ML061080579

Dseis Public Meeting Transcript (Evening Session), 04/05/2006, Pages 1-147

ML061080579
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Official Transcript of ProceedingsNUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSIONTitle:Public Meeting to Discuss DraftEnvironmentalImpact Statement for Palisades Nuclear Plant License Renewal ApplicationDocket Number:(Not applicable for meetings)Location:South Haven, MichiganDate:Wednesday, April 5, 2006Work Order No.:NRC-956Pages 1-147NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.Court Reporters and Transcribers1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.Washington, D.C. 20005(202) 234-4433 1NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1+ + + + +2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3+ + + + +4 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS 5 DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR 6 PALISADES NUCLEAR PLANT 7 LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION 8+ + + + +

9 WEDNESDAY 10 APRIL 5, 2006 11+ + + + +

12 SOUTH HAVEN, MICHIGAN 13+ + + + +

14 15The Building Public Trust and 16 Confidence Session met at Lake Michigan College, 125 17 Veterans Boulevard, South Haven, Michigan, (Chip) F.

18 Cameron presiding.

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 PRESENT:

1 2 (CHIP) F. CAMERON 3 RANI FRANOVICH 4 BO PHAM 5 DR. DAVID MILLER 6 ROBERT PALLA 7 BOB SCHAAF 8 VIKTORIA MITLYNG 9 JOHN ELLEGOOD 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 I N D E X 1 2 AGENDA ITEM

3 PAGE 4I.Welcome and Purpose of meeting 4 5II.Overview of License Renewal Process 18 6III.Results of the Environmental Review 24 7IV.Results of the Severe Accident Mitigation 73 8 Alternative Review 9V.How Comments can be Submitted 91 10VI.Public Comments 91 11VII.Closing 146 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 4NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 P R O C E E D I N G S 1 (7:05 P.M.)

2MR. CAMERON: Good evening everyone. My 3 name is Chip Cameron and I'm the special counsel for 4 public liaison at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 5 the NRC.6And it's my pleasure to serve as your 7facilitator for tonight's meeting and in that role 8I'll try to help all of you have a productive meeting 9 tonight.10And our subject tonight is the 11environmental review that the NRC is conducting as one 12part of this evaluation of an application that we 13received from the Nuclear Management Company to renew 14 the license for the Palisades Nuclear facility.

15 I just want to cover a couple of points 16about the meeting process before we get into the 17 substance of tonight's meeting.

18I'd like to tell you about the format for 19the meeting, some very simple ground rules and to 20 introduce our speakers tonight.

21In terms of the format it's going to be a 22two part format. The first part of the meeting is for 23the NRC staff to pro vide you with some information 24about what we look at when we evaluate an application 25 5NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 to renew a license for an operating reactor.

1And specifically to tell you about what 2the conclusions are in a draft environmental impact 3 statement that has been prepared. And there's going 4 to be a few presentations, try to get them short, and 5 we will go on to you for questions on those 6 presentations.

7And it's important to realize that this is 8 a draft environmental impact statement. It will not 9 be finalized until any concerns, recommendations, 10advice that we hear from you tonight are evaluated by 11the NRC staff. Not only comments from this meeting 12but we're also requesting written comments. And we 13had a meeting this afternoon where we heard comments.

14 15Well, we're going to evaluate all that 16before we finalize the environmental impact statement.

17So the second part of the meeting is an 18opportunity for us to hear from you and we're going to 19ask people who want to comment to come up to the front 20 and talk to us. And I think that you might have had 21 an opportunity to fill out one of those yellow cards 22out there that indicates that you want to make a 23 comment.24 If you didn't fill a yellow card out and 25 6NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 you decide that you want to speak that's fine just 1 tell me.2 In terms of the weight that's given to 3comments tonight is going to be the same as for 4 written comments. And also if you speak tonight you 5can follow up with a written comment if you would 6 like.7 In terms of ground rules during the 8 question and answer period, in other words after the 9 NCR presentations if you have a question just signal 10 me and I'll come out to you with this little 11microphone and please introduce yourself to us and if 12 you have a group or an organization that you're with 13 tell us that and we'll try to answer your question.

14I would ask that only one person speak at 15 a time so that we can give our full attention to 16whomever has the floor at the moment. And also so 17 that we can get a clean transcript. We have Mr. Ron 18LeGrand with [us] tonight who is our stenographer, our 19court reporter who is taking a transcript. That 20transcript will be avai lable to anybody who wants a 21 copy of it.

22You can also request a copy of the 23transcript that was made from this afternoons meeting.

24So one person at a time Ron will know who 25 7NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 is talking at any particular moment.

1 I would ask you to be to the point in 2questions and try to keep them to questions instead of 3 just making a comment at that time because we really 4want to provide answers to questions during that first 5part of the meeting. Then we'll ask you to come up 6 and do your comments.

7When we get to the comment part of the 8meeting I have a five to seven minute guideline. You 9may take less time than that but usually five minutes 10is enough time to make your major points. And it 11helps the NRC staff in two ways enough though it's 12 just five minutes.

13It alerts us to issues that we should 14start thinking about immediately and talking with you 15perhaps about after the meeting. And it also tells 16others in the audience what the advice, concerns, 17 recommendations are.

18 So let me intr oduce the NRC staff and 19other who are going to be talking to you tonight. And 20Rani Franovich is right here. She's going to give you 21 a short welcome and say a few words about license 22renewals. She's the chief of the environmental review 23section at the NRC within the license renewal program.

24 And Rani and her staff are the ones that 25 8NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433conduct and supervise these environmental reviews that 1 are part of the license renewal evaluation process.

2She's done several important things at the 3NRC besides her existing position. She was the 4coordinator of enforcement on reactor issues.

5Enforcement for non compliance with NRC regulations by 6 licensees.

7She's also served as a resident inspector.

8These are the NRC staff who actually are at the 9facility every day. They live in a community and 10they're there to make sure that the NRC regulations 11 are complied with.

12And Rani is going to introduce the 13resident from Palisades in a few minutes when she 14 talks. 15She has a, in terms of educational 16background she has a B ache lors in Psychology and a 17Masters in Industrial and Systems Engineering from 18 Virginia Tech.

19And after Rani does a brief welcome we're 20then going to go to Mr. Bo Pham who is right here.

21And Bo, one of Rani's staff, he's the project manager 22for the preparation of this environmental review on 23 this license application for Palisades.

24And he's going to go over the li cense 25 9NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433renewal process with you. And Bo has been with the 1 NRC for four years. Rani has been with us for about 2 14 years I think. Bo is with us for four years. He 3comes to us from the nuclear navy. He was an officer 4 in the nuclear navy on a submarine and his degree is 5a Bachelors Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the 6 U.S. Navel Academy.

7After Rani and Bo are done we'll see if 8there's any questions on the process itself. And then 9we're going to the part of the meeting tonight and 10that's the information and conclusions that are in the 11 draft environmental impact statement.

12And we have Dr. Dave Miller right here.

13And Dr. Miller is the team leader of a group of expert 14scientists who evaluated environmental impacts at 15Palisades from licensee renewal. So he'll be going 16 over that with you.

17And he's from Argonne National Lab. He's 18an environmental engineer there. He has a PHD in 19environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins 20 University. He's also a professional engineer and a 21 certified geologist.

22 And so he'll be telling you that. We'll 23then go on to you for questions. And then we're going 24 to come to a small but important part of the draft 25 10NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433environmental impact statement and it's something 1 called severe accident mitigation alternatives.

2The acronym is SAMA but what it stands for 3 is severe accident mitigation alternatives.

4 We have Mr. Bob Palla from the NRC staff 5here. He has been with the NRC for 25 years. He's an 6expert in something called probabilistic risk 7assessment and severe accident analysis. And he's 8going to talk to you about SAMA and Bob has both a 9Bachelors and a Masters in mechanical engineering from 10 the University of Maryland.

11 Go onto you for questions again and then 12 Bo is going to close out us on the presentations with 13where you can submit comments, things like that and 14then we're going to go out to all of you for comments.

15And with that I don't think I skipped 16anybody did I. Okay, good. We're going to go to 17 Rani.18MS. FRANOVICH: Good evening. I need to 19make sure everybody can hear me because we had some 20challenges with the sound quality earlier. Can 21 everybody hear me? Okay, super.

22Just wanted to extend my own personal 23gratitude for your participation in our meeting today.

24And it is a very important part of our process to 25 11NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433solicit comments from the public on our work and make 1sure that any questions the folks has can be answered 2by us while we're here or if we don't have the answer 3with us that we get back to you with our answers when 4 we return to our offices in Rockville, Maryland.

5 So thank you very much for spending your 6time with us. I know it's your personal time, it's a 7 sacrifice by you all but it's important to us and we 8 appreciate it.

9I'd like to start off by briefly going 10over the agenda and the purpose for today's meeting or 11tonight's meeting. We'll explain the NRC's license 12renewal process for nuclear power plants with emphasis 13 on the environmental review process.

14Then we're going to present the 15preliminary findings of our environmental review which 16assesses the impacts associated with extending 17operations at the Palisades nuclear plant for an 18 additional 20 years.

19Then really the most important part of 20today's meeting as Chip indicated is for us to receive 21 any comments that you may have on our draft into our 22 impact statement.

23 We also will give you some information 24 about the schedule for the balance of our review and 25 12NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433let you know how you can submit comments on our draft 1environmental impact statement after today's meetings.

2 At the conclusions of the staff's 3presentation we'll be happy to answer any questions 4 you may have. However, I must ask you to limit your 5participation to questions only and hold your comments 6until the appropriate time during tonight's meetings.

7Once all questions are answered we can 8begin to receive any comme nts you have on the draft 9 environmental impact statement.

10Before I get into a discussion of the 11 license renewal process I'd like to take a minute to 12talk about the NRC in terms of what we do and what our 13 mission is.

14 The Atomic Energy Act is the legislation 15that authorizes the NRC to issue operating licenses to 16 nuclear power plants.

17The Atomic Energy Act provides for a 40 18license term for power reactors. The 40 year term is 19based primarily on economic considerations and anti 20trust factors not on safety limitations of the plant.

21The Atomic Energy Act also authorizes the 22 NRC to regulate civilian use of nuclear materials in 23 the United States. In exercising that authority the 24NRC mission is threefold. To ensure adequate 25 13NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433protection of public health and safety. To provide 1 for the common defense and security. And to protect 2 the environment.

3 The NRC accomplishes its mission through 4 a combination of regulatory programs and processes 5such as inspections, issuing enforcement actions, 6assessing licensee performance and evaluating 7operating experience from the nuclear power plants 8 across this country and internationally.

9The regulations that the NRC enforces are 10contained in Title 10 of the Code of Federal 11 Regulations which we commonly refer to as 10CFR. 12As I have mentioned the Atomic Energy Act 13provides for a 40 year license term for power 14reactors. Our regulations also include provisions for 15 extending plant operation for up to an additional 20 16years. For Palisades the license will expire in 2011.

17Palisades is owned by Consumers Energy.

18A subsidiary of CMS Energy Corporation and licensed to 19 operate by the Nuclear Management Company, LLC.

20 Nuclear Management Company has requested 21 licensee renewal for Palisades. As part of the NRC's 22review of that license renewal application we have 23performed an environmental review to look at the 24impacts of an additional 20 years of operation on the 25 14NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 environment.

1We held a meeting here in July of 2005 to 2seek your input regarding the issues we needed to 3evaluate. We indicated at that earlier scoping 4meeting that we would return to South Haven to present 5the preliminary results of our draft environmental 6impact statement. That is the purpose of tonight's 7 meeting.8The NRC's license renewal review is 9 similar to the original licensing process in that it 10involves two parts. An environmental review and a 11safety review. This slide really gives a big picture 12 overview of the license renewal review process which 13 involves those two parallel paths.

14I'm going to briefly describe these two 15 review processes starting with the safety review.

16You might ask what does the safety review 17 consider. The license renewal safety review focuses 18 on aging management. The systems, structures and 19components that are important to safety as determined 20 by the license renewal scoping criteria contained in 21 10CFR Part 54.

22The license renewal safety review does not 23assess current operational issues such as security, 24 emergency planning and safety performance.

25 15NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 The NRC monitors and provides regulatory 1oversight of these issues on an ongoing basis under 2 the current operating license.

3Because the NRC is dealing with these 4current issues on a continual basis we do not 5 reevaluate them in license renewal.

6 As I have mentioned the license renewal 7safety review focuses on plant aging and the programs 8the licensee has already implemented or will implement 9 to manage the effects of aging.

10Let me introduce Juan Ayala the safety 11project manager. Thank you, Juan. He's in charge of 12 the staff safety review.

13The safety review involves the NRC staff's 14evaluation of technical information that is contained 15in the licensee renewal application. This is referred 16 to as the staff's safety evaluation.

17The NRC staff also conducts audits as part 18of its safety evaluation. There's a team of about 30 19NRC technical reviewers and contractors who are 20 conducting the safety evaluation at this time.

21The safety review also includes plant 22inspections. The inspections are conducted by a team 23of inspectors from both headquarters and NRC Region 24III office near Chicago. A representative, in fact we 25 16NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 have two representatives from Region III here today.

1The senior r esid ent at Palisades is John Ellegood.

2John, thank you. And his boss in Region III is 3Christine Lipa. So thank you guys for joining us 4 tonight.5The results of the inspections are 6documented in separate inspection reports. The staff 7documents the results of its review in the safety 8 evaluation report. The report is then independently 9reviewed by the advisory committee on reactor 10 safeguards or the ACRS.

11The ACRS is a group of nationally 12recognized technical experts that serve as a 13 consulting body to the Commission. They review each 14license renewal application and safety evaluation 15report, form their own conclusions and recommendations 16 on the requested action and report those conclusions 17 and recommendations directly to the Commission.

18 This slide illustrates how these various 19activities make up the safety review process. I'd 20like to point out that these hexagons, the yellow 21hexagons on this slide represent opportunities for 22 public participation in the safety review process.

23Also the staff will present results of its 24 safety review to the ARCS and that presentation will 25 17NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 be open to the public.

1The second part of the review process 2 involves an environmental review. The environmental 3 review which Bo will discuss in more detail in a few 4minutes evaluates the impacts of license renewal on a 5number of areas including ecology, hydrology, cultural 6 resources and socioeconomic issues among others.

7The environmental review involves scoping 8 activities and the development of a draft supplement 9 to the generic environmental impact statement for 10 license renewal of nuclear plants. Also referred to 11 as the GEIS.

12The GEIS forms the basis for plant 13specific environmental reviews. The draft 14environmental impact statement for Palisades has been 15published for comment and we're here tonight to 16briefly discuss the results and to receive your 17 comments.18In October of this year we will be issuing 19the final version of this environmental impact 20statement which will document how the staff addresses 21 the c omments that we receive here today at this 22 meeting or in writing after this meeting.

23So the final agency decision on whether or 24not to issue a renewed operating license depends on 25 18NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433several inputs. Inspection reports and a confirmatory 1letter from the Region III administrator, conclusions 2 and recommendations of the ACRS which are documented 3 in a letter to the Commission, the safety evaluation 4report which documents the results of the staff's 5safety review and the final environmental impact 6 statement which documents the results of the staff's 7 environmental review.

8Again the hexagons on this slide indicate 9opportunities for public participation. The first 10opportunity was during the s coping period and the 11meeting we held here back in July of last year. Many 12 of you may have attended that meeting.

13This meeting on the draft environmental 14impact statement is another opportunity. No 15 contentions have been admitted to a hearing so that 16 does not apply here. However, appeals are currently 17 before the Commission.

18That concludes my presentation on the NRC 19 and general overview of the license renewal process.

20Now I'd like to turn things over to Bo and 21Bo will discuss the environmental review in more 22 detail.23 MR. PHAM: Thank you, Rani, and thank you 24all again for coming out tonight. Can everybody hear 25 19NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 me okay.1 Like Rani and Chip had mentioned I am Bo 2Pham. I am the environmental, I'm an environmental 3project manager for the NRC. And my responsibility 4[is] to coordinate the activities of the NRC with the 5various environmental experts at the national 6laboratories to develop our environmental impact 7statement associated with this license renewal 8 proposed for Palisades Nuclear Plant.

9 The National Environmental Policy Act of 101969 requires that federal agencies like the NRC 11 follow a systematic approach in evaluating potential 12environmental impacts of certain actions like the 13 license renewal of a nuclear power plant.

14We're required to consider the impacts of 15the proposed action and also any mitigation for those 16 impacts that we consider to be significant.

17Alternatives to the proposed action 18 include taking no actions on the applicant's request 19 are also to be considered.

20The National Environmental Policy Act and 21our environmental impact statement are disclosure 22tools. They specifically, they're specifically 23structured to involve public participation and this 24 meeting here tonight facilitates that process.

25 20NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 So we're here to collect the public 1 comments on the draft environmental impact statement 2and these comments will be included in the final 3environmental impact statement that's due to be issued 4 in October.

5To go into a little more detail about our 6approach I'd like to provide you a bit more 7information of the background about the development of 8the license renewal environmental impact statement 9that we're working on. That we have issued the draft 10 of so far.

11 In the mid 1990's the NRC was faced with 12 the prospect of having to prepared impact statements 13for the majority of the operating nuclear power plants 14in the country. In order to do this the NRC had to 15 tackle it in two ways.

16 First we evaluated it the impacts of all 17 the plants across the entire country to determine if 18 there were impacts that were common to all operating 19 plants. So we looked at 92 separate areas and found 20that for 69 of these issues the impacts were the same 21 for all plants with similar features.

22 The NRC called these category one issues 23and made the same or generic determination about that 24impacts in a document that we call The Gen eric 25 21NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433Environmental Impact Stated For License Renewal which 1 Rani previously mentioned also known as the GEIS.

2These category one issues, to give you an 3example, include things like the discharge of chlorine 4 or biocides 5-- into bodies of water, thermal shock and fish 6entrainment or fish impingement. So those are 7 considered category one issues common to plants with 8 similar features.

9The Generic Environmental Impact Statement 10was issued by the NRC in 1969, excuse me, it was 1996 11and contains the NRC's generic determinations for all 12 its 69 category one issues.

13The second way the NRC tackled this was 14to, found it was not able to make generic conclusions 15about the remaining 23 issues. Site specific 16supplements were needed for 21 of these issues and 17there were two, called category two issues and in 18addition to that there were two issues remaining that 19 we put into the non categorized, category and 20therefore those two almost needed the specific, a site 21 specific analysis.

22The NRC also did not rule out the 23possibility that its generic connclusions may not 24apply in some of the cases. Therefore a verification 25 22NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 is done to determine if new and significant 1information is found that contradicts the generic 2conclusion. And if so then the staff would do a site 3 specific analysis on each of those issues.

4The Palisades supplement containing a 5 summary of all the category one issues, category two 6 and a site specific analysis for category two issues 7 as well as the two non categorized issues is what you 8have or what we are p resent ing to you today for 9 comments.10This slide shows our decision standard for 11the environmental review. And the standard comes 12directly out of the regulations under Part 51.71 of 13 Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations which is 14 what the NRC operates under.

15And I'll give you a second to read it 16there but simply put we look at the license renewal 17request to see if it's acceptable from an 18 environmental standpoint.

19This next slide shows important milestone 20dates for the environmental review process and the 21 highlights indicate the opportunities for the public 22 involvement in the review process.

23We receive the Nuclear Management 24Company's application requesting a license renewal of 25 23NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433Palisades in March 22 nd of 2005. On June 27 th of 2005 1 we issued a fede ral registered notice of intent to 2 compare the impact statement and conduct scoping.

3A meeting was held on July 28 th here as 4 part of the scoping process and many of you may have 5 attended as well as provided comments to us.

6The comments that were given at the 7scoping meeting and in the scope of this review are 8contained in Appendix A of the draft of environmental 9 impact statement.

10I also have copies of the scoping summary 11report which contains your comments and our responses 12to it in the back of the room if you're interested in 13 getting a copy.

14The scoping period ended on August 22 nd , 15 2005 and the summary, and the scoping summary report 16was issued on December 14 th of 2005 addressing all the 17comments that we received from all the different 18 sources during the scooping process.

19Our draft is actually a supplement to the 20generic environmental impact statement or the GEIS so 21 it's a supplement 27 to the GEIS and that was issued 22 on February 14 th , 2006.23We're currently accepting public comments 24on that draft until May 18 th of 2006. Today's meeting 25 24NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433is being transcribed as Chip mentioned earlier and the 1comments provided here carry the same weight as if it 2 was submitted in writing.

3Once the comment period closes we will 4develop the final supplemental environmental impact 5statement which we expect to publish in October of 6 this year.

7Now before I turn over the presentation to 8 Dr. Dave Miller here I guess we can take some of the 9questions if you have any regarding the review process 10 for the license renewal.

11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, thank you 12 both. Thanks, Rani.

13Are there any questions on the review 14process with the NRC? And please just introduce 15 yourself too.

16MS. BARNES: My name is Kathryn Barnes. I 17have a question. You mentioned biocides. I was 18wondering what biocides are used at Palisades and for 19 what purpose.

20MR. PHAM: I don't have the, I just gave 21that as an example. I would have to probably get back 22 to you on that on the specific biocides. But that's 23just an example of, you know, things that are released 24and the known release into bodies of water if any that 25 25NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 we document in the generic environmental impact 1 statement.

2 I do not have, I don't have the specific 3 on that right now.

4MR. CAMERON: And Kathryn, if we have more 5 information we'll get that to you. John.

6 MR. ELLEGOOD: Just real quick, a lot of 7licensees use some sort of biocide to limit the growth 8 of clams in service water systems. Palisades is no 9 exception to this in terms of biocides that would be 10 used --11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

12 MS. BARNES: Do you know what it is.

13 MR. CAMERON: Now what --

14MS. BARNES: I, I was wondering what kind, 15 what kind of chemical components --

16MR. ELLEGOOD: I'd have to get back to you 17--18 MS. BARNES: Hydrocarbons or?

19 MR. ELLEGOOD: We'll get back to you.

20MR. CAMERON: We'll find out specifically 21for you. Process, did you have something, you don't, 22 okay.23MR. SCHAAF: I don't have the specifics off 24the top of my head but we, that's one of the things 25 26NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433we, we did talk about in the supplement. It, it'll be 1identified in the supplement to the GEIS and also 2 those are, those releases are permitted by the State 3of Michigan and, and the permit includes conditions on 4which materials are, are able to be released. And at 5 what, what concentrations.

6 MR. CAMERON: And if Kathryn wants to see 7the specifics she can find that in the draft 8 environmental impact statement.

9MR. SCHAAF: The permit is available in our 10document management system. The utilities are 11required to submit a copy of, of their permit when 12it's renewed. These permits are renewed on a, on a 13 five year basis.

14So we can identify the accession number in 15our document management system if you're interested in 16 that information.

17 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much.

18 Process questions? Yeah, and.

19MR. RICHARDS: One of the things, Ken 20Richards, one of the things I was looking through the 21manual for was the plant's original decommissioning 22date. I found decommissioning dates in there but I've 23always been curious what was the original 24 decommissioning date for the Palisades Plant.

25 27NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 When it was first built we were told 20, 1 25 years.2 MR. CAMERON: Right.

3 MR. RICHARDS; They'd be building another 4plant after that. They even worked on it, and it's 5been like 38 years and now they want to go another 20 6years with this. But I'm wondering what was the 7original decommission date. And I've been all through 8 this thing --

9MR. CAMERON: Okay. We're going to try and 10 see if we know that.

11MR. PHAM: I don't have, I don't know what 12the intention was for the original decommissioning 13date. However, as Rani said in her part of the 14presentation that when the NRC licenses a n uclear 15power plant the, the life of the license is for 40 16 years --17 MR. RICHARDS: 40 from that?

18MR. PHAM: Yes. And that's, that's also 19 based on economic reasons not on plant aging.

20 MR. RICHARDS: Well, what does that --

21MR. CAMERON: Okay. Can we, we need to get 22everybody on the transcript. Could we follow up on 23 this.24MR. RICHARDS: Well, when did they issue a 25 28NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 40 year permit? Because I remember back in the late 160s, early 70s they were talking 20, 25 years. Now 2 they're saying 40.

3 MR. CAMERON: And I think the very simple 4answer is when we, when we gave this lice nse to 5Palisades originally what was the length of the 6 license time.

7 MR. PHAM: The, 2011 is the --

8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Carry on.

9 MR. RICHARDS: That's the current --

10 MR. CAMERON: All right.

11 MR. PHAM: We haven't, we have --

12MR. CAMERON: Let's, let's, do you have 13 anything else then?

14 MS. FRANOVICH: That's, that's the length 15of the license. Now maybe the utility at time has 16 talked about closing before the license ends. Maybe 17 that's the information he has.

18 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

19MS. FRANOVICH: And that would be their 20 decision, it would be a business decision.

21MR. CAMERON: Yes, sir and please introduce 22 yourself.23MR. ADAMS: Duane Adams. My question is 24what was the design during the 60s when, when this was 25 29NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433on the planning books. You design a piece of 1 equipment to last a certain period of time.

2What was that in that original document 3and is it in this document that you just issued?

4Because normally the plants are built to last a 5 certain period of time much like cars are.

6 MR. CAMERON: All right.

7MR. PHAM: I think the answer to that would 8 be that when the plant, the plant was, I don't, I 9don't think this plant was specifically designed with 10components lasting a certain period of amount of time.

11Everything that the NRC does basically is 12 to ensure the health and safety of the public and so 13we had ongoing safety programs to ensure that the 14 plants are operated safely.

15And part of that is the equipment managing 16 process in which we look at the safety equipment and 17make sure they're operating and, and they're going to 18 be sustainable throughout the life of the plant.

19MR. ADAMS: But there are certain 20 components you cannot look at.

21 MR. CAMERON: Okay, sir, sir. We need to 22get all comments on the record and maybe Rani can 23 provide a little bit more on that question.

24MS. FRANOVICH: Yeah, with the, with the 25 30NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433license being for 40 years the utility may have 1 purchased certain components that may have a life of 2 40 years or less in which case they replace or 3refurbish those components to ensure that they perform 4their intended functions during the extended period of 5 operation.

6 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

7 MR. ADAMS: All the components have --

8 MS. FRANOVICH: No.

9 MR. CAMERON: Sir.

10 MS. FRANOVICH: No.

11MR. CAMERON: Sir, we need to get you, you 12 know, on the transcript so.

13MS. FRANOVICH: Those that may have a 14design life for 40 years or less may be replaced or 15refurbished to ensure that their intended functions 16 are performed. That's what we inspect.

17 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Let's go 18 to one other question here and then go to, to the 19 draft EIS.

20 Yes, sir.21MR. ANAN: My name is Robert Anan. I just 22 want to, I, I think what the gentleman is getting at 23 is I'd like to ask the engineer, there was an engineer 24over here. The major components of that plant I think 25 31NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 what the guy was trying to get at is anything that's 1built like that the critical stages of when it's 2 break, it's break in point and when it ages.

3And I'd just like to know from the 4engineer if, if indeed that is, that's correct. Just 5 a yes or no would be fine.

6 MR. CAMERON: And the question is whether 7the critical point is the break in period and then in, 8 as it gets --

9 MR. ANAN: As it --

10MR. CAMERON: -- to its end of its useful 11 life --12 MR. ANAN: Yeah.

13 MR. CAMERON: -- aging.

14 MR. ANAN: Exactly.

15 MR. CAMERON: All right. John.

16 MR. ELLEGOOD: What you're thinking of is 17with components you typically have a infant mortality 18 and, and 19 a life mortality of the component when it fails.

20 At the power plants they do routine 21inspection surveillance as preventive maintenance 22activities on components a lot of predictive 23maintenance to determine if that particular component 24is nearing it's end of life and try to replace it for 25 32NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 pro actively before it fails.

1 As part of the license renewal process 2there was an exten sive evaluation of the aging 3management programs to make sure that they were in 4 place and licensing was doing additional inspections 5above and beyond what they had historically been doing 6 to find out those types of issues.

7For example a pipe a certain wall 8thickness eventually is going to erode, make sure they 9have a process in plan to determine the remaining wall 10 thickness and replace that pipe if necessary.

11So the answer becomes they had an ongoing 12program and the license renewal process adds 13additional inspection activities and aging management 14 activities to replace components before they fail.

15 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, John.

16We're going to go to Dr. D ave Miller to 17talk about the findings in the draft environmental 18impact statement now. And then we'll go back to your 19 questions.

20DR. MILLER: Thank you, Chip. Is the sound 21 level okay back there, great.

22Good evening. As Chip said I'm from 23Argonne National Lab. We're in Chicago and the NRC 24has contracted with us to provide the expertise 25 33NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 necessary to evaluate the impacts, the environmental 1 impacts as a result of license renewal at Palisades.

2 My team consists of nine members from 3Argonne National Lab plus one member from the Lawrence 4 Livermore National Lab in California.

5As you can see on the screen here the 6categories of expertise that we provide are 7atmospheric sciences, socioeconomics, archaeology, 8terrestrial ecology, aquatic ecology, land use, 9radiation protection, nuclear safety, hydrology and 10 regulatory compliance.

11One of the things that's important to note 12is how we actually quantify impacts. And when we use 13the terms small, moderate and large they're used in 14 context.15For each environmental issue identified an 16impact level is assigned. And so when we say a small 17impact it means the effect is not detectable or is too 18small to destabilize or noticeably alter any important 19 attribute of a resource.

20For a moderate impact the effect is 21sufficient to alter noticeably but not destabilize 22 important attributes of that resource.

23And finally for an impact to be considered 24large the effect must be clearly noticeable and 25 34NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433sufficient to destabilize important attributes of the 1 resource.2I'll use a short example to provide a 3 little more clarity on that.

4 It's a, we'll use a hypothetical fishery 5in Lake Michigan and illustrate how we use these three 6 criteria.7 A plant may ca use the loss of adult and 8juvenile fish at an intake structure. If the loss of 9the fish is so small that it can't be detected in 10relation to the total population in the lake the 11 impact would be considered small.

12 If losses cause the population to decline 13and then stabilize at some lower level the impact 14 would be considered moderate.

15 If losses at the intake cause the fish 16 population to decline to the point where it can't be 17stabilized and continually declines then the impact 18 would be large.

19This slide goes to the kind of information 20 and the sources of information that we gather.

21When my team evaluates the impacts from 22 continued operations at the Palisades Plants, at the 23Palisades Plant we considered information from a wide 24 variety of sources.

25 35NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433We considered what the licensee had to say 1 in the environmental report. We considered, we 2conducted a site audit during which we toured the 3site. Interviewed plant personnel and reviewed 4 documentation of plant operations.

5We also talked to federal, state and local 6 officials as well as local service agencies. And we 7also consider the comments that come in from the 8public during the scoping period. These comments are 9provided in Appendix A of this draft supplemental 10environmental impact statement along with NRC's 11 responses to those comments.

12 This collective body of information then 13 is the basis for the analysis and preliminary 14 conclusions in the Palisades supplement.

15We'll talk about the structure of the 16document, the actual environmental impacts and how we 17 look at them in continued operation.

18The central analysis and the supplement 19 are presented in Chapters 2, 4, 5 and 8. In Chapter 202 we discuss the plant, its operation and the 21 environment around the plant.

22In Chapter 4 we look at the environmental 23impacts of routine operations during the 20 year 24license renewal term. And as part of those impacts 25 36NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 the team looks at the following issues. They are all 1but the last one which we address in Chapter 5 the 2cooling system, transmission lines, radiologic 3 impacts, socioeconomic, groundwater use and quality, 4 threatened or endangered species.

5And then in Chapter 5 that contains the 6 assessment of accidents.

7At this point I'd like to make a 8 distinction. Environmental impacts from routine day 9to day operation of the Palisades Plant for another 20 10years are considered separately from the impacts that 11could result from potential accidents during the 12 license renewal term.

13 I will discuss impacts from the routine 14operations. Mr. Palla will discuss impacts from 15 accidents following my presentation.

16Then in Chapter 8 we describe the 17alternatives to the proposed license renewal and their 18 environmental impacts.

19Each of these issue areas are discussed in 20the detail in the Palis ades supplement and I'm just 21 going to provide the highlights.

22So for cooling system impacts. If you 23remember from previous presentation there are category 24two issues [which] are site specific issues. And 25 37NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433there were no s ite sp ecific cooling system impact 1issues related to this closed cycle cooling system 2 operation at the Palisades Plant.

3 As part of the preliminary findings there 4 was no new and significant information identified.

5Now there are a number of category one 6 issues related to the cooling system. These include 7 issues related to discharge of sanitary waste, minor 8 chemical spills, metals and chlorine.

9 As you remember the category one issues 10are ones where NRC has already determi ned that the 11 impacts from these are small.

12 My team evaluated all information we had 13available to us to see if there was any information 14 that was both new and significant for these category 15one issues. We didn't find any new and significant 16information and therefore we had thought that the 17NRC's generic conclusions that the impact of the 18 cooling system is small.

19Next we'll talk about radiological 20impacts. Radiological impacts are also a category one 21 issue. And the NRC has made a generic determination 22that the impact of radiological release during nuclear 23plant operations during the 20 year license renewal 24 periods are small.

25 38NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 But because these releases are a concern 1 I want to discuss them in detail.

2Nuclear plants are designed to release 3radiological effluents in the environment. Palisades 4is no different from any other plant and Palisades 5does release radiological effluents to the 6 environment. During our site visit we looked at the 7effluent release and monitoring program and we looked 8 at the documentation associated with that program.

9We looked at how the gaseous and liquid 10effluents were treated and released as well as how the 11 solid wastes were treated, packaged and shipped.

12 We also looked at how the applicant 13determines and demonstrates that they are in 14compliance with regulations for release of 15 radiolog ical effluents. And we looked at data from 16onsite and near site locations and we looked to see 17that the applicant monitors for airborne releases and 18direct radiation and at other monitoring stations 19beyond the site boundary including locations where 20 water, milk, fish and food products are sampled.

21 We found that the maximum calculated doses 22for a member of the public are well within the annual 23limits. Since relea ses from the plant are not 24expected to increase on a year to year basis during 25 39NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433the 20 year license renewal term and since we found no 1new and significant information related to this issue 2 we adopted the generic conclusion that the 3radiological impact on human health and the 4 environment is small.

5Another issue is threatened and endangered 6 species. Threatened or endangered species.

7The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has 8determined that there are four terrestrial species 9federally listed as threatened or endangered that have 10the potential to occur at Palisades or along it's 11 transmission lines.

12These are the Pitcher's Thistle, Karner 13Blue Butterfly, Mitchell's Satyr Butterfly and the 14 Indiana Bat. The eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake has 15 been identified as a candidate for listing.

16Our review has indicated that the 17continued operation of Palisades during the license 18renewal term would not likely have any adverse affect 19on these species. The applicant currently has no 20 plans for refurbishment activities that could affect 21 the habitat of these species.

22The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 23determined there was no need for a biological 24assessment or further consultation under Section 7 of 25 40NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 the Endangered Species Act.

1Based on this the staff's preliminary 2 determination is that the impact of operation of the 3Palisades Nuclear Plant during the license renewal 4period on a threat to endanger species would be small.

5The last issue I'd like to talk about from 6Chapter 4 is cumulative impacts. These are impacts 7that are minor when considered individually but 8 significant when considered with other past, present 9 or reasonably foreseeable future actions regardless of 10 what agency or person undertakes the other actions.

11The staff considered cumulative impacts 12resulting from the operation of the cooling water 13 system, operation of transmission lines, releases of 14radiation and radiological material, sociological 15impacts, groundwater use and quality impacts, and the 16 threatened and endangered species impacts.

17These impacts were evaluated to the end of 18the 20 year license renewal term and I'd like to note 19that the geographical boundary of the analysis depends 20 upon the resource.

21For instance the area analyzed for 22transmission lines is different than the area analyzed 23 for the cooling system.

24Our preliminary determination is that any 25 41NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433cumulative impacts resulting from the operation of 1Palisades Nuclear Plant during the renewal period 2 would be small.

3 There were other impacts evaluated. The 4team also looked at all issues for uranium the fuel 5cycle and solid waste management as well as 6 decommissioning and they are considered category one 7 issues.8Because they are category one we looked 9for new and significant info rmation and no new and 10 significant information was brought forward from any 11 of the sources that we worked with as part of our 12 evaluation process.

13 So as I mentioned we also look at 14alternatives to what this plant might be able to, what 15 this plant produces.

16My team evaluated potential environmental 17impact associated with Palisades not continuing 18 operations and you, so the generation capacity would 19have to be replaced and that would be with alternative 20 power sources.

21The team looked at a no action 22alternative, new generation from coal fired, gas 23fired, new nuclear, purchased power, alternative 24 technologies such as wind, solar and hydro power and 25 42NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 then a combination of alternatives.

1For each alternative we looked at the same 2types of issues. For exam ple wa ter use, land use, 3 ecology, socioeconomics. You know, they're the same 4issues that we looked at for the Palisades Plant 5 during the license renewal term.

6Palisades has a net summer capacity of 786 7megawatts. So for the coal fire to natural gas 8alternatives the staff assumed there would be 9 construction of an approximately 800 megawatt plant.

10For the new nuclear alternatives we assume 11the same current capacity as the existing Palisades 12 Plant.13For two alternatives solar and wind I'd 14like to describe the scale of the alternatives that we 15considered because the scale is important in 16 understanding our conclusions.

17First for solar. Based on the average 18solar energy available in Michigan and current 19conversion efficiencies of photo -- cells and solar 20thermal cells between 17,543,758 acres would be 21required to replace the generation from the Palisades 22 Plant replace in kind.

23For wind power replacement of that base 24load i.e., 786 megawatts, would require approximately 25 43NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 120,000 acres of land.

1Due to the scale of the reasonable 2alternatives the team's preliminary conclusion is that 3the environmen tal ef fects at least in some impact 4categories could reach moderate or large significance.

5 So for our preliminary conclusions for the 669 category one issues in the generic environmental 7impact statement that related to Palisades we found no 8information that was both new and significant 9 therefore we have preliminarily adopted a conclusion 10 that the impact of these issues is small.

11 My team also analyzed the remaining 12category two issues in this supplement. Now we found 13the environmental effects resulting from these issues 14 were also small.

15During our review my team found no new 16 issues that had not already been identified.

17Last we found that the environmental 18effects of alternative of these in some impact 19categories could reach the moderate or large 20 significance.

21Now I think after a question I'll turn it 22 over to Bob Palla, is that correct?

23MR. CAMERON: We're going to get a bunch of 24 questions so if you could just --

25 44NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 DR. MILLER: Oh --

1 MR. CAMERON: Maybe we won't get a bunch 2 but we'll get some questions --

3MR. PHAM: Chip, I just wanted to follow up 4with Kathy on her question and, and we verified in our 5document that the State of Michigan does license 6Palisades to, to use Chlorine, Bromine and Amine as 7 far as their permit for biocides.

8 MR. CAMERON: And if you could when after 9 the meeting why don't you point out where that is to 10 her so she can see the content. But let's go, thank 11 you, Bo.12 Let's go to see if there is questions on 13the, the analysis on the presentation you just heard.

14Any, any questions on, on that. Yes. And just please 15 introduce yourself to us.

16MS. MORGAN: My name is Jeanise Morgan. I 17was wondering what does it take to get denied or, you 18 know, the license denied. And has this group ever 19 done that?

20 MR. CAMERON: Okay, good, thanks Denise.

21 MS. MORGAN: Jeanise with a J.

22MR. CAMERON: Jeanise, I'm sorry. Jeanise, 23two questions is what does it take for a denial. That 24means all the different parts of the analysis and what 25 45NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 is our history in terms of denial, how do we modify 1 applications that come in.

2 Bo, do you want to start us off on that?

3MR. PHAM: Ye ah, the first part of that 4question what does it take to deny a requ est is 5basically the standard that I had, that I put up 6 before is we look at the environmental impact to see 7 if it's large enough to the point where it would be 8 unreasonable for us to leave -- as an option.

9Now that sounds like a very subjective 10 measure I realize that but it's, it goes back to for 11example the hypothetical example that Dave used on the 12 fishery on the lake for example.

13MS. MORGAN: Can you give me a real example 14 of one that you denied?

15MR. CAMERON: Let him, let him get there 16 and we'll go to that.

17MR. PHAM: So that's the answer to the 18 first part --

19 MR. CAMERON: That's why it's, it's not a 20complete answer in the sense that that's only the one 21part of the review the environmental part of the 22 review.23 MS. MORGAN: I understand that but I just 24 want an example have you ever --

25 46NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433MR. PHAM: From a, yeah, from an 1environmental perspective if a resource is impacted to 2the point where it cannot be sustained is the general 3 answer on that, okay.

4 MS. MORGAN: Is that --

5MR. PHAM: The second part of, the second 6part of your question has it ever been denied. No, 7 the NRC has never denied. We have, we have returned 8applications to applicants because of lacking of 9information or inadequate formatting of the 10 information that they provided us. I remember, the 11 process isn't a go no go process.

12 The applicant submits their application.

13We review it for consistency with our standards and if 14 it contains the adequate information that's required 15 per regulation.

16Now if it doesn't to the point where it's 17not, it's not quite at the, you know, at the effort 18 where we should be putting the effort into doing the 19review without adequate information then we will 20return it to the applicant and have them look at it 21again or review it for quality of purpose prior to 22 trying to, to trying to submit such a document.

23MR. CAMERON: And Rani, do you have 24 anything to add to that for Jenise?

25 47NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433MS. FRANOVICH: Did that answer your 1 question or are you satisfied with that answer?

2MS. MORGAN: I was hoping for a good 3example of one you might have stopped because it just 4 seems to me there would be one that would need to be 5 shut down.

6 MS. FRANOVICH: Okay.

7MS. MORGAN: And I'm sure you have a lot of 8 years under your belt to say that there would be one 9 that was just so bad it shut down.

10MS. FRANOVICH: Well, to tell you the truth 11when applicant comes to the NRC with a license renewal 12application they have advanced invested a substantial 13amount of time and money in putting together their 14application to demonstrate to the NRC that that plant 15will be safe to operate and will not adversely impact 16 the environment.

17 If an applicant cannot do that then they 18will probably decide not to apply for license renewal 19 because it's costly endeavor.

20 So if an applicant feels they cannot 21demonstrate that to the NRC they will not pursue 22 license renewal.

23MR. CAMERON: Okay. That, I think might 24give Jeanise an idea of why a lot of the applications 25 48NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 end up being granted --

1 MS. FRANOVICH: The applications will be 2typically accepted by the NRC we have returned 3applications that we felt were not adequ ate or 4 sufficient for us to conduct our review.

5MS. MORGAN: But 100 percent of those have 6 been okayed then? 100 percent?

7MS. FRANOVICH: Well, when we, when we get 8 the application we review it. We typically will ask 9 a number, a large number of additional questions.

10When I was project manager for license renewal for 11Catawba and McGuire we had 273 requests for additional 12 information.

13 So the application comes, the staff looks 14at it. The staff almost always is not satisfied with 15 that which is in the application. So we engage with 16the, with the applicant to get more information so 17we're satisfied that continued operation of the plant 18 will be safe.

19MS. MORGAN: I guess it's just hard to 20believe that never one has never been, you know, 21 denied like that.

22 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

23 MS. BARNES: Wasn't there two --

24MR. CAMERON: We're going to go, Kathryn 25 49NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433please just don't just speak out we need to try to get 1 people in turn --

2 MS. BARNES: I think --

3MR. CAMERON: -- and get them on the 4record and we're going to go to this gentleman over 5 here. Please introduce yourself, sir.

6MR. KAUFFMAN: Maynard Kauffman. And I 7 have a question for Dr. Miller and ask if you really 8want to stand by those figures that you cited on wind 9energy 125,000 acres for I presume the kind of 10 megawatts the plant currently produces.

11If you, if you, if you do the calculations 12here I know there's been machines that put out four 13megawatts each and there could be, you know, maybe 14you'd need about 200 of them or so to do that and that 15would be about 500 acres per machine. And that makes 16 it look as if wind is really impossible but it's not.

17 And I think there's a fallacy in there.

18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Dave, do you want to 19address that and we're going to go to, to another 20 questioner.

21 DR. MILLER: Yes. The, the information I 22provided to you is in the generic environmental impact 23 statement and you'll see that in the references.

24And I would encourage you to provide us as 25 50NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 a part of you comments any additional updated 1 information that you might have on that because that 2 is exactly the kind of thing we would look at.

3MR. KAUFFMAN: All right, I appreciate 4 that.5MR. CAMERON: Thank you, thank you Maynard.

6 Yes, ma'am.

7MS. ADAMS: My name is Sandra Adams and I'm 8curious as to where Homeland Security and terrorism 9falls in this environmental impact. Are you going to 10discuss that tonight or are you going to discuss that 11 later?12 MR. PHAM: Security is part of an ongoing 13review process at the plants. So emergency 14preparedness and security are part of the everyday 15items that we look at at the NRC. And there are 16processes in place t hat look at the adequacy of the 17security of the plant. So therefore it's not part of 18the license renewal process. So we look at more than 19aging management of equipment. And in our case our 20 team looks at the environmental impacts of it.

21And so no we will not address that tonight 22 because it's beyond the scope of --

23 MR. CAMERON: And as Bo pointed out and I 24think Rani did in her presentation it's considered an 25 51NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 everyday issue that we need to look at. Yes.

1MS. ELLIGIN: My name is Mary Ann Elligin.

2I'm with the Michigan Department of Environmental 3 Quality and to answer, was it Jeneane, 4 MS. MORGAN: Jeanise.

5MS. ELLIGIN: Jeanise's question we had Big 6Rock Point out just a couple years ago. They went 7through this study prior to putting it down to the NRC 8and submitting it and they decided they could no 9 longer operate under this kind of condition.

10And so the plants themselves are wise 11enough not to pay to go through the NRC process and to 12 take themselves off.

13 MS. MORGAN: Yeah, I knew about that.

14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, thank you 15 very much. Let's go over here. Yes.

16MS. TIDWELL:

Hi, I'm Carol Tidwell. I 17 just have a question about the Argonne National Lab.

18Is that related to the government? Is it part of the 19 government --

20DR. MILLER: Argonne National Laboratory is 21one of a number of national laboratories. The, the 22 structure is such that the Department of Energy owns 23 our facilities but we are operated under contract to 24 the government by the University of Chicago.

25 52NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433Other labs are operated by other 1consortiums typically universities but sometimes 2 they're corporations of some sort.

3MS. TIDWELL: So is there, is there a 4private not connected to the government agency that 5 reviews these plans/

6MR. PHAM: Yes, actually we are using a 7contractor Earthtech that is doing the review for one 8 of other plants as well.

9MR. CAMERON: And you might want to note 10that whenever, for any contractor that we use to help 11us with this there is a specific conflict of interest 12review that has to take place to make sure there's no 13conflicts between who is doing it and the work they're 14 doing. So is that right, Bo?

15 MR. PHAM: Yes. The answer is yes we are 16 using commercial contractors.

17MR. CAMERON: Okay.

Did you want to add 18 anything, Rani?

19MS. FRANOVICH: I just wanted to affirm 20what you said, Chip. We cannot use a contractor that 21is for example engaged in doing work for the very 22 applicant that has requested license renewal.

23MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's to Mr. Hannan 24 and then Kathryn.

25 53NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 MR. HANNAN: I, you mentioned the amounts 1of radiation that are admitted or released annually 2was small. Does radiation accumulate in the body over 3time? And has anybody ever tested people who live in 4Covert medically to see the amounts of radiation that, 5 that are in their bodies?

6MR. CAMERON: Okay. Two, two good 7questions. And one of them is the accumulation and 8the second one is whether there has ever been a health 9 study done --

10 MR. HANNAN: Yes.

11 MR. CAMERON: -- on, on radiation here.

12MR. PHAM: I'm going to try to answer this 13 man and Rich can help me in the back there.

14 But to answer the question yes radiation 15does accumulate in the body. The amount of radiation 16 released from the plant is in our definition per the 17EPA standard. We don't look at specifically at the 18content but at the dose that's received from the 19population and that's the standard we're, we're 20 looking at.

21The second part of your question I believe 22you were asking is anybody looking, looked at the 23accumulation, Rich, which could you provide additional 24 information on that.

25 54NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

1MR. EMCH: Yes, I'll be happy to. My name 2 is Richard Emch and I'm a health physicist and I work 3 for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

4To get back to the first question, sir, 5about, about accumulation in the body. Yes, there is, 6there is some chance of accumulation in the body. And 7in fact there are certain radio nuclides that you have 8in your body all the time no matter how far away from 9 a nuclear power plant you live, okay.

10In addition to that though I wanted to 11point out the dose models that are used where we 12calculate doses and let's say you receive a certain 13amount of -- or something like that from the plant the 14 dose models that we calculate have what we call a 50 15 year dose commitment.

16 In other words we're saying when we 17 calculate the dose we're saying the dose that you're 18going to receive from this amount of radioactive 19material, we're, we're estimating what that dose is 20 going to be over a 50 year period.

21We're assigning it all in the one year but 22 it's estimated over a 50 year period.

23The second question I believe was about 24 health effects about monitoring of heath effects.

25 55NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433MR. CAMERON: And whether there's ever been 1 a study of health effects in Covert --

2MR. EMCH: In 1990 the, the Congress 3commissioned the National Cancer Institute to do an 4evaluation of, of available data about cancer 5incidents around nuclear power plants. And then they 6also looked at control, what we call control counts 7 and Palisades was one of the plants that they looked 8 at.9And the conclusion was that they saw no 10increased incidents, no, no evidence of increased 11 incidents of cancer from living near a nuclear power 12 plant. And that includes Palisades.

13Beyond that what I would like to point out 14 and I'll give you an example of why that's the case.

15Earlier Dave said that the doses from, 16 were very small. In reality the doses are less than 17 100 th of one milligram per year maximum dose for an 18 individual living or working near a power plant.

19For usefulness of comparison the 20 standards, the EPA standard is 25 milligram per year 21from the entire fuel cycle. The, if you go to the 22dentist and get dental X-rays you're probably looking 23at 5 to 20 milligram. You take a cross country flight 24you're probably looking at 2 to 5 milligram. Just by 25 56NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433being an inhabitant of planet earth you're getting in 1the neighborhood of 300 milligram a year from all 2 sources including radon.

3So you can see that the doses, the 4difference in doses here we're talking this much 5 versus this much.

6That's, that kind of thing is not going to 7show up in hea lth studies. And so as far as I know 8 there's been nothing specific done in Covert.

9Now we did talk to the state agencies to, 10to the State of Michigan about this and they indicated 11that they were aware of no problem. So we did look at 12 that as well.

13 MR. CAMERON: Great, thank you. Kathryn.

14 Let me get you this microphone.

15MS. BARNES: Yeah, two things. First of 16all I believe that there was a couple of the reactors 17in the State of Maine. The Yankee Row and another one 18that were trying to get re licensed and they were 19denied a re licensing. And also I have heard, read 20that the level for nuclear power plant workers is 21higher as if they're super human. In other words 22their level for milligrams per year is higher than an 23 average person.

24And I also read that the, the standards 25 57NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433for how much, how many milligrams per year a person 1can have was increased. And I wonder how that's 2justifiable. I don't believe there their 3physiological beings are any different than anybody 4 else's. So two things.

5 MS. FRANOVICH: Actually I counted three.

6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And the first one in 7 terms of --

8 MS. FRANOVICH: Yankee Row and --

9 MR. CAMERON: -- Yankee --

10MS. FRANOVICH: Yankee Row was considering 11license renewal back in the early to mid 90s before we 12actually even finished our rule and realized that they 13 really could not demonstrate that the plant could be 14run safely. It didn't generate a large number of 15 megawatts.

16And so they made a business decision to 17not go through license renewal. In fact I think they 18 actually shut down and are decommissioning.

19 As far as Maine Yankee goes they did not 20ever file for license renewal either. They also 21decided to shut down the plant. It was a business 22 decision. They did not produce a lot of electricity 23to, either. And so they decided to shut down and they 24 are decommission those, that plant.

25 58NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 So no those plants never did come in for 1renewal. One of them I know did consider it and 2 decided for economic reasons not to.

3 The second question or second comment.

4MR. CAMERON: Question is the standards for 5 the radiation doses that workers at a plant can get, 6 are --7 MS. FRANOVICH: It's a different standard 8--9MR. CAMERON: -- higher than the standard 10for the general public is, is what Kathryn was saying 11--12MS. FRANOVICH: I believe that's the case 13--14MR. CAMERON: -- is that, is that true and 15 why. Do you want Rich to do it or do you want to do 16 it?17MS. FRANOVICH: I'm going to let Rich 18comment on that but I think she also made an assertion 19that they receive higher levels than the general 20 public.21MS. BARNES: No, that the level was 22 increased for the general public --

23MS. FRANOVICH: The standard was increased.

24 MS. BARNES: Yes.

25 59NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 MS. FRANOVICH: Okay, Rich.

1MR. CAMERON: Okay. We got an answer over 2 here, Kathryn. Richard.

3MR. EMCH: Okay. I'm a little confused.

4I'm going to try it and if I don't quite get it you 5 let me know, okay.

6 I am not aware of any increase in 7 radiation standards for either members of the public 8 or for occ upational workers ever. I, I don't ever 9remember seeing that. Occupational workers are 10limited by Part 20 to five rem, I was talking earlier 11about millirem. Now I'm takimg rem, five rem per year 12 for an occupational exposure limitation.

13And as I said before the 10CFR, I'm sorry 14 40CFR190 which is the EPA regulations, we have a set 15 of regulations ourselves but they're, but they're 16 supposed implement the, the EPA regulations.

17The EPA regulations are, must be less than 18 25 millirem to any member of the public from the 19entire fuel cycle and that includes Palisades or, you 20know, if another plant was nearby it would be both 21 plants are included.

22Did I cover what you were asking? I'm not 23 sure I did but.

24 MR. CAMERON: Why are they higher?

25 60NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433MS. BARNES: So there is, there is a 1 different standard, there's a different standard?

2MR. EMCH: There's a different standard for 3 members of the public and for --

4 MS. BARNES: Right.

5MR. EMCH: -- occupational, for workers 6 yes.7MS. BARNES: Right. They're stand, they 8can tolerate supposedly more radiation than average 9 people.10MR. EMCH: Actually in fact biologically 11no. They're just very healthy members of the public, 12 okay. And, and in fact a member of the public could 13get five rem and you would probably see no, no health 14 impact on them either, okay.

15But the belief is because the worker makes 16a conscious decision to work at the plant and, and 17 undergo whatever risk there is just like working at, 18 if you're a fireman or a, or a policeman or whatever 19 there's certain risks inherent with your job.

20But occupational worker like at the plant 21makes a decision that he's going to incur those risks, 22okay. The plant does a good job of trying to make 23 sure that he gets a very low dose.

24When we're talking about members of the 25 61NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433public that's a different story. You folks aren't 1volunteering for anything in terms of radiation 2 exposure so that's why the standard is so much lower 3 for members of the public.

4MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. And I just 5want to go the State of Michigan to add anything that 6she wants to on this. We're going to take a couple 7more questions and then we're going to go to Bob Palla 8 so we can hear about the severe accident aspect. Go 9 ahead.10AUDIENCE: I just want to back Rich up. As 11 a radiation worker I have protective clothing and I 12also have other protective features that we have 13available to us. These are not available to the 14public. So politically we have determined that the 15public needs a lower dose because you are not aware of 16what you can do to help your dose. And you're not 17 aware of that you're getting the dose.

18So the State of Michigan chose an even 19lower one than the DPH standard and we have our own 20 administrative limits for our public.

21MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank you 22 very much. Let's go over here and then Ken and then 23 Maureen. Go ahead.

24MR. ADAMS: Wade Adams. I have a couple of 25 62NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 questions actually. One goes to the lady over here.

1It's my reco llec tion that Big Rock went, went into 2service about 1959 or 60 about 11 years before 3Palisades. And it's my recollection that Big Rock has 4not been running really as a power plant for some 5number of years here now.

And it's got a lot of 6 trouble.7 So that means that if you go ahead and, 8and renew this y ou'll be, this reactor will be far 9exceeding the line time of the Big Rock Plant in terms 10 of production.

11 My second question is to the health 12scientist. Is there any level of radiation where you 13 cannot achieve an increase in incidents of cancer.

14It is my underst anding that there is a 15linear relationship and there is no threshold between 16the incidents of cancer and your exposure to 17 radiation, the lifetime.

18MR. CAMERON: All right. I don't know what 19 we can say about the Big Rock comparison to, to this 20plant. I don't think we'll be able to say anything 21 about that.

22But, Rich, can you talk about the, the, 23 you know, the linear no dose threshold and maybe you 24can go up there and do that and then we're going to go 25 63NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 to this young lady here and over here and then we'll 1 go back to a presentation.

2MR. EMCH: It wasn't actually part of what 3I was supposed to answer but I think you're, you're 4assumption is correct, sir, if the, if the, if 5 Palisades is granted a renewed license I'm sure they 6 will operate longer than Big Rock Point did.

7 MR. CAMERON: Can --

8MR. EMCH: I'm sorry, can you not hear me?

9 MR. CAMERON: We want to go to the --

10MR. EMCH: To what I'm really up here for?

11 MR. CAMERON: Yeah.

12 MR. EMCH: Okay. Fair enough, all right.

13 Yes, sir, you are correct. And in fact the NRC does 14stand by what's called the linear non threshold 15theory. You've seen it probably in a number of 16 places. It was mostly recently reconfirmed in 17something called the BIER 7 report which I earlier 18 today somebody mentioned to us.

19And basically this theory is that there 20is, that there is some but there is no actual 21threshold that this is some amount of risk associated 22with any amount of exposure. Okay, very 23 simplistically, okay.

24What I was, and, and the NRC follows that, 25 64NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433that theory as do most of the, the low radiation 1protection community does. And, and that's part of 2why the, the, those limits that I was talking about 3 for the public are as low as they are.

4Earlier when I said that there was I think 5I think I mentioned something about no recorded or no 6health effects below five rems or something like that 7 I was talking about things that had been reported or 8 things that had been found in the studies.

9But again back to the very basic 10philosophy. The NRC's philosophy, the NRC's theory 11our, our regulations are based on the concept of a 12 linear non threshold theory, yes.

13MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you and there is 14 a discussion of the BIER 7 report in the draft 15 environmental impact statement.

16Do you have a quick follow up, sir, 17 because we really need to move on.

18AUDIENCE: Well, I wondered if I, I presume 19that you couldn't calculate an increase number of 20cancers that would develop because of the increased 21 exposure to radiation in the locality of this plant.

22And second the study you cited that was 23commissioned by the National Cancer Institute was a 24 bonafide epidemiology study that, that really looked 25 65NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 for a hot spot.

1MR. EMCH: What they did was they looked at 2 all of the available data from various counties, the 3counties where these, where these plants were located, 4control counties that, that would presumably not have 5 any effects from them and that we can certainly give 6 you that information.

7It's, it's full of information like, I 8don't want to get into it because it actually, some of 9 it I have trouble understanding.

10But I'm a health physicist not an 11epidemiologist, that's why I have some difficulty with 12 part of it.

13I'm sorry, what was the, there was another 14 part of it or? Oh, yes, yes.

15Actually these the, the international 16committees like the international, I can never 17remember, it's commission and radiation protection, I 18believe it is, they have, there's a publication ICRP-1960 that does have coefficients that you can, that you 20 multiply these coefficients times a dose.

21If you say this person got a certain dose 22 you can calculate it times those coefficients.

23Now if you took, those coefficients are 24 really intended to be used for population dose. But 25 66NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433if you took those coefficients and multiplied them 1times a number like .01 milligram per year it's, it's 2 not worth doing. It's so small.

3MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Rich. Yes.

4MS. OVERHEISER: My name is Liz Overheiser 5 and I have two questions involving the last point on 6 the board there.

7That includes, well, yes I guess, all of, 8and when you consider those solar and wind power would 9that be like a centralized like field of windmills and 10--11 MR. PHAM: Yeah. The, the model --

12 MS. OVERHEISER: -- sun panels.

13MR. PHAM: Again the modeling assumption, 14 can you hear me okay.

15The modeling assumption is that Palisades 16produces a certain amount of megawatts right now, 780 17 plus some change.

18The, so what we look at as an alternative 19 is a, that we're going to replace that we need 20 something to provide the same capacity.

21And so whether the, the wind farm is 22separated into several different areas or all 23centralized in one location. The bottom line is you, 24we have certain, some [thumb]rules that we have for X 25 67NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433amount of, a certain number of, of megawatts per 1 acreage for the wind farm production.

2So in the end aggregately you're going to 3need that much acreage, you know, even if it's in one 4 place or all separated.

5 MS. OVERHEISER: Well, I'm --

6MR. CAMERON: Okay. Do you want to a 7 follow up there, go ahead.

8MR. OVERHEISER: I'm worried about like the 9environmental effects. Is that moderate or large 10 considering that it would be all in one place.

11MR. CAMERON: And there's a, there's a 12good, a good point is that conceivably there would be 13 different environmental effects depending on whether 14it was centralized or decentralized. Good comment 15also but Dave can you talk to, to that in terms of how 16 we considered that in the draft? Thank you.

17DR. MILLER: It, it does depend on what 18alternative source you're talking about. Now for 19 instance the gas, coal, they have to be in one place 20 to replace that base load.

21The, the combination of alternatives that 22 we look at which would mean drawing from more than one 23 single source to make up that amount would therefore 24be a smaller incremental part compared to the overall 25 68NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 whole.1 I hope I'm getting to your question.

2 Because, because the impacts then are looked at. So 3for the one where you'd need a coal plant on an entire 4 site that would look at consuming that entire site.

5For the kind of individual piecing 6together of different sources of energy then it's 7 fractioned by the amount they contribute. So that's 8how the impacts are evaluated. Does that get to what 9 you're after?

10MR. CAMERON: And maybe, maybe we should 11 also consider that as a comment.

12 DR. MILLER: Yeah, I was about to say --

13 MR. CAMERON: Yeah, okay --

14DR. MILLER: -- I mean that's something 15 we, we are going to take away with us today. It's a 16 simple answer and current modeling in what we looked 17at in alternatives. Yes, it's all collectively or is 18 all centralized in one location.

19MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let me, let me try to, 20 I know we have two people here we haven't heard from, 21from you. So let me, let's j ust do some, try to do 22 this quickly so we can get --

23MS. ANDERSON: Elizabeth Anderson. I would 24like to ask Rani this question. You know, because --

25 69NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 if you really feel that a place should be shut down 1are you allowed to deny the license renewal or are you 2 only allowed to give recommendations?

3MS. FRANOVICH: If we feel that a plant 4needs to be shut down license renewal is not even a 5consideration. We will issue an order to shut them 6 down when we feel it is necessary.

7License renewal is should they extend 8operation from the end of their current term, which is 9 a 40 year terms, for another 20 years.

10 If we have a concern about utilities 11performance today to the point w here we're not 12 comfortable with letting them continue to operate we 13 won't wait for license renewal to take action.

14 MS. ANDERSON: This recommendation --

15MR. CAMERON: The NRC is not an advisory 16body. They're a regulatory body and if the 17 regulations are, are violated and the plant needs to 18 be shut down we have the authority to --

19MS. FRANOVICH: We have the authority to 20issue an order to shut the plant down. We have a 21number of other tools in our toolbox to either impose 22additional requirements if we feel that there are 23safety issues at the plant and to enforce existing 24 requirements to demand information.

25 70NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433I mean we're a regulatory agency. We, we 1determine whether or not a plant is safe enough to 2operate. And if we don't think that they're safe 3 enough to operate irrespective of license renewal we 4 will take the actions that --

5MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you for that 6question too. And Ken and then with Corrine and then 7 Bob are you ready.

8MR. RICHARD: I have a quick one for the 9health risk physicist. When you were answer ing her 10question you were -- alpha, beta, gamma radiation like 11 it was altogether, it's all the same thing. And now 12you're talking about normal background; can you 13 explain to me the difference between alpha, beta and 14gamma radiation 15MR. CAMERON: We have them, we have them 16behind you right over here. Okay, Rich, you got a 17 question, right?

18 MR. EMCH: Yes.

19MR. CAMERON: Okay, good. And Corrine 20we're going to go to you and then we're going to go 21 back to presentations.

22 MR. EMCH: As you pointed out, sir, there 23are a number of different kinds of radiation alpha, 24beta, gamma and neutrons. Actually if you look at 25 71NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433some of the documents you'll find that we even 1attribute a diff erent quality of factor to fission 2 product fragments.

3MR. CAMERON: Speak up, Richard, if you 4 can.5MR. EMCH: Okay. And all, I mean all this 6 is when, when I'm saying a dose I'm usually talking in 7 terms of the whole body or total body dose, okay.

8But we do also look at organ doses. We 9look at internal, you know, doses taken through 10ingestion and through inhalation. And, and when we do 11that that's when you really start, that's when the 12ones like the alpha and the, and the beta really start 13to come into play because they're really not dangerous 14 at all outside of the body but once they get inside 15 the body they can be, yes.

16And those are included in the dose models, 17 yes, sir.18 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Corrine.

19MS. CAREY: Yes. Regarding the screen that 20is showing up there. Which one of those is 21insignificant? Small, moderate, large. Because time 22and again I keep he aring reference to impact is 23 insignificant.

24MR. CAMERON:

Can you just give us, why 25 72NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433don't you discuss the individual items and explain 1 those very quickly to Corrine and I think it will be 2 obvious, Dave.

3 MS. CAREY: I wanted a specific answer --

4 MR. CAMERON: Right.

5MS. CAREY: -- and I wanted to know if 6significance is a matter of a cu mula tive situation 7 like radiation is itself and if so at what numerical 8 point does insignificance become significant.

9MR. CAMERON: Okay. We got a little bit 10more information on what Corrine's question is with 11 that. Do you think you can --

12 DR. MILLER: I think I can.

13 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

14 DR. MILLER: And Corrine help me --

15 MR. CAMERON: Good.

16 DR. MILLER: -- if I don't get it.

17 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

18DR. MILLER: We try to be very careful not 19to call anything insignificant in our evaluations. In 20fact we try to stick because of the definitions I 21 provided earlier to small, moderate and large.

22And if I use the term insignificant 23anywhere I, I should be corrected. But I, I hope that 24 I didn't. I don't think I did.

25 73NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 In terms of quantification there are 1elements of these that simply aren't quantifiable but 2we use weight of evidence and multiple lines of 3evidence to come to the conclusion about whether it's 4 a small, medium or large.

5And we use those definitions that I had 6provided earlier and we would skip back to them if you 7like. That, that, to look at the impact to the 8resource that we're concerned about and, and in 9essence the semi quantitative magnitude of that 10 impact.11MR. CAMERON: Okay. And if, if Corrine 12needs further information please, please talk to her.

13Bob Palla. Thank you, thank you both, Dave and thank 14 you Rich and Rani. Bob.

15MR. PALLA: Good evening, my name is Bob 16Palla. I'm with the division of risk assessment at 17NRC. I'm going to be discussing the environmental 18 impacts of postulated accidents.

19 These impacts are described in Section 5 20 of the generic environmental impact statement or the 21GEIS. The GEIS evaluates two classes of accidents.

22They're called design basis accidents and severe 23 accidents.

24Design basis accidents consist of a broad 25 74NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433spectrum of postulated accidents that both the 1licensee and the NRC staff evaluate to ensure that the 2 plant can respond without undue risk to the public.

3The ability of the plant to withstand 4these accidents had to be demonstrated before the 5 plant is granted a license.

6Since the licensee has to demonstrate 7acceptable performance for these design basis 8accidents th rough out the life of the plant the 9commission has determined that the environmental 10impact of design basis accidents is of small 11 significance.

12Neither the licensee nor the NRC is aware 13 of any new and significant information on the 14capability of Palisades Plant to withstand design 15 basis accidents. Therefore the staff concludes that 16there are no impacts related to design basis accidents 17 beyond those discussed in the GEIS.

18The second category of accidents evaluated 19 in the GEIS are, are the severe accidents. So these 20accidents are by definition more severe than design 21basis because they could involve substantial damage to 22 the reactor core.

23The commission found in the GEIS that the 24risk of a severe accident is small for all plants.25 75NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433And by this I mean the probabilistically weighted 1 consequences of the accident.

2Nevertheless the commission determined 3that alternatives to mitigate accidents, severe 4accidents in particular, must be considered for all 5plants that have not done so. These alternatives are 6called SAMAs or severe accident mitigation design 7 alternatives.

8The SAMA evaluation is a site specific 9assessment and it's a category two issue as described 10 earlier.11THE SAMA review for Palisades is 12 summarized in Section 5.2 of the GEIS supplement and 13 is described in more detail in Appendix G of the GEIS 14 supplement.

15The purpose of performing SAMA evaluation 16is to ensure that plant changes with the potential for 17improving severe accident safety performance are both 18identified and evaluated. The scope of the potential 19plant improvements that were considered include 20hardware modifications, procedure changes, training 21program enhancements, basically a full spectrum of 22 potential changes.

23The scope includes SAMAs that would 24prevent core damage as well as SAMAs that improve 25 76NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433containment performance given that a core damage event 1 were to occur.

2SAMA evaluation process is a four step 3 process.4The first step is to characterize the 5overall plant risk and the leading contributors to 6risk. T his typically involves extensive use of the 7 plant specific probabilistic safety assessment study 8 which is also known as the PSA.

9 PSA is a study that identifies different 10combinations of system failures and human errors that 11would be required to occur together in order for an 12event to progress to either core damage or to 13 containment failure.

14The second step in this process to 15identify potential improvements that could further 16reduce risk. The information from the PSA such as the 17 dominant accident sequences is used to help identify 18plant improvements that would have the greatest impact 19 in reducing risk.

20 Improvements identified in other NRC and 21industry studies as well as S AMA an alyses that have 22 been conducted for other plants are also considered.

23The third step in the process is to 24quantify the risk reduction potential and the 25 77NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 implementation costs for each improvement. The risk 1 reduction and implementation costs for each SAMA are 2 typically estimated using a bounding approach.

3Risk reduction is generally overestimated 4 by assuming that the plant improvement is completely 5 effective in eliminating the accident sequences that 6 it's intended to address.

7Implementation costs on the other hand are 8generally underestimated by neglecting certain cost 9factors such as maintenance costs and surveillance 10 costs that are associated with the improvements.

11The risk reduction and cost estimates are 12used in the final step to determine whether 13implementation of any of the improvements can be 14 justified.

15In determining whether improvement is 16 justified the NRC staff looks at three factors. The 17 first is whether the improvement is cost beneficial.

18 In other words is the estimated benefit greater than 19 the estimated implementation cost of the SAMA.

20The second factor is whether the 21improvement provides a significant reduction in risk.

22For example does it eliminate a sequence or 23containment failure mode that contributes a large 24 fraction of the plant risk.

25 78NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433The third factor is whether the risk 1reduction is associated with aging effects during the 2 period of extended operation in which case if it was 3 we would consider implementation of the SAMA as part 4 of the license renewal process.

5The next step summarizes the results of 6the review. 23 candidate improvements were identified 7 for the Palisades Plant based on review of the plant 8specific PSA the dominant risk contributors at 9Palisades as well as SAMA analyses performed for other 10 plants.11The licensee reduced the number of 12candidate SAMAs to eight based on a multi step 13screening process. Now the factors considered during 14this screening included whether the SAMA is applicable 15to Palisades due to design differences and whether the 16SAMA would involve extensive plant changes that would 17clearly be in excess of the maximum bene fit that's 18associated with completely eliminating all severe 19 accident risk.

20The more detailed assessment of each of 21the, of the risk reduction potential and 22implementation costs -- breach of the remaining eight 23 SAMAs. This is described in detail in Appendix G of 24 the GEIS supplement.

25 79NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 The detailed cost benefit analysis shows 1that several of the SAMAs are potentially cost 2 beneficial when evaluated individually in accordance 3with the NRC guidance for performing regulatory 4 analysis.5Six of the eight SAMAs that, that 6remained, that survived this screening process were 7identified as potentially cost beneficial in the 8 licensee's environmental report.

9 As part of the staff's review four 10additional potentially cost beneficial SAMAs were 11identified. Two of these four involved lower cost 12alternatives to SAMAs that the licensee had eliminated 13in the initial screening. So there could be some 14lower cost ways to do two of the potential 15 improvements.

16 So these were identified and two 17additional ones beyond those were also identified 18where they came from some SAMA reviews that were done 19at other plants of, of similar plant design, other --

20 plants that identified two, two other SAMAs that had 21not been initi ally looked at in the environmental 22report but were looked at subsequent during the 23 staff's review in response to the staff's review and 24were also identified as possible cost beneficial SAMAs 25 80NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 at Palisades.

1So in summary a total of ten SAMAs were 2 identified as potentially cost beneficial.

3 I just want to point out that it's, that 4some of these ten SAMAs address the same risk, but in 5 a different way.

6For example once SAMA might involve 7procedure changes to improve the ability to cope with 8station blackout accidents. Where as another SAMA 9might involve hardware changes that also address 10 station blackout.

11 In such instances implementation of one of 12these SAMAs could reduce the residual risk to a point 13that the related SAMAs would no longer be cost 14 beneficial.

15Because of this interrelationship between 16 SAMAs we would not expect that implementation of all 17ten of these SAMAs would be justified on a cost 18benefit basis but instead implementation of carefully 19selected subset of the SAMAs could achieve much of the 20risk reduction and would be more effective than 21 implementing all of the SAMAs.

22So the end result is that none of the ten 23potentially cost beneficial SAMAs are linked to 24managing the effects of plant aging during the period 25 81NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 of extended operation.

1 So in accordance with the regulations they 2are not required to be implemented as part of license 3 renewal because they're not tied to aging.

4 But notwithstanding this the licensee is 5committed to further evaluate the ten SAMAs for 6possible implementation as a current operating license 7 activity.8Completion of these evaluations is 9underway and is being tracked in the licensee's plant 10 change process.

11 So that concludes my presentation and --

12 MR. CAMERON: All right, thank you.

13 MR. PALLA: -- questions.

14MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Any questions on 15SAMAs at all? Okay. We have one question, two 16questions and then we're going to go on to Bo for a 17wrap up so that we can get to you all for comments.18 And this is Kathryn.

19MS. BARNES: Yeah, if you could give me an 20example of a severe accident that might happen and the 21SAMA that you would procure for it just as an example 22 such as what would happen during a meltdown with the 23 embrittlement issue.

24DR. MILLER: Well, I'm, I'm not going to 25 82NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433give you an example of an embrittlement issue because 1 it doesn't, it doesn't really tie in very well.

2But I guess an example that may be a 3little easier to understand is just that if you, if 4one looks at the risk profile of the plant, meaning 5the different types of sequences or scenarios that 6could lead to core damage one that always seems to get 7a lot of attention is called the station blackout 8 sequence.9Basically you loss, it's a loss of offsite 10power. The plant is equipped with several diesel 11generators. In this particular type of an event they 12would fail. They fail to start or they fail to run 13 but they are not available so the plant is basically 14sitting there without any power to, to supply the 15 pumps.16So the way that this could be covered 17 through SAMAs, and I'm, I'm flipping pages here just 18 to find the ones that are applicable.

19 One of the SAMAs, SAMA 10 it's described 20 in more detail in Chapter 5 and in Chapter, in 21Appendix G but this SAMA would involve modifying 22turbine driven auxiliary feed water systems so it can 23be operated indefinitely without AC DC or pneumatic 24 support.25 83NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 So basically by implementing that SAMA the 1plant would be able to continue to supply water to the 2 steam generators which would remove heat from the 3 reactor core.

4 This could be sustained for, for several 5 hours5.787037e-5 days <br />0.00139 hours <br />8.267196e-6 weeks <br />1.9025e-6 months <br /> and in the meantime in, in PRA space we always 6look at recovery of offsite power and there's a, 7there's a curve that describes the probability of 8 recovering as a function in time.

9 But if you can extend the ability of the 10plant to cope with these station blackout events for, 11for several hours you increase the change of 12recovering power. And so then at that point the main 13line front, front, front line systems would be 14 available and --

15 MS. BARNES: Is that with a --

16MR. CAMERON: Okay, yeah. Let's, let's go 17 to this gentleman here and then maybe you can get more 18 into those examples with Kathryn after the meeting 19 because it is, it seems very complex. But you did a 20 good job of providing a simplified explanation.

21AUDIENCE: Have you factored into your 22 considerations the impact of an earthquake. And the 23reason I ask that is that, well, we don't have 24earthquakes here really. The largest earthquake in 25 84NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433the continental United States occurred in the Midwest 1 in the early 19 th century.

That could happen again.

2 Have you taken that into consideration --

3 MR. PALLA: Yeah --

4 AUDIENCE: -- in your computations.

5MR. PALLA: -- within the, I'll explain 6 how we handle that and --

7AUDIENCE: And that regards to both the 8reactor and as well as those waste storage containers 9that are sitting there on the shore of Lake Michigan.

10 MR. PALLA: Okay. So --

11 MR. CAMERON: Okay --

12MR. MILLER: I'll, well, I'll begin by 13saying we did not look at the waste containers in 14this, in the, it's not in the scope of the SAMA 15 analysis.16What we looked at is the impact on the 17plant. We, the way that this [was] done we have a 18probabilistic safety assessment that looks at 19internally initiated events. This is what I referred 20 to as the PSA.

21And then there, in the early to mid 1990s 22all plants were requested to perform an individual 23plant examination for external events. And this is 24done via a generic letter from NRC. It's not, it, it 25 85NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433basically required every licensee to look at the, the 1 vulnerabilities of the plants to external events in, 2 including seismic events.

3 So those, the insights from the, that 4 study were brought to bear in the process of looking 5 for potential improvements to the plant. So we, we, 6we have quantified estimates in core damage frequency 7for internal events, we have some estimate of 8approximately how much a seismic event contribute 9relative to what an internal, internally initiated 10 event would contribute.

11 And as part of this study we did in fact 12identify one seismic related change and there's a SAMA 13that involves replacing some under voltage relays with 14seismic requalified relays that these, these relays 15 were judged to be a, kind of a soft spot so to speak 16 in, in the design.

17 So this was an improvement that was 18 identified specifically for seismic.

19 AUDIENCE: But what was your --

20 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.

21 AUDIENCE: -- decision on the --

22MR. CAMERON: Sir. Now let's go to a 23 quick follow up because we really need to move on so 24 that we can hear from all of you. Go ahead.

25 86NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433AUDIENCE: I would like a quick question as 1 to what sort of seismic event did you assume in this 2calculation. In other words on a Richter scale. And 3second why wouldn't you include the waste or the spent 4rod storage in this calculation because I don't think 5 we can count on, on Yucca Mountain coming online 6because as I understand it t here h ave been some 7 conflicting information that's been presented on the 8Yucca Mountain situation and that might not be 9 approved for many years.

10 MR. C AMERON: And Bob can you try to put 11 this into a little bit of perspective --

12 MR. ELLEGOOD: Let me --

13 MR. CAMERON: -- just because, John, can 14 I just finish, thank you.

15Just because the spent fuel pool or the 16dry storage and this may be where you're going, John, 17 isn't considered as a SAMA doesn't mean that the NRC 18 isn't concerned and take account of seismic in terms 19 of that. And, John, go ahead.

20MR. ELLEGOOD: Let me answer the seismic 21question for you. The entire plant is designed to 22survive seismic events. The earthquake for Palisades 23for safe shutdown or designed basis is a point 2G 24earthquake. That's not characterized in terms of the 25 87NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 Richter scale because the Richter scale is more of a 1energy release during an earthquake and for seismic 2analysis it doesn't provide the right type of scale to 3 use for the design activity.

4 In terms of how frequently are you going 5 to get that size of an earthquake here that's going to 6 be about every 15,000 years you would achieve an 7earthquake of about .2G which is the design basis 8 earthquake.

9The plant was designed for that as well as 10the original storage pads were designed for that size 11 of an earthquake.

12 Does that answer your question.

13AUDIENCE: Well, I guess I don't understand 14how you can say it's 15,000 years for this part of the 15 Midwest because new information suggests that it's a 16 rebound of the land --

17 MR. CAMERON: Okay, I think we've --

18 MR. ELLEGOOD: It comes from a series of 19government studies that calculated that particular 20 turn frequency.

21MR. CAMERON: And we really need to, to 22move on and if you can provide more information to, to 23 that gentleman offline fine. But, Bob, thank you.

24 MR. PALLA: You don't want me to say --

25 88NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433MR. CAMERON: Do you, did you, did you want 1 to add anything more?

2MR. PALLA: Well, what I, what I would add 3is that from the risk point of view what we would look 4 at in, in contrast to a specific G value for the 5design within a se ismic risk study you look at the 6whole range of potential seismic levels. And it's, 7 it's called seismic hazard.

8Obviously you could postulate extremely 9high G levels but the probabilities of those things 10are correspondingly much lower. And in this 11individual plant examination that I spoke of this 12 seismic analysis that, that I spoke of it relies on, 13 on the seismic hazard curve for the site.

14And you, you look at the ability of the 15various compon ents and the structures to be able to 16withstand that, the, the s pectrum of, of the loads.

17And at some point they don't, they would fail and, and 18 this is all solved in a very complicated matter.

19But the end result if you, you end up with 20some components that are generally thought to be the, 21the lowest prone to fail and they might give you the, 22via the greatest interest for looking at them in terms 23 of reducing risk.

24So we did go to the individual plant 25 89NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433examination. We used it to help identify seismic 1 related fixes that would have the greatest impact on 2 risk.3MR. CAMERON: Great. That, I'm glad you 4added that seismic hazmat curve that looks at 5 different G factors and probability. All right.

6MR. PHAM: I'm sure Bob is available 7 afterwards, sir, if you want to address the question 8 some more.

9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Bo.

10MR. PHAM: Okay. So Dave and Bob has, have 11gone through the details of our analysis and right now 12I'd like to turn us to the conclusion in which we 13found as David and Bob both mentioned that the impact 14 of license renewal are small in all areas.

15 We also concluded that the alternative 16 actions including the no action alternative may have 17moderate to large environmental -- impact in some 18 categories.

19Based on these results our preliminary 20recommendation is that the adverse environmental 21impacts of license renewal for Pali sades are not so 22great that it is not unreasonable to preserve the 23option for license renewal for the energy planning 24 decision makers.

25 90NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433This slide is a quick recap of where we 1are right now. We issued the draft environmental 2impact statement for Palisades on February 14 th , 2006.3The comment period for the draft ends on May 18 th , 42006. There are regulations require a 40, 45 day 5period from the issuance of the draft until the, until 6the closing of the comment period but we actually 7 build in a 70, at least a 75 day period there.

8So we expect to issue the final impact 9 statement around October time frame of this year.

10And then this slide identifies me as your 11primary point of contact with the NRC awaiting 12preparation of the environmental impact statement for 13 Palisades.

14 It also identifies where the documents 15 related to our review may be found in the local area 16 at the South Haven Memorial Library.

17The documents are also available online at 18 the www.nrc.gov website.

19 And in addition as you came in today you 20were asked to fill out a registration card. If you 21included your name or address on that card we will 22automatically mail a copy of the draft and final 23 environmental impact statements to you.

24If you did not fill out a card I encourage 25 91NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433you to do so as it, it's a good opportunity for us to 1include you in the part of the public outreach process 2 that we have for the review.

3And if you need to register please see 4 Christina or Laura out front would be your best.

5 In addition to providing comments at this 6meeting there are other ways you can submit the 7comments for our review process. You can provide 8written comments to the chief of rules and directives 9branch at the address on the screen. You may also 10make the comments in person if you happen to be in 11 Rockville but for many of you that's not the case so 12 we provided an email address for Palisadeseis@nrc.gov.

13All of our comments, your comments will be 14 collected and considered.

15And this concludes my remarks and 16 presentation.

17 MR. CAMERON: Thank, thank you very much.

18MR. PHAM: Thank you all again for coming.

19 MR. CAMERON: And thank you, Carl, those, 20 those were very very good questions.

21 We're going to go to the comment part of 22the meeting so we have an opportunity to hear from you 23and we're going to go first to Mr. Tom Tanlzos who is 24the chair of the Van Buren County Board of 25 92NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433Commissioners. And after Mr. Tanlzos we'll hear from 1 one of his colleagues Richard Freestone and then Mr.

2Wayne Radell Covert Township supervisor. And this is 3 Mr. Tanlzos, the chair.

4 MR. TANLZOS: Thank you.

5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

6MR. TANLZOS: I'll use the microphone. My 7name is Tom Tanlzos, county commissioner. I represent 8South Haven Towns hip, South Haven City and the 9northern half of Covert Township which includes the 10 plant.11I'm also the chairman of the commissioners 12 for Van Buren County.

13On March 22 nd we did pass in 2005, we 14passed the unanimous resolution in support of the 15license renewal of the nuclear power plant and I will 16 submit that as a certified copy to you.

17One of the things even though you might 18see it was an economic decision for the County, for 19the Township and the area, yes, these are all true 20 benefits of having the plant in our area.

21 But if there was any concern that it was 22harming the environment or the residents of this 23county or this area we would not have taken such 24 action.25 93NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433So I would like to present this to you and 1on behalf of the Board of Commissioners that we 2 unanimously support the license renewal application.

3 Thank you.

4MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Chairman 5Tanlzos. And we'll attach this to the transcript and 6also have this as a formal comment on your record too.

7So, Ron, I'm just going to give this to you right now.

8How about Mr. Freestone. Is he still 9 here?10MR. FREESTON: I don't have anything 11additional to add to what Mr. Tanlozos said. I'm also 12a county commissioner and support the renewal license.

13MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Mr.

14 Freestone.

15 Mr. Radell. Covert Township supervisor.

16MR. RADELL: Yes. My name is Wayne Radell 17and I'm the supervisor for Covert Township. Covert 18Township has supported Palisades Plant since its 19inception in 1965. The plant's very location is a 20direct result of the township's encouragement to 21 construct and operate a nuclear plant in this area.

22Consumers Energy, it's predecessor, 23Consumers Power and the plant's current operator 24Nuclear Management Company have been good stewards of 25 94NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433the environment. At no time since the plant's 1beginning operation in December of 1971 to the present 2has posed any threat or danger to the residents of 3 Covert or the surrounding area.

4 The Covert Township board has officially 5gone on record to support Palisades license renewal 6activities through a resolution of support enacted on 7 March 8 th , 2005.8 As the host township for Palisades nuclear 9plant Covert Township and seven other taxing entities 10 recei ved over $6 million annually in taxes from the 11plant. Over the years this tax money for the township 12has funded paving roads throughout the township, 13building water mains throughout the township, lighting 14intersections and increased fire and police protection 15 for our citizens.

16Covert public schools receives the lion 17share of that tax money and provides first class 18 school facilities and services.

19 Covert Township is very much in favor of 20Palisades Nuclear Plant's license renewal. It has 21been, there has been a partnership between Covert 22 Township and Palisades since the beginning.

23 We look forward to that partnership 24continuing for another 20 years and longer. Thank 25 95NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 you.1MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Mr. Radell.

2Now we're going to hear from Mr. Dale 3Lewis and then we'll hear from Mr. Maynard Kauffman 4 and then Mr. Wade Adams.

5 Mr. Lewis.

6 MR. LEWIS: I just had an operation on my 7 throat, nose last week so I can't speak very loud so 8 I won't speak very long either.

9Palisades is a great vehicle for 10 industrial growth and growth in South Haven. At the 11present time during normal operations Palisades 12employees 600 people from their operations. And if 13you can imagine in your town, and I presume that most 14 of you are from outside South Haven since I don't 15recognize too many of you, if you have something that, 16 a plant that employed 600 people and that were to 17close down there would be great economic impact on the 18 area.19 So the nuclear plant right now, Palisades, 20 is in a refueling outage where 900 more people come in 21 to South Haven to work on the outage to repair things, 22 to improve things.

23You can imagine what that does to the 24 hotels, motels in South Have. It's a great economic 25 96NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 boost to South Haven.

1If you were to close Palisades down and I 2 haven't heard a good reason tonight for doing it, it 3would make South Haven a ghost town almost because 4 there just wouldn't be the jobs that are there now.

5And I have, as I say I haven't heard a 6 word that says anything about a good reason to close 7 Palisades down.

8So and we as a city council, oh by the 9way, I was mayor of South Haven for four years and 10while I was mayor we passed a resolution also 11 endorsing the continuation of Palisades. Thank you.

12MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Thank 13 you, thank you very much.

14We're going to go to Ryan McCoy at this 15point because he's here with his family and his young 16 son and maybe they want to go bed. But --

17 MR. McCOY: I didn't mean to interrupt.

18 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead.

19 MR. McCOY: I'll be real brief.

20 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead.

21 MR. McCOY: My name is Ryan McCoy. I'm a 22citizen of South Haven. I'm not affiliated with 23anyone. I'm here mainly to be educated about it. I, 24I'm blessed to live close to the beach and I'm on the 25 97NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433beach every day and I see that plant every day and 1I'm, frankly I'm worried so I want to know what's 2 going on.3What I've heard from our former mayor and, 4and some of the commissioners has all been economic 5 based. It's all about economy and jobs.

6 And this touches me deeply because I'm a 7recently unemployed worker who was selling topical 8plants and I lost my job from environmental impact 9 from hurricanes.

10 So I'm unemployed and I still stand 11opposed to it. I w ant to know what I'm seeing here 12more is public relations and not a lot of truth.

13There was a gentleman asked a really profound question 14why the dry cast things weren't affiliated or weren't 15in with the seismic analogy. And to me that seems 16more important than the deteriorating radioactive, see 17and I don't even know the terminology, so forgive me.

18But what I want to see happen is that 19economy take a backseat to ecology. If this is not 20ultimately safe for our citizens, if our citizens are 21breathing radioactive fumes, if there's a potential 22for a major accident that wipes us all out there's no 23 need for an economy.

24I'd like to see economy take a backseat to 25 98NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433ecology. I'd like better answers on, on the questions 1 that are asked, a lot less lip service.

2 I have a young child I want to see grow up 3in South Haven. I want him to grow up healthy. It's 4a beautiful community. We'll find ways to replace the 5 economy.

6These alternatives that you say have vast 7potential for economic sustain ability. The w aste 8generated, dry casting it there and not having a home 9for it worries me. 20 years from now what's that 10going to be like or where are we going to be with, how 11 much more waste will they produce in those 20 years.

12 And right now from what I've read and 13again I'm naive so I'm here to be educated but we 14don't have a home or a place to put this waste that's 15one of the most toxic substances on the plant from 16what I understand. It's sitting 150 yards from our 17precious resource the lake. Why that doesn't trouble 18 more people I don't know.

19 I understand the need for economy and 20jobs. Let's get that behind us and let's look at the 21 ecology. I think that's most important.

22 You know, I'm happy to remain unemployed 23for another couple of months if that's what it takes.

24 But I'd like to see some true answers, some truth, a 25 99NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 lot less PR, a lot less bureaucracy and let's, you 1know, let's really talk about what's, what matters 2 here.3I could go on and on but thank you for 4listening and for the opportunity and clearly I'm 5 opposed to the re licensing. I've got a lot more to 6 learn. But I think the economy is no, is no reason, 7 it shouldn't be the top consideration.

8MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Mr. McCoy.

9And I'm going to ask John Ellegood at some point not, 10 not now, John.

11 MR. ELLEGOOD: Whatever you want.

12MR. CAMERON: But since you're here in the 13 community and since there's lots of questions that I 14think Mr. McCoy has is the draft, at some point not 15necessarily tonight but at some point, you guys could 16hook up and maybe you could, you could talk about some 17of these issues. That may be, may be helpful to him.

18And, Mr. McCoy, did your, did your wife 19 want to say anything? I know she's out there but --

20MR. McCOY: I'm sure she doesn't. She's a 21 little tied up.

22 MR. CAMERON: Yeah.

23MR. McCOY: Our opinions are very similar.

24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right.

25 100NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 MR. McCOY: I'll just stand behind what I 1 said.2 MR. CAMERON: Good. Thank you very much.

3Let's go to Mr. Kauffman, Michigan Land Trust and then 4 we'll go to Mr. Adams.

5MR. KAUFFMAN: I appreciate the opportunity 6to speak. Maynard Kauffman speaking on behalf on 7 Michigan Land Trustees.

8I live on a farm about ten miles straight 9east of here. And my comments are about alternatives.

10And what I want to do first is say I am opposed to the 1120 year extension of the Palisades operating license.

12I think it's a needless risk. And I'll try to explain 13 why.14My hope is that by the time the current 15 license expires in 2011 that nuclear power should be 16replaced by wind power and by a lot more conservation 17and more efficient use of electrical energy. That is 18 possible. I'll come back to that.

19Also it's cheaper. Currently as according 20 to my latest figures and I've been doing a lot of 21reading on this, wind energy is sold for four cents a 22kilowatt power or less sometimes when it's under long 23term contract to where as I understand the cost of 24nuclear energy is about three times higher than that.

25 101NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 So we the taxpayers, the ratepayers are 1paying so somebody else can make money. And it's not 2 necessary. Let me explain.

3 Palisades sits on 432 acre site of which 480 acres is developed or I presumed used. That leaves 5200 to 300 acres of land which could be available for 6 wind turbines. If you figure four acres per turbine 7and they're really large, this would be a four 8megawatt turbine and they exist, you would need or you 9would have room for about 50 large wind turbines.

10They could be erected on the site, more land could be 11rented for farmers down the line along the 12 transmission line too.

13But even these 200 megawatts that would be 14 produced here by wind is not negligible. That's one 15fourth as much roughly as the current nuclear plant 16 provides.17Now on page of the GEIS on page 845 I 18 unde rstand that wind power had been considered and 19rejected for a number of reasons. One of which is 20 that it said could be intermittent and there's sense 21in which you could say that but I, I have a wind 22 generator next to my house, nearby, and I say that 23 wind power isn't seasonal.

24Because in this season it hasn't quit 25 102NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433running for weeks and weeks. So it's not just 1intermittent but it might be seasonal. So certain 2other seasons might require a different mix of energy 3 to keep the customers going.

4So that's one of the problems I have here.

5 It isn't simply intermittent. It's seasonal.

6 In any case wind power is really growing 7worldwide. It's growing at the rate of 30 percent per 8year. Most of this is happening in Europe and in 9 Europe Germany is in the lead with I believe at this 10point 14,600 megawatts of electricity from wind. They 11 seem to know how to do it.

12 So I suggest to the people at the NRC or 13to the, to the management company that they should go 14 to Germany and ask and say we don't know how to make 15wind power work here maybe you could tell us how to do 16 it. You may to say this in German so you might want 17 to say ve con mein dusche dunday so they really 18 understand what you're trying to do, okay.

19 Okay. I'm not here to entertain.

20 I want to suggest that there are three 21paragraphs on page 8-45 of this GEIS dealing with wind 22power and together the three paragraphs includes so 23many distortions, falsehoods or simple stupidity that 24 I think if this is a kind of an indication of what's 25 103NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 in this book it's bad news because this is not going 1 to gly.2 The way this is put down here is to sort 3of make wind a non starter. And it's not true because 4 as I just said it is growing worldwide and it could 5here too if people were to take a different kind of 6 attitude.

7And incidently wind generators and their, 8their towers can be reused and recycled over and over 9 again so that they have that advantage as well. And 10 they provide the jobs that you're so concerned about 11 in this community.

12 So let me wind this up.

13 There, I already mentioned in my comment 14earlier that it does not require 500 acres for a 15single wind generator and if the large ones, you know, 16the, the way the GEIS puts it you really have a system 17here where they say you need 500 acres or well 18actually they say 150,000 acres in order to provide 19 1000 megawatts.

20I've been on wind farms and many of you 21have seen them. They're not one per 500 acres. This 22 is either a big mistake by somebody that should have 23known better or it's a blatant distortion. As I 24suspect the latter because they do n't want to deal 25 104NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433with wind power they'd rather deal with nuclear 1 because that's the business that they're in both for 2 the commercial and governmental agency.

3 So I, I worry about this.

4Finally I have to say that according to 5the GEIS again Consumers Energy has decided they 6didn't want to deal with what they call DSM and for 7 you who haven't read the book DSM mean demand supply 8management. In other words giving advise to the 9consumer to use less energy to get complex for, you 10know, all of the things that could save energy.

11 Oodles of it. They chose not to do that. Why?

12 Well, it might be very costly or this or 13that. Now come on. This would be a way of trying to 14 sort of curtail the need for licensing this plant in 15 a risky way for another 20 years.

16Any relevance has said that we could do 17with 50 percent less electricity if we used it 18 intelligently and if we conserved. And I think this 19 certainly true because I see all over the place that 20 people do waste a lot.

21 So my point is that I think the, the put 22down of wind energy in this book is so blatant that I 23suspect I have to say I'm afraid I lose, I think that 24the nuclear regulatory commission loses credibility by 25 105NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 people who know something about this.

1And that's a serious thing because I don't 2want to live in a society where governmental agencies 3lose credibility because they're supposed to be 4 responsible. Thank you.

5MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Kauffman, 6serious, serious comments that we have to seriously 7consider. So thank you for pointing that out, 8 pointing that out to us tonight.

9 And then we're going to go Mr. Adams.

10MR. ADAMS: Thank you very much. I'm Wade 11Adams. I'm from Kalamazoo, Michigan. I decided to 12take the, I decided to come over with my wife and, and 13waste that energy. I hope it's not a waste. I didn't 14 come here to have it, to be a waste.

15 My concern is a catastrophic event. And 16as this plant becomes older and older as we already 17heard the Big Rock plant up in Charlaboy has been 18 closed and it hasn't been generating electricity for 19some time. And as Mr. Kauffman said generating power 20by nuclear plants is not the cheapest way to generate 21 energy.22Now I came from Kalamazoo because we're 23 right downwind of what could happen if radiation was 24released from the Palisades Plant. It would 25 106NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433devastating to Southern Michigan perhaps Northern 1Indiana. It could, if you look at the Chernobyl case 2and I would guess that all those government 3authorities there in the Ukraine were just 100 percent 4behind Chernobyl until they had their accident.

5 And of course I also lived through the 3 6mile island incident when Jimmy Carter was president.

7 So I, I believe that we would be far better to spend 8our money on safer distributing energy sources like 9 wind power particularly in Michigan.

10 My wife and I just came back from 11California. Even a state like Wyoming has tremendous 12numbers of wind gene rating plants now. Wyoming has 13tremendous amounts of coal.

They have tremendous 14amounts of oil yet they are going to wind generation.

15And you look out across this nation the 16idea that you, you c annot have distributed types of 17 energy production is insane in my view point.

18So in that respect we do not have to take 19the chance even though it might be in your estimation 20small on re licensing this plant. This plant if re 21licensed could be in operation for 60 years. I do not 22believe it was engineered to last 60 years and I don't 23believe you can change all the components in that 24 plant to make it really be safe for 60 years or even 25 107NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 50 years.1 So let's invest in alternative energy 2sources. I hope and, and as far as jobs I'm a PHD did 3 research in Kalamazoo for 27 years. 2500 of us lost 4 our jobs quite recently when Pfizer decided to close 5 that research facility. We're managing.

6Certainly South Haven, Covert Township and 7this county will survive if you happen to have to 8 close this plant in the next five years. Trust me.

9 Finally I'd like to say that I hope when 10you do your consideration that you listen to what 11Abraham Lincoln said. We need government of the 12 people, by the people and for the people.

13And what I am seeing increasingly in this 14nation is government of the corporation, by the 15 corporation and for the corporation.

16 I hope you will keep the people in mind.

17 Thank you.

18MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Adams. We're 19going to next go to, to Mr. Hannan, Robert Hannan and 20 then to Gary Kartch and Barb Geisler.

21 Mr. Hannan, do you want to come up.

22 MR. HANNAN: Thank you for allowing me to 23 speak.24It's just hard for me to imagine that, 25 108NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433that we're all here in this room even talking about 1this. I think the humanity of, of this nuclear thing 2is, is not good. And if, and everyone in here is a 3human being and therefore we should all be able to 4 define the meaning of humanity.

5And to take a risk like this in my mind I, 6 I don't care how safe it is, you know, it's, it's 7still a risk and you people you're here defending 8 yourselves from a risk, a potential risk.

9 So therefore you're admitting that there 10could be a meltdown. So I, I just find this whole 11thing just, us being here talking about this is 12totally insane. We sho uldn't even, man should have 13never split the atom to begin with. It was a bad 14 thing. It's very bad.

15And that's all, that's all I have to say.

16 MR. CAMERON: Gary Kartch.

17MR. KARTCH: Thank you also for letting me 18speak. I wasn't really planning on saying a nything 19 but I am compelled to do so.

20The statement by the resident, Ryan McCoy, 21was very eloquent. He said he thinks the economy 22should take a backseat to ecology. I agree. But the 23 secret that the people, the citizens of this country 24and state and county do not realize that the economics 25 109NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 are indeed an issue.

1And forgive me for not having the 2information with me, the facts and figures at the 3moment, but the information I have been reading 4indicates that nuclear industry has received more 5government subsidies during its lifetime than any 6 other industry. It's well over 50 percent of all of 7the tax incentives, breaks, guaranteed loans, 8supplementing catastrophic insurance for the industry 9 etcetera.10The amount of money that the taxpayers are 11paying out of their tax, taxes to the industry on top 12 of these high electric rates that they're having to 13pay monthly rates is absolutely extraordinary. If 14people knew that and if that was, if that was analyzed 15down to a level and given to them so they could see it 16 they would be absolutely appalled.

17 And the renewable, the percentage of, of 18money going to renewal is something like 11 percent of 19all the money and the nuclear industry gets well, well 20 over 50 percent as I say.

21 Now in the, and the media has, you know, 22made some, had been reporting a large subsidy and tax 23incentives to the oil industry and everybody is 24appalled over that. The nuclear industry has them by 25 110NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 a mile.1So if this money were diverted to the 2renewalables and the technology to wind and solar you 3would and perhaps let's pretend that the, the 4 information in the environmental impact statement is 5 correct for a minute but as submitted by the, in the 6EIS, that, that wind turbines need X amount of acreage 7and all this and they can only produce X amount of 8 megawatts etcetera.

9If you t ake even a minuet amount of the 10money that is given to the nuclear industry just as a 11 given and divert that to renewables and, and improve 12the technology of the renewables this would absolutely 13 not be an issue.

14 And I also concur with Mr. is it Hannan, 15who said these, how can we even be in this year of, 16of, of 2006 still being, trying to justify the 17 manufacture of a waste that is absolutely lethal for 18hundreds and thousands of years. What are we going to 19 do with it.

20 Who, nobody wants it. This is the 21substance of which we are having international, you 22know, traumas over right now with North Korea and a 23few years ago it was, you know, India, Pakistan and 24 every, every nation on earth wants nuclear and we're 25 111NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433giving it to other nations. It's absolutely 1 preposterous.

2The process by which we are generating 3electricity is the same process that was used to make 4the atomic bomb that was dropped on, on Hiroshima and 5Nagasaki. So this is a technology of death make no 6 mistake about it.

7We are made of better stuff than this. We 8 are intelligent enough to create electricity in a 9manner that does not produce a waste. And to have the 10 waste off of discussion for the environmental impact 11 statement is absolutely scandalous.

12That is my comments. Thank you very much.

13MR. CAMERON: Is, is Barb Geisler still 14 here.15 MS. GEISLER: Yes.

16 MR. CAMERON: Oh, hi, Barb.

17 MS. GEISLER: Hi.

18MR. CAMERON: Would you like to join us up 19 here. This is Barb Geisler.

20 MS. GEISLER: Thank you. I live 10 miles 21 from here on a farm. I'm going to address something 22 a little differently.

23In the early 80s I became, can you hear me 24 or do I need to be over here more.

25 112NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 MR. CAMERON: Maybe we, maybe we can bend 1 it over a little towards you.

2 MS. GEISLER: Yeah, okay.

3 MR. CAMERON: See this, this.

4MS. GEISLER: I'm a little shorter than the 5 guys.6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Go ahead and see how 7 that works.

8 MS. GEISLER: Dose that work.

9MR. CAMERON: Is that better. It sounds 10 good.11MS. GEISLER: Okay. In the early 80s I, I 12 became concerned about nuclear issues in, in a broad 13way. And I remember a film from that era w hich was 14called The Dark Circle documentary. And it, they 15 intervie wed lots of people in the nuclear industry 16 both the weapons industry and the power industry.

17And what I remember from that is how 18 intertwined they all are. That it, that you can't 19really separate atoms for peace, atoms for industry 20from, from the weapons industry. And Gary Kartch 21said, you know, it's, it's about death. Do we choose 22 death or do we choose life. It really is about that 23 ultimately.

24And in going to various meetings and 25 113NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433conferences through the last 25 years I want to focus 1on just one thing which is I've heard a lot of whistle 2 blowers speak. And their lives have been ruined.

3Now some of you may have seen the film 4about Karen Silkwood and maybe you thought that was 5over dramatized or not true or whatever. But I sat 6down with a women in her 70s at at least three of 7 these events who told me what happened to her.

8 She went, and this is I'm, I'm moving to 9the inside here. She was an innocent young girl. She 10went to work for the industry and she noticed that 11some figures weren't quite right. And so she thought 12she better tell her boss and she did and that was the 13 beginning.

14 Basically she was told you can either do 15the figures the way we want them or you can leave.

16And she realized eit her way she was a marked woman.

17And yes she did have to go underground. She, the, the 18act that protected people that came out I believe 19after Silkwood she, she, she literally had to go 20 underground. This is, this a gramma tell me this.

21She, she was, she felt, she feels 22 deliberately exposed. She was dying of bone cancer.

23 Now this is just one woman speaking. I 24don't think she was lying but I can't prove this. But 25 114NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433she's only one of several that I've talked to who had 1 their lives ruined in one way or another.

2Ann Harris at Lockspar, part of TVA, 3Curtis Overall eight years ordeal, same place.

4Finally won on appeals. Wrongful termination. I, he 5 was in tears, divorced, everything else. Ann Harris 6 was run off the road.

7Interestingly enough it was Curtis Overall 8whose, who pointed out the flaws Lockspar which led to 9 Cook very near us, DC Cook being shut down for three 10 years because they had the same kind of system.

11And I remember hearing a guy in St. Joe 12talk about working at Cook and becoming a whistle 13blower and his life was ruined too. That's very near 14us. People are threatened. They are called on the 15 phone. They are run off the road.

16 So knowing this I wonder if this isn't 17 just a charade. How many of you within the industry 18would have the guts if you, if you decided it was, 19 there were things that weren't quite right to say so 20in public. You'd, you'd pay a heavy price number one.

21Number two because of all this and because 22 of the nature of this dangerous industry that has to 23 be closed, it has to be secret, it has to be top down, 24it has to be authoritarian. This isn't a real 25 115NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433democratic meeting here. It couldn't possibly be, you 1 see. This is so we think we have some input.

2And when I look at our country as some 3others here mentioned tonight and I see it moving more 4and more toward secrecy and authoritarianism and it's 5 Orwellian, isn't it. We live in a democracy but you 6know what? If you're a little Quaker lady in Palm 7Beach our wonderful new spy people are down there, you 8know, we're all being spied on you know that don't 9 you.10They wrote a report that these, and these 11are passivists, you know, Quakers are passivists, they 12 wrote a report saying that this was a very dangerous 13group. We went through this in Viet Nam. Quakers are 14dangerous. They're not the real terrorists are they.

15 So I guess I want to end by saying I don't 16think you can have nuclear weapons and nuclear power, 17the Dark Circle and also have democracy. And I think 18that's what we're up against in this country right now 19 if you want to look at, excuse me, the big picture.

20 So let's look for alternatives. We need 21a whole new way of living. We can get along with a 22lot less of this, look at this. Lights on all night.

23You go to the cities they're, and frankly we're going 24to, we're running out of oil, we're runn ing out of 25 116NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433natural gas, we're running out of a lot of stuff.

1We're going to have to think about doing things a 2 different way guys.

3And just keeping this little plant open 20 4 more years and maybe it won't blow maybe it will but 5it's not looking at what we're going to need in the 6 future. That will be very different so let's, let's 7 think about a new way.

8 Thank you.

9MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Barb. Thank you.

10 Is Michael -- still here and did he, Michael, did you 11 want to, okay.

12Let's go to, let's go to Kevin.

Kevin, 13 did you want to speak again.

14 MR. KAMPS: Yeah.

15MR. CAMERON: Okay. Let's go to Kevin and 16 then we'll go to Kathryn and Ken and Corrine and Mr.

17 Hart.18 Kevin Kamps.

19MR. KAMPS: My name is Kevin Kamps. I work 20for Nuclear Information and Resource Service in 21Washington, D.C. But I'm from Kalamazoo, Michigan, a 22 board member of 23 Don't Waste Michigan for the Kalamazoo chapter.

24And what I thought I would really focus on 25 117NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433because it really caused quite a stir earlier today 1and I think it deserves as much attention from the 2public as it can get because the public deserves to 3know about it was the incident last October involving 4 the cask that was stuck on a crane above the pool at 5 Palisades.

6And I just wanted to read some passages 7from NRC documents from Palisades documents that 8 reveal the serious nature of that incident.

9 So I'll start with something I read 10 earlier.11The NRC inspectors concluded that working 12 outside the bounds of a work package on a crane with 13a suspended load that if dropped would damage the 14spent fuel pool warranted a safety significance 15 determination. Had the load dropped the spent fuel 16 pool could have sustained severe damage.

17 The inspectors concluded working outside 18the bounds of the a ppro ved work package and 19manipulating the break release represented an increase 20in the risk of a load drop. This increase in risk is 21directly associated with the reactor safety 22cornerstone objective of the spent fuel, spent fuel 23 cooling system as a radiological barrier.

24And what that last sentence means is if 25 118NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433the cask which weighed 107 tons had fallen into the 1pool it would have cracked the floor of the pool, 2drained away the water which cools the waste in the 3pool. And in a matter of time, some hours, the waste 4would catch on fire and it would be a large scale 5 radiation release perhaps worse than Chernobyl.

6 So what were the potentially catastrophic 7consequences had the cask dropped. And again this is 8 from an NRC report entitled Technical Study of Spent 9Fuel Pool Accident Risk published in February of 2001.

10The analysis exclusively considered drops 11serve enough to catastrophically damage the spent fuel 12pool so that pool cooling water inventory would be 13lost rapidly and it would be impossible to refill the 14 pool using onsite or offsite resources.

15There is no possibility of mitigating the 16damage only preventing it in the first place. The 17staff assumes the catastrophic heavy load drop 18 crea ting a large cooling water leakage path in the 19 pool would lead directly to a zirconium fire.

20Zirconium is the metal cladding around the 21fuel rods. It's, it's a combustible material, highly 22 combustible.

23The time from a load drop until a fire 24varies depending on fuel age, burn up and 25 119NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433configuration. The dose rates in the pool area before 1any zirconium fire are tens of thousands of rem per 2hour making any recovery actions very difficult. Tens 3 of thousands of rems per hour would deliver a lethal 4dose of radiation to someone close to that in a matter 5 of minutes.

6And that's what happened to the 7firefighters at Chernobyl. They received deadly doses 8of radiation in a very short period of time. They 9died two weeks later bec ause their red blood cells 10 stopped reproducing.

11MR. CAMERON: And that, that part is not in 12 the --13MR. KAMPS: I'm sorry I'm, I'm trying to 14 translate from --

15 MR. CAMERON: Oh, if you, I think it just 16 needs to be clear if you're purporting to read --

17 MR. KAMPS: Okay.

18MR. CAMERON: -- from our document and 19then you're editorializing just tell us when you're 20 editorializing.

21 MR. KAMPS: I sure will, Chip.

22 MR. CAMERON: All right.

23 MR. KAMPS: I'm sorry that I was --

24MR. CAMERON: I know you didn't, I know you 25 120NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 didn't intend it.

1MR. KAMPS: Right. I did not intend to at 2 all.3 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Kevin.

4 MR. KAMPS: I'm reading directly from the 5 NRC again.

6Based on discussions with NRC staff 7structural engineers it is assumed that only s pent 8fuel casks are heavy enough to catastrophically damage 9 the pool if dropped.

10 In fact NRC has reported, "the possibility 11of a zirconium fire leading to a large fission product 12release cannot be ruled out even many years after 13 final shutdown of a reactor".

14 Palisades is an operating reactor so the 15waste in the pool is thermally hot, it's radioactively 16hot. All the more l ikely to lead to worst case end 17 results.18 So this is a quote from a study done by 19Robert Alvarez and o thers in 2003 and it was about 20 pool fires. This is the quote: "Spent fuel recently 21discharged from a reactor could heat up re lati vely 22rapidly to temperatures at which the zurcolode fuel 23cladding could catch fire and the fuel's volatile 24 fission products including 30 year half life, cesium 25 121NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433137 would be released. The fire could well spread to 1older spent fuel. The long term land contam ination 2 consequences of such an event could be significantly 3 worse than those from Chernobyl".

4Another quote from that same report, "The 5damage that can be done by a large release of fission 6products was demonstrated by the April 1996 Chernobyl 7accident. More than 100,000 residents from 187 8settlements were permanently evacuated because of 9contamination by cesium 137. Strict radiation dose 10control measures were imposed. The total area of this 11radiation control zone is huge equal to half the area 12of the State of New Jersey. During the following 13decade the population of this area declined by almost 14half because of migration to areas of lower 15 contamination". From the Alvarez study.

16And so we found out about this cask 17incident by a fluke because a number of us attended an 18unrelated NRC technical meeting where a piece of it 19 was mentioned. But we understood what it could mean 20 and so we followed up.

21And we did a Freedom of Information Act 22 request which NRC informed us would take two to four 23 weeks to get back to us. Well, it took two months to 24 reach us.

25 122NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433And in the meantime we found out all that 1we could and we found the tables in that earlier 2report I read from about spent fuel waste fires and 3 the casualty figures downwind were quite remarkable.

4The NRC's own numbers again 20,000 to 44,000 cancer 5deaths over time downwind out to a distance of 500 6miles away from a pool fire. That was at 2001 NCR 7 study.8So we finally got the FOIA, this was after 9the Detroit Free Press exposed the incident in that 10 front page article. We only received a partial FOIA 11response at this point. And the, the document that I 12read from earlier was the quarterly inspection report 13 from the NRC. That was the first public document of 14 that incident.

15But the details that came out in the FOIA 16were quite interesting. The precursors that led to 17the incident. Here's, here's a quote from an internal 18Palisades mia copa done by the inspection crew that 19 inappropriately handled the crane.

20MR. CAMERON: And, Kevin, could you just 21 sort of, sort of wrap up --

22 MR. KAMPS: Uh-huh.

23MR. CAMERON: -- on this and, you know, 24feel free I mean read the quote or whatever but we'll 25 123NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433just need to go on to some, some other, other people.

1MR. KAMPS: Well, I'd like to encourage 2everybody to go over to that table in the back corner 3and get their own copy of this thing and read it 4 because it's worth it.

5So this is, this is the company's workers 6who made the mistake that could have overridden the 7emergency brake. That's the whole point. They 8 shouldn't have handled the crane because they didn't 9 understand the crane.

10We failed to consider the severity of the 11consequences if our troubleshooting caused the load to 12slip or fall into the spent fuel pool. This is why we 13set up an event response organization to, to allow an 14open forum with full consideration of how these 15activities will affect the plant and the health and 16 safety of the public.

17 This is the company saying this.

18The NRC earlier said that the risk of a 19load drop was increased because of this inappropriate 20 handling.21So I'll just, please do pick up a copy.

22The precursors of the event that led to t his thing, 23 the false setting of the emergency brake were due to 24the fact that Palisades lacks knowledge of the crane.

25 124NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 They have to bring in the crane company to help them 1 operate the crane.

2The crane company representative who came 3 last August to set the emergency brake had to get to 4 vacation. He was in a hurry. So instead of setting 5the emergency brake correctly with three checks on the 6emergency brake he did one check. And he set it wrong 7 that time. He thought he set it at 175 foot pounds.

8 He actually set it at 140.

9 So that was one precursor. He had to go 10home on vacation. And the other one was that 11 Palisades doesn't know how to handle the crane. The 12people that did know how to handle it have left the 13 company. 14 And one of the amazing admissions by the 15company is that there may be other aspects of 16operations where we also lack full knowledge not just 17 this crane.

18MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, Kevin.

19Kevin's report is back there on the table. I would 20also urge you to read the NRC inspection report so you 21can see what the NRC said about this particular 22 incident. If you need to find out how to get a copy 23of that we'll be glad to get you a copy of the 24 inspection report.

25 125NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 There was also a dialogue this afternoon 1 on this part icular issue. It is in the transcript 2 that will be available from this afternoon's meeting 3 and we're going to go to, to Kathryn Barnes and then 4 Ken Richards, Corrine, Paul Harden.

5 Kathryn Barnes.

6MS. BARNES: I'm a member of Don't Waste 7Michigan. I'm one of the people that decide the, one 8of the intervenors. I live within a 50 mile radius of 9Palisades. I have a son that attends Western 10Michigan. He's in electrical engineering. He's 11 almost graduated. He's nearby.

12I have my other son and their father work 13in Kalamazoo in carpentry. And my family pretty much 14 all lives in the danger zone and a lot of my friends 15 do.16And I'm concerned about Palisades because 17through the y ears, you know, growing up here in 18 Michigan the last time I was in Lake Michigan was as 19a baby, when I was a baby my mother has a photo of me 20 in the water.

21When I was growing up I went swimming 22quite a lot in Lake Michigan. I can remember drinking 23the water, swimming, enjoying it. I can remember how 24many people were on the beach. It was just glorious.

25 126NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433And I can remember drinking the water and 1it was clean, sometimes it tasted a little fishy but, 2 you know, it wasn't a bad taste, you could drink it.

3 You can't drink it now.

4Since the, the building of the nuclear 5reactors the water quality has deteriorated. Last 6time I went swimming last year my daughter and my 7 granddaughter, I have a little almost three year old 8 granddaughter now, precious.

9They went swimming and they both got 10 stinging rashes. And I got a rash myself although I 11was only in the water for a couple of minutes. And we 12cannot drink the water, it's got a bad, foul taste and 13 I don't know if this is because of the chlorine, 14bromine and amean released or if it's from other 15 things.16One time I sat on the beach and I had the 17sand in my fingers etcetera and there was a lot of gas 18coming out of Palisades that day and I was near the 19 plant. I got real sick afterwards.

20 It reminded me of when I was out at the 21nuclear test site the feelings I had afterwards being 22 very tired and nauseous and just really dead tired.

23 I'm a cancer survivor. I know what it's 24like to go through that dark cloud. I've seen 25 127NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433children from Chernobyl. I've seen their sunken eyes 1and their handicaps and I feel so sad for what they've 2gone through, what their parents that carried them 3went through. That's an end to the, to the lineage of 4 people.5Once you have a nuclear disaster you lose 6 your DNA. When you lose your DNA quality you use up 7the seed for cancer and then you set the seed for 8 death. And there's no getting it back.

9 I live on land where there's pesticide 10use. I'm been a victim of that which is an 11essentially a cause of cancer not radiation but 12 radiation does cause cancer too.

13I've seen frogs with ten arms. I've seen 14a lot of things from broken DNA. And here what you 15have is, I know a man who worked at Palisades and he's 16still in the nuclear industry he's got a real high job 17 in the nuclear industry.

18And he told me that it's well known quote 19 un quote, is what he said it's well know within the 20nuclear industry that Palisades is the most likely to 21blow of all the nuclear power plants in the United 22 States at this time.

23And I asked him well why is that. I said 24 is it, are they covering something up like they did at 25 128NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 DC Cook which for ten years they covered up the fact 1that they had a non functioning coolant system. Or if 2they had a meltdown they could not have, they could 3 not have stopped the meltdown.

4 And only by the grace of God we have not 5 had a meltdown yet.

6 Well, they covered that up and as people 7 have mentioned the whistle blower got in trouble for 8that. And now he said no he says Palisades they don't 9 cover things up he says they just don't report it.

10And I think this, this incidents of the 11crane that was just mentioned that's another incident 12I believe that was not reported to the NRC. And I 13believe that Palisades asked for an exemption that 14 they don't want to report things any more.

15I think that the premiss is upside down 16where they consider the, another 20 years of, of 17Palisades operating as, environmentally a small issue 18 and they consider alternatives as a great impact. I 19 think it's opposite actually.

20 I think that Palisades was burgeoning 21nuclear waste which is a problem, unstable geological 22strata, the singing sands, the shifting sands, 23freezing and thawing conditions on the casks. Cask 24number four which is surrounded by other casks has bad 25 129NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 welds, could crack.

1 There's a lot of problems there and, and 2these aren't being addressed. The, at one of the 3meetings earlier and I've been to all of these 4meetings now, this is before there was a lot of people 5here. Thank God there's more people getting involved 6 but maybe this is the last meeting.

7 They were talking about the experimental 8use of sealants. And that wasn't addressed. There 9was other things that the NRC themselves wanted to 10address. And when I came to the meeting 11supposedly for that, those issues they switched 12locations and so they kept this, the public in the 13 dark on that one.

14So where's, and I, I don't know the 15answers to those questions or if they were ever 16answered to the NRC's specifications. But I know 17 there's real issues at Palisades.

18The biggest issue I've heard about and 19this is not disputed, this is fact. Is that it is 20 embrittled. In a layman's terms I'll try to explain 21 to you what embrittlement is.

22When a nuclear reactor has, of the, the 23design at Palisades is, had so many reactions through 24the years it gets like little finger holes in it, lots 25 130NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 of little holes from all this stress and these 1reactions. Cooling, heating, cooling heating and the 2 near misses they've had.

3And after you get this, these holes in 4the, in the design structure it becomes embrittled 5which means that if there was a stuck val ue, broken 6coolant pipes, lots of things could happen to cause a 7meltdown, okay, and then it starts heating up. And 8they cool, they had to cool it real fast. So they 9flood it with water. If the plant is embrittled as 10Palisades is it's like taking a really hot glass 11 coffee pot and immersing it in cold water. Bang.

12That's what accurate embrittlement is and 13that's what I've hear would, would be the most 14probable thing that would happen to cause a meltdown.

15Well, what does a meltdown mean here.

16Okay, well, if you live in Covert, you know, you don't 17 have a chance to say goodby to anyone.

18 If you live anywhere close to Palisades 19you, you'll, you'll, you

're gone. If you live 20 downwind which could be in any direction but usually 21 the wind comes from the Great Lakes. It comes from, 22 from the west going east.

23 MR. CAMERON: Kathryn, could you just try 24--25 131NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 MS. BARNES: I will try and wrap up, yes, 1 I will to wrap up.

2What it means that there is a huge area of 3contamination. It could go into Canada. It could 4affect all of us in Michigan and Canadians. And as in 5the case of Chernobyl that year Meyer -- had the most 6insane bizarre food. I am sure in Michigan because of 7 all our precipitation we had fallout.

8 I had turni ps, they got this big with a 9little narrow and then they bulged out again and they 10 were rotten inside. I had cabbage that was huge and 11rotten inside. That's not normal. It's never 12 happened since.

13But I, I think that it can affect 14 everybody in the world.

15I would like to see with your rules, a 16rule be made if, if this nuclear power p lant is 17 relicensed that everybody that is in on the decision 18 to relicense it be obligated with their fami lies to 19live within five miles of Palisades until the plant is 20 shut down.

21 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Kathryn, thank you.

22MS. BARNES: That might make a difference.

23MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Ken Richards.

24 Then we're going to Corrine and to Mr. Paul Harden.

25 132NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 Ken Richards.

1KEN RICHARDS; Good evening. I'm Ken 2Richards Palisades Conversion Group. I'm going to try 3 to get this down a bit but --

4 MR. CAMERON: We will have to keep you to 5 five at this point.

6KEN RICHARDS: Yeah. Recently I got the 7generic impact statement license renewal and I've been 8reading through both the manual and its cover letters.

9I see despite potential radioactive hazards the NRC 10insists that environmental impact of the Palisades 11Nuclear Power Plant, all the radioactive materials 12about its reservation, such as the casks is always 13 regarded as small throughout the report.

14But when I turn to alternative energy 15sources which should be pursued at Palisades plant 16site they're impacts are o ften referred to as large 17which all considering they would be taken into account 18the enormity of nuclear power the plant puts on the 19grid for al ternatives to equal out in their current 20 forms at the site.

21A rather particular assumption bracketing 22both the plant and the NRC's position as well yet 23ignoring the simple fact that of all the resources 24used to continue operation of this plant or renewables 25 133NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433and other forms of electrical generation throughout 1 the state it would turn the argument on its head.

2But my real concern here is the fact that 3the GEIS report does not take into consideration of 4dry cask storage. Other highly radioactive 5contaminated things such as the former steam 6 generators on the site.

7Many would argue that Palisades 8reservation is already a defactile high level nuclear 9waste dump which to their, Palisades Conversion Group 10and my way of viewing the issue a large impact on this 11 fragile lakeshore enviroment.

12More to the point potential in fact should 13things not go as designed or planned or promised which 14 over the last 38 years time and time again have been 15broken. With an additional 20 years worth of above 16ground dry storage cask along with other contaminated 17equipment which is sure to be replaced should this 18plant be pushed so far past its original design 19 capacity which it already has by years now.

20Counter to the GEIS' insistence that no 21changes to the plant need take place in the additional 22 20 years. Isn't the reactor head soon to be replace 23 in July perhaps.

24I talked with the vice president and he said 25 134NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 2000 and something.

1The pressure reactor vessel long in 2question operating in a patchwork method since 3embrittlement was discovered more than ten years ago.

4 How long before this is replaced.

5 Annealiated as once promised in court or 6a neutron thermal shield installed. And yes, the dry 7 cask storage casks piling up on site.

8I'm sure we'll all hear about Yucca 9Mountain or the -- Indian reservation taking all of 10this off our hands for the umpteenth time in the last 11 20 years.12Now there are over 20 to 30, somebody told 13 me 29 here but I keep getting different answers, dry 14cask storage onsite. Will anyone here give us an 15 exact number. Somebody did give me 29.

16This is a community concern for we will 17have to live with and care take all of this waste for 18generations to come. In '93 we were told these 19experimental cut waste storage casks would be gone in 201998 time and time again by Mark Savage the plant's 21 spokesperson.

22Now we're told by the NRC there license to 23store fuel assemblies for 20 years. It'll last for 24150 years and above ground storage is our nation's 25 135NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433nuclear future since the Feds haven't found a hole 1 deep or dry enough to put all this radioactive waste 2 and materials in.

3 After nearly 50 years of looking, instructing, 4 spen ding and charging us ratepayers for a place to 5take all of it off our l akeshore nothing but this.

6Another promise broken, more public trust going by the 7 wayside.8 On April 4 th the Squaw Valley Reservation 9will be approved for above ground storage but with 10Yucca Mountain's inability to take this slated cask 11off the Goshite's hands, there will not be move in 12either nuclear waste st orage site for all the waste 13piling up at Palisades now much less that all the 14additional waste produced during the 20 year 15relicensing period. All for a little electricity now.

16Decades perhaps centuries of radioactive waste for the 17 local citizenry to look at.

18 Yet the operators still insist this is a 19 cheap form of power generation.

20Another concern is the plant's original 21seven mile cooling loop rumored to be back in use 22again. It's affect of Lake Michigan's eco system. Is 23 it or is it not back in use.

24MS. ELLEGOOD: There's no seven mile 25 136NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 cooling loop.

1 MR. RICHARD: Okay.

2 MR. RICHARD: I, I agree --

3 MR. CAMERON: -- I would have to ask you 4 to, to wrap for us now.

5MR. RICHARD: I know Mr. Bradley a welder 6 who built it back in the 60s, oh yeah.

7MR. CAMERON: Okay, Ken, so if you could 8 just make your main point for us.

9MR. RICHARD: Yeah, wrap it up. Questions 10 about --11AUDIENCE: It's the last chance people 12 have, let him speak.

13MR. RICHARD: -- the Palisades -- crane 14break down on October 11 th. 55 hour6.365741e-4 days <br />0.0153 hours <br />9.093915e-5 weeks <br />2.09275e-5 months <br /> shutdown with a 15 110 casks containing spent fuel assemblies partially 16suspended broke in the air fell partly submerged over 17 the fuel pool.

18The fuel pool went well beyond its 19original design capacity with fuel assemblies going 20back to the 70s. I gather from the Tribune article 21 all the brakes froze because plant personnel did not 22 set the emergency brake properly just before leaving 23 for his vacation.

24How big a rem stream would this situation 25 137NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433be giving off. How many rems the article certainly 1didn't say. Did the whole fuel pool area must have 2 had, must have had to been decontaminated. How much 3 did it receive.

4All that spent fuel at risk should that 5cask have dropped down onto decades where for s pent 6fuel assemblies it would have caused a fire making for 7 an accident much worse than Chernobyl.

8The article also pointed out this incident 9 was considered of low significance by the NRC within 10its quarterly report. Quite a change from the NRC in 11the early 90s when dry storage cask stor age was 12initiated at Palisades hearing the operators 30 13violations for everything from cracked pipes to 14mishandled drop fuel assembly rods into its reactor 15vessel. Did they ever find the two pounds of missing 16 fuel.17 To Palisades Conversation Group this 18incident further demonstrates the aged long time 19ineffectiveness of both the equipment and the 20personnel at the Palisades Plant right along with the 21 current NRC not handing out violations for such --

22This must have been some long term 23radiation being released for over two days within the 24flow through area. Were procedures fumbled, could not 25 138NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433get their crane to budge for days because one brake 1froze and all the brakes shut down for 55 hours6.365741e-4 days <br />0.0153 hours <br />9.093915e-5 weeks <br />2.09275e-5 months <br />. What 2were the plant personnel doing scratching their heads.

3 A further explanation of partly suspended 4 a 110 pound metal inner cask leaves me with cause for 5concern as it did others, was not made clear in the 6 article.7 Just insistent that everything was okay.

8 Just what is the shielding of a bare metal cask --

9MR. CAMERON: Ken, I'm going to have to ask 10 you --11 MR. RICHARD: -- that neutron thermal 12 shielding --

13 MR. CAMERON: -- to wrap up --

14MR. RICHARD: -- that they're -- in the 15 cask at the time.

16 MR. CAMERON: Ken --

17 AUDIENCE: Let him talk.

18AUDIENCE: This needs to be answered in 19 public record. This is the last chance he has.

20MR. CAMERON: He can submit his whole thing 21 to us.22 AUDIENCE: We want to --

23 AUDIENCE: We want --

24MR. CAMERON: Could you just please wrap up 25 139NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 and then we're going to go to Corrine, okay.

1 MR. RICHARD: We're wrapped up.

2MR. CAMERON: All right. Thank you.

3 Corrine.4 MR. RICHARDS: Thank you.

5MS. CAREY: Will the volunteers for the 6Raging Grannies please come forward if you're 7 available. You've seen this guy before. He was --

8 MR. CAMERON: We have, we have.

9 MS. CAREY: Yes. He's built as --

10 MR. CAMERON: -- come up here again.

11MS. CAREY: -- a recycle but I added a 12 couple touches here.

13 MR. CAMERON: All right.

14MS. CAREY: All right. Okay. I do 15encourage you to, yes, yes, all of you who would like 16to come, any honorary grannies are more than welcome.

17The, yes, I urge you to get the materials 18that are on these tables on the side. People look at 19these over here including some rare books. And do get 20this one which is the radioactive releases from 21nuclear power plants in the Great Lakes Basin 22 including a picture down here of the Palisades Plant 23 and it's, it's, yeah, it's discharge holes and a map 24 etcetera of the Great Lakes area.

25 140NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 And your very own picture of the current 1 situation at the cask or the one that we heard about 2 on March 18 th. It happened in October. It made the 3federal reserve or the federal report to, yeah, 4 register, in January.

5 So yes we, we all question that.

6All right. So we are going to skip the 7one that says about -- this, the great region grannies 8are all over the country but they originated out in 9 the Washington State area. There is another one the 10 earth is going to throw up over, all over us. We'll 11 skip that one.

12Give me a home where the rivers d on't 13 foam. But this one is, happens to be about the land 14of the beaver. Oh, I forget to use this. Now this is 15 an example of how inadequate this kind of protection 16 would be in a nuclear event, totally inadequate just 17 like the fallout shelters of years back.

18 So land of the beaver. Here in the land 19of the beaver (singing) they say we are nuclear free.

20We want to be happy believers but ask ourselves how 21 can it be.

22There are nuclear ships in our harbors and 23the tridents are out in the straights. We have tested 24the crews, terriorized caribou's, do we look like the 25 141NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 51 st state.1They told us that we'd never do it. That 2no nuc mess would ever be found. But it's starting to 3look like we blew it and the bad stuff is spinning 4 around.5There are nuclear ships in our harbors and 6the tridents are out in the straights. We have tested 7the crews, terriorized caribou's maybe we'll be the 8 dirtiest state.

9When business and George Bush are talking 10they put on their friendship displ ay, big smiles, 11 friendship display.

12 We wish they would do something shocking 13 and have Georgie -- every state. We'll take nuclear 14ships from our harbors. We'll take tridents away from 15the straights. We'll not test the crews, terriorized 16caribou's and we won't be the dirtiest state. No, we 17 won't be the dirtiest state neah, neah, neah.

18 We won't be the dirtiest state, neah, 19 neah, neah. And that includes Michigan so.

20 MR. CAMERON: All right. Okay, thank you 21 and Chester.

22Mr. Paul Harden, site vice president at 23 Palisades.

24 MR. HARDEN: My name is Paul Harden. I'm 25 142NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433the site vice president of Palisades Plant. And I'll 1focus my comments on the purpose of the meeting and 2that's the draft supplemental environmental impact 3 statement.

4And I'd like to start off by commending 5the Nuclear Regula tory Commission on the scope and 6depth of that report. It's very comprehensive and 7Nuclear Management Company agrees with the conclusions 8although we may have some comments that are minor that 9we'll submit as well by the date none of which will 10 affect the conclusions of the report.

11I'd like to spend a few minutes addressing 12 the environmental impact of operating, continuing to 13 operate the Palisades Nuclear Plant.

14But before I do that I'd like to recognize 15not all of us are ever going to agree whether nuclear 16power plants should exist. Not all of us are ever 17going to agree the public policy that this country has 18taken on how to deal with spent nuclear fuel. That's 19 okay. That doesn't bother me.

20The fact that we have diverse people, 21diverse views and we have the freedom to speak our 22 opinions is part of what makes this country great.

23What I would like to do is share a few 24 facts.25 143NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433 AUDIENCE: -- opinions and knowing --

1 MR. CAMERON: Excuse me.

2 MR. HARDEN: Some of the facts --

3 MR. CAMERON: Could we have the courtesy 4 to just listen to the speaker. Thank you.

5MR. HARDEN: Some of the facts are the 6environmental responsibility is built into the design 7of nuclear power plants. There are multiple 8redundancies so that no single failures of whether 9it's human failure or eq uipm ent failures can cause 10 incidents that would be adverse to the environment.

11There's environmental respon sibility built 12into the way the plants are operated, the way they're 13managed and the regulatory ove rsight. The nuclear 14industry is one of the more heavily regulated and 15industries that has additional oversight that there 16are out there. And the inspectors do a very good job 17 of challenging everything we do.

18Another fact is that in addition to 19 continuously monitoring radiation levels on the site 20and monitoring all the release pathways from the site 21 we go beyond that to verify that we're not having an 22 adverse effect to the environment or the people that 23 surround the plant.

24We regularly sample soil. We sample fish.

25 144NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433We sample fruits. We sample cows milks to verify that 1there are no low or tr ace le vels of radioactive 2material that could have come from the plant. And we 3 do that on a regular basis.

4Another fact is that the employees that 5work at the Palisades Nuclear Plant over 600 employees 6they're also residents of the local areas. They raise 7 their children here too and they have a deep respect 8and desire to keep the environment safe as well.

9They're just as concerned about their children as 10 everyone else.

11Given that Consumers Energy and Nuclear 12 Management Company are confident that we can operate 13Palisades Nuclear Plant and extend the license renewal 14 period safely and with no adverse impact to the 15 environment.

16That is why we are spending hundreds of 17millions of dollar each year as we proceed forward 18through the license renewal process upgrading the 19 plant, changing the equipment.

20I heard some of the concerns in here with 21 aging of equipment. In a nuclear power plant we are 22 required to have what we call aging management 23 programs.24 We do regularly change out components.

25 145NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433Components that aren't changed out get inspected or 1tested to verify that they are in good condition to 2continue to operate. And if they start to degrade or 3the testing shows that there is degradation we change 4 out those components to keep them going.

5I'm not up here to change the mind of 6anyone who is against nuclear power. But I do want to 7 get those facts out.

8We agree that, with the conclusions of the 9draft report that there are no significant or adverse 10impacts of operating the Palisades Nuclear Plant in 11 the continued license renewal period.

12And if anyone would like to be educated on 13the facts or learn more about the plant I would be 14happy to discuss that with you. If you don't trust 15talking to someone who works for the plant I'd 16encourage you to talk to the Nuclear Regulatory 17Commission because nuclear power can be a safe and 18 viable entity.

19Everything we do in life has risks. It's 20 a matter of agree ment w hether those risks are worth 21 endeavor ing wh ether it's a chemical plant, a coal 22 plant or a nuclear plant.

23But for the purpose of this meeting the 24draft environmental impact statement we agree with its 25 146NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433conclusions and we look forward to operating the plant 1 in a continued operating period.

2MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, thank you 3 very much.

4 AUDIENCE: Can I ask a question please.

5MR. CAMERON: And you can talk to Paul 6 after the meeting.

7 AUDIENCE: All right.

8 MR. CAMERON: If you want to get a copy I 9believe the NRC inspection report on crane incident or 10ask about it please talk to John Ellegood our resident 11 or Victoria Midland, one of our communications staff 12 from, from the region.

13 I would just thank all of you for 14 following the ground rules and the NRC staff will be 15here to talk to you informally with you and I'm going 16to ask Rani Franovich who has disappeared to, to close 17the meeting out. And we'll, we'll get to you after 18 the meeting.

19MS. FRANOVICH: Thank you, Chip. I just 20wanted to again thank you all for coming to our 21meeting, providing your comments, asking questions.

22It's, it's one of my favorite parts of this job is 23 really going out to the communities and talking with 24 people.25 147NEAL R. GROSSCOURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.(202) 234-4433WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701(202) 234-4433So thanks again for your input. It's 1important to our process and we will consider your 2comments in the development of our final environmental 3 impact statement.

4I wanted to mention that each of you 5should have received an NRC public meeting feedback 6 form when you registered for the meeting outside.

7 If you have any suggestions about how we 8could conduct our meetings better, how we could 9provide information to you better we would love to 10 hear your suggestions.

11Please feel free to fill out the feedback 12form. It's already postage prepaid. You can fold it 13up and send it to us in the mail or you can just hand 14 it to us as you leave this evening.

15I wanted also to just remind folks that 16tonight was not the last o pportunity to submit your 17comments to the NRC. We will be taking comments until 18May 18 th. Bo Pham is the point of contact for those 19comments. There's an email address you can send them 20 to in written form.

21And with that again thank you all for 22 being with us tonight and we appreciate your time.

23(Whereupon the meeting concluded at 10:15 24 p.m.)25