

And I went, you know, to one of the

meetings and a guy said hey the licensee has a

commitment in here in 2022, you know, to have this

program in place, you know, who's going to look at

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 know, it might not be this individual or me but we'll

be there and they're documented in there.

And the region will send out an inspection

team again in that last year prior to them going in to

the license renewal period to verify that the

commitments are met.

I mentioned the ACRS.

Next slide. Well, here's where we get

into the environmental side and I'll let Sarah take

over and quickly go through the environmental aspects.

MS. LOPAS: Hi. I'm Sarah Lopas. I'm the

Environmental Project Manager for the Kewaunee license

renewal.

As Brian touched on earlier, the review, our environmental review is performed in accordance

with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969

which is called NEPA for short.

NEPA provides the basic architecture for

federal environmental review requirements. It

requires that all federal agencies follow a systematic

approach in evaluating the environmental impacts

associated with the major federal actions and

alternatives for those actions.

By law the NEPA process involves public

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 here tonight.

NEPA also established the US Council on

environmental quality, the CEQ which is an office

within the executive office of the president.

The CEQ establishes policy implementation

of NEPA.

The NRC's environmental regulations which

are in 10 CFR Part 51 are largely based on those

regulations that CEQ developed.

Our environmental reviews consider the

impacts of license renewal and any litigation for

those impacts that we consider to be significant. We

also consider the impacts of alternatives to license

renewal, including the impacts of not issuing a

renewed license.

The staff documents its environmental

review in an environmental impact statement which we

call EIS for short.

Next slide. For license renewal the NRC

looked at a wide range of environmental impacts. In

conducting our review we'll reach out to various

federal, state and local agencies.

For example the US Fish and Wildlife --

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 talk to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will be

important.

We also --

MR. HOLIAN: Could you push the button on

that.

MS. LOPAS: Oh, yeah.

MR. HOLIAN: Just makes it --

MS. LOPAS: Good thing I'm loud enough --

MR. HOLIAN: You're loud enough. We don't

need these sound systems.

MS. LOPAS: Oh, look at that.

MR. HOLIAN: We wouldn't, we wouldn't have

brought these out these tonight but we actually do do

court reporting to, you know, to make sure that we

capture any comments on environmental issues and that

and they get transcribed and it actually goes into the

record. That's why the recording system and

everything.

MS. LOPAS: But otherwise I'm just loud.

Today at the early afternoon meeting there

was actually a woman from the Costal Zone Management

Agency here for Wisconsin. That's one part of what

the plant has to go through in order to get their

license renewal.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Next slide. So the environmental review

process begins with the scoping process. The purpose

of the scoping process is to identify significant

issues that should be considered in the environmental

review.

We are now gathering information that we

will use to prepare our environmental impact

statement.

As part of that process we're here to

collect your comments on the environmental scope of

the review and that is what, you know, important

environmental issues you think that we should look at, the NRC should look at for this license renewal

review.

The staff has developed in 1996 which

we're currently updating right now, a generic

environmental impact statement that addressed a number

of issues that were common to all nuclear power

plants.

The staff is supplementing that generic

environmental impact statement with a site specific

impact statement for Kewaunee.

In this site specific impact statement we

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that we reached in the generic EIS to determine if

there are any, if there's any new and significant

information that would change the conclusions of that

generic environmental impact statement.

Next slide. The scoping period started on

October 9th, 2008 obviously. That's when we published

a notice of intent and, intent to prepare an EIS and

conduct scoping. And that was published in the

federal register.

The NRC will be accepting comments on the

scope of the environmental review until December 9th, 2008.

In general we're looking for information

about the environmental impacts from continued

operation of Kewaunee. You can assist us in this

process by telling us for example what aspects of your

local community that we should focus on. What local

environmental, social and economic issues the NRC

should focus on as well as what are some reasonable

alternatives to license renewal that are appropriate

for this particular region.

These are just some of the kinds of

examples that we're looking for as far as input. And

they represent the kind of information that we're

seeing through this environmental scoping process.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 So any comments that you have tonight

would be helpful in that.

Next slide. This slide illustrates the

commission's various considerations for deciding if a

renewed operating license will be issued.

So how do we use your input? Tonight the

public comments they are an important part of our

environmental review and all the comments that we

receive from you we'll take a look at. They'll be

included in our review.

Next slide. To that end there are a few

ways that you can submit comments. You know, you can

speak tonight and it will be on the record. And you

can also write us a letter and send it to this

address.

And if you just reference Kewaunee license

renewal it will get to myself or John Daley, the

safety project manager. And you can also e-mail at

Kewaunee.eis@nrc.gov. You can also e-mail me, call

me, I mean any way that your comments come in - they

do get incorporated.

I also have received some written comments

tonight and those, you know, will come in as well.

And once again the due date for those

comments is December 9th, 2008.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Next slide. This slide is the milestone

slides for the environmental or milestone dates for

the environmental review.

Obviously the highlighted dates so the

hearing opportunity closes on December 1st and that's

different than the scoping. You know, that's for

contention for a hearing to oppose the license

renewal.

The environmental scope being comments

period closes about a week later or so. So those are

the two important dates as far as public participation

that are good to know.

We are going to be issuing a draft EIS, a

draft environmental impact statement in August of

2009.

Next slide. This is just the license

renewal contacts. John Daily couldn't be here tonight

but he is the safety point of contact.

And then obviously myself. I'm the

environmental point of contact. But if you call

either one of us, you know, we sit right next to each

other so not a big deal.

The Kewaunee Public Library has agreed to

keep the application on hand for us. As well as when

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that on hand as well.

I believe we have to send them a copy of

our SCR too so they'll have that on hand for the

entire length of the license renewal project. So for

about two years.

And in addition to that it's probably

easiest just to go online if you have access to that.

The license renewal web page will have, also has, you

know, PDF of the application and when we publish the

draft EIS.

And that's all I have to say. So we can

move onto comments and questions now.

MR. HOLIAN: Well, we had a sign up list

for questions and comments. We had a sign up list in

the back and I know some individuals spoke this

afternoon. But feel free it's a little bit of a

difference audience and to repeat your comments or

questions as you have.

I don't have a list but if anybody has a

comment I will ask you to use the mike and identify

yourself and comment or question.

And feel free to bring up again, you know

the ISF, independent spent fuel was an issue that came

up earlier so I'll bring it up if you don't. Yes, sir.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. HARDTKE: Okay. My name is Dave

Hardtke. I have a question on the financial

environmental issue with this plant.

If they are allowed to continue to operate we are sitting on a growing pile of nuclear waste.

And when this plant shuts down, and it's going to shut

down someday, I have kids and grandchildren in the

area, who is going to make up the financial loss to

the town when this plant shuts down because we will

not be getting any money from the utility tax at that

point.

And we are sitting on a pile of growing

waste out here and some day our kids are going to have

to pay the price for it.

So I am against the, the license renewal

right now.

MR. HOLIAN: Okay. Let's just, let's

address that. And that was probably the prime issue

that came out in the afternoon session also was the

issue of the, of high level waste and that issue.

It's two parts to that question. You

know, one is and I compared it this afternoon to just

the high level waste sitting here. I mean that's

enough to bother some people is just currently, high

level waste sitting in casks here and the failure of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the federal government to move that waste off.

We covered that in detail this afternoon

and I'll cover it a little bit more here and there are

some great documents on the background of that back on

the table. So really grab one on the way out.

The federal government did state when they

started originally building nuclear power plants that

they would take that waste and, and move it off

somewhere.

Now originally back then a lot of people

don't realize they were going to reprocess that waste.

The waste that is sitting in those casks there is

very valuable economically. It's got a lot of

resources.

And in the 70's the United States went

away from, of reprocessing where we would build a

plant somewhere and reprocess that and make more

nuclear fuel and I don't know all the percentages but

you can take, you know, 90 percent of that fuel and

use it again and get it down to an amount that is, is

much more manageable for storing away eventually.

You'll always have some high level waste

that you'll have to store away somewhere but they can

take a good 90 percent of it and reuse it again.

Other countries do that. Japan does it.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 France does it and they do it for other countries and

they do it economically although it's a lot of, a big

up front cost that the U.S. didn't want to face in the

70's.

So but I mention that because all of a

sudden that's coming back again just in the last year

or so or two years and GEP, I forget what it stands

for here, but, you know, the current administration

said we look at that.

They didn't tell us to do that. That's

the Department of Energy. So once again another

government agency will look at is it feasible now with

the economics to re look at using that waste.

You know, what would that do. That might

minimize the amount that might go into Yucca Mountain

if Yucca Mountain is the final resting place.

And it also might help fuel costs and

uranium costs. I mean people worry some, that uranium

is a fixed amount out there.

So the first issue I just wanted to

quickly, kind of quickly cover was just it's sitting

there bothers some people.

From the NRC perspective, you know, we

don't, we don't get a voice in hey we'd rather have it

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 we don't get to state our preference on it.

We do get to do a review of both avenues

as I'll call it.

Just this year the Department of Energy

finally gave the NRC their application for the high

level waste repository at Yucca Mountain. It took

them 15 years longer. I don't know the exact number

of years then it was meant to for them to study that

mile long tunnel in the mountain that they made.

And it just took them too much longer. I

don't know who blame. But some of their funding was

cut at different years. But either way the

application just came in just a month or so ago the

NRC looked at it after 90 days and said alright it

looks like there's enough information in there for us

to start a several year review on whether it's

acceptable to go.

So you're right. It's delayed and it's

delayed now until 2018, 19, 20 before, if it's

approved. If it's approved waste will start going

there.

So that's one issue is Yucca Mountain.

NRC will license that if that's the place.

What will we do when utilities have the

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 keep in their spent fuel pool over the years. We

watch them as they put in applications for us and they

put more waste in there and they put it closer

together and they re racked as they called it.

And we made sure that the water systems

and the cooling systems were adequate for that. So

those were reviews that we did to make sure they're

safe.

After 9/11 we did some additional reviews

independently with research to make sure the security

of even the spent fuel pools there were still safe.

And then the casks that they, some of the

plants went to starting, you know, a good ten years

ago they realized hey we can't re rack, there were

some other methods to go. They could put more poison

in the water or some other ways but they thought the

fuel that's been in there, you know, for a long, several years greater than five years, can be cooled

just by convection air currents in a concrete cask.

And it's well known so they designed a

cask. The cask vendors came in. The NRC did a year

or two review of the cask vendors. Went out and

looked where they were built, how thick the concrete

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 there, how to make sure you'd get convection cooling, you know, just air cooling out on the pad.

And we actually put those into the

regulations, those casks that were approved.

So the NRC said, you know, we'll go two

ways ourselves, you know, the spent fuel in the pool

has always been a method for safe handling of

radioactive fuel. The casks for the older fuel is

still safe and we looked at that and they've been in

casks now for ten years or so. A lot of operating

experience with casks.

And both those are deemed safe by the NRC.

Yucca Mountain we know there's a lot of

political pressure. It makes sense to not keep waste

in every state or, you know, there are 30 some states

that have nuclear power plants, get it to some central

repository.

The NRC doesn't have a stake in that. We

don't get a voice in that. We don't get to say hey

let's pick Utah and there's a lot of empty land there

and just store a lot of these casks right now and put

them on one location.

We don't get a choice to choose that.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 along. Even if Yucca Mountain gets delayed whether

there's another central repository somewhere that they

can move them to.

But the NRC position, you know, we do

review it whether they're safe there. We do inspect

it.

Now the second part of your question, I

mean our inspectors go out there and make sure the

temperatures are fine. Whether it snows outside, make

sure snow is not blocking the ventilation ducts or

that or the ventilation holes and, you know, it's

fine. Radiation doses are measured. They're within

the security boundary of the site or they have to

build a separate one.

So security and safety of the casks are

evaluated by the NRC.

You know, the second question about the

fairness, you know, it, it's true that the public

didn't sign on to have spent fuel in additional to the

plant sitting there.

And there was a plant and somebody came up

to me after the afternoon meeting who had worked at

that plant, it's in Maine that's one of them that I've

visited out in my regional job, where right now the

plant decommissioned.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 So the plant did go away. And it's a

green field now. The buildings are gone. Everything

is gone except they do have the independent spent fuel

casks still sitting there with a security fence around it with some security officers there 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day.

And still have procedures to call the local law

enforcement if they need anything. And it will be

there until Yucca Mountain or a central repository is

decided.

Congress has stated that they are going in

that direction. They don't want it in individual

states. The individual state senators and congressmen

when we talk to them or they come in and talk to us or

come to our public meetings they're usually universal

for at some point we'll get there.

That's a long answer to your question. I

know it's unsettling. It's not meant to be there for

your kids kids, you know, it might definitely be there

for your kids now for a good part of their lives as

the government as a whole has delayed on that.

So safety wise though that's the NRC's job

is to make sure that it's safe sitting there. And we

do that. We inspect those. And I mentioned this

afternoon even the transportation of some of those

casks we're even looking forward to that.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 There was a tunnel fire in Baltimore and

we know that's on the proposed route or any cask to go

through a tunnel and there was a horrific tunnel fire

five or six years ago and we analyzed the temperatures

inside that tunnel from that tanker that had exploded

and wanted to make sure that the cask design could

survive something like that.

So we're still doing research about when

the time comes for that.

That's one piece in on it. The other piece didn't come up but somebody might raise it.

This afternoon session the issue came up with locally

here at Kewaunee an issue and a complaint about really

the tax base for that.

That you're probably well more versed in

it and someone can add on to it here from the audience

I know spoke to it today.

But it was an issue once again that the

NRC doesn't have a say in, you know, how your taxes

either get collected or assessed for the ISFSI the

independent spent fuel storage installation and how

that money gets sent to the state and maybe doesn't

make its way back to the town or county seat here.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 much about that. That's really a state issue.

And I know states do it differently. It's

a, and I've learned in between these two meetings it's

even been done differently here on the history of the

plant here amongst the state.

And I know at other plants a larger

portion of that does go to the local communities.

And, you know, so I can't answer that as

well but I know that it's an issue that comes up and

it rightly should come up in these forums during

license renewal because it's an issue on your mind and

it's an unfairness issue.

So it's good to hear it. You know, your

state representatives if it's on the record here you

can point to that and say we brought it up here in

these meetings and kind of try to leverage that for

your state economic issues.

But from an NRC perspective, you know, that's not a concern of ours.

Even going through this license renewal

process sometimes we'll get through it and the state

will have a voice in whether the plant gets re

licensed. A lot of times they'll have water usage

permits.

They held up a plant where we had given NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the approval out in New York and they, on one of the

lakes up there they wanted to make sure that the, you

know, the intake structure and all that wasn't harming

certain fish habitats and that and so the state

themselves have a lot of management issues.

So usually those work themselves out

through the process even ongoing at 40 year plants and

states will assess that.

But, you know, the NRC is not the final

say on whether this plant keeps operating for out 60

years. We'll do the safety review of that and a lot

of times it's up one to the utility, is it still

economic to go nuclear. That's their own decision.

And then even the states will get a piece

in on a lot of the water management usages of that.

A long answer but let me go to him and

then back to you. That's fine.

Oh you want, you got the mike. Go ahead.

MR. HARDTKE: Could I just finish --

MR. HOLIAN: Oh, sure.

MR. HARDTKE: -- a comment on yours?

MR. HOLIAN: Yes.

MR. HARDTKE: I think that's what's broken

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 of those rods yet. They belong to Dominion.

MR. HOLIAN: Oh, right.

MR. HARDTKE: And so we're stuck with them.

So who do we talk to. Dominion says they, they

aren't going to settle anything with us. You said you

aren't in control. The DOE says they aren't in

control but now whose taking responsibility for them?

MR. HOLIAN: Well, the federal government, you know, I say me because the NRC they have sued DOE.

So DOE they've actually sued the government, utilities have to recoup costs.

And it's your costs they're trying to get

back. And somebody described that today. So NRC is

not in on the financial side. So that's all I mean.

DOE is someone good to get at. Yeah, you're right. The rods aren't DOE's yet. But they've

been held or they settled. I won't say how that's

come out. But in court they've settled with utility

companies who have sued them.

And so you're aware of some of the

background. So they have had to pay out settlements

for the fact of being late for taking that fuel out of

here.

I don't think it's, but that money hasn't

gotten to you. I know.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 MR. HARDTKE: I know.

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah. So that's the issue

here is that the money hasn't gotten to you and we had

a state rep here this afternoon talking about that, that, you know, that part of that gets into the state

politics of it.

You know, the settlement goes to them and, you know, how that's distributed from the state is an

issue there.

Go ahead, sir.

MR. CARROLE: Well, I've got the CRS report

here. And it's an updated one for October 9th. And

Yucca Mountain might be ready by the year 2020.

It says might be. But it also says that

every, every nuclear plant is getting reimbursed from

DOE because they're being sued so they'll get it.

So this is the big thing right now is when

Dominion put in for theirs there was no reason why

they couldn't have put in for compensation for this

because that would have been an expense for them.

And if NRC can come over here and overrule

our zoning because they are that big and they can step

on us, it's like I told our state senator, we have

only 600 voting people in the town and you don't give

a damn about us.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 And that was Herb Cole. And it's the same

with Kagen's office and it's the same with everyone of

them. We met with them all. And Gary Visor is the

only one that is trying to fight for us.

But the State of Wisconsin is the only

state that takes all the utility tax and sends back

what they want.

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah. And I don't know if

it's the only state. This is myself. You might know

more about that than I do. I know you checked and it

is, and that's an issue with the state.

You know, I just, as you said that, you

mentioned that, you know, the NRC is somehow you mixed

us in with zoning.

Once again we have nothing to do with

zoning out here at the plant, you know. We will

license the plant but it is up to state officials, I

mean we'll look at the original siting of a plant but

it's up to, you know, state officials for changing, I

think what you meant was changing the zoning or

allowing the independent spent fuel installation

facility there.

MR. CARROLE: Town zoning.

MR. HOLIAN: Yeah, town zoning, okay.

And so that's been an issue at some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 plants. You know, some plants, states have limited

zoning requirements where you'll only put 16 casks out

there. We won't let you put 20, you know, that's

happened at several plants I'm aware of.

Usually that works out amongst the

economics between the utility and the state and

somehow they come to some settlement in the cases I've

seen.

In other words I'm not aware of a plant, you know, not being able to work that out somehow

economically with the state that's shut down a plant.

And we've had plants decommission over

economic decisions. I just haven't, don't think I've

seen one yet over how many casks or independent spent

fuels storage installation.

We've had some plants, you know, as I

mentioned that one in Maine that had shut down, had

some safety issues and the owner at that time just

said, you know, deregulation was coming. There were a

lot of things at the time and they decided not to

continue the operation of that plant or sell it to

somebody else.

So we've had several plants there right

around the early 90's that decided to shut down.

Other comments or questions on license NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 renewal or environmental issues or scoping issues that

you want the NRC to look at.

You know, in some of those documents there

we do generically look at 90 some impacts from water

impact to land impacts to socio-environmental, archeological impacts. So a lot does get looked at

both on the environment side and as you take these

documents and go away for the night and you think of

something as Sarah said anything that comes at an

environmental review you can come in and just put

those in either through us or through your state

offices where hey we want you to dig a little deeper

into these areas.

You know, the independent spent fuel

aspect you're right it comes up in these meetings

often because the immediate thing the public sees is

okay if we do the plant's been operating pretty well, we like the electricity. But if we do let it operate

it bothers us because we didn't buy in for 20 more

years of high level waste being stored there also.

You know, we can understand some. And so

I don't mind that obviously being a topic of

discussion here tonight. It's not that that's not a

part of license renewal.

As a matter of fact those casks, you know, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 we do license for a certain amount of time.

So, you know, we will have to look at

that. If Yucca Mountain doesn't go and DOE keeps, well I won't put it all on DOE some of it's Congress.

Congress will cut their budgets so they can only do

so much work.

So sometimes you can't fault them for how

late they've been. I haven't looked at how much of

that blame is to share.

But, you know, even now, even with the

application in now and that's why I know you read with

skepticism maybe by 2020 because Congress has already

said well the application is in with the NRC but we

still may cut funds for the, you know, eventual review

of our dollars, NRC dollars to even review it.

So that, if we don't get the budget to

review it we'll have to delay it. It's just, so a lot

of that I put on Congress.

But I do get to the safety of those casks.

They will be looked at. If it's, it's a commission

level item. They call it a high level waste

confidence decision. Is there confidence. They

actually call it the waste confidence decision.

Does Congress give us enough confidence

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 grandkids. And they have to revisit that decision

that yes Congress is still behind moving it to some

kind of central repository.

So we don't mind the issue coming up. I

can't always give you satisfactory answers.

Just like in some area emergency

preparedness I showed you on an earlier slide and

security are even bigger issues than independent spent

fuel storage because people say, you know, right now

we don't think we can hear the sirens when something

happens at that plant.

And our roads are, you know, here you've

got plenty of roads to go somewhere. Over in New York

they've only got a few roads and that's a bigger issue

for them. And it's unsettling for them to hear some

of the answers which well if that's an issue that's an

issue right now it's not necessarily a license renewal

issue. There's other mechanisms to either get that

through your state or bring that to the NRC and

petition to shut down the plant.

But we do hear. That's the point of these

meetings. One we get to hear it. Some of your state

reps get to hear it. And you get to be on the voice

here of that as we take these back we do cover aspects

of this of what's on the population's mind in these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 meetings and go from there.

Other questions, go ahead, yes sir.

MR. TADISCH: I'm Steve Tadisch. I'm a

resident here. And we're talking about this high

level waste storage. How is that going to affect an

addition to the plant or any new plants in the state

or the United States?

MR. HOLIAN: Just the independent spent

fuel storage? I --

MR. TADISCH: Yes. Are they going to give

new licenses even though Yucca Mountain is not going

to be running at the time or are they going to just

prorate it kind of and --

MR. HOLIAN: No.

MR. TADISCH: -- then hope that it's

running?

MR. HOLIAN: Well, the same issue for new

plants in the country, right. Now that's a whole

other, that's whole other division by the way. So

Sarah and I, our reviews are going to be only on

Kewaunee and the other 11 plants that we have in with

us.

It takes about two years to do a license

renewal and you're at the beginning of this process

for Kewaunee. So for the next 18 months we'll be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 studying Kewaunee and the other plants that are in

there.

We are not affected by to quote the new

build, new reactor build. There's a whole other

division back at NRC that handles that. And whether

that comes about or not there's a lot of factors. You

know, there's economics. You know, will they get the

right, you know, rates of return on their money. Will

the U.S. even be able to build it.

But your question was even if Yucca

Mountain doesn't open up will the NRC even license a

new plant and the answer is yes. We could still

license a brand new plant having nothing to do with

Yucca Mountain.

It gets into that waste confidence

decision that hey that Congress has said we're going

to be looking at a repository.

If Yucca Mountain gets turned down for

some reason at its, you know, it's one of the issues

they brought up is there's more sizemic activity out

in Nevada than people thought. And people are saying

so therefore you should have picked Texas, shouldn't

have picked Nevada.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 activity, you know, that might delay it another five

years. Congress might have to pick another area.

You know, it would be longer than that.

But Congress has stated we have a waste confidence

decision that we will eventually get this waste and

put it somewhere.

Or now they're talking about maybe

reprocessing it.

So their timetable is off. They've looked

at the NRC and they've said, you know, can it be

safely stored while we wait on that. And the answer

is yes, you know, we can do it in the pools like we

originally for 10 or 15 years and then we can put it

in casks.

And they've stated the casks are not to be

long term storage. They've stated that. Now how long

is long term? Will it be how much of your kid's life.

But it's limited by that cask review.

But a new plant license the answer is, you

know, you can still go just like, you know, when these

plants were originally licensed you didn't have a high

level repository. It was envisioned that you'd just

build it by then.

So there's no, we're at this new plant

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 be a factor in deciding for an up or down yes or no.

MR. TADISCH: The game starts in ten

minutes so we have to hurry up.

MR. HOLIAN: All right. That's the

Phillies so you know what he's talking about.

MR. TADISCH: The only thing is I was going

to say it also says that those spent fuel rods have to

be in the water for five years --

MR. HOLIAN: Yes.

MR. TADISCH: -- before it can go in the

casks.

MR. HOLIAN: Yes. That's, right, that's right. And there's usually not a problem with that.

The fuel that's in there it's plenty of room in those

spent fuel pools. The original design for, you know, for 10 or 15 years of amount of fuel going in there.

So there's no problem keeping it in there

for five years. You're right. You don't want to take

it out before five years there's too much heat and you

wouldn't be able to cool it by air outside of that.

So they do keep it in there for at least

five years. And it's a good, good thing they've done

it.

You know, one of the plan, I'll just

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 just drained one of their old spent fuel pools and

actually moved some of the fuel that had been in there

30 years. And just, you know, moved it over to

another pool.

But there's been a lot of talk about even

then you might be able to store it not in a cask

outside but in some kind of, you know, right within

the plant boundary in concrete and just air cool it

there.

Now they didn't do that. But I'm just

telling you there's other methods for, you know, putting that fuel in storage that maybe haven't been

thought about yet.

So I know that's an unsettling issue. I

know in this community it's unsettling for some state reasons really for some kind of financial equity.

And, you know, I understand that.

There was a state rep here this afternoon

and he heard that again and that was good for this

forum to bring that up. We were keyed into it even by

the regional people that that would be an issue to

come up.

And I, you know, I apologize sometimes the

NRC, the federal government, you know, doesn't have

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 doesn't. You know, I got asked in a New York meeting

what if the governor of New York says he doesn't want

that plant re licensed. And I said well he can just

add his name to, you know, another list of people.

I mean some of the state individuals don't

have, you know, as much say as an individual who lives

within 10 miles of the plant.

You know, you have an opportunity if you

have a safety issue to put a contention in and say, you know, maybe for some reason I don't think those

casks are as safe as the guy from the NRC told me they

were.

You know, I think something might happen.

And, you know, you can raise that issue.

It is being done. If you, and you're very

well read and I appreciate that because out in several

states and I think California was one they raised the

issue of whether on security after 9/11 we should even

do more with the casks and do some kind of other, you

know, berms around them or dirt berms and other

things.

So there have been petitions raised about

that. I just want you to know and the NRC, there's a

lot of written documentation about what courts have

looked at and caused us to do on that issue.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 But post 9/11, you know, a lot of issues

were looked at on the impacts and even fire impacts of

planes landing anywhere on site. And a lot of those

reviews if they demanded changes were made but it the

results were kind of inconsequential we left them as

designed.

You know, I don't get into this often but

not only the casks themselves with the thickness of

that concrete but even the thickness of those

containment buildings or you're talking feet and feet

of concrete.

And that is one area that does get

reviewed by the NRC. I don't know if I mentioned it

earlier but not only piping and, you know, the fatigue

of piping, how many heat up and cool down cycles it

can take.

But concrete just the ability of the

concrete itself to last temperature effects over 60

years that's one of the items we look at here.

I don't want to drag it out too long but, you know, as we do close the meeting we'll be around

here. We'll be packing up some of the material that

you don't, decide not to take for going to the next

meeting.

But if you have any other questions or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 concerns that you just want to get a different answer

to while we're closing up tonight feel free to grab

us.

Any other questions on the process?

We will be back for, you know, other

meetings when these documents come out in draft form.

The safety evaluation and the environmental report.

You know, there will be another meeting like this

scheduled somewhere here in the area to go over that

and here's what we found.

It's probably still a, you know, a year

away some of those meetings but.

Well, thank you for coming out tonight. I

know it's an upset to your schedules to get out but

we're glad you did come out and that's what we're here

for.

And you can get us by e-mail. You can

contact us by the web site itself. So please feel

free to give us a call on any other issues. Thank

you.

(Whereupon the meeting concluded at 8:00 p.m.)