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{{#Wiki_filter:Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION  
{{#Wiki_filter:Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Title:       Kewaunee Power Station License Renewal Public Meeting: Evening Session Docket Number:   50-305 Location:         Kewaunee, Wisconsin Date:             Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Work Order No.:   NRC-2475                             Pages 1-*
 
Title:   Kewaunee Power Station License Renewal     Public Meeting: Evening Session  
 
Docket Number: 50-305  
 
Location:   Kewaunee, Wisconsin  
 
Date:   Wednesday, October 22, 2008  
 
Work Order No.: NRC-2475 Pages 1-*  
 
NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C.
20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1 2 3
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24  + + + + +  BEFORE THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
 
+ + + + +
+  +  +  +  +
DOMINION ENERGY KEWAUNEE INC.
KEWAUNEE POWER STATION  Regarding the Renewal of Facility Operating License
 
WEDNESDAY
 
OCTOBER 22, 2008 7:00 P.M.  +  +  +  +  +
Town Hall of Carlton N1296 Town Hall Road Kewaunee, Wisconsin 54216
+  +  +  +  +
 
P R O C E E D I N G S 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. HOLIAN: Good evening. I'm Brian
 
Holian. I'm the division director for the Division of
 
License Renewal back in headquarters.
Still consider myself a regional type guy.
I just am back from nine years in Region One which is
 
outside of Philadelphia and I spent nine years in the
 
regional office as a manager and before that I had
 
been nine years at headquarters so I came back and am
 
now heading up the license renewal program there.
So it's a pleasure to be out here.
With me today is Sarah Lopas the
 
environmental project manager and we have a
 
presentation of just 20 slides and I'm going to check
 
and see really because the crowd is small.
I know we bring out a formal presentation
 
like this but we don't mean it to be if you don't need
 
that.
So, you know, we do that and pack up this
 
stuff and bring it out. Oftentimes we get larger
 
crowds of people who aren't aware of what license
 
renewal is about.
That's the purpose of tonight's meeting
 
really just to describe the license renewal process
 
and then the second part of the meeting is to take any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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1 2 3
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  We combine kind of two meetings into one
 
where we take any questions or concerns that you want
 
to address in the environmental review that will just
 
be starting now.
Let me just take a quick check with who we
 
had a crowd of maybe about 20 people this afternoon
 
and I see some familiar faces and I welcome you back.
 
I thank you for coming back to both sessions.
But who was not here this afternoon. 
 
Okay.
So if it's okay with everybody we'll just
 
breeze right through those 20 slides. It should only
 
take 20 minutes or so and it's a repeat for some. But
 
it will be worthwhile and that's how we advertise the
 
meeting.
You know, I just wanted to before I start
 
the meeting mention a couple of things.
We do take these public meetings
 
seriously. In the back of the room we have slides and
 
if you get bored about these 20 minutes of these
 
slides there's plenty of reading material if you
 
haven't picked it up already back on the tables.
There's things from license renewal to
 
high level waste which I know is a good hot topic here NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C.
20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 4 and a concern of a lot of people this afternoon so we'll get right into high level waste casks.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  And there's stuff on radiation protection.
How much dose does a member of the public get. If
 
you've heard about the tooth fairy project where
 
somebody is collecting baby teeth and analyzing it
 
for, you know, how much radiation people get.
There's a factor, a backgrounder on that
 
subject back there. There's a booklet on frequently
 
asked questions on license renewal. How you can be
 
more involved. So feel free to grab that even now or
 
at the end of the meeting and take it with you, take
 
one for your neighbor. That's what it's there for.
And then there's a single sheet of paper
 
in the back that, a franked envelope, our public
 
process. You know, the NRC is a public agency, public
 
safety agency, regulatory agency and we come out to
 
these meetings, you know, because we want it to be
 
useful to members of the public.
So if it's not that useful. The time of
 
the meeting is not right, the location is not right, you don't get what you want out of the meeting put it down there. If it's something positive or negative. 
 
And we try to improve meetings as we go along.
Somebody collects those and grades us.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C.
20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 5  Now with that I'd like to, you know, introduce three other members of the NRC. I think all
 
three are here tonight again. They were here in the
 
afternoon session.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  But first off we've got Kevin Barclay out
 
of Region Three a project engineer. And Kevin has
 
been with the Regional Three office for a couple years
 
and spends a lot of time up here at Kewaunee and Point
 
Beach.
And Vyktoria Mytling in the back. The
 
public affairs officer out of Region Three a good
 
contact for if you have any questions about the plant
 
in the neighborhood, anything going on from, throughout the whole year, you know, Vyka can get you
 
the right person in the region or at headquarters for
 
an answer.
And we've got Harold, right. Harold is
 
back there. Harral Logaras. And Harral is kind of
 
new back to Region Three but he's been a FEMA employee
 
and he's worked on the industry side also and he's a
 
government liaison officer and so he can also point
 
you to the right contact and right issues in the state
 
or state contacts. That's part of his job to be an
 
interface between the NRC and the state.
And I know that one issue on, on taxes and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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been there back about a month and he decided to come
 
out to this meeting and makes sure he meets the folks
 
around here. So we appreciate that.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  Let's go right into the slide. We can go
 
from there.
Our purpose tonight is to provide an
 
overview of the license renewal process and describe
 
the environmental review process and show our
 
schedule.
Sarah will be covering all the
 
environmental parts.
And as I mentioned the main item here is
 
we have a set of things, like 90 things that we look
 
at for environmental reasons.
If there's other things that we're not
 
aware of you should bring those up. Something about
 
the lake. Something about a fish species. Something
 
about an animal species here that you think will be
 
impacted by license renewal you let us know about it.
Next slide. You know, just a little bit
 
about the NRC. If you're not aware of us, you know, I
 
know we come out here for public meetings once a year
 
at least to tell you how the plants in the area are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  Lot's of good information if you're, ever
 
see those advertised just with how well the plant and
 
how well the region thinks the plant's operating that
 
year. They'll give you inspection findings, what
 
they're finding in the field and a good summary.
So we're out there for that. But we take
 
ourselves from the license renewal process back to the
 
Atomic Energy Act of 1954. And back then they
 
licensed the plants for 40 years. You know why 40
 
years, who was here this, this afternoon, economic
 
antitrust reasons. Really what, didn't have to do
 
with a guess of the technical length of the plant or
 
anything like that. It was mainly antitrust and all
 
kind of major power plants that were licensed by a
 
federal agency were given a 40 year life time.
In effect plants replace almost everything
 
at the plant, you know, even in 30 years now. Some of
 
the, pressurized water reactors are replaced, the big
 
steam generators that haven't even been envisioned
 
replacing when they originally built these plants.
So they replace a lot of equipment in
 
there. So it's important as you look at license renewal we're not doing a new license for the plant. 
 
We're renewing the existing license. And so you'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  The difference being there we don't review
 
whether it should be sited in the City of Kewaunee or
 
outside the City of Kewaunee again. We don't look at
 
siting. We don't look at emergency planning. I'll
 
cover that in another slide here.
So that's some of the stuff we don't do
 
and it's actually written into the license renewal
 
rule that was, you know, Congress had us look at.
The Atomic Energy Act was smart enough
 
though back there to say license renewal is a
 
possibility, you know, NRC you'll have to come up with
 
a license renewal process.
But back in `54 they said all right 40
 
years and then we'll look at a license renewal and how
 
much to extend these plants like 20 years.
You know, we're here talking, we're about
 
half way through the plants in the whole, across the
 
United States. We're at about 48 plants out of 104
 
that have been renewed. We just did one up in New
 
York a month ago and signed off on their license.
And they're already talking about another
 
20 years. I don't know if you heard about that. But
 
it comes up about life after 60 and meaning they're
 
already starting the research.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 9  It's not us. We don't do too much of it. It's the Department of Energy. And I covered that a
 
little bit this afternoon.
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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  You know, the NRC is a safety regulator
 
and Department of Energy is a promoter of, maybe we
 
should have a mix of nuclear, coal and gas. That's a
 
separate government agency a lot bigger than the NRC.
But the NRC is an independent regulator. 
 
It just looks at the safety of the operation.
The other item that Sarah will talk about
 
more in the other governing statute is the NEPA, National Environmental Policy Act and NEPA came out in
 
1969 and really it's kind of an educational as I view
 
it regulation that requires us for any significant
 
action to do an environment impact statement.
And the commission after that came out
 
that regulation came out demanded that for every
 
license renewal the NRC would do an environmental
 
impact statement.
And so that's one of the documents we're
 
gathering information on, starting this process as a
 
matter of fact Monday and Tuesday we had three of our
 
staff out on Lake Michigan looking at the intake
 
structure, you know, comparing it to other structures
 
we've looked at before asking the state about what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 they've seen on impacts from the current plant, you
 
know, the current years of operation of the plant.
And walking down some of the land use and
 
issues like that around the plant. So we've already
 
started our review according to NEPA.
Next slide please. Once again the NRC
 
commission and I've talked a little bit about this but
 
to protect the public health and safety, you know, and
 
the main issue I want to point up here is our job, Sarah and our job, is to make sure that we look at the
 
aging effects of the plant from 40 years plus one day
 
out to 60 years. That's what their application came
 
in for.
Kewaunee came in and said we want a 20
 
year extension. So we'll look at the safety aspects
 
of that.
And an important aspect though is that the
 
safety of the plant is really done by the regional
 
people. The regional inspectors. Some headquarters
 
inspectors that go out. There are plenty, the
 
regional folks out of Chicago that, and the resident
 
inspectors who live outside the plant and go in day to
 
day.
And you've got two residents there Steve and Pat. And they write reports up every quarter.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Those are published on the web site. They come to
 
talk about those at meetings.
So you need to know you have that
 
availability of those people living in the community
 
that go to the plant and have unfettered access to
 
anything they want to look at.
So that's the good part. Safety of the
 
plant is maintained by, you know, what we do on a day
 
to day basis through the NRC. And when you look at
 
the logic for that, well, when it's okay to operate 40
 
years plus one day it's about the same plan.
You know, the big question we have to
 
figure out, is it okay for a full 20 years on aging of
 
the plant. We'll talk about that.
Next slide. Well, they came in the
 
original 40 years is due to expire in 2013, that's not
 
too far away when you really look at it.
They're one of the older plants. Not, you
 
know, not as old. Our first plant that expires in 40
 
years is on the east coast in New Jersey and that
 
expires in April of next year.
And it's Oyster Creek. They don't have
 
their license extended yet believe it or not. We're
 
done with our review but it's up at the commission
 
level and there was a hearing involved in that.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  Some of the local communities and it's up
 
before Atomic Safety and License Board panel right
 
now. It's been there for four or five months. So
 
they had that extended onto their review. And we're
 
waiting to, results of that.
They're required to come in at least five
 
years before expiration of their license to give the
 
NRC and the state really and other organizations a
 
chance to weigh in on the safety of the plant. And so
 
they filed in timely renewal in 2008.
Next slide. The license renewal
 
application, you know, it's at the local library if
 
you want to look at it there. It is online. It's
 
awful big. The four binders are back there on the
 
table for their license renewal application.
It includes a lot of information. A lot
 
of it we know about already about how the plant
 
operates. You know, the plant systems we go out and
 
inspect left and right.
But they're required to put in specifics
 
about how it's aged. How they're aging. Do they have
 
a program in place to check cable aging, you know, electrical cabling. Will they monitor it, test it
 
frequently enough to pick up any degradation.
We concentrate in license renewal not on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the active components, not on the pumps. We expect
 
them to be monitoring the pumps and replace those on a
 
frequency and their normal maintenance rule kind of
 
takes care of that, another rule that they have to
 
operate by.
But we look at structures. We look at the
 
concrete structures. We look at the reactor vessel itself. That's a significant part of your review. 
 
And we look to make sure that they have efforts in
 
place and programs in place to manage aging.
There's some change to the plant tech, technical specifications. Those are the things they operate day to day, the people in the control room. 
 
If you have a one train down you can only operate
 
seven days unless you get that train, meaning a pump
 
and a valve and a system for injecting water back up.
Sometimes they'll do some small technical
 
specification changes as part of license renewal.
And then finally they'll even have to submit their own part of their environmental report. 
 
The licensee themselves looks at the environment and
 
how they're impacting it and we take a look at that.
And as I mentioned earlier get some
 
independent information from the states and counties
 
and other organizations.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  Next slide. You know, as I mentioned it's
 
a two phased review that goes on. Really we have a
 
safety review. It's separate reviewers and a separate
 
branch at Sarah's end on environmental reviewing or
 
has been associated with the environmental review.
On the safety there it is. We make sure
 
we look at the aging effects and we do that a couple
 
ways. We do it from our headquarters reviewers and we
 
also do it kind of we evolved into bringing some early
 
reviewers out to the site and they'll come out for an
 
audit.
We found out that's a better way to look
 
at some of the documentation that the licensee
 
references. You know, make sure if they tell us they
 
have a program in place we want to set our eyes on and
 
the documentation and what it does.
So we'll start those audits, you know, here shortly.
Environmental review is very similar. 
 
They contact a lot of other federal organizations do
 
you know any reason why environmentally there's some
 
issue you've had with the plant or the licensee or
 
the, just the Lake Michigan area here. What should we
 
be aware of. Sarah will cover more on that.
Next slide. You know, what don't we do.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I'll just quickly cover that because this gets a lot
 
of attention and the NRC gets criticized for not doing
 
a review of these areas.
So I, we lay that right out for you. The
 
license renewal process does not re look at emergency
 
planning, security or current, kind of current safety
 
performance.
You know, we don't take into account hey
 
they had two yellow findings and one white finding
 
over the last three years. You know, maybe they don't
 
deserve to operate another 20 years.
We don't look at it that way.
If they get enough red findings and
 
unacceptable performance that action may trick safety
 
matrix, shuts them down as a result of that poor
 
performance. So that can happen at age 30 of the
 
plant.
We don't look at that. And we don't look
 
at it because there's other NRC processes that look at
 
that.
Emergency planning. A lot of folks, some
 
folks have taken us to court on that right now. NRC
 
you should re look at emergency planning. You know, things change.
Well, that rule 5047, you know, tells the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 licensee every ten years when there's a new census you
 
analyze the impacts of the population and, you know, can you evacuate still, can you shelter in place, can
 
you effectively inform the population.
Security. Our security requirements post
 
9/11 they got a lot of attention and a lot of people
 
say and still say today when you go re licensing re
 
look at their entire security posture of the plant.
We don't think that's necessary. And a
 
good example is after 9/11, you know, we had the
 
potential for airplane impacts on a plant and you had
 
a potential for, you know, what we looked at was our
 
current design basis threat, how many people might
 
attack a plant.
And the NRC looked hard at that after 9/11
 
and saw, you know, what can we strengthen.
They did. They put more, they forced the
 
licensees to put more guards in place, more, you know, they called it guards, guns and everything and
 
training and made them strengthen the perimeter
 
boundaries. And so you saw some of that now. It's, you know, looking a little more fortified and is more
 
fortified. So they were ordered to put that in place.
We didn't wait for license renewal and say
 
if you want another license do it. The NRC figured NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 hey in this time and age things have changed, you
 
know, we should strengthen that now, enforce them to
 
do that now.
So that's some of why we don't tie that
 
into a license renewal review.
Next slide. This is really I won't spend
 
time on this. It just talks again about the safety
 
review up top. At the same time you're doing an
 
environmental two different groups looking at it.
We do get an independent review by our
 
advisory committee on reactor safeguards. It's a
 
panel of individuals. Some from industry. Some from
 
national labs. Some from academia who review the
 
application, review what exceptions they're taking to
 
our generic documents on license renewal. We've
 
learned a lot.
And they call the licensee in for a
 
meeting and then they call the NRC staff in for the
 
same meeting and they question both of us. And do an
 
independent review of license renewal.
And then finally it goes to a decision. 
 
You try to get all this done in 22 months. It's
 
several thousand hours of review effort to make sure
 
that kind of each of the systems has an aging
 
management system.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  And it can be delayed by up to five or six
 
months. I mentioned one if it goes to a hearing
 
process and you get the courts involved.
Next slide. You know, we talk about on
 
this slide just two guiding principles. I've kind of
 
mentioned them already but that the current ongoing
 
processes are adequate for safety and that the main
 
aspect that we do on license renewal is aging
 
management reviews.
I'll go onto the next slide.
Now here I just wanted to stress again
 
kind of how we got through our review. We will have
 
teams back at the NRC. I've got several technical
 
divisions, division license renewal that I'm the
 
director for has our own experts in materials, has our
 
own experts in electrical instrument and controls.
We'll look at aspects of the review. We
 
will contract some out to the national labs to do
 
independent checks on items like this.
We look at metal fatigue. How many heat
 
ups and cool downs can a pipe take over a 60 year
 
period and has the licensee actually, you know, analyzed how many they've had in the first 30 years of
 
operation and will they be bounded by that.
So we have a lot of experts do that. I NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 mentioned the onsite audits. We will issue a safety
 
evaluation report. That will be 600 pages.
That's one thing I didn't mention in the
 
afternoon. I'm trying to make that more readable. I
 
think it's, you know, it's a big document and it's got
 
a lot of information in it. A lot of it's repeated
 
from the licensee's application.
So I'm trying to shorten that up. I don't
 
think it needs to be such a long evaluation.
As a matter of fact in the press, I didn't
 
mention it this afternoon, but we actually got
 
criticized by our office of inspector general last
 
year. It was 2007 for not making those documents a
 
little more readable to the members of the public.
One they criticized us for putting too
 
much information in it from the licensee's application
 
and then not backing up our statements with enough
 
indepth.
So we've done some, you know, improvements
 
to how much and how much we include in there and to
 
what depth of material. But I wanted to mention that
 
as an ongoing criticism of even how we do our reviews.
But it's good from the public to know that
 
there's an independent, independent people looking
 
over our shoulders.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  What's also important here is the regional
 
inspections. Not only do my people go out for site
 
audit, which we found very worthwhile, but the region
 
sends their own inspection team out. And they'll walk
 
down a system and say licensee how come you didn't
 
include this tank in the charging system in the scope
 
of license renewal.
And the licensee will have to answer that
 
and make sure that they've scoped in the right amount
 
of equipment. Did they include everything that they
 
should in the management of the plant.
What's also important here is that they'll
 
come back. This plant is going through the process, you know, within five or so years of when their period
 
expires.
We've had some plants already get their
 
license renewed and they've only been 25 years into
 
the process. So their first 40 year period doesn't
 
end for 15 more years.
And I went, you know, to one of the
 
meetings and a guy said hey the licensee has a
 
commitment in here in 2022, you know, to have this
 
program in place, you know, who's going to look at
 
that then.
And well the NRC will still be here, you NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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be there and they're documented in there.
And the region will send out an inspection
 
team again in that last year prior to them going in to
 
the license renewal period to verify that the
 
commitments are met.
I mentioned the ACRS.
Next slide. Well, here's where we get
 
into the environmental side and I'll let Sarah take
 
over and quickly go through the environmental aspects.
MS. LOPAS: Hi. I'm Sarah Lopas. I'm the
 
Environmental Project Manager for the Kewaunee license
 
renewal.
As Brian touched on earlier, the review, our environmental review is performed in accordance
 
with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969
 
which is called NEPA for short.
NEPA provides the basic architecture for
 
federal environmental review requirements. It
 
requires that all federal agencies follow a systematic
 
approach in evaluating the environmental impacts
 
associated with the major federal actions and
 
alternatives for those actions.
By law the NEPA process involves public
 
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 here tonight.
NEPA also established the US Council on
 
environmental quality, the CEQ which is an office
 
within the executive office of the president.
The CEQ establishes policy implementation
 
of NEPA.
The NRC's environmental regulations which
 
are in 10 CFR Part 51 are largely based on those
 
regulations that CEQ developed.
Our environmental reviews consider the
 
impacts of license renewal and any litigation for
 
those impacts that we consider to be significant. We
 
also consider the impacts of alternatives to license
 
renewal, including the impacts of not issuing a
 
renewed license.
The staff documents its environmental
 
review in an environmental impact statement which we
 
call EIS for short.
Next slide. For license renewal the NRC
 
looked at a wide range of environmental impacts. In
 
conducting our review we'll reach out to various
 
federal, state and local agencies.
For example the US Fish and Wildlife --
MR. HOLIAN: She's got her Lavelier muted.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 talk to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The
 
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will be
 
important.
We also --
MR. HOLIAN: Could you push the button on
 
that.
MS. LOPAS: Oh, yeah.
MR. HOLIAN: Just makes it --
MS. LOPAS: Good thing I'm loud enough --
MR. HOLIAN: You're loud enough. We don't
 
need these sound systems.
MS. LOPAS: Oh, look at that.
MR. HOLIAN:  We wouldn't, we wouldn't have
 
brought these out these tonight but we actually do do
 
court reporting to, you know, to make sure that we
 
capture any comments on environmental issues and that
 
and they get transcribed and it actually goes into the
 
record. That's why the recording system and
 
everything.
MS. LOPAS: But otherwise I'm just loud.
Today at the early afternoon meeting there
 
was actually a woman from the Costal Zone Management
 
Agency here for Wisconsin. That's one part of what
 
the plant has to go through in order to get their
 
license renewal.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  Next slide. So the environmental review
 
process begins with the scoping process. The purpose
 
of the scoping process is to identify significant
 
issues that should be considered in the environmental
 
review.
We are now gathering information that we
 
will use to prepare our environmental impact
 
statement.
As part of that process we're here to
 
collect your comments on the environmental scope of
 
the review and that is what, you know, important
 
environmental issues you think that we should look at, the NRC should look at for this license renewal
 
review.
The staff has developed in 1996 which
 
we're currently updating right now, a generic
 
environmental impact statement that addressed a number
 
of issues that were common to all nuclear power
 
plants.
The staff is supplementing that generic
 
environmental impact statement with a site specific
 
impact statement for Kewaunee.
In this site specific impact statement we
 
will address the issues that are specific to Kewaunee
 
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that we reached in the generic EIS to determine if
 
there are any, if there's any new and significant
 
information that would change the conclusions of that
 
generic environmental impact statement.
Next slide. The scoping period started on
 
October 9th, 2008 obviously. That's when we published
 
a notice of intent and, intent to prepare an EIS and
 
conduct scoping. And that was published in the
 
federal register.
The NRC will be accepting comments on the
 
scope of the environmental review until December 9th, 2008.
In general we're looking for information
 
about the environmental impacts from continued
 
operation of Kewaunee. You can assist us in this
 
process by telling us for example what aspects of your
 
local community that we should focus on. What local
 
environmental, social and economic issues the NRC
 
should focus on as well as what are some reasonable
 
alternatives to license renewal that are appropriate
 
for this particular region.
These are just some of the kinds of
 
examples that we're looking for as far as input. And
 
they represent the kind of information that we're
 
seeing through this environmental scoping process.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  So any comments that you have tonight
 
would be helpful in that.
Next slide. This slide illustrates the
 
commission's various considerations for deciding if a
 
renewed operating license will be issued.
So how do we use your input?  Tonight the
 
public comments they are an important part of our
 
environmental review and all the comments that we
 
receive from you we'll take a look at. They'll be
 
included in our review.
Next slide. To that end there are a few
 
ways that you can submit comments. You know, you can
 
speak tonight and it will be on the record. And you
 
can also write us a letter and send it to this
 
address.
And if you just reference Kewaunee license
 
renewal it will get to myself or John Daley, the
 
safety project manager. And you can also e-mail at
 
Kewaunee.eis@nrc.gov. You can also e-mail me, call
 
me, I mean any way that your comments come in - they
 
do get incorporated.
I also have received some written comments
 
tonight and those, you know, will come in as well.
And once again the due date for those
 
comments is December 9th, 2008.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  Next slide. This slide is the milestone
 
slides for the environmental or milestone dates for
 
the environmental review.
Obviously the highlighted dates so the
 
hearing opportunity closes on December 1st and that's
 
different than the scoping. You know, that's for
 
contention for a hearing to oppose the license
 
renewal.
The environmental scope being comments
 
period closes about a week later or so. So those are
 
the two important dates as far as public participation
 
that are good to know.
We are going to be issuing a draft EIS, a
 
draft environmental impact statement in August of
 
2009.
Next slide. This is just the license
 
renewal contacts. John Daily couldn't be here tonight
 
but he is the safety point of contact.
And then obviously myself. I'm the
 
environmental point of contact. But if you call
 
either one of us, you know, we sit right next to each
 
other so not a big deal.
The Kewaunee Public Library has agreed to
 
keep the application on hand for us. As well as when
 
we start publishing the draft EIS we'll have a copy of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 that on hand as well.
I believe we have to send them a copy of
 
our SCR too so they'll have that on hand for the
 
entire length of the license renewal project. So for
 
about two years.
And in addition to that it's probably
 
easiest just to go online if you have access to that.
The license renewal web page will have, also has, you
 
know, PDF of the application and when we publish the
 
draft EIS.
And that's all I have to say. So we can
 
move onto comments and questions now.
MR. HOLIAN: Well, we had a sign up list
 
for questions and comments. We had a sign up list in
 
the back and I know some individuals spoke this
 
afternoon. But feel free it's a little bit of a
 
difference audience and to repeat your comments or
 
questions as you have.
I don't have a list but if anybody has a
 
comment I will ask you to use the mike and identify
 
yourself and comment or question.
And feel free to bring up again, you know
 
the ISF, independent spent fuel was an issue that came
 
up earlier so I'll bring it up if you don't. Yes, sir.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. HARDTKE: Okay. My name is Dave
 
Hardtke. I have a question on the financial
 
environmental issue with this plant.
If they are allowed to continue to operate we are sitting on a growing pile of nuclear waste. 
 
And when this plant shuts down, and it's going to shut
 
down someday, I have kids and grandchildren in the
 
area, who is going to make up the financial loss to
 
the town when this plant shuts down because we will
 
not be getting any money from the utility tax at that
 
point.
And we are sitting on a pile of growing
 
waste out here and some day our kids are going to have
 
to pay the price for it.
So I am against the, the license renewal
 
right now.
MR. HOLIAN: Okay. Let's just, let's
 
address that. And that was probably the prime issue
 
that came out in the afternoon session also was the
 
issue of the, of high level waste and that issue.
It's two parts to that question. You
 
know, one is and I compared it this afternoon to just
 
the high level waste sitting here. I mean that's
 
enough to bother some people is just currently, high
 
level waste sitting in casks here and the failure of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the federal government to move that waste off.
We covered that in detail this afternoon
 
and I'll cover it a little bit more here and there are
 
some great documents on the background of that back on
 
the table. So really grab one on the way out.
The federal government did state when they
 
started originally building nuclear power plants that
 
they would take that waste and, and move it off
 
somewhere.
Now originally back then a lot of people
 
don't realize they were going to reprocess that waste.
The waste that is sitting in those casks there is
 
very valuable economically. It's got a lot of
 
resources.
And in the 70's the United States went
 
away from, of reprocessing where we would build a
 
plant somewhere and reprocess that and make more
 
nuclear fuel and I don't know all the percentages but
 
you can take, you know, 90 percent of that fuel and
 
use it again and get it down to an amount that is, is
 
much more manageable for storing away eventually.
You'll always have some high level waste
 
that you'll have to store away somewhere but they can
 
take a good 90 percent of it and reuse it again.
Other countries do that. Japan does it.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 France does it and they do it for other countries and
 
they do it economically although it's a lot of, a big
 
up front cost that the U.S. didn't want to face in the
 
70's.
So but I mention that because all of a
 
sudden that's coming back again just in the last year
 
or so or two years and GEP, I forget what it stands
 
for here, but, you know, the current administration
 
said we look at that.
They didn't tell us to do that. That's
 
the Department of Energy. So once again another
 
government agency will look at is it feasible now with
 
the economics to re look at using that waste.
You know, what would that do. That might
 
minimize the amount that might go into Yucca Mountain
 
if Yucca Mountain is the final resting place.
And it also might help fuel costs and
 
uranium costs. I mean people worry some, that uranium
 
is a fixed amount out there.
So the first issue I just wanted to
 
quickly, kind of quickly cover was just it's sitting
 
there bothers some people.
From the NRC perspective, you know, we
 
don't, we don't get a voice in hey we'd rather have it
 
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 we don't get to state our preference on it.
We do get to do a review of both avenues
 
as I'll call it.
Just this year the Department of Energy
 
finally gave the NRC their application for the high
 
level waste repository at Yucca Mountain. It took
 
them 15 years longer. I don't know the exact number
 
of years then it was meant to for them to study that
 
mile long tunnel in the mountain that they made.
And it just took them too much longer. I
 
don't know who blame. But some of their funding was
 
cut at different years. But either way the
 
application just came in just a month or so ago the
 
NRC looked at it after 90 days and said alright it
 
looks like there's enough information in there for us
 
to start a several year review on whether it's
 
acceptable to go.
So you're right. It's delayed and it's
 
delayed now until 2018, 19, 20 before, if it's
 
approved. If it's approved waste will start going
 
there.
So that's one issue is Yucca Mountain. 
 
NRC will license that if that's the place.
What will we do when utilities have the
 
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 keep in their spent fuel pool over the years. We
 
watch them as they put in applications for us and they
 
put more waste in there and they put it closer
 
together and they re racked as they called it.
And we made sure that the water systems
 
and the cooling systems were adequate for that. So
 
those were reviews that we did to make sure they're
 
safe.
After 9/11 we did some additional reviews
 
independently with research to make sure the security
 
of even the spent fuel pools there were still safe.
And then the casks that they, some of the
 
plants went to starting, you know, a good ten years
 
ago they realized hey we can't re rack, there were
 
some other methods to go. They could put more poison
 
in the water or some other ways but they thought the
 
fuel that's been in there, you know, for a long, several years greater than five years, can be cooled
 
just by convection air currents in a concrete cask.
And it's well known so they designed a
 
cask. The cask vendors came in. The NRC did a year
 
or two review of the cask vendors. Went out and
 
looked where they were built, how thick the concrete
 
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 there, how to make sure you'd get convection cooling, you know, just air cooling out on the pad.
And we actually put those into the
 
regulations, those casks that were approved.
So the NRC said, you know, we'll go two
 
ways ourselves, you know, the spent fuel in the pool
 
has always been a method for safe handling of
 
radioactive fuel. The casks for the older fuel is
 
still safe and we looked at that and they've been in
 
casks now for ten years or so. A lot of operating
 
experience with casks.
And both those are deemed safe by the NRC.
Yucca Mountain we know there's a lot of
 
political pressure. It makes sense to not keep waste
 
in every state or, you know, there are 30 some states
 
that have nuclear power plants, get it to some central
 
repository.
The NRC doesn't have a stake in that. We
 
don't get a voice in that. We don't get to say hey
 
let's pick Utah and there's a lot of empty land there
 
and just store a lot of these casks right now and put
 
them on one location.
We don't get a choice to choose that.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 along. Even if Yucca Mountain gets delayed whether
 
there's another central repository somewhere that they
 
can move them to.
But the NRC position, you know, we do
 
review it whether they're safe there. We do inspect
 
it.
Now the second part of your question, I
 
mean our inspectors go out there and make sure the
 
temperatures are fine. Whether it snows outside, make
 
sure snow is not blocking the ventilation ducts or
 
that or the ventilation holes and, you know, it's
 
fine. Radiation doses are measured. They're within
 
the security boundary of the site or they have to
 
build a separate one.
So security and safety of the casks are
 
evaluated by the NRC.
You know, the second question about the
 
fairness, you know, it, it's true that the public
 
didn't sign on to have spent fuel in additional to the
 
plant sitting there.
And there was a plant and somebody came up
 
to me after the afternoon meeting who had worked at
 
that plant, it's in Maine that's one of them that I've
 
visited out in my regional job, where right now the
 
plant decommissioned.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  So the plant did go away. And it's a
 
green field now. The buildings are gone. Everything
 
is gone except they do have the independent spent fuel
 
casks still sitting there with a security fence around it with some security officers there 24 hours a day. 
 
And still have procedures to call the local law
 
enforcement if they need anything. And it will be
 
there until Yucca Mountain or a central repository is
 
decided.
Congress has stated that they are going in
 
that direction. They don't want it in individual
 
states. The individual state senators and congressmen
 
when we talk to them or they come in and talk to us or
 
come to our public meetings they're usually universal
 
for at some point we'll get there.
That's a long answer to your question. I
 
know it's unsettling. It's not meant to be there for
 
your kids kids, you know, it might definitely be there
 
for your kids now for a good part of their lives as
 
the government as a whole has delayed on that.
So safety wise though that's the NRC's job
 
is to make sure that it's safe sitting there. And we
 
do that. We inspect those. And I mentioned this
 
afternoon even the transportation of some of those
 
casks we're even looking forward to that.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  There was a tunnel fire in Baltimore and
 
we know that's on the proposed route or any cask to go
 
through a tunnel and there was a horrific tunnel fire
 
five or six years ago and we analyzed the temperatures
 
inside that tunnel from that tanker that had exploded
 
and wanted to make sure that the cask design could
 
survive something like that.
So we're still doing research about when
 
the time comes for that.
That's one piece in on it. The other piece didn't come up but somebody might raise it. 
 
This afternoon session the issue came up with locally
 
here at Kewaunee an issue and a complaint about really
 
the tax base for that.
That you're probably well more versed in
 
it and someone can add on to it here from the audience
 
I know spoke to it today.
But it was an issue once again that the
 
NRC doesn't have a say in, you know, how your taxes
 
either get collected or assessed for the ISFSI the
 
independent spent fuel storage installation and how
 
that money gets sent to the state and maybe doesn't
 
make its way back to the town or county seat here.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 much about that. That's really a state issue.
And I know states do it differently. It's
 
a, and I've learned in between these two meetings it's
 
even been done differently here on the history of the
 
plant here amongst the state.
And I know at other plants a larger
 
portion of that does go to the local communities.
And, you know, so I can't answer that as
 
well but I know that it's an issue that comes up and
 
it rightly should come up in these forums during
 
license renewal because it's an issue on your mind and
 
it's an unfairness issue.
So it's good to hear it. You know, your
 
state representatives if it's on the record here you
 
can point to that and say we brought it up here in
 
these meetings and kind of try to leverage that for
 
your state economic issues.
But from an NRC perspective, you know, that's not a concern of ours.
Even going through this license renewal
 
process sometimes we'll get through it and the state
 
will have a voice in whether the plant gets re
 
licensed. A lot of times they'll have water usage
 
permits.
They held up a plant where we had given NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the approval out in New York and they, on one of the
 
lakes up there they wanted to make sure that the, you
 
know, the intake structure and all that wasn't harming
 
certain fish habitats and that and so the state
 
themselves have a lot of management issues.
So usually those work themselves out
 
through the process even ongoing at 40 year plants and
 
states will assess that.
But, you know, the NRC is not the final
 
say on whether this plant keeps operating for out 60
 
years. We'll do the safety review of that and a lot
 
of times it's up one to the utility, is it still
 
economic to go nuclear. That's their own decision.
And then even the states will get a piece
 
in on a lot of the water management usages of that.
A long answer but let me go to him and
 
then back to you. That's fine.
Oh you want, you got the mike. Go ahead.
MR. HARDTKE: Could I just finish --
MR. HOLIAN: Oh, sure.
MR. HARDTKE:  -- a comment on yours?
MR. HOLIAN: Yes.
MR. HARDTKE: I think that's what's broken
 
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 of those rods yet. They belong to Dominion.
MR. HOLIAN: Oh, right.
MR. HARDTKE: And so we're stuck with them.
So who do we talk to. Dominion says they, they
 
aren't going to settle anything with us. You said you
 
aren't in control. The DOE says they aren't in
 
control but now whose taking responsibility for them?
MR. HOLIAN: Well, the federal government, you know, I say me because the NRC they have sued DOE.
So DOE they've actually sued the government, utilities have to recoup costs.
And it's your costs they're trying to get
 
back. And somebody described that today. So NRC is
 
not in on the financial side. So that's all I mean.
DOE is someone good to get at. Yeah, you're right. The rods aren't DOE's yet. But they've
 
been held or they settled. I won't say how that's
 
come out. But in court they've settled with utility
 
companies who have sued them.
And so you're aware of some of the
 
background. So they have had to pay out settlements
 
for the fact of being late for taking that fuel out of
 
here.
I don't think it's, but that money hasn't
 
gotten to you. I know.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  MR. HARDTKE: I know.
MR. HOLIAN: Yeah. So that's the issue
 
here is that the money hasn't gotten to you and we had
 
a state rep here this afternoon talking about that, that, you know, that part of that gets into the state
 
politics of it.
You know, the settlement goes to them and, you know, how that's distributed from the state is an
 
issue there.
Go ahead, sir.
MR. CARROLE: Well, I've got the CRS report
 
here. And it's an updated one for October 9th. And
 
Yucca Mountain might be ready by the year 2020.
It says might be. But it also says that
 
every, every nuclear plant is getting reimbursed from
 
DOE because they're being sued so they'll get it.
So this is the big thing right now is when
 
Dominion put in for theirs there was no reason why
 
they couldn't have put in for compensation for this
 
because that would have been an expense for them.
And if NRC can come over here and overrule
 
our zoning because they are that big and they can step
 
on us, it's like I told our state senator, we have
 
only 600 voting people in the town and you don't give
 
a damn about us.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  And that was Herb Cole. And it's the same
 
with Kagen's office and it's the same with everyone of
 
them. We met with them all. And Gary Visor is the
 
only one that is trying to fight for us.
But the State of Wisconsin is the only
 
state that takes all the utility tax and sends back
 
what they want.
MR. HOLIAN: Yeah. And I don't know if
 
it's the only state. This is myself. You might know
 
more about that than I do. I know you checked and it
 
is, and that's an issue with the state.
You know, I just, as you said that, you
 
mentioned that, you know, the NRC is somehow you mixed
 
us in with zoning.
Once again we have nothing to do with
 
zoning out here at the plant, you know. We will
 
license the plant but it is up to state officials, I
 
mean we'll look at the original siting of a plant but
 
it's up to, you know, state officials for changing, I
 
think what you meant was changing the zoning or
 
allowing the independent spent fuel installation
 
facility there.
MR. CARROLE: Town zoning.
MR. HOLIAN:  Yeah, town zoning, okay.
And so that's been an issue at some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 plants. You know, some plants, states have limited
 
zoning requirements where you'll only put 16 casks out
 
there. We won't let you put 20, you know, that's
 
happened at several plants I'm aware of.
Usually that works out amongst the
 
economics between the utility and the state and
 
somehow they come to some settlement in the cases I've
 
seen.
In other words I'm not aware of a plant, you know, not being able to work that out somehow
 
economically with the state that's shut down a plant.
And we've had plants decommission over
 
economic decisions. I just haven't, don't think I've
 
seen one yet over how many casks or independent spent
 
fuels storage installation.
We've had some plants, you know, as I
 
mentioned that one in Maine that had shut down, had
 
some safety issues and the owner at that time just
 
said, you know, deregulation was coming. There were a
 
lot of things at the time and they decided not to
 
continue the operation of that plant or sell it to
 
somebody else.
So we've had several plants there right
 
around the early 90's that decided to shut down.
Other comments or questions on license NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 renewal or environmental issues or scoping issues that
 
you want the NRC to look at.
You know, in some of those documents there
 
we do generically look at 90 some impacts from water
 
impact to land impacts to socio-environmental, archeological impacts. So a lot does get looked at
 
both on the environment side and as you take these
 
documents and go away for the night and you think of
 
something as Sarah said anything that comes at an
 
environmental review you can come in and just put
 
those in either through us or through your state
 
offices where hey we want you to dig a little deeper
 
into these areas.
You know, the independent spent fuel
 
aspect you're right it comes up in these meetings
 
often because the immediate thing the public sees is
 
okay if we do the plant's been operating pretty well, we like the electricity. But if we do let it operate
 
it bothers us because we didn't buy in for 20 more
 
years of high level waste being stored there also.
You know, we can understand some. And so
 
I don't mind that obviously being a topic of
 
discussion here tonight. It's not that that's not a
 
part of license renewal.
As a matter of fact those casks, you know, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 we do license for a certain amount of time.
So, you know, we will have to look at
 
that. If Yucca Mountain doesn't go and DOE keeps, well I won't put it all on DOE some of it's Congress.
Congress will cut their budgets so they can only do
 
so much work.
So sometimes you can't fault them for how
 
late they've been. I haven't looked at how much of
 
that blame is to share.
But, you know, even now, even with the
 
application in now and that's why I know you read with
 
skepticism maybe by 2020 because Congress has already
 
said well the application is in with the NRC but we
 
still may cut funds for the, you know, eventual review
 
of our dollars, NRC dollars to even review it.
So that, if we don't get the budget to
 
review it we'll have to delay it. It's just, so a lot
 
of that I put on Congress.
But I do get to the safety of those casks.
They will be looked at. If it's, it's a commission
 
level item. They call it a high level waste
 
confidence decision. Is there confidence. They
 
actually call it the waste confidence decision.
Does Congress give us enough confidence
 
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 grandkids. And they have to revisit that decision
 
that yes Congress is still behind moving it to some
 
kind of central repository.
So we don't mind the issue coming up. I
 
can't always give you satisfactory answers.
Just like in some area emergency
 
preparedness I showed you on an earlier slide and
 
security are even bigger issues than independent spent
 
fuel storage because people say, you know, right now
 
we don't think we can hear the sirens when something
 
happens at that plant.
And our roads are, you know, here you've
 
got plenty of roads to go somewhere. Over in New York
 
they've only got a few roads and that's a bigger issue
 
for them. And it's unsettling for them to hear some
 
of the answers which well if that's an issue that's an
 
issue right now it's not necessarily a license renewal
 
issue. There's other mechanisms to either get that
 
through your state or bring that to the NRC and
 
petition to shut down the plant.
But we do hear. That's the point of these
 
meetings. One we get to hear it. Some of your state
 
reps get to hear it. And you get to be on the voice
 
here of that as we take these back we do cover aspects
 
of this of what's on the population's mind in these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 meetings and go from there.
Other questions, go ahead, yes sir.
MR. TADISCH: I'm Steve Tadisch. I'm a
 
resident here. And we're talking about this high
 
level waste storage. How is that going to affect an
 
addition to the plant or any new plants in the state
 
or the United States?
MR. HOLIAN: Just the independent spent
 
fuel storage?  I --
MR. TADISCH: Yes. Are they going to give
 
new licenses even though Yucca Mountain is not going
 
to be running at the time or are they going to just
 
prorate it kind of and --
MR. HOLIAN: No.
MR. TADISCH:  -- then hope that it's
 
running?
MR. HOLIAN: Well, the same issue for new
 
plants in the country, right. Now that's a whole
 
other, that's whole other division by the way. So
 
Sarah and I, our reviews are going to be only on
 
Kewaunee and the other 11 plants that we have in with
 
us.
It takes about two years to do a license
 
renewal and you're at the beginning of this process
 
for Kewaunee. So for the next 18 months we'll be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 studying Kewaunee and the other plants that are in
 
there.
We are not affected by to quote the new
 
build, new reactor build. There's a whole other
 
division back at NRC that handles that. And whether
 
that comes about or not there's a lot of factors. You
 
know, there's economics. You know, will they get the
 
right, you know, rates of return on their money. Will
 
the U.S. even be able to build it.
But your question was even if Yucca
 
Mountain doesn't open up will the NRC even license a
 
new plant and the answer is yes. We could still
 
license a brand new plant having nothing to do with
 
Yucca Mountain.
It gets into that waste confidence
 
decision that hey that Congress has said we're going
 
to be looking at a repository.
If Yucca Mountain gets turned down for
 
some reason at its, you know, it's one of the issues
 
they brought up is there's more sizemic activity out
 
in Nevada than people thought. And people are saying
 
so therefore you should have picked Texas, shouldn't
 
have picked Nevada.
So if something comes out in that
 
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 activity, you know, that might delay it another five
 
years. Congress might have to pick another area.
You know, it would be longer than that. 
 
But Congress has stated we have a waste confidence
 
decision that we will eventually get this waste and
 
put it somewhere.
Or now they're talking about maybe
 
reprocessing it.
So their timetable is off. They've looked
 
at the NRC and they've said, you know, can it be
 
safely stored while we wait on that. And the answer
 
is yes, you know, we can do it in the pools like we
 
originally for 10 or 15 years and then we can put it
 
in casks.
And they've stated the casks are not to be
 
long term storage. They've stated that. Now how long
 
is long term?  Will it be how much of your kid's life.
 
But it's limited by that cask review.
But a new plant license the answer is, you
 
know, you can still go just like, you know, when these
 
plants were originally licensed you didn't have a high
 
level repository. It was envisioned that you'd just
 
build it by then.
So there's no, we're at this new plant
 
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 be a factor in deciding for an up or down yes or no.
MR. TADISCH: The game starts in ten
 
minutes so we have to hurry up.
MR. HOLIAN: All right. That's the
 
Phillies so you know what he's talking about.
MR. TADISCH: The only thing is I was going
 
to say it also says that those spent fuel rods have to
 
be in the water for five years --
MR. HOLIAN: Yes.
MR. TADISCH:  -- before it can go in the
 
casks.
MR. HOLIAN: Yes. That's, right, that's right. And there's usually not a problem with that. 
 
The fuel that's in there it's plenty of room in those
 
spent fuel pools. The original design for, you know, for 10 or 15 years of amount of fuel going in there.
So there's no problem keeping it in there
 
for five years. You're right. You don't want to take
 
it out before five years there's too much heat and you
 
wouldn't be able to cool it by air outside of that.
So they do keep it in there for at least
 
five years. And it's a good, good thing they've done
 
it.
You know, one of the plan, I'll just
 
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8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 just drained one of their old spent fuel pools and
 
actually moved some of the fuel that had been in there
 
30 years. And just, you know, moved it over to
 
another pool.
But there's been a lot of talk about even
 
then you might be able to store it not in a cask
 
outside but in some kind of, you know, right within
 
the plant boundary in concrete and just air cool it
 
there.
Now they didn't do that. But I'm just
 
telling you there's other methods for, you know, putting that fuel in storage that maybe haven't been
 
thought about yet.
So I know that's an unsettling issue. I
 
know in this community it's unsettling for some state reasons really for some kind of financial equity. 
 
And, you know, I understand that.
There was a state rep here this afternoon
 
and he heard that again and that was good for this


forum to bring that up. We were keyed into it even by
1 1                        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2                                    + + + + +
3                BEFORE THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4                                    + + + + +
5                                +    +    +    +      +
6                    DOMINION ENERGY KEWAUNEE INC.
7                        KEWAUNEE POWER STATION 8    Regarding the Renewal of Facility Operating License 9                                    WEDNESDAY 10                            OCTOBER 22, 2008 11                                    7:00 P.M.
12                                +    +    +    +      +
13                          Town Hall of Carlton 14                          N1296 Town Hall Road 15                        Kewaunee, Wisconsin 54216 16                                +    +    +    +      +
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25                          P R O C E E D I N G S NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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the regional people that that would be an issue to  
2 1                                                                (7:00 P.M.)
2                  MR. HOLIAN:          Good        evening.      I'm      Brian 3 Holian.        I'm the division director for the Division of 4 License Renewal back in headquarters.
5                  Still consider myself a regional type guy.
6  I just am back from nine years in Region One which is 7 outside of Philadelphia and I spent nine years in the 8 regional office as a manager and before that I had 9 been nine years at headquarters so I came back and am 10 now heading up the license renewal program there.
11                  So it's a pleasure to be out here.
12                  With    me      today          is    Sarah    Lopas          the 13 environmental        project          manager          and    we    have            a 14 presentation of just 20 slides and I'm going to check 15 and see really because the crowd is small.
16                  I know we bring out a formal presentation 17 like this but we don't mean it to be if you don't need 18 that.
19                  So, you know, we do that and pack up this 20 stuff and bring it out.                    Oftentimes we get larger 21 crowds of people who aren't aware of what license 22 renewal is about.
23                  That's the purpose of tonight's meeting 24 really just to describe the license renewal process 25 and then the second part of the meeting is to take any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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come up.
3 1 environmental questions or comments you have.
And I, you know, I apologize sometimes the  
2                    We combine kind of two meetings into one 3 where we take any questions or concerns that you want 4 to address in the environmental review that will just 5 be starting now.
6                    Let me just take a quick check with who we 7 had a crowd of maybe about 20 people this afternoon 8 and I see some familiar faces and I welcome you back.
9  I thank you for coming back to both sessions.
10                    But  who      was      not        here  this  afternoon.
11 Okay.
12                    So if it's okay with everybody we'll just 13 breeze right through those 20 slides.                          It should only 14 take 20 minutes or so and it's a repeat for some.                                  But 15 it will be worthwhile and that's how we advertise the 16 meeting.
17                    You know, I just wanted to before I start 18 the meeting mention a couple of things.
19                    We  do        take        these        public    meetings 20 seriously.          In the back of the room we have slides and 21 if      you    get  bored  about        these        20  minutes  of      these 22 slides        there's  plenty      of      reading        material    if        you 23 haven't picked it up already back on the tables.
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NRC, the federal government, you know, doesn't have
4 1 and a concern of a lot of people this afternoon so 2 we'll get right into high level waste casks.
3                    And there's stuff on radiation protection.
4  How much dose does a member of the public get.                                      If 5 you've        heard  about      the      tooth          fairy  project      where 6 somebody is collecting baby teeth and analyzing it 7 for, you know, how much radiation people get.
8                    There's a factor, a backgrounder on that 9 subject back there.                There's a booklet on frequently 10 asked questions on license renewal.                              How you can be 11 more involved.          So feel free to grab that even now or 12 at the end of the meeting and take it with you, take 13 one for your neighbor.                That's what it's there for.
14                    And then there's a single sheet of paper 15 in      the    back  that,    a    franked            envelope,  our    public 16 process.        You know, the NRC is a public agency, public 17 safety agency, regulatory agency and we come out to 18 these meetings, you know, because we want it to be 19 useful to members of the public.
20                    So if it's not that useful.                    The time of 21 the meeting is not right, the location is not right, 22 you don't get what you want out of the meeting put it 23 down there.          If it's something positive or negative.
24 And we try to improve meetings as we go along.
25                    Somebody collects those and grades us.
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more of a say in a state issue. Well, it just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.  
5 1                  Now  with      that      I'd        like  to,  you      know, 2 introduce three other members of the NRC.                        I think all 3 three are here tonight again.                      They were here in the 4 afternoon session.
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5                  But first off we've got Kevin Barclay out 6 of Region Three a project engineer.                          And Kevin has 7 been with the Regional Three office for a couple years 8 and spends a lot of time up here at Kewaunee and Point 9 Beach.
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10                  And Vyktoria Mytling in the back.                              The 11 public affairs officer out of Region Three a good 12 contact for if you have any questions about the plant 13 in        the neighborhood,          anything          going  on        from, 14 throughout the whole year, you know, Vyka can get you 15 the right person in the region or at headquarters for 16 an answer.
4 5
17                  And we've got Harold, right.                      Harold is 18 back there.        Harral Logaras.                And Harral is kind of 19 new back to Region Three but he's been a FEMA employee 20 and he's worked on the industry side also and he's a 21 government liaison officer and so he can also point 22 you to the right contact and right issues in the state 23 or state contacts.          That's part of his job to be an 24 interface between the NRC and the state.
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what if the governor of New York says he doesn't want
6 1 the independent spent fuel is a good issue for Harold 2 to be up on.            So Harral from the region.                      He's only 3 been there back about a month and he decided to come 4 out to this meeting and makes sure he meets the folks 5 around here.          So we appreciate that.
6                    Let's go right into the slide.                      We can go 7 from there.
8                    Our  purpose          tonight          is  to  provide            an 9 overview of the license renewal process and describe 10 the          environmental      review          process        and  show          our 11 schedule.
12                    Sarah      will          be          covering    all            the 13 environmental parts.
14                    And as I mentioned the main item here is 15 we have a set of things, like 90 things that we look 16 at for environmental reasons.
17                    If there's other things that we're not 18 aware of you should bring those up.                              Something about 19 the lake.          Something about a fish species.                      Something 20 about an animal species here that you think will be 21 impacted by license renewal you let us know about it.
22                    Next slide.            You know, just a little bit 23 about the NRC.          If you're not aware of us, you know, I 24 know we come out here for public meetings once a year 25 at least to tell you how the plants in the area are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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that plant re licensed. And I said well he can just
7 1 doing.          They're annual assessment meetings.
2                      Lot's of good information if you're, ever 3 see those advertised just with how well the plant and 4 how well the region thinks the plant's operating that 5 year.            They'll  give      you      inspection        findings,        what 6 they're finding in the field and a good summary.
7                      So we're out there for that.                    But we take 8 ourselves from the license renewal process back to the 9 Atomic          Energy  Act    of    1954.              And  back  then        they 10 licensed the plants for 40 years.                              You know why 40 11 years, who was here this, this afternoon, economic 12 antitrust reasons.                Really what, didn't have to do 13 with a guess of the technical length of the plant or 14 anything like that.                It was mainly antitrust and all 15 kind of major power plants that were licensed by a 16 federal agency were given a 40 year life time.
17                      In effect plants replace almost everything 18 at the plant, you know, even in 30 years now.                                Some of 19 the, pressurized water reactors are replaced, the big 20 steam          generators    that      haven't            even  been  envisioned 21 replacing when they originally built these plants.
22                      So  they      replace          a    lot  of  equipment            in 23 there.            So  it's  important            as      you  look  at    license 24 renewal we're not doing a new license for the plant.
25 We're renewing the existing license.                               And so you'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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add his name to, you know, another list of people.
8 1 hear me talk about that.
I mean some of the state individuals don't  
2                    The difference being there we don't review 3 whether it should be sited in the City of Kewaunee or 4 outside the City of Kewaunee again.                        We don't look at 5 siting.          We don't look at emergency planning.                        I'll 6 cover that in another slide here.
7                    So that's some of the stuff we don't do 8 and it's actually written into the license renewal 9 rule that was, you know, Congress had us look at.
10                    The Atomic Energy Act was smart enough 11 though        back  there      to     say      license  renewal        is      a 12 possibility, you know, NRC you'll have to come up with 13 a license renewal process.
14                    But back in `54 they said all right 40 15 years and then we'll look at a license renewal and how 16 much to extend these plants like 20 years.
17                    You know, we're here talking, we're about 18 half way through the plants in the whole, across the 19 United States.          We're at about 48 plants out of 104 20 that have been renewed.                    We just did one up in New 21 York a month ago and signed off on their license.
22                    And they're already talking about another 23 20 years.          I don't know if you heard about that.                        But 24 it comes up about life after 60 and meaning they're 25 already starting the research.
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have, you know, as much say as an individual who lives
9 1                      It's not us.          We don't do too much of it.
2  It's the Department of Energy.                          And I covered that a 3 little bit this afternoon.
4                      You know, the NRC is a safety regulator 5 and Department of Energy is a promoter of, maybe we 6 should have a mix of nuclear, coal and gas.                              That's a 7 separate government agency a lot bigger than the NRC.
8                      But the NRC is an independent regulator.
9 It just looks at the safety of the operation.
10                      The other item that Sarah will talk about 11 more        in  the  other    governing            statute    is  the      NEPA, 12 National Environmental Policy Act and NEPA came out in 13 1969 and really it's kind of an educational as I view 14 it regulation that requires us for any significant 15 action to do an environment impact statement.
16                      And the commission after that came out 17 that          regulation  came      out      demanded        that  for      every 18 license          renewal  the      NRC      would        do  an  environmental 19 impact statement.
20                      And so that's one of the documents we're 21 gathering information on, starting this process as a 22 matter of fact Monday and Tuesday we had three of our 23 staff          out  on  Lake    Michigan          looking      at  the    intake 24 structure, you know, comparing it to other structures 25 we've looked at before asking the state about what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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within 10 miles of the plant.
10 1 they've seen on impacts from the current plant, you 2 know, the current years of operation of the plant.
You know, you have an opportunity if you  
3                  And walking down some of the land use and 4 issues like that around the plant.                          So we've already 5 started our review according to NEPA.
6                  Next slide please.                    Once again the NRC 7 commission and I've talked a little bit about this but 8 to protect the public health and safety, you know, and 9 the main issue I want to point up here is our job, 10 Sarah and our job, is to make sure that we look at the 11 aging effects of the plant from 40 years plus one day 12 out to 60 years.          That's what their application came 13 in for.
14                  Kewaunee came in and said we want a 20 15 year extension.        So we'll look at the safety aspects 16 of that.
17                  And an important aspect though is that the 18 safety of the plant is really done by the regional 19 people.        The regional inspectors.                  Some headquarters 20 inspectors        that  go      out.          There      are  plenty,          the 21 regional folks out of Chicago that, and the resident 22 inspectors who live outside the plant and go in day to 23 day.
24                  And you've got two residents there Steve 25 and Pat.        And they write reports up every quarter.
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have a safety issue to put a contention in and say, you know, maybe for some reason I don't think those
11 1 Those are published on the web site.                        They come to 2 talk about those at meetings.
3                So  you      need      to        know  you  have        that 4 availability of those people living in the community 5 that go to the plant and have unfettered access to 6 anything they want to look at.
7                So that's the good part.                    Safety of the 8 plant is maintained by, you know, what we do on a day 9 to day basis through the NRC.                      And when you look at 10 the logic for that, well, when it's okay to operate 40 11 years plus one day it's about the same plan.
12                You  know,        the      big      question  we  have          to 13 figure out, is it okay for a full 20 years on aging of 14 the plant. We'll talk about that.
15                Next    slide.            Well,        they  came    in        the 16 original 40 years is due to expire in 2013, that's not 17 too far away when you really look at it.
18                They're one of the older plants.                    Not, you 19 know, not as old.        Our first plant that expires in 40 20 years is on the east coast in New Jersey and that 21 expires in April of next year.
22                And it's Oyster Creek.                    They don't have 23 their license extended yet believe it or not.                              We're 24 done with our review but it's up at the commission 25 level and there was a hearing involved in that.
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casks are as safe as the guy from the NRC told me they  
12 1                    Some of the local communities and it's up 2 before Atomic Safety and License Board panel right 3 now.          It's been there for four or five months.                              So 4 they had that extended onto their review.                            And we're 5 waiting to, results of that.
6                    They're required to come in at least five 7 years before expiration of their license to give the 8 NRC and the state really and other organizations a 9 chance to weigh in on the safety of the plant.                              And so 10 they filed in timely renewal in 2008.
11                    Next    slide.                  The    license      renewal 12 application, you know, it's at the local library if 13 you want to look at it there.                            It is online.          It's 14 awful big.          The four binders are back there on the 15 table for their license renewal application.
16                    It includes a lot of information.                        A lot 17 of      it    we know  about      already            about  how  the       plant 18 operates.          You know, the plant systems we go out and 19 inspect left and right.
20                    But they're required to put in specifics 21 about how it's aged.              How they're aging.              Do they have 22 a program in place to check cable aging, you know, 23 electrical cabling.                Will they monitor it, test it 24 frequently enough to pick up any degradation.
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were.
13 1 the active components, not on the pumps.                        We expect 2 them to be monitoring the pumps and replace those on a 3 frequency and their normal maintenance rule kind of 4 takes care of that, another rule that they have to 5 operate by.
You know, I think something might happen.  
6                  But we look at structures.                We look at the 7 concrete structures.            We look at the reactor vessel 8 itself.        That's a significant part of your review.
9 And we look to make sure that they have efforts in 10 place and programs in place to manage aging.
11                  There's some change to the plant tech, 12 technical specifications.                Those are the things they 13 operate day to day, the people in the control room.
14 If you have a one train down you can only operate 15 seven days unless you get that train, meaning a pump 16 and a valve and a system for injecting water back up.
17                  Sometimes they'll do some small technical 18 specification changes as part of license renewal.
19                  And  then      finally          they'll  even    have          to 20 submit their own part of their environmental report.
21 The licensee themselves looks at the environment and 22 how they're impacting it and we take a look at that.
23                  And  as      I   mentioned          earlier    get        some 24 independent information from the states and counties 25 and other organizations.
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And, you know, you can raise that issue.
14 1                    Next slide.          You know, as I mentioned it's 2 a two phased review that goes on.                            Really we have a 3 safety review.          It's separate reviewers and a separate 4 branch at Sarah's end on environmental reviewing or 5 has been associated with the environmental review.
It is being done. If you, and you're very
6                    On the safety there it is.                    We make sure 7 we look at the aging effects and we do that a couple 8 ways.          We do it from our headquarters reviewers and we 9 also do it kind of we evolved into bringing some early 10 reviewers out to the site and they'll come out for an 11 audit.
12                    We found out that's a better way to look 13 at        some    of  the    documentation                that  the    licensee 14 references.          You know, make sure if they tell us they 15 have a program in place we want to set our eyes on and 16 the documentation and what it does.
17                    So we'll start those audits, you know, 18 here shortly.
19                    Environmental            review        is  very    similar.
20 They contact a lot of other federal organizations do 21 you know any reason why environmentally there's some 22 issue you've had with the plant or the licensee or 23 the, just the Lake Michigan area here.                          What should we 24 be aware of.          Sarah will cover more on that.
25                    Next slide.           You know, what don't we do.
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well read and I appreciate that because out in several
15 1 I'll just quickly cover that because this gets a lot 2 of attention and the NRC gets criticized for not doing 3 a review of these areas.
4                    So I, we lay that right out for you.                            The 5 license renewal process does not re look at emergency 6 planning, security or current, kind of current safety 7 performance.
8                    You know, we don't take into account hey 9 they had two yellow findings and one white finding 10 over the last three years.                  You know, maybe they don't 11 deserve to operate another 20 years.
12                    We don't look at it that way.
13                    If  they      get      enough        red  findings          and 14 unacceptable performance that action may trick safety 15 matrix,        shuts  them    down      as    a    result  of that        poor 16 performance.          So that can happen at age 30 of the 17 plant.
18                    We don't look at that.                  And we don't look 19 at it because there's other NRC processes that look at 20 that.
21                    Emergency planning.                  A lot of folks, some 22 folks have taken us to court on that right now.                                    NRC 23 you should re look at emergency planning.                            You know, 24 things change.
25                    Well, that rule 5047, you know, tells the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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states and I think California was one they raised the  
16 1 licensee every ten years when there's a new census you 2 analyze the impacts of the population and, you know, 3 can you evacuate still, can you shelter in place, can 4 you effectively inform the population.
5                      Security.        Our security requirements post 6 9/11 they got a lot of attention and a lot of people 7 say and still say today when you go re licensing re 8 look at their entire security posture of the plant.
9                      We don't think that's necessary.                          And a 10 good        example    is  after      9/11,          you    know,  we  had        the 11 potential for airplane impacts on a plant and you had 12 a potential for, you know, what we looked at was our 13 current design basis threat, how many people might 14 attack a plant.
15                      And the NRC looked hard at that after 9/11 16 and saw, you know, what can we strengthen.
17                      They did.        They put more, they forced the 18 licensees to put more guards in place, more, you know, 19 they          called  it  guards,          guns        and  everything          and 20 training          and  made      them        strengthen        the  perimeter 21 boundaries.            And so you saw some of that now.                          It's, 22 you know, looking a little more fortified and is more 23 fortified.          So they were ordered to put that in place.
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issue of whether on security after 9/11 we should even
17 1 hey in this time and age things have changed, you 2 know, we should strengthen that now, enforce them to 3 do that now.
4                    So that's some of why we don't tie that 5 into a license renewal review.
6                      Next slide.          This is really I won't spend 7 time on this.            It just talks again about the safety 8 review up top.              At the same time you're doing an 9 environmental two different groups looking at it.
10                      We do get an independent review by our 11 advisory          committee      on    reactor          safeguards.      It's          a 12 panel of individuals.                  Some from industry.            Some from 13 national labs.              Some from academia who review the 14 application, review what exceptions they're taking to 15 our        generic    documents        on      license        renewal.        We've 16 learned a lot.
17                    And    they      call        the      licensee  in    for        a 18 meeting and then they call the NRC staff in for the 19 same meeting and they question both of us.                            And do an 20 independent review of license renewal.
21                    And then finally it goes to a decision.
22 You try to get all this done in 22 months.                                        It's 23 several thousand hours of review effort to make sure 24 that          kind  of  each      of      the      systems    has  an      aging 25 management system.
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do more with the casks and do some kind of other, you  
18 1                    And it can be delayed by up to five or six 2 months.          I mentioned one if it goes to a hearing 3 process and you get the courts involved.
4                    Next slide.          You know, we talk about on 5 this slide just two guiding principles.                          I've kind of 6 mentioned them already but that the current ongoing 7 processes are adequate for safety and that the main 8 aspect        that  we  do     on      license        renewal  is      aging 9 management reviews.
10                    I'll go onto the next slide.
11                    Now here I just wanted to stress again 12 kind of how we got through our review.                          We will have 13 teams back at the NRC.                    I've got several technical 14 divisions,        division      license          renewal    that  I'm          the 15 director for has our own experts in materials, has our 16 own experts in electrical instrument and controls.
17                    We'll look at aspects of the review.                            We 18 will contract some out to the national labs to do 19 independent checks on items like this.
20                    We look at metal fatigue.                  How many heat 21 ups and cool downs can a pipe take over a 60 year 22 period        and  has  the      licensee            actually,  you       know, 23 analyzed how many they've had in the first 30 years of 24 operation and will they be bounded by that.
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know, berms around them or dirt berms and other
19 1 mentioned the onsite audits.                        We will issue a safety 2 evaluation report.          That will be 600 pages.
3                    That's one thing I didn't mention in the 4 afternoon.        I'm trying to make that more readable.                            I 5 think it's, you know, it's a big document and it's got 6 a lot of information in it.                        A lot of it's repeated 7 from the licensee's application.
8                    So I'm trying to shorten that up.                    I don't 9 think it needs to be such a long evaluation.
10                    As a matter of fact in the press, I didn't 11 mention        it  this    afternoon,              but we  actually          got 12 criticized by our office of inspector general last 13 year.          It was 2007 for not making those documents a 14 little more readable to the members of the public.
15                    One they criticized us for putting too 16 much information in it from the licensee's application 17 and then not backing up our statements with enough 18 indepth.
19                    So we've done some, you know, improvements 20 to how much and how much we include in there and to 21 what depth of material.                  But I wanted to mention that 22 as an ongoing criticism of even how we do our reviews.
23                    But it's good from the public to know that 24 there's        an  independent,          independent      people    looking 25 over our shoulders.
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things.
20 1                  What's also important here is the regional 2 inspections.        Not only do my people go out for site 3 audit, which we found very worthwhile, but the region 4 sends their own inspection team out.                        And they'll walk 5 down a system and say licensee how come you didn't 6 include this tank in the charging system in the scope 7 of license renewal.
So there have been petitions raised about
8                  And the licensee will have to answer that 9 and make sure that they've scoped in the right amount 10 of equipment.        Did they include everything that they 11 should in the management of the plant.
12                  What's also important here is that they'll 13 come back.        This plant is going through the process, 14 you know, within five or so years of when their period 15 expires.
16                  We've had some plants already get their 17 license renewed and they've only been 25 years into 18 the process.        So their first 40 year period doesn't 19 end for 15 more years.
20                  And  I    went,        you        know,  to  one    of        the 21 meetings      and  a  guy      said      hey        the licensee    has        a 22 commitment in here in 2022, you know, to have this 23 program in place, you know, who's going to look at 24 that then.
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that. I just want you to know and the NRC, there's a  
21 1 know, it might not be this individual or me but we'll 2 be there and they're documented in there.
3                    And the region will send out an inspection 4 team again in that last year prior to them going in to 5 the        license  renewal        period            to    verify  that           the 6 commitments are met.
7                    I mentioned the ACRS.
8                    Next slide.            Well, here's where we get 9 into the environmental side and I'll let Sarah take 10 over and quickly go through the environmental aspects.
11                    MS. LOPAS: Hi.            I'm Sarah Lopas.            I'm the 12 Environmental Project Manager for the Kewaunee license 13 renewal.
14                    As Brian touched on earlier, the review, 15 our environmental review is performed in accordance 16 with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 17 which is called NEPA for short.
18                    NEPA provides the basic architecture for 19 federal        environmental          review            requirements.              It 20 requires that all federal agencies follow a systematic 21 approach        in  evaluating          the        environmental      impacts 22 associated          with    the      major            federal    actions          and 23 alternatives for those actions.
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lot of written documentation about what courts have
22 1 here tonight.
2                  NEPA also established the US Council on 3 environmental        quality,        the      CEQ      which  is  an    office 4 within the executive office of the president.
5                  The CEQ establishes policy implementation 6 of NEPA.
7                  The NRC's environmental regulations which 8 are in 10 CFR Part 51 are largely based on those 9 regulations that CEQ developed.
10                  Our  environmental                reviews    consider          the 11 impacts        of  license    renewal          and      any  litigation          for 12 those impacts that we consider to be significant.                                    We 13 also consider the impacts of alternatives to license 14 renewal,        including      the      impacts          of  not  issuing            a 15 renewed license.
16                  The  staff        documents            its    environmental 17 review in an environmental impact statement which we 18 call EIS for short.
19                  Next slide.            For license renewal the NRC 20 looked at a wide range of environmental impacts.                                      In 21 conducting        our  review        we'll          reach    out  to    various 22 federal, state and local agencies.
23                  For example the US Fish and Wildlife --
24                  MR. HOLIAN: She's got her Lavelier muted.
25                  MS. LOPAS:        -- endangered species.                    We'll NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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looked at and caused us to do on that issue.
23 1 talk to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.                              The 2 Wisconsin      Department      of      Natural        Resources    will          be 3 important.
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4                We also --
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5                MR. HOLIAN: Could you push the button on 6 that.
20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 5 3 1 2 3
7                MS. LOPAS: Oh, yeah.
4 5
8                MR. HOLIAN: Just makes it --
6 7
9                MS. LOPAS: Good thing I'm loud enough --
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25  But post 9/11, you know, a lot of issues
10                MR. HOLIAN: You're loud enough.                  We don't 11 need these sound systems.
12                MS. LOPAS: Oh, look at that.
13                MR. HOLIAN:        We wouldn't, we wouldn't have 14 brought these out these tonight but we actually do do 15 court reporting to, you know, to make sure that we 16 capture any comments on environmental issues and that 17 and they get transcribed and it actually goes into the 18 record.        That's    why        the        recording  system            and 19 everything.
20                MS. LOPAS: But otherwise I'm just loud.
21                Today at the early afternoon meeting there 22 was actually a woman from the Costal Zone Management 23 Agency here for Wisconsin.                  That's one part of what 24 the plant has to go through in order to get their 25 license renewal.
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were looked at on the impacts and even fire impacts of  
24 1                      Next slide.            So the environmental review 2 process begins with the scoping process.                              The purpose 3 of      the    scoping  process          is    to      identify  significant 4 issues that should be considered in the environmental 5 review.
6                      We are now gathering information that we 7 will          use    to  prepare          our        environmental          impact 8 statement.
9                      As  part    of    that        process      we're    here          to 10 collect your comments on the environmental scope of 11 the        review    and that      is    what,          you  know,  important 12 environmental issues you think that we should look at, 13 the        NRC    should  look      at    for        this    license      renewal 14 review.
15                      The  staff      has      developed        in  1996        which 16 we're          currently    updating            right        now,    a    generic 17 environmental impact statement that addressed a number 18 of       issues      that  were      common          to    all  nuclear        power 19 plants.
20                      The staff is supplementing that generic 21 environmental impact statement with a site specific 22 impact statement for Kewaunee.
23                      In this site specific impact statement we 24 will address the issues that are specific to Kewaunee 25 and the staff will also re-examine the conclusions NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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planes landing anywhere on site. And a lot of those
25 1 that we reached in the generic EIS to determine if 2 there are any, if there's any new and significant 3 information that would change the conclusions of that 4 generic environmental impact statement.
5                    Next slide.          The scoping period started on 6 October 9th, 2008 obviously.                    That's when we published 7 a notice of intent and, intent to prepare an EIS and 8 conduct        scoping.       And       that        was  published      in        the 9 federal register.
10                    The NRC will be accepting comments on the 11 scope of the environmental review until December 9th, 12 2008.
13                    In general we're looking for information 14 about          the  environmental            impacts      from    continued 15 operation of Kewaunee.                    You can assist us in this 16 process by telling us for example what aspects of your 17 local community that we should focus on.                            What local 18 environmental,        social        and      economic      issues    the        NRC 19 should focus on as well as what are some reasonable 20 alternatives to license renewal that are appropriate 21 for this particular region.
22                    These    are      just      some    of  the    kinds          of 23 examples that we're looking for as far as input.                                    And 24 they        represent  the    kind        of     information    that        we're 25 seeing through this environmental scoping process.
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reviews if they demanded changes were made but it the  
26 1                    So  any      comments          that      you  have    tonight 2 would be helpful in that.
3                    Next slide.            This slide illustrates the 4 commission's various considerations for deciding if a 5 renewed operating license will be issued.
6                    So how do we use your input?                    Tonight the 7 public comments they are an important part of our 8 environmental        review      and      all      the    comments    that          we 9 receive from you we'll take a look at.                              They'll be 10 included in our review.
11                    Next slide.            To that end there are a few 12 ways that you can submit comments.                          You know, you can 13 speak tonight and it will be on the record.                              And you 14 can        also  write  us    a    letter          and    send  it    to      this 15 address.
16                    And if you just reference Kewaunee license 17 renewal        it  will  get      to      myself        or  John  Daley,          the 18 safety project manager.                    And you can also e-mail at 19 Kewaunee.eis@nrc.gov.                You can also e-mail me, call 20 me, I mean any way that your comments come in - they 21 do get incorporated.
22                    I also have received some written comments 23 tonight and those, you know, will come in as well.
24                    And  once      again        the       due  date  for      those 25 comments is December 9th, 2008.
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results were kind of inconsequential we left them as  
27 1                    Next slide.            This slide is the milestone 2 slides for the environmental or milestone dates for 3 the environmental review.
4                    Obviously        the      highlighted        dates    so        the 5 hearing opportunity closes on December 1st and that's 6 different than the scoping.                            You know, that's for 7 contention          for  a    hearing          to      oppose  the    license 8 renewal.
9                    The  environmental                scope    being    comments 10 period closes about a week later or so.                            So those are 11 the two important dates as far as public participation 12 that are good to know.
13                    We are going to be issuing a draft EIS, a 14 draft          environmental      impact        statement        in  August          of 15 2009.
16                    Next  slide.            This        is  just  the    license 17 renewal contacts.            John Daily couldn't be here tonight 18 but he is the safety point of contact.
19                    And  then        obviously            myself.      I'm          the 20 environmental          point      of    contact.            But  if  you        call 21 either one of us, you know, we sit right next to each 22 other so not a big deal.
23                    The Kewaunee Public Library has agreed to 24 keep the application on hand for us.                            As well as when 25 we start publishing the draft EIS we'll have a copy of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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designed.
28 1 that on hand as well.
You know, I don't get into this often but  
2                  I believe we have to send them a copy of 3 our SCR too so they'll have that on hand for the 4 entire length of the license renewal project.                            So for 5 about two years.
6                  And  in    addition          to    that it's    probably 7 easiest just to go online if you have access to that.
8  The license renewal web page will have, also has, you 9 know, PDF of the application and when we publish the 10 draft EIS.
11                  And that's all I have to say.                    So we can 12 move onto comments and questions now.
13                  MR. HOLIAN: Well, we had a sign up list 14 for questions and comments.                    We had a sign up list in 15 the        back and  I  know      some        individuals    spoke        this 16 afternoon.        But feel free it's a little bit of a 17 difference audience and to repeat your comments or 18 questions as you have.
19                  I don't have a list but if anybody has a 20 comment I will ask you to use the mike and identify 21 yourself and comment or question.
22                  And feel free to bring up again, you know 23 the ISF, independent spent fuel was an issue that came 24 up earlier so I'll bring it up if you don't.                                  Yes, 25 sir.
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not only the casks themselves with the thickness of  
29 1                MR. HARDTKE:          Okay.          My  name    is      Dave 2 Hardtke.      I  have      a    question          on  the  financial 3 environmental issue with this plant.
4                If they are allowed to continue to operate 5 we are sitting on a growing pile of nuclear waste.
6 And when this plant shuts down, and it's going to shut 7 down someday, I have kids and grandchildren in the 8 area, who is going to make up the financial loss to 9 the town when this plant shuts down because we will 10 not be getting any money from the utility tax at that 11 point.
12                And we are sitting on a pile of growing 13 waste out here and some day our kids are going to have 14 to pay the price for it.
15                So I am against the, the license renewal 16 right now.
17                MR. HOLIAN:          Okay.          Let's  just,        let's 18 address that.      And that was probably the prime issue 19 that came out in the afternoon session also was the 20 issue of the, of high level waste and that issue.
21                It's  two      parts        to      that  question.            You 22 know, one is and I compared it this afternoon to just 23 the high level waste sitting here.                        I mean that's 24 enough to bother some people is just currently, high 25 level waste sitting in casks here and the failure of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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that concrete but even the thickness of those  
30 1 the federal government to move that waste off.
2                      We covered that in detail this afternoon 3 and I'll cover it a little bit more here and there are 4 some great documents on the background of that back on 5 the table.          So really grab one on the way out.
6                      The federal government did state when they 7 started originally building nuclear power plants that 8 they        would    take    that      waste        and,    and  move    it        off 9 somewhere.
10                      Now originally back then a lot of people 11 don't realize they were going to reprocess that waste.
12  The waste that is sitting in those casks there is 13 very          valuable    economically.                It's    got  a    lot          of 14 resources.
15                      And in the 70's the United States went 16 away from, of reprocessing where we would build a 17 plant          somewhere    and      reprocess              that  and  make        more 18 nuclear fuel and I don't know all the percentages but 19 you can take, you know, 90 percent of that fuel and 20 use it again and get it down to an amount that is, is 21 much more manageable for storing away eventually.
22                      You'll always have some high level waste 23 that you'll have to store away somewhere but they can 24 take a good 90 percent of it and reuse it again.
25                      Other countries do that.                      Japan does it.
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containment buildings or you're talking feet and feet
31 1 France does it and they do it for other countries and 2 they do it economically although it's a lot of, a big 3 up front cost that the U.S. didn't want to face in the 4 70's.
5                  So but I mention that because all of a 6 sudden that's coming back again just in the last year 7 or so or two years and GEP, I forget what it stands 8 for here, but, you know, the current administration 9 said we look at that.
10                  They didn't tell us to do that.                        That's 11 the        Department of    Energy.              So    once  again    another 12 government agency will look at is it feasible now with 13 the economics to re look at using that waste.
14                  You know, what would that do.                    That might 15 minimize the amount that might go into Yucca Mountain 16 if Yucca Mountain is the final resting place.
17                  And  it    also      might        help  fuel  costs          and 18 uranium costs.        I mean people worry some, that uranium 19 is a fixed amount out there.
20                  So  the    first        issue        I  just  wanted          to 21 quickly, kind of quickly cover was just it's sitting 22 there bothers some people.
23                  From the NRC perspective, you know, we 24 don't, we don't get a voice in hey we'd rather have it 25 shipped off to another place.                        They don't ask us and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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of concrete.
32 1 we don't get to state our preference on it.
And that is one area that does get
2                    We do get to do a review of both avenues 3 as I'll call it.
4                    Just this year the Department of Energy 5 finally gave the NRC their application for the high 6 level waste repository at Yucca Mountain.                              It took 7 them 15 years longer.                I don't know the exact number 8 of years then it was meant to for them to study that 9 mile long tunnel in the mountain that they made.
10                    And it just took them too much longer.                            I 11 don't know who blame.                But some of their funding was 12 cut          at  different      years.                But  either    way          the 13 application just came in just a month or so ago the 14 NRC looked at it after 90 days and said alright it 15 looks like there's enough information in there for us 16 to        start  a  several      year        review    on  whether        it's 17 acceptable to go.
18                    So you're right.                  It's delayed and it's 19 delayed        now  until    2018,        19,        20 before,  if        it's 20 approved.          If it's approved waste will start going 21 there.
22                    So that's one issue is Yucca Mountain.
23 NRC will license that if that's the place.
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reviewed by the NRC. I don't know if I mentioned it  
33 1 keep in their spent fuel pool over the years.                                          We 2 watch them as they put in applications for us and they 3 put        more  waste  in    there        and        they  put  it    closer 4 together and they re racked as they called it.
5                    And we made sure that the water systems 6 and the cooling systems were adequate for that.                                        So 7 those were reviews that we did to make sure they're 8 safe.
9                    After 9/11 we did some additional reviews 10 independently with research to make sure the security 11 of even the spent fuel pools there were still safe.
12                    And then the casks that they, some of the 13 plants went to starting, you know, a good ten years 14 ago they realized hey we can't re rack, there were 15 some other methods to go.                    They could put more poison 16 in the water or some other ways but they thought the 17 fuel        that's  been  in    there,        you      know,  for  a      long, 18 several years greater than five years, can be cooled 19 just by convection air currents in a concrete cask.
20                    And it's well known so they designed a 21 cask.          The cask vendors came in.                    The NRC did a year 22 or two review of the cask vendors.                                Went out and 23 looked where they were built, how thick the concrete 24 was,        what  kind  of    stainless            steel    canister      they'd 25 need.          You know, how many fuel assemblies to put in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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earlier but not only piping and, you know, the fatigue
34 1 there, how to make sure you'd get convection cooling, 2 you know, just air cooling out on the pad.
3                    And  we      actually            put  those  into          the 4 regulations, those casks that were approved.
5                    So the NRC said, you know, we'll go two 6 ways ourselves, you know, the spent fuel in the pool 7 has        always  been  a      method          for    safe  handling            of 8 radioactive fuel.            The casks for the older fuel is 9 still safe and we looked at that and they've been in 10 casks now for ten years or so.                          A lot of operating 11 experience with casks.
12                    And both those are deemed safe by the NRC.
13                    Yucca Mountain we know there's a lot of 14 political pressure.            It makes sense to not keep waste 15 in every state or, you know, there are 30 some states 16 that have nuclear power plants, get it to some central 17 repository.
18                    The NRC doesn't have a stake in that.                            We 19 don't get a voice in that.                      We don't get to say hey 20 let's pick Utah and there's a lot of empty land there 21 and just store a lot of these casks right now and put 22 them on one location.
23                    We  don't      get      a    choice      to  choose        that.
24 Congress is looking at that a little bit themselves.
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of piping, how many heat up and cool down cycles it  
35 1 along.          Even if Yucca Mountain gets delayed whether 2 there's another central repository somewhere that they 3 can move them to.
4                    But  the    NRC      position,      you  know,      we      do 5 review it whether they're safe there.                        We do inspect 6 it.
7                    Now the second part of your question, I 8 mean our inspectors go out there and make sure the 9 temperatures are fine.              Whether it snows outside, make 10 sure snow is not blocking the ventilation ducts or 11 that or the ventilation holes and, you know, it's 12 fine.          Radiation doses are measured.                They're within 13 the security boundary of the site or they have to 14 build a separate one.
15                    So security and safety of the casks are 16 evaluated by the NRC.
17                    You know, the second question about the 18 fairness, you know, it, it's true that the public 19 didn't sign on to have spent fuel in additional to the 20 plant sitting there.
21                    And there was a plant and somebody came up 22 to me after the afternoon meeting who had worked at 23 that plant, it's in Maine that's one of them that I've 24 visited out in my regional job, where right now the 25 plant decommissioned.
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can take.
36 1                    So the plant did go away.                      And it's a 2 green field now.          The buildings are gone.                  Everything 3 is gone except they do have the independent spent fuel 4 casks still sitting there with a security fence around 5 it with some security officers there 24 hours a day.
But concrete just the ability of the  
6 And        still  have  procedures            to        call  the local          law 7 enforcement if they need anything.                            And it will be 8 there until Yucca Mountain or a central repository is 9 decided.
10                    Congress has stated that they are going in 11 that direction.            They don't want it in individual 12 states.        The individual state senators and congressmen 13 when we talk to them or they come in and talk to us or 14 come to our public meetings they're usually universal 15 for at some point we'll get there.
16                    That's a long answer to your question.                              I 17 know it's unsettling.              It's not meant to be there for 18 your kids kids, you know, it might definitely be there 19 for your kids now for a good part of their lives as 20 the government as a whole has delayed on that.
21                    So safety wise though that's the NRC's job 22 is to make sure that it's safe sitting there.                              And we 23 do that.          We inspect those.                    And I mentioned this 24 afternoon even the transportation of some of those 25 casks we're even looking forward to that.
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concrete itself to last temperature effects over 60
37 1                There was a tunnel fire in Baltimore and 2 we know that's on the proposed route or any cask to go 3 through a tunnel and there was a horrific tunnel fire 4 five or six years ago and we analyzed the temperatures 5 inside that tunnel from that tanker that had exploded 6 and wanted to make sure that the cask design could 7 survive something like that.
8                So we're still doing research about when 9 the time comes for that.
10                That's one piece in on it.            The other 11 piece didn't come up but somebody might raise it.
12 This afternoon session the issue came up with locally 13 here at Kewaunee an issue and a complaint about really 14 the tax base for that.
15                That you're probably well more versed in 16 it and someone can add on to it here from the audience 17 I know spoke to it today.
18                But it was an issue once again that the 19 NRC doesn't have a say in, you know, how your taxes 20 either get collected or assessed for the ISFSI the 21 independent spent fuel storage installation and how 22 that money gets sent to the state and maybe doesn't 23 make its way back to the town or county seat here.
24                We can't, we can make this forum available 25 for that kind of complaint but we can't, we can't do NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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years that's one of the items we look at here.
38 1 much about that.          That's really a state issue.
I don't want to drag it out too long but, you know, as we do close the meeting we'll be around
2                    And I know states do it differently.                          It's 3 a, and I've learned in between these two meetings it's 4 even been done differently here on the history of the 5 plant here amongst the state.
6                    And  I    know        at     other        plants  a    larger 7 portion of that does go to the local communities.
8                    And, you know, so I can't answer that as 9 well but I know that it's an issue that comes up and 10 it      rightly    should    come        up    in      these  forums    during 11 license renewal because it's an issue on your mind and 12 it's an unfairness issue.
13                    So it's good to hear it.                      You know, your 14 state representatives if it's on the record here you 15 can point to that and say we brought it up here in 16 these meetings and kind of try to leverage that for 17 your state economic issues.
18                    But from an NRC perspective, you know, 19 that's not a concern of ours.
20                    Even going through this license renewal 21 process sometimes we'll get through it and the state 22 will          have a  voice      in      whether          the plant    gets          re 23 licensed.          A lot of times they'll have water usage 24 permits.
25                    They held up a plant where we had given NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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here. We'll be packing up some of the material that  
39 1 the approval out in New York and they, on one of the 2 lakes up there they wanted to make sure that the, you 3 know, the intake structure and all that wasn't harming 4 certain        fish  habitats        and      that      and  so  the        state 5 themselves have a lot of management issues.
6                    So  usually          those          work  themselves          out 7 through the process even ongoing at 40 year plants and 8 states will assess that.
9                    But, you know, the NRC is not the final 10 say on whether this plant keeps operating for out 60 11 years.        We'll do the safety review of that and a lot 12 of times it's up one to the utility, is it still 13 economic to go nuclear.                That's their own decision.
14                    And then even the states will get a piece 15 in on a lot of the water management usages of that.
16                    A long answer but let me go to him and 17 then back to you.          That's fine.
18                    Oh you want, you got the mike.                  Go ahead.
19                    MR. HARDTKE: Could I just finish --
20                    MR. HOLIAN: Oh, sure.
21                    MR. HARDTKE:          -- a comment on yours?
22                    MR. HOLIAN: Yes.
23                    MR. HARDTKE: I think that's what's broken 24 in the system.          You stand up there and say it's not 25 your issue.        We go to the DOE.                  DOE is not in control NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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you don't, decide not to take for going to the next
40 1 of those rods yet.            They belong to Dominion.
2                    MR. HOLIAN: Oh, right.
3                    MR. HARDTKE: And so we're stuck with them.
4  So who do we talk to.                        Dominion says they, they 5 aren't going to settle anything with us.                          You said you 6 aren't        in  control.          The      DOE        says  they  aren't           in 7 control but now whose taking responsibility for them?
8                    MR. HOLIAN: Well, the federal government, 9 you know, I say me because the NRC they have sued DOE.
10  So        DOE  they've      actually            sued    the  government, 11 utilities have to recoup costs.
12                    And it's your costs they're trying to get 13 back.          And somebody described that today.                    So NRC is 14 not in on the financial side.                      So that's all I mean.
15                    DOE is someone good to get at.                              Yeah, 16 you're right.          The rods aren't DOE's yet.                  But they've 17 been held or they settled.                        I won't say how that's 18 come out.          But in court they've settled with utility 19 companies who have sued them.
20                    And  so      you're        aware      of  some    of        the 21 background.          So they have had to pay out settlements 22 for the fact of being late for taking that fuel out of 23 here.
24                    I don't think it's, but that money hasn't 25 gotten to you.          I know.
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meeting.
41 1                    MR. HARDTKE: I know.
But if you have any other questions or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.  
2                    MR. HOLIAN: Yeah.                    So that's the issue 3 here is that the money hasn't gotten to you and we had 4 a state rep here this afternoon talking about that, 5 that, you know, that part of that gets into the state 6 politics of it.
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7                    You know, the settlement goes to them and, 8 you know, how that's distributed from the state is an 9 issue there.
20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 5 4 1 2 3
10                    Go ahead, sir.
4 5
11                    MR. CARROLE: Well, I've got the CRS report 12 here.          And it's an updated one for October 9th.                            And 13 Yucca Mountain might be ready by the year 2020.
6 7
14                    It says might be.                  But it also says that 15 every, every nuclear plant is getting reimbursed from 16 DOE because they're being sued so they'll get it.
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 concerns that you just want to get a different answer
17                    So this is the big thing right now is when 18 Dominion put in for theirs there was no reason why 19 they couldn't have put in for compensation for this 20 because that would have been an expense for them.
21                    And if NRC can come over here and overrule 22 our zoning because they are that big and they can step 23 on us, it's like I told our state senator, we have 24 only 600 voting people in the town and you don't give 25 a damn about us.
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to while we're closing up tonight feel free to grab
42 1                      And that was Herb Cole.                    And it's the same 2 with Kagen's office and it's the same with everyone of 3 them.          We met with them all.                    And Gary Visor is the 4 only one that is trying to fight for us.
5                      But the State of Wisconsin is the only 6 state that takes all the utility tax and sends back 7 what they want.
8                      MR. HOLIAN: Yeah.                    And I don't know if 9 it's the only state.                This is myself.              You might know 10 more about that than I do.                      I know you checked and it 11 is, and that's an issue with the state.
12                      You know, I just, as you said that, you 13 mentioned that, you know, the NRC is somehow you mixed 14 us in with zoning.
15                      Once  again      we      have        nothing  to  do      with 16 zoning out here at the plant, you know.                                    We will 17 license the plant but it is up to state officials, I 18 mean we'll look at the original siting of a plant but 19 it's up to, you know, state officials for changing, I 20 think          what  you  meant      was      changing        the  zoning          or 21 allowing          the  independent            spent        fuel  installation 22 facility there.
23                      MR. CARROLE: Town zoning.
24                      MR. HOLIAN:        Yeah, town zoning, okay.
25                      And  so    that's          been      an  issue    at      some NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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us.
43 1 plants.        You know, some plants, states have limited 2 zoning requirements where you'll only put 16 casks out 3 there.        We won't let you put 20, you know, that's 4 happened at several plants I'm aware of.
Any other questions on the process?
5                  Usually        that        works        out    amongst            the 6 economics        between    the      utility            and  the    state          and 7 somehow they come to some settlement in the cases I've 8 seen.
We will be back for, you know, other
9                  In other words I'm not aware of a plant, 10 you know, not being able to work that out somehow 11 economically with the state that's shut down a plant.
12                  And  we've        had      plants        decommission          over 13 economic decisions.            I just haven't, don't think I've 14 seen one yet over how many casks or independent spent 15 fuels storage installation.
16                  We've    had      some      plants,       you   know,       as      I 17 mentioned that one in Maine that had shut down, had 18 some safety issues and the owner at that time just 19 said, you know, deregulation was coming.                          There were a 20 lot of things at the time and they decided not to 21 continue the operation of that plant or sell it to 22 somebody else.
23                  So we've had several plants there right 24 around the early 90's that decided to shut down.
25                  Other    comments          or      questions    on    license NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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meetings when these documents come out in draft form.
44 1 renewal or environmental issues or scoping issues that 2 you want the NRC to look at.
The safety evaluation and the environmental report.   
3                      You know, in some of those documents there 4 we do generically look at 90 some impacts from water 5 impact          to  land    impacts          to        socio-environmental, 6 archeological impacts.                  So a lot does get looked at 7 both on the environment side and as you take these 8 documents and go away for the night and you think of 9 something as Sarah said anything that comes at an 10 environmental review you can come in and just put 11 those          in  either  through          us    or    through  your        state 12 offices where hey we want you to dig a little deeper 13 into these areas.
14                      You  know,      the        independent      spent        fuel 15 aspect you're right it comes up in these meetings 16 often because the immediate thing the public sees is 17 okay if we do the plant's been operating pretty well, 18 we like the electricity.                    But if we do let it operate 19 it bothers us because we didn't buy in for 20 more 20 years of high level waste being stored there also.
21                      You know, we can understand some.                       And so 22 I      don't      mind  that      obviously            being a    topic          of 23 discussion here tonight.                    It's not that that's not a 24 part of license renewal.
25                      As a matter of fact those casks, you know, NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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You know, there will be another meeting like this
45 1 we do license for a certain amount of time.
2                      So, you know, we will have to look at 3 that.          If Yucca Mountain doesn't go and DOE keeps, 4 well I won't put it all on DOE some of it's Congress.
5  Congress will cut their budgets so they can only do 6 so much work.
7                      So sometimes you can't fault them for how 8 late they've been.              I haven't looked at how much of 9 that blame is to share.
10                      But, you know, even now, even with the 11 application in now and that's why I know you read with 12 skepticism maybe by 2020 because Congress has already 13 said well the application is in with the NRC but we 14 still may cut funds for the, you know, eventual review 15 of our dollars, NRC dollars to even review it.
16                      So that, if we don't get the budget to 17 review it we'll have to delay it.                          It's just, so a lot 18 of that I put on Congress.
19                      But I do get to the safety of those casks.
20  They will be looked at.                    If it's, it's a commission 21 level          item. They      call      it        a  high  level      waste 22 confidence          decision.          Is      there       confidence.          They 23 actually call it the waste confidence decision.
24                      Does Congress give us enough confidence 25 that waste won't be here forever, for your kids and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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scheduled somewhere here in the area to go over that  
46 1 grandkids.          And they have to revisit that decision 2 that yes Congress is still behind moving it to some 3 kind of central repository.
4                    So we don't mind the issue coming up.                              I 5 can't always give you satisfactory answers.
6                    Just    like          in        some  area    emergency 7 preparedness I showed you on an earlier slide and 8 security are even bigger issues than independent spent 9 fuel storage because people say, you know, right now 10 we don't think we can hear the sirens when something 11 happens at that plant.
12                    And our roads are, you know, here you've 13 got plenty of roads to go somewhere.                        Over in New York 14 they've only got a few roads and that's a bigger issue 15 for them.        And it's unsettling for them to hear some 16 of the answers which well if that's an issue that's an 17 issue right now it's not necessarily a license renewal 18 issue.        There's other mechanisms to either get that 19 through        your  state      or    bring          that  to  the  NRC        and 20 petition to shut down the plant.
21                    But we do hear.              That's the point of these 22 meetings.        One we get to hear it.                  Some of your state 23 reps get to hear it.                And you get to be on the voice 24 here of that as we take these back we do cover aspects 25 of this of what's on the population's mind in these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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and here's what we found.
47 1 meetings and go from there.
It's probably still a, you know, a year
2                Other questions, go ahead, yes sir.
3                MR. TADISCH: I'm Steve Tadisch.                          I'm a 4 resident here.        And we're talking about this high 5 level waste storage.            How is that going to affect an 6 addition to the plant or any new plants in the state 7 or the United States?
8                MR. HOLIAN:          Just        the  independent      spent 9 fuel storage?    I --
10                MR. TADISCH: Yes.                  Are they going to give 11 new licenses even though Yucca Mountain is not going 12 to be running at the time or are they going to just 13 prorate it kind of and --
14                MR. HOLIAN: No.
15                MR. TADISCH:              --      then  hope  that        it's 16 running?
17                MR. HOLIAN: Well, the same issue for new 18 plants in the country, right.                        Now that's a whole 19 other, that's whole other division by the way.                                  So 20 Sarah and I, our reviews are going to be only on 21 Kewaunee and the other 11 plants that we have in with 22 us.
23                It takes about two years to do a license 24 renewal and you're at the beginning of this process 25 for Kewaunee.      So for the next 18 months we'll be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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away some of those meetings but.
48 1 studying Kewaunee and the other plants that are in 2 there.
Well, thank you for coming out tonight. I
3                    We are not affected by to quote the new 4 build,        new  reactor    build.            There's      a  whole        other 5 division back at NRC that handles that.                              And whether 6 that comes about or not there's a lot of factors.                                      You 7 know, there's economics.                  You know, will they get the 8 right, you know, rates of return on their money.                                    Will 9 the U.S. even be able to build it.
10                    But  your      question            was  even    if      Yucca 11 Mountain doesn't open up will the NRC even license a 12 new plant and the answer is yes.                                We could still 13 license a brand new plant having nothing to do with 14 Yucca Mountain.
15                    It  gets      into        that        waste    confidence 16 decision that hey that Congress has said we're going 17 to be looking at a repository.
18                    If Yucca Mountain gets turned down for 19 some reason at its, you know, it's one of the issues 20 they brought up is there's more sizemic activity out 21 in Nevada than people thought.                          And people are saying 22 so therefore you should have picked Texas, shouldn't 23 have picked Nevada.
24                    So  if      something              comes    out     in        that 25 technical          review    that        there's          too    much      sizemic NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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know it's an upset to your schedules to get out but
49 1 activity, you know, that might delay it another five 2 years.        Congress might have to pick another area.
3                    You know, it would be longer than that.
4 But Congress has stated we have a waste confidence 5 decision that we will eventually get this waste and 6 put it somewhere.
7                    Or  now      they're            talking  about        maybe 8 reprocessing it.
9                    So their timetable is off.                They've looked 10 at the NRC and they've said, you know, can it be 11 safely stored while we wait on that.                        And the answer 12 is yes, you know, we can do it in the pools like we 13 originally for 10 or 15 years and then we can put it 14 in casks.
15                    And they've stated the casks are not to be 16 long term storage.          They've stated that.              Now how long 17 is long term?        Will it be how much of your kid's life.
18  But it's limited by that cask review.
19                    But a new plant license the answer is, you 20 know, you can still go just like, you know, when these 21 plants were originally licensed you didn't have a high 22 level repository.          It was envisioned that you'd just 23 build it by then.
24                    So there's no, we're at this new plant 25 build, there's no view of whether it, you know, would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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we're glad you did come out and that's what we're here
50 1 be a factor in deciding for an up or down yes or no.
2                    MR. TADISCH:          The        game  starts      in        ten 3 minutes so we have to hurry up.
4                    MR. HOLIAN:          All        right.      That's          the 5 Phillies so you know what he's talking about.
6                    MR. TADISCH: The only thing is I was going 7 to say it also says that those spent fuel rods have to 8 be in the water for five years --
9                    MR. HOLIAN: Yes.
10                    MR. TADISCH:          -- before it can go in the 11 casks.
12                    MR. HOLIAN: Yes.                  That's, right, that's 13 right.        And there's usually not a problem with that.
14 The fuel that's in there it's plenty of room in those 15 spent fuel pools.          The original design for, you know, 16 for 10 or 15 years of amount of fuel going in there.
17                    So there's no problem keeping it in there 18 for five years.        You're right.                You don't want to take 19 it out before five years there's too much heat and you 20 wouldn't be able to cool it by air outside of that.
21                    So they do keep it in there for at least 22 five years.        And it's a good, good thing they've done 23 it.
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for.
51 1 just drained one of their old spent fuel pools and 2 actually moved some of the fuel that had been in there 3 30      years.      And  just,      you      know,      moved  it  over          to 4 another pool.
And you can get us by e-mail. You can
5                    But there's been a lot of talk about even 6 then you might be able to store it not in a cask 7 outside but in some kind of, you know, right within 8 the plant boundary in concrete and just air cool it 9 there.
10                    Now they didn't do that.                      But I'm just 11 telling        you  there's      other        methods      for,    you      know, 12 putting that fuel in storage that maybe haven't been 13 thought about yet.
14                    So I know that's an unsettling issue.                                I 15 know in this community it's unsettling for some state 16 reasons        really  for    some        kind        of financial      equity.
17 And, you know, I understand that.
18                    There was a state rep here this afternoon 19 and he heard that again and that was good for this 20 forum to bring that up.                We were keyed into it even by 21 the regional people that that would be an issue to 22 come up.
23                    And I, you know, I apologize sometimes the 24 NRC, the federal government, you know, doesn't have 25 more        of  a  say  in    a    state      issue.        Well,    it      just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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contact us by the web site itself. So please feel
52 1 doesn't.          You know, I got asked in a New York meeting 2 what if the governor of New York says he doesn't want 3 that plant re licensed.                    And I said well he can just 4 add his name to, you know, another list of people.
5                      I mean some of the state individuals don't 6 have, you know, as much say as an individual who lives 7 within 10 miles of the plant.
8                      You know, you have an opportunity if you 9 have a safety issue to put a contention in and say, 10 you know, maybe for some reason I don't think those 11 casks are as safe as the guy from the NRC told me they 12 were.
13                      You know, I think something might happen.
14  And, you know, you can raise that issue.
15                      It is being done.                If you, and you're very 16 well read and I appreciate that because out in several 17 states and I think California was one they raised the 18 issue of whether on security after 9/11 we should even 19 do more with the casks and do some kind of other, you 20 know,          berms  around    them        or      dirt  berms  and      other 21 things.
22                      So there have been petitions raised about 23 that.          I just want you to know and the NRC, there's a 24 lot of written documentation about what courts have 25 looked at and caused us to do on that issue.
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free to give us a call on any other issues. Thank
53 1                      But post 9/11, you know, a lot of issues 2 were looked at on the impacts and even fire impacts of 3 planes landing anywhere on site.                            And a lot of those 4 reviews if they demanded changes were made but it the 5 results were kind of inconsequential we left them as 6 designed.
7                      You know, I don't get into this often but 8 not only the casks themselves with the thickness of 9 that          concrete  but      even        the        thickness  of      those 10 containment buildings or you're talking feet and feet 11 of concrete.
12                      And  that        is      one        area    that  does          get 13 reviewed by the NRC.                I don't know if I mentioned it 14 earlier but not only piping and, you know, the fatigue 15 of piping, how many heat up and cool down cycles it 16 can take.
17                      But  concrete          just        the  ability    of        the 18 concrete itself to last temperature effects over 60 19 years that's one of the items we look at here.
20                      I don't want to drag it out too long but, 21 you know, as we do close the meeting we'll be around 22 here.          We'll be packing up some of the material that 23 you don't, decide not to take for going to the next 24 meeting.
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you.  
54 1 concerns that you just want to get a different answer 2 to while we're closing up tonight feel free to grab 3 us.
   (Whereupon the meeting concluded at 8:00 p.m.)}}
4                Any other questions on the process?
5                We  will      be    back        for, you  know,      other 6 meetings when these documents come out in draft form.
7   The safety evaluation and the environmental report.
8 You know, there will be another meeting like this 9 scheduled somewhere here in the area to go over that 10 and here's what we found.
11                It's probably still a, you know, a year 12 away some of those meetings but.
13                Well, thank you for coming out tonight.                          I 14 know it's an upset to your schedules to get out but 15 we're glad you did come out and that's what we're here 16 for.
17                And you can get us by e-mail.                    You can 18 contact us by the web site itself.                      So please feel 19 free to give us a call on any other issues.                            Thank 20 you.
21                (Whereupon the meeting concluded at 8:00 22                              p.m.)
23 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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Latest revision as of 12:10, 14 November 2019

Transcript of Kewaunee License Renewal Evening Scoping Meeting Evening Session, October 22, 2008
ML083190744
Person / Time
Site: Kewaunee Dominion icon.png
Issue date: 10/22/2008
From:
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
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References
NRC-2475, TAC MD9409
Download: ML083190744 (55)
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Text

Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Title: Kewaunee Power Station License Renewal Public Meeting: Evening Session Docket Number: 50-305 Location: Kewaunee, Wisconsin Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Work Order No.: NRC-2475 Pages 1-*

NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

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

Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433

1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 + + + + +

3 BEFORE THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 4 + + + + +

5 + + + + +

6 DOMINION ENERGY KEWAUNEE INC.

7 KEWAUNEE POWER STATION 8 Regarding the Renewal of Facility Operating License 9 WEDNESDAY 10 OCTOBER 22, 2008 11 7:00 P.M.

12 + + + + +

13 Town Hall of Carlton 14 N1296 Town Hall Road 15 Kewaunee, Wisconsin 54216 16 + + + + +

17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 P R O C E E D I N G S NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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2 1 (7:00 P.M.)

2 MR. HOLIAN: Good evening. I'm Brian 3 Holian. I'm the division director for the Division of 4 License Renewal back in headquarters.

5 Still consider myself a regional type guy.

6 I just am back from nine years in Region One which is 7 outside of Philadelphia and I spent nine years in the 8 regional office as a manager and before that I had 9 been nine years at headquarters so I came back and am 10 now heading up the license renewal program there.

11 So it's a pleasure to be out here.

12 With me today is Sarah Lopas the 13 environmental project manager and we have a 14 presentation of just 20 slides and I'm going to check 15 and see really because the crowd is small.

16 I know we bring out a formal presentation 17 like this but we don't mean it to be if you don't need 18 that.

19 So, you know, we do that and pack up this 20 stuff and bring it out. Oftentimes we get larger 21 crowds of people who aren't aware of what license 22 renewal is about.

23 That's the purpose of tonight's meeting 24 really just to describe the license renewal process 25 and then the second part of the meeting is to take any NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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3 1 environmental questions or comments you have.

2 We combine kind of two meetings into one 3 where we take any questions or concerns that you want 4 to address in the environmental review that will just 5 be starting now.

6 Let me just take a quick check with who we 7 had a crowd of maybe about 20 people this afternoon 8 and I see some familiar faces and I welcome you back.

9 I thank you for coming back to both sessions.

10 But who was not here this afternoon.

11 Okay.

12 So if it's okay with everybody we'll just 13 breeze right through those 20 slides. It should only 14 take 20 minutes or so and it's a repeat for some. But 15 it will be worthwhile and that's how we advertise the 16 meeting.

17 You know, I just wanted to before I start 18 the meeting mention a couple of things.

19 We do take these public meetings 20 seriously. In the back of the room we have slides and 21 if you get bored about these 20 minutes of these 22 slides there's plenty of reading material if you 23 haven't picked it up already back on the tables.

24 There's things from license renewal to 25 high level waste which I know is a good hot topic here NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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4 1 and a concern of a lot of people this afternoon so 2 we'll get right into high level waste casks.

3 And there's stuff on radiation protection.

4 How much dose does a member of the public get. If 5 you've heard about the tooth fairy project where 6 somebody is collecting baby teeth and analyzing it 7 for, you know, how much radiation people get.

8 There's a factor, a backgrounder on that 9 subject back there. There's a booklet on frequently 10 asked questions on license renewal. How you can be 11 more involved. So feel free to grab that even now or 12 at the end of the meeting and take it with you, take 13 one for your neighbor. That's what it's there for.

14 And then there's a single sheet of paper 15 in the back that, a franked envelope, our public 16 process. You know, the NRC is a public agency, public 17 safety agency, regulatory agency and we come out to 18 these meetings, you know, because we want it to be 19 useful to members of the public.

20 So if it's not that useful. The time of 21 the meeting is not right, the location is not right, 22 you don't get what you want out of the meeting put it 23 down there. If it's something positive or negative.

24 And we try to improve meetings as we go along.

25 Somebody collects those and grades us.

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5 1 Now with that I'd like to, you know, 2 introduce three other members of the NRC. I think all 3 three are here tonight again. They were here in the 4 afternoon session.

5 But first off we've got Kevin Barclay out 6 of Region Three a project engineer. And Kevin has 7 been with the Regional Three office for a couple years 8 and spends a lot of time up here at Kewaunee and Point 9 Beach.

10 And Vyktoria Mytling in the back. The 11 public affairs officer out of Region Three a good 12 contact for if you have any questions about the plant 13 in the neighborhood, anything going on from, 14 throughout the whole year, you know, Vyka can get you 15 the right person in the region or at headquarters for 16 an answer.

17 And we've got Harold, right. Harold is 18 back there. Harral Logaras. And Harral is kind of 19 new back to Region Three but he's been a FEMA employee 20 and he's worked on the industry side also and he's a 21 government liaison officer and so he can also point 22 you to the right contact and right issues in the state 23 or state contacts. That's part of his job to be an 24 interface between the NRC and the state.

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

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6 1 the independent spent fuel is a good issue for Harold 2 to be up on. So Harral from the region. He's only 3 been there back about a month and he decided to come 4 out to this meeting and makes sure he meets the folks 5 around here. So we appreciate that.

6 Let's go right into the slide. We can go 7 from there.

8 Our purpose tonight is to provide an 9 overview of the license renewal process and describe 10 the environmental review process and show our 11 schedule.

12 Sarah will be covering all the 13 environmental parts.

14 And as I mentioned the main item here is 15 we have a set of things, like 90 things that we look 16 at for environmental reasons.

17 If there's other things that we're not 18 aware of you should bring those up. Something about 19 the lake. Something about a fish species. Something 20 about an animal species here that you think will be 21 impacted by license renewal you let us know about it.

22 Next slide. You know, just a little bit 23 about the NRC. If you're not aware of us, you know, I 24 know we come out here for public meetings once a year 25 at least to tell you how the plants in the area are NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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7 1 doing. They're annual assessment meetings.

2 Lot's of good information if you're, ever 3 see those advertised just with how well the plant and 4 how well the region thinks the plant's operating that 5 year. They'll give you inspection findings, what 6 they're finding in the field and a good summary.

7 So we're out there for that. But we take 8 ourselves from the license renewal process back to the 9 Atomic Energy Act of 1954. And back then they 10 licensed the plants for 40 years. You know why 40 11 years, who was here this, this afternoon, economic 12 antitrust reasons. Really what, didn't have to do 13 with a guess of the technical length of the plant or 14 anything like that. It was mainly antitrust and all 15 kind of major power plants that were licensed by a 16 federal agency were given a 40 year life time.

17 In effect plants replace almost everything 18 at the plant, you know, even in 30 years now. Some of 19 the, pressurized water reactors are replaced, the big 20 steam generators that haven't even been envisioned 21 replacing when they originally built these plants.

22 So they replace a lot of equipment in 23 there. So it's important as you look at license 24 renewal we're not doing a new license for the plant.

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

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8 1 hear me talk about that.

2 The difference being there we don't review 3 whether it should be sited in the City of Kewaunee or 4 outside the City of Kewaunee again. We don't look at 5 siting. We don't look at emergency planning. I'll 6 cover that in another slide here.

7 So that's some of the stuff we don't do 8 and it's actually written into the license renewal 9 rule that was, you know, Congress had us look at.

10 The Atomic Energy Act was smart enough 11 though back there to say license renewal is a 12 possibility, you know, NRC you'll have to come up with 13 a license renewal process.

14 But back in `54 they said all right 40 15 years and then we'll look at a license renewal and how 16 much to extend these plants like 20 years.

17 You know, we're here talking, we're about 18 half way through the plants in the whole, across the 19 United States. We're at about 48 plants out of 104 20 that have been renewed. We just did one up in New 21 York a month ago and signed off on their license.

22 And they're already talking about another 23 20 years. I don't know if you heard about that. But 24 it comes up about life after 60 and meaning they're 25 already starting the research.

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9 1 It's not us. We don't do too much of it.

2 It's the Department of Energy. And I covered that a 3 little bit this afternoon.

4 You know, the NRC is a safety regulator 5 and Department of Energy is a promoter of, maybe we 6 should have a mix of nuclear, coal and gas. That's a 7 separate government agency a lot bigger than the NRC.

8 But the NRC is an independent regulator.

9 It just looks at the safety of the operation.

10 The other item that Sarah will talk about 11 more in the other governing statute is the NEPA, 12 National Environmental Policy Act and NEPA came out in 13 1969 and really it's kind of an educational as I view 14 it regulation that requires us for any significant 15 action to do an environment impact statement.

16 And the commission after that came out 17 that regulation came out demanded that for every 18 license renewal the NRC would do an environmental 19 impact statement.

20 And so that's one of the documents we're 21 gathering information on, starting this process as a 22 matter of fact Monday and Tuesday we had three of our 23 staff out on Lake Michigan looking at the intake 24 structure, you know, comparing it to other structures 25 we've looked at before asking the state about what NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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10 1 they've seen on impacts from the current plant, you 2 know, the current years of operation of the plant.

3 And walking down some of the land use and 4 issues like that around the plant. So we've already 5 started our review according to NEPA.

6 Next slide please. Once again the NRC 7 commission and I've talked a little bit about this but 8 to protect the public health and safety, you know, and 9 the main issue I want to point up here is our job, 10 Sarah and our job, is to make sure that we look at the 11 aging effects of the plant from 40 years plus one day 12 out to 60 years. That's what their application came 13 in for.

14 Kewaunee came in and said we want a 20 15 year extension. So we'll look at the safety aspects 16 of that.

17 And an important aspect though is that the 18 safety of the plant is really done by the regional 19 people. The regional inspectors. Some headquarters 20 inspectors that go out. There are plenty, the 21 regional folks out of Chicago that, and the resident 22 inspectors who live outside the plant and go in day to 23 day.

24 And you've got two residents there Steve 25 and Pat. And they write reports up every quarter.

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11 1 Those are published on the web site. They come to 2 talk about those at meetings.

3 So you need to know you have that 4 availability of those people living in the community 5 that go to the plant and have unfettered access to 6 anything they want to look at.

7 So that's the good part. Safety of the 8 plant is maintained by, you know, what we do on a day 9 to day basis through the NRC. And when you look at 10 the logic for that, well, when it's okay to operate 40 11 years plus one day it's about the same plan.

12 You know, the big question we have to 13 figure out, is it okay for a full 20 years on aging of 14 the plant. We'll talk about that.

15 Next slide. Well, they came in the 16 original 40 years is due to expire in 2013, that's not 17 too far away when you really look at it.

18 They're one of the older plants. Not, you 19 know, not as old. Our first plant that expires in 40 20 years is on the east coast in New Jersey and that 21 expires in April of next year.

22 And it's Oyster Creek. They don't have 23 their license extended yet believe it or not. We're 24 done with our review but it's up at the commission 25 level and there was a hearing involved in that.

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12 1 Some of the local communities and it's up 2 before Atomic Safety and License Board panel right 3 now. It's been there for four or five months. So 4 they had that extended onto their review. And we're 5 waiting to, results of that.

6 They're required to come in at least five 7 years before expiration of their license to give the 8 NRC and the state really and other organizations a 9 chance to weigh in on the safety of the plant. And so 10 they filed in timely renewal in 2008.

11 Next slide. The license renewal 12 application, you know, it's at the local library if 13 you want to look at it there. It is online. It's 14 awful big. The four binders are back there on the 15 table for their license renewal application.

16 It includes a lot of information. A lot 17 of it we know about already about how the plant 18 operates. You know, the plant systems we go out and 19 inspect left and right.

20 But they're required to put in specifics 21 about how it's aged. How they're aging. Do they have 22 a program in place to check cable aging, you know, 23 electrical cabling. Will they monitor it, test it 24 frequently enough to pick up any degradation.

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13 1 the active components, not on the pumps. We expect 2 them to be monitoring the pumps and replace those on a 3 frequency and their normal maintenance rule kind of 4 takes care of that, another rule that they have to 5 operate by.

6 But we look at structures. We look at the 7 concrete structures. We look at the reactor vessel 8 itself. That's a significant part of your review.

9 And we look to make sure that they have efforts in 10 place and programs in place to manage aging.

11 There's some change to the plant tech, 12 technical specifications. Those are the things they 13 operate day to day, the people in the control room.

14 If you have a one train down you can only operate 15 seven days unless you get that train, meaning a pump 16 and a valve and a system for injecting water back up.

17 Sometimes they'll do some small technical 18 specification changes as part of license renewal.

19 And then finally they'll even have to 20 submit their own part of their environmental report.

21 The licensee themselves looks at the environment and 22 how they're impacting it and we take a look at that.

23 And as I mentioned earlier get some 24 independent information from the states and counties 25 and other organizations.

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14 1 Next slide. You know, as I mentioned it's 2 a two phased review that goes on. Really we have a 3 safety review. It's separate reviewers and a separate 4 branch at Sarah's end on environmental reviewing or 5 has been associated with the environmental review.

6 On the safety there it is. We make sure 7 we look at the aging effects and we do that a couple 8 ways. We do it from our headquarters reviewers and we 9 also do it kind of we evolved into bringing some early 10 reviewers out to the site and they'll come out for an 11 audit.

12 We found out that's a better way to look 13 at some of the documentation that the licensee 14 references. You know, make sure if they tell us they 15 have a program in place we want to set our eyes on and 16 the documentation and what it does.

17 So we'll start those audits, you know, 18 here shortly.

19 Environmental review is very similar.

20 They contact a lot of other federal organizations do 21 you know any reason why environmentally there's some 22 issue you've had with the plant or the licensee or 23 the, just the Lake Michigan area here. What should we 24 be aware of. Sarah will cover more on that.

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

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15 1 I'll just quickly cover that because this gets a lot 2 of attention and the NRC gets criticized for not doing 3 a review of these areas.

4 So I, we lay that right out for you. The 5 license renewal process does not re look at emergency 6 planning, security or current, kind of current safety 7 performance.

8 You know, we don't take into account hey 9 they had two yellow findings and one white finding 10 over the last three years. You know, maybe they don't 11 deserve to operate another 20 years.

12 We don't look at it that way.

13 If they get enough red findings and 14 unacceptable performance that action may trick safety 15 matrix, shuts them down as a result of that poor 16 performance. So that can happen at age 30 of the 17 plant.

18 We don't look at that. And we don't look 19 at it because there's other NRC processes that look at 20 that.

21 Emergency planning. A lot of folks, some 22 folks have taken us to court on that right now. NRC 23 you should re look at emergency planning. You know, 24 things change.

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

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16 1 licensee every ten years when there's a new census you 2 analyze the impacts of the population and, you know, 3 can you evacuate still, can you shelter in place, can 4 you effectively inform the population.

5 Security. Our security requirements post 6 9/11 they got a lot of attention and a lot of people 7 say and still say today when you go re licensing re 8 look at their entire security posture of the plant.

9 We don't think that's necessary. And a 10 good example is after 9/11, you know, we had the 11 potential for airplane impacts on a plant and you had 12 a potential for, you know, what we looked at was our 13 current design basis threat, how many people might 14 attack a plant.

15 And the NRC looked hard at that after 9/11 16 and saw, you know, what can we strengthen.

17 They did. They put more, they forced the 18 licensees to put more guards in place, more, you know, 19 they called it guards, guns and everything and 20 training and made them strengthen the perimeter 21 boundaries. And so you saw some of that now. It's, 22 you know, looking a little more fortified and is more 23 fortified. So they were ordered to put that in place.

24 We didn't wait for license renewal and say 25 if you want another license do it. The NRC figured NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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17 1 hey in this time and age things have changed, you 2 know, we should strengthen that now, enforce them to 3 do that now.

4 So that's some of why we don't tie that 5 into a license renewal review.

6 Next slide. This is really I won't spend 7 time on this. It just talks again about the safety 8 review up top. At the same time you're doing an 9 environmental two different groups looking at it.

10 We do get an independent review by our 11 advisory committee on reactor safeguards. It's a 12 panel of individuals. Some from industry. Some from 13 national labs. Some from academia who review the 14 application, review what exceptions they're taking to 15 our generic documents on license renewal. We've 16 learned a lot.

17 And they call the licensee in for a 18 meeting and then they call the NRC staff in for the 19 same meeting and they question both of us. And do an 20 independent review of license renewal.

21 And then finally it goes to a decision.

22 You try to get all this done in 22 months. It's 23 several thousand hours of review effort to make sure 24 that kind of each of the systems has an aging 25 management system.

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18 1 And it can be delayed by up to five or six 2 months. I mentioned one if it goes to a hearing 3 process and you get the courts involved.

4 Next slide. You know, we talk about on 5 this slide just two guiding principles. I've kind of 6 mentioned them already but that the current ongoing 7 processes are adequate for safety and that the main 8 aspect that we do on license renewal is aging 9 management reviews.

10 I'll go onto the next slide.

11 Now here I just wanted to stress again 12 kind of how we got through our review. We will have 13 teams back at the NRC. I've got several technical 14 divisions, division license renewal that I'm the 15 director for has our own experts in materials, has our 16 own experts in electrical instrument and controls.

17 We'll look at aspects of the review. We 18 will contract some out to the national labs to do 19 independent checks on items like this.

20 We look at metal fatigue. How many heat 21 ups and cool downs can a pipe take over a 60 year 22 period and has the licensee actually, you know, 23 analyzed how many they've had in the first 30 years of 24 operation and will they be bounded by that.

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19 1 mentioned the onsite audits. We will issue a safety 2 evaluation report. That will be 600 pages.

3 That's one thing I didn't mention in the 4 afternoon. I'm trying to make that more readable. I 5 think it's, you know, it's a big document and it's got 6 a lot of information in it. A lot of it's repeated 7 from the licensee's application.

8 So I'm trying to shorten that up. I don't 9 think it needs to be such a long evaluation.

10 As a matter of fact in the press, I didn't 11 mention it this afternoon, but we actually got 12 criticized by our office of inspector general last 13 year. It was 2007 for not making those documents a 14 little more readable to the members of the public.

15 One they criticized us for putting too 16 much information in it from the licensee's application 17 and then not backing up our statements with enough 18 indepth.

19 So we've done some, you know, improvements 20 to how much and how much we include in there and to 21 what depth of material. But I wanted to mention that 22 as an ongoing criticism of even how we do our reviews.

23 But it's good from the public to know that 24 there's an independent, independent people looking 25 over our shoulders.

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20 1 What's also important here is the regional 2 inspections. Not only do my people go out for site 3 audit, which we found very worthwhile, but the region 4 sends their own inspection team out. And they'll walk 5 down a system and say licensee how come you didn't 6 include this tank in the charging system in the scope 7 of license renewal.

8 And the licensee will have to answer that 9 and make sure that they've scoped in the right amount 10 of equipment. Did they include everything that they 11 should in the management of the plant.

12 What's also important here is that they'll 13 come back. This plant is going through the process, 14 you know, within five or so years of when their period 15 expires.

16 We've had some plants already get their 17 license renewed and they've only been 25 years into 18 the process. So their first 40 year period doesn't 19 end for 15 more years.

20 And I went, you know, to one of the 21 meetings and a guy said hey the licensee has a 22 commitment in here in 2022, you know, to have this 23 program in place, you know, who's going to look at 24 that then.

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21 1 know, it might not be this individual or me but we'll 2 be there and they're documented in there.

3 And the region will send out an inspection 4 team again in that last year prior to them going in to 5 the license renewal period to verify that the 6 commitments are met.

7 I mentioned the ACRS.

8 Next slide. Well, here's where we get 9 into the environmental side and I'll let Sarah take 10 over and quickly go through the environmental aspects.

11 MS. LOPAS: Hi. I'm Sarah Lopas. I'm the 12 Environmental Project Manager for the Kewaunee license 13 renewal.

14 As Brian touched on earlier, the review, 15 our environmental review is performed in accordance 16 with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 17 which is called NEPA for short.

18 NEPA provides the basic architecture for 19 federal environmental review requirements. It 20 requires that all federal agencies follow a systematic 21 approach in evaluating the environmental impacts 22 associated with the major federal actions and 23 alternatives for those actions.

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22 1 here tonight.

2 NEPA also established the US Council on 3 environmental quality, the CEQ which is an office 4 within the executive office of the president.

5 The CEQ establishes policy implementation 6 of NEPA.

7 The NRC's environmental regulations which 8 are in 10 CFR Part 51 are largely based on those 9 regulations that CEQ developed.

10 Our environmental reviews consider the 11 impacts of license renewal and any litigation for 12 those impacts that we consider to be significant. We 13 also consider the impacts of alternatives to license 14 renewal, including the impacts of not issuing a 15 renewed license.

16 The staff documents its environmental 17 review in an environmental impact statement which we 18 call EIS for short.

19 Next slide. For license renewal the NRC 20 looked at a wide range of environmental impacts. In 21 conducting our review we'll reach out to various 22 federal, state and local agencies.

23 For example the US Fish and Wildlife --

24 MR. HOLIAN: She's got her Lavelier muted.

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23 1 talk to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The 2 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will be 3 important.

4 We also --

5 MR. HOLIAN: Could you push the button on 6 that.

7 MS. LOPAS: Oh, yeah.

8 MR. HOLIAN: Just makes it --

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

10 MR. HOLIAN: You're loud enough. We don't 11 need these sound systems.

12 MS. LOPAS: Oh, look at that.

13 MR. HOLIAN: We wouldn't, we wouldn't have 14 brought these out these tonight but we actually do do 15 court reporting to, you know, to make sure that we 16 capture any comments on environmental issues and that 17 and they get transcribed and it actually goes into the 18 record. That's why the recording system and 19 everything.

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

21 Today at the early afternoon meeting there 22 was actually a woman from the Costal Zone Management 23 Agency here for Wisconsin. That's one part of what 24 the plant has to go through in order to get their 25 license renewal.

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24 1 Next slide. So the environmental review 2 process begins with the scoping process. The purpose 3 of the scoping process is to identify significant 4 issues that should be considered in the environmental 5 review.

6 We are now gathering information that we 7 will use to prepare our environmental impact 8 statement.

9 As part of that process we're here to 10 collect your comments on the environmental scope of 11 the review and that is what, you know, important 12 environmental issues you think that we should look at, 13 the NRC should look at for this license renewal 14 review.

15 The staff has developed in 1996 which 16 we're currently updating right now, a generic 17 environmental impact statement that addressed a number 18 of issues that were common to all nuclear power 19 plants.

20 The staff is supplementing that generic 21 environmental impact statement with a site specific 22 impact statement for Kewaunee.

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25 1 that we reached in the generic EIS to determine if 2 there are any, if there's any new and significant 3 information that would change the conclusions of that 4 generic environmental impact statement.

5 Next slide. The scoping period started on 6 October 9th, 2008 obviously. That's when we published 7 a notice of intent and, intent to prepare an EIS and 8 conduct scoping. And that was published in the 9 federal register.

10 The NRC will be accepting comments on the 11 scope of the environmental review until December 9th, 12 2008.

13 In general we're looking for information 14 about the environmental impacts from continued 15 operation of Kewaunee. You can assist us in this 16 process by telling us for example what aspects of your 17 local community that we should focus on. What local 18 environmental, social and economic issues the NRC 19 should focus on as well as what are some reasonable 20 alternatives to license renewal that are appropriate 21 for this particular region.

22 These are just some of the kinds of 23 examples that we're looking for as far as input. And 24 they represent the kind of information that we're 25 seeing through this environmental scoping process.

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26 1 So any comments that you have tonight 2 would be helpful in that.

3 Next slide. This slide illustrates the 4 commission's various considerations for deciding if a 5 renewed operating license will be issued.

6 So how do we use your input? Tonight the 7 public comments they are an important part of our 8 environmental review and all the comments that we 9 receive from you we'll take a look at. They'll be 10 included in our review.

11 Next slide. To that end there are a few 12 ways that you can submit comments. You know, you can 13 speak tonight and it will be on the record. And you 14 can also write us a letter and send it to this 15 address.

16 And if you just reference Kewaunee license 17 renewal it will get to myself or John Daley, the 18 safety project manager. And you can also e-mail at 19 Kewaunee.eis@nrc.gov. You can also e-mail me, call 20 me, I mean any way that your comments come in - they 21 do get incorporated.

22 I also have received some written comments 23 tonight and those, you know, will come in as well.

24 And once again the due date for those 25 comments is December 9th, 2008.

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27 1 Next slide. This slide is the milestone 2 slides for the environmental or milestone dates for 3 the environmental review.

4 Obviously the highlighted dates so the 5 hearing opportunity closes on December 1st and that's 6 different than the scoping. You know, that's for 7 contention for a hearing to oppose the license 8 renewal.

9 The environmental scope being comments 10 period closes about a week later or so. So those are 11 the two important dates as far as public participation 12 that are good to know.

13 We are going to be issuing a draft EIS, a 14 draft environmental impact statement in August of 15 2009.

16 Next slide. This is just the license 17 renewal contacts. John Daily couldn't be here tonight 18 but he is the safety point of contact.

19 And then obviously myself. I'm the 20 environmental point of contact. But if you call 21 either one of us, you know, we sit right next to each 22 other so not a big deal.

23 The Kewaunee Public Library has agreed to 24 keep the application on hand for us. As well as when 25 we start publishing the draft EIS we'll have a copy of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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28 1 that on hand as well.

2 I believe we have to send them a copy of 3 our SCR too so they'll have that on hand for the 4 entire length of the license renewal project. So for 5 about two years.

6 And in addition to that it's probably 7 easiest just to go online if you have access to that.

8 The license renewal web page will have, also has, you 9 know, PDF of the application and when we publish the 10 draft EIS.

11 And that's all I have to say. So we can 12 move onto comments and questions now.

13 MR. HOLIAN: Well, we had a sign up list 14 for questions and comments. We had a sign up list in 15 the back and I know some individuals spoke this 16 afternoon. But feel free it's a little bit of a 17 difference audience and to repeat your comments or 18 questions as you have.

19 I don't have a list but if anybody has a 20 comment I will ask you to use the mike and identify 21 yourself and comment or question.

22 And feel free to bring up again, you know 23 the ISF, independent spent fuel was an issue that came 24 up earlier so I'll bring it up if you don't. Yes, 25 sir.

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29 1 MR. HARDTKE: Okay. My name is Dave 2 Hardtke. I have a question on the financial 3 environmental issue with this plant.

4 If they are allowed to continue to operate 5 we are sitting on a growing pile of nuclear waste.

6 And when this plant shuts down, and it's going to shut 7 down someday, I have kids and grandchildren in the 8 area, who is going to make up the financial loss to 9 the town when this plant shuts down because we will 10 not be getting any money from the utility tax at that 11 point.

12 And we are sitting on a pile of growing 13 waste out here and some day our kids are going to have 14 to pay the price for it.

15 So I am against the, the license renewal 16 right now.

17 MR. HOLIAN: Okay. Let's just, let's 18 address that. And that was probably the prime issue 19 that came out in the afternoon session also was the 20 issue of the, of high level waste and that issue.

21 It's two parts to that question. You 22 know, one is and I compared it this afternoon to just 23 the high level waste sitting here. I mean that's 24 enough to bother some people is just currently, high 25 level waste sitting in casks here and the failure of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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30 1 the federal government to move that waste off.

2 We covered that in detail this afternoon 3 and I'll cover it a little bit more here and there are 4 some great documents on the background of that back on 5 the table. So really grab one on the way out.

6 The federal government did state when they 7 started originally building nuclear power plants that 8 they would take that waste and, and move it off 9 somewhere.

10 Now originally back then a lot of people 11 don't realize they were going to reprocess that waste.

12 The waste that is sitting in those casks there is 13 very valuable economically. It's got a lot of 14 resources.

15 And in the 70's the United States went 16 away from, of reprocessing where we would build a 17 plant somewhere and reprocess that and make more 18 nuclear fuel and I don't know all the percentages but 19 you can take, you know, 90 percent of that fuel and 20 use it again and get it down to an amount that is, is 21 much more manageable for storing away eventually.

22 You'll always have some high level waste 23 that you'll have to store away somewhere but they can 24 take a good 90 percent of it and reuse it again.

25 Other countries do that. Japan does it.

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31 1 France does it and they do it for other countries and 2 they do it economically although it's a lot of, a big 3 up front cost that the U.S. didn't want to face in the 4 70's.

5 So but I mention that because all of a 6 sudden that's coming back again just in the last year 7 or so or two years and GEP, I forget what it stands 8 for here, but, you know, the current administration 9 said we look at that.

10 They didn't tell us to do that. That's 11 the Department of Energy. So once again another 12 government agency will look at is it feasible now with 13 the economics to re look at using that waste.

14 You know, what would that do. That might 15 minimize the amount that might go into Yucca Mountain 16 if Yucca Mountain is the final resting place.

17 And it also might help fuel costs and 18 uranium costs. I mean people worry some, that uranium 19 is a fixed amount out there.

20 So the first issue I just wanted to 21 quickly, kind of quickly cover was just it's sitting 22 there bothers some people.

23 From the NRC perspective, you know, we 24 don't, we don't get a voice in hey we'd rather have it 25 shipped off to another place. They don't ask us and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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32 1 we don't get to state our preference on it.

2 We do get to do a review of both avenues 3 as I'll call it.

4 Just this year the Department of Energy 5 finally gave the NRC their application for the high 6 level waste repository at Yucca Mountain. It took 7 them 15 years longer. I don't know the exact number 8 of years then it was meant to for them to study that 9 mile long tunnel in the mountain that they made.

10 And it just took them too much longer. I 11 don't know who blame. But some of their funding was 12 cut at different years. But either way the 13 application just came in just a month or so ago the 14 NRC looked at it after 90 days and said alright it 15 looks like there's enough information in there for us 16 to start a several year review on whether it's 17 acceptable to go.

18 So you're right. It's delayed and it's 19 delayed now until 2018, 19, 20 before, if it's 20 approved. If it's approved waste will start going 21 there.

22 So that's one issue is Yucca Mountain.

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33 1 keep in their spent fuel pool over the years. We 2 watch them as they put in applications for us and they 3 put more waste in there and they put it closer 4 together and they re racked as they called it.

5 And we made sure that the water systems 6 and the cooling systems were adequate for that. So 7 those were reviews that we did to make sure they're 8 safe.

9 After 9/11 we did some additional reviews 10 independently with research to make sure the security 11 of even the spent fuel pools there were still safe.

12 And then the casks that they, some of the 13 plants went to starting, you know, a good ten years 14 ago they realized hey we can't re rack, there were 15 some other methods to go. They could put more poison 16 in the water or some other ways but they thought the 17 fuel that's been in there, you know, for a long, 18 several years greater than five years, can be cooled 19 just by convection air currents in a concrete cask.

20 And it's well known so they designed a 21 cask. The cask vendors came in. The NRC did a year 22 or two review of the cask vendors. Went out and 23 looked where they were built, how thick the concrete 24 was, what kind of stainless steel canister they'd 25 need. You know, how many fuel assemblies to put in NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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34 1 there, how to make sure you'd get convection cooling, 2 you know, just air cooling out on the pad.

3 And we actually put those into the 4 regulations, those casks that were approved.

5 So the NRC said, you know, we'll go two 6 ways ourselves, you know, the spent fuel in the pool 7 has always been a method for safe handling of 8 radioactive fuel. The casks for the older fuel is 9 still safe and we looked at that and they've been in 10 casks now for ten years or so. A lot of operating 11 experience with casks.

12 And both those are deemed safe by the NRC.

13 Yucca Mountain we know there's a lot of 14 political pressure. It makes sense to not keep waste 15 in every state or, you know, there are 30 some states 16 that have nuclear power plants, get it to some central 17 repository.

18 The NRC doesn't have a stake in that. We 19 don't get a voice in that. We don't get to say hey 20 let's pick Utah and there's a lot of empty land there 21 and just store a lot of these casks right now and put 22 them on one location.

23 We don't get a choice to choose that.

24 Congress is looking at that a little bit themselves.

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35 1 along. Even if Yucca Mountain gets delayed whether 2 there's another central repository somewhere that they 3 can move them to.

4 But the NRC position, you know, we do 5 review it whether they're safe there. We do inspect 6 it.

7 Now the second part of your question, I 8 mean our inspectors go out there and make sure the 9 temperatures are fine. Whether it snows outside, make 10 sure snow is not blocking the ventilation ducts or 11 that or the ventilation holes and, you know, it's 12 fine. Radiation doses are measured. They're within 13 the security boundary of the site or they have to 14 build a separate one.

15 So security and safety of the casks are 16 evaluated by the NRC.

17 You know, the second question about the 18 fairness, you know, it, it's true that the public 19 didn't sign on to have spent fuel in additional to the 20 plant sitting there.

21 And there was a plant and somebody came up 22 to me after the afternoon meeting who had worked at 23 that plant, it's in Maine that's one of them that I've 24 visited out in my regional job, where right now the 25 plant decommissioned.

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36 1 So the plant did go away. And it's a 2 green field now. The buildings are gone. Everything 3 is gone except they do have the independent spent fuel 4 casks still sitting there with a security fence around 5 it with some security officers there 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br /> a day.

6 And still have procedures to call the local law 7 enforcement if they need anything. And it will be 8 there until Yucca Mountain or a central repository is 9 decided.

10 Congress has stated that they are going in 11 that direction. They don't want it in individual 12 states. The individual state senators and congressmen 13 when we talk to them or they come in and talk to us or 14 come to our public meetings they're usually universal 15 for at some point we'll get there.

16 That's a long answer to your question. I 17 know it's unsettling. It's not meant to be there for 18 your kids kids, you know, it might definitely be there 19 for your kids now for a good part of their lives as 20 the government as a whole has delayed on that.

21 So safety wise though that's the NRC's job 22 is to make sure that it's safe sitting there. And we 23 do that. We inspect those. And I mentioned this 24 afternoon even the transportation of some of those 25 casks we're even looking forward to that.

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37 1 There was a tunnel fire in Baltimore and 2 we know that's on the proposed route or any cask to go 3 through a tunnel and there was a horrific tunnel fire 4 five or six years ago and we analyzed the temperatures 5 inside that tunnel from that tanker that had exploded 6 and wanted to make sure that the cask design could 7 survive something like that.

8 So we're still doing research about when 9 the time comes for that.

10 That's one piece in on it. The other 11 piece didn't come up but somebody might raise it.

12 This afternoon session the issue came up with locally 13 here at Kewaunee an issue and a complaint about really 14 the tax base for that.

15 That you're probably well more versed in 16 it and someone can add on to it here from the audience 17 I know spoke to it today.

18 But it was an issue once again that the 19 NRC doesn't have a say in, you know, how your taxes 20 either get collected or assessed for the ISFSI the 21 independent spent fuel storage installation and how 22 that money gets sent to the state and maybe doesn't 23 make its way back to the town or county seat here.

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38 1 much about that. That's really a state issue.

2 And I know states do it differently. It's 3 a, and I've learned in between these two meetings it's 4 even been done differently here on the history of the 5 plant here amongst the state.

6 And I know at other plants a larger 7 portion of that does go to the local communities.

8 And, you know, so I can't answer that as 9 well but I know that it's an issue that comes up and 10 it rightly should come up in these forums during 11 license renewal because it's an issue on your mind and 12 it's an unfairness issue.

13 So it's good to hear it. You know, your 14 state representatives if it's on the record here you 15 can point to that and say we brought it up here in 16 these meetings and kind of try to leverage that for 17 your state economic issues.

18 But from an NRC perspective, you know, 19 that's not a concern of ours.

20 Even going through this license renewal 21 process sometimes we'll get through it and the state 22 will have a voice in whether the plant gets re 23 licensed. A lot of times they'll have water usage 24 permits.

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39 1 the approval out in New York and they, on one of the 2 lakes up there they wanted to make sure that the, you 3 know, the intake structure and all that wasn't harming 4 certain fish habitats and that and so the state 5 themselves have a lot of management issues.

6 So usually those work themselves out 7 through the process even ongoing at 40 year plants and 8 states will assess that.

9 But, you know, the NRC is not the final 10 say on whether this plant keeps operating for out 60 11 years. We'll do the safety review of that and a lot 12 of times it's up one to the utility, is it still 13 economic to go nuclear. That's their own decision.

14 And then even the states will get a piece 15 in on a lot of the water management usages of that.

16 A long answer but let me go to him and 17 then back to you. That's fine.

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

19 MR. HARDTKE: Could I just finish --

20 MR. HOLIAN: Oh, sure.

21 MR. HARDTKE: -- a comment on yours?

22 MR. HOLIAN: Yes.

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40 1 of those rods yet. They belong to Dominion.

2 MR. HOLIAN: Oh, right.

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

4 So who do we talk to. Dominion says they, they 5 aren't going to settle anything with us. You said you 6 aren't in control. The DOE says they aren't in 7 control but now whose taking responsibility for them?

8 MR. HOLIAN: Well, the federal government, 9 you know, I say me because the NRC they have sued DOE.

10 So DOE they've actually sued the government, 11 utilities have to recoup costs.

12 And it's your costs they're trying to get 13 back. And somebody described that today. So NRC is 14 not in on the financial side. So that's all I mean.

15 DOE is someone good to get at. Yeah, 16 you're right. The rods aren't DOE's yet. But they've 17 been held or they settled. I won't say how that's 18 come out. But in court they've settled with utility 19 companies who have sued them.

20 And so you're aware of some of the 21 background. So they have had to pay out settlements 22 for the fact of being late for taking that fuel out of 23 here.

24 I don't think it's, but that money hasn't 25 gotten to you. I know.

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41 1 MR. HARDTKE: I know.

2 MR. HOLIAN: Yeah. So that's the issue 3 here is that the money hasn't gotten to you and we had 4 a state rep here this afternoon talking about that, 5 that, you know, that part of that gets into the state 6 politics of it.

7 You know, the settlement goes to them and, 8 you know, how that's distributed from the state is an 9 issue there.

10 Go ahead, sir.

11 MR. CARROLE: Well, I've got the CRS report 12 here. And it's an updated one for October 9th. And 13 Yucca Mountain might be ready by the year 2020.

14 It says might be. But it also says that 15 every, every nuclear plant is getting reimbursed from 16 DOE because they're being sued so they'll get it.

17 So this is the big thing right now is when 18 Dominion put in for theirs there was no reason why 19 they couldn't have put in for compensation for this 20 because that would have been an expense for them.

21 And if NRC can come over here and overrule 22 our zoning because they are that big and they can step 23 on us, it's like I told our state senator, we have 24 only 600 voting people in the town and you don't give 25 a damn about us.

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42 1 And that was Herb Cole. And it's the same 2 with Kagen's office and it's the same with everyone of 3 them. We met with them all. And Gary Visor is the 4 only one that is trying to fight for us.

5 But the State of Wisconsin is the only 6 state that takes all the utility tax and sends back 7 what they want.

8 MR. HOLIAN: Yeah. And I don't know if 9 it's the only state. This is myself. You might know 10 more about that than I do. I know you checked and it 11 is, and that's an issue with the state.

12 You know, I just, as you said that, you 13 mentioned that, you know, the NRC is somehow you mixed 14 us in with zoning.

15 Once again we have nothing to do with 16 zoning out here at the plant, you know. We will 17 license the plant but it is up to state officials, I 18 mean we'll look at the original siting of a plant but 19 it's up to, you know, state officials for changing, I 20 think what you meant was changing the zoning or 21 allowing the independent spent fuel installation 22 facility there.

23 MR. CARROLE: Town zoning.

24 MR. HOLIAN: Yeah, town zoning, okay.

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43 1 plants. You know, some plants, states have limited 2 zoning requirements where you'll only put 16 casks out 3 there. We won't let you put 20, you know, that's 4 happened at several plants I'm aware of.

5 Usually that works out amongst the 6 economics between the utility and the state and 7 somehow they come to some settlement in the cases I've 8 seen.

9 In other words I'm not aware of a plant, 10 you know, not being able to work that out somehow 11 economically with the state that's shut down a plant.

12 And we've had plants decommission over 13 economic decisions. I just haven't, don't think I've 14 seen one yet over how many casks or independent spent 15 fuels storage installation.

16 We've had some plants, you know, as I 17 mentioned that one in Maine that had shut down, had 18 some safety issues and the owner at that time just 19 said, you know, deregulation was coming. There were a 20 lot of things at the time and they decided not to 21 continue the operation of that plant or sell it to 22 somebody else.

23 So we've had several plants there right 24 around the early 90's that decided to shut down.

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44 1 renewal or environmental issues or scoping issues that 2 you want the NRC to look at.

3 You know, in some of those documents there 4 we do generically look at 90 some impacts from water 5 impact to land impacts to socio-environmental, 6 archeological impacts. So a lot does get looked at 7 both on the environment side and as you take these 8 documents and go away for the night and you think of 9 something as Sarah said anything that comes at an 10 environmental review you can come in and just put 11 those in either through us or through your state 12 offices where hey we want you to dig a little deeper 13 into these areas.

14 You know, the independent spent fuel 15 aspect you're right it comes up in these meetings 16 often because the immediate thing the public sees is 17 okay if we do the plant's been operating pretty well, 18 we like the electricity. But if we do let it operate 19 it bothers us because we didn't buy in for 20 more 20 years of high level waste being stored there also.

21 You know, we can understand some. And so 22 I don't mind that obviously being a topic of 23 discussion here tonight. It's not that that's not a 24 part of license renewal.

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

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45 1 we do license for a certain amount of time.

2 So, you know, we will have to look at 3 that. If Yucca Mountain doesn't go and DOE keeps, 4 well I won't put it all on DOE some of it's Congress.

5 Congress will cut their budgets so they can only do 6 so much work.

7 So sometimes you can't fault them for how 8 late they've been. I haven't looked at how much of 9 that blame is to share.

10 But, you know, even now, even with the 11 application in now and that's why I know you read with 12 skepticism maybe by 2020 because Congress has already 13 said well the application is in with the NRC but we 14 still may cut funds for the, you know, eventual review 15 of our dollars, NRC dollars to even review it.

16 So that, if we don't get the budget to 17 review it we'll have to delay it. It's just, so a lot 18 of that I put on Congress.

19 But I do get to the safety of those casks.

20 They will be looked at. If it's, it's a commission 21 level item. They call it a high level waste 22 confidence decision. Is there confidence. They 23 actually call it the waste confidence decision.

24 Does Congress give us enough confidence 25 that waste won't be here forever, for your kids and NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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46 1 grandkids. And they have to revisit that decision 2 that yes Congress is still behind moving it to some 3 kind of central repository.

4 So we don't mind the issue coming up. I 5 can't always give you satisfactory answers.

6 Just like in some area emergency 7 preparedness I showed you on an earlier slide and 8 security are even bigger issues than independent spent 9 fuel storage because people say, you know, right now 10 we don't think we can hear the sirens when something 11 happens at that plant.

12 And our roads are, you know, here you've 13 got plenty of roads to go somewhere. Over in New York 14 they've only got a few roads and that's a bigger issue 15 for them. And it's unsettling for them to hear some 16 of the answers which well if that's an issue that's an 17 issue right now it's not necessarily a license renewal 18 issue. There's other mechanisms to either get that 19 through your state or bring that to the NRC and 20 petition to shut down the plant.

21 But we do hear. That's the point of these 22 meetings. One we get to hear it. Some of your state 23 reps get to hear it. And you get to be on the voice 24 here of that as we take these back we do cover aspects 25 of this of what's on the population's mind in these NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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47 1 meetings and go from there.

2 Other questions, go ahead, yes sir.

3 MR. TADISCH: I'm Steve Tadisch. I'm a 4 resident here. And we're talking about this high 5 level waste storage. How is that going to affect an 6 addition to the plant or any new plants in the state 7 or the United States?

8 MR. HOLIAN: Just the independent spent 9 fuel storage? I --

10 MR. TADISCH: Yes. Are they going to give 11 new licenses even though Yucca Mountain is not going 12 to be running at the time or are they going to just 13 prorate it kind of and --

14 MR. HOLIAN: No.

15 MR. TADISCH: -- then hope that it's 16 running?

17 MR. HOLIAN: Well, the same issue for new 18 plants in the country, right. Now that's a whole 19 other, that's whole other division by the way. So 20 Sarah and I, our reviews are going to be only on 21 Kewaunee and the other 11 plants that we have in with 22 us.

23 It takes about two years to do a license 24 renewal and you're at the beginning of this process 25 for Kewaunee. So for the next 18 months we'll be NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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48 1 studying Kewaunee and the other plants that are in 2 there.

3 We are not affected by to quote the new 4 build, new reactor build. There's a whole other 5 division back at NRC that handles that. And whether 6 that comes about or not there's a lot of factors. You 7 know, there's economics. You know, will they get the 8 right, you know, rates of return on their money. Will 9 the U.S. even be able to build it.

10 But your question was even if Yucca 11 Mountain doesn't open up will the NRC even license a 12 new plant and the answer is yes. We could still 13 license a brand new plant having nothing to do with 14 Yucca Mountain.

15 It gets into that waste confidence 16 decision that hey that Congress has said we're going 17 to be looking at a repository.

18 If Yucca Mountain gets turned down for 19 some reason at its, you know, it's one of the issues 20 they brought up is there's more sizemic activity out 21 in Nevada than people thought. And people are saying 22 so therefore you should have picked Texas, shouldn't 23 have picked Nevada.

24 So if something comes out in that 25 technical review that there's too much sizemic NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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49 1 activity, you know, that might delay it another five 2 years. Congress might have to pick another area.

3 You know, it would be longer than that.

4 But Congress has stated we have a waste confidence 5 decision that we will eventually get this waste and 6 put it somewhere.

7 Or now they're talking about maybe 8 reprocessing it.

9 So their timetable is off. They've looked 10 at the NRC and they've said, you know, can it be 11 safely stored while we wait on that. And the answer 12 is yes, you know, we can do it in the pools like we 13 originally for 10 or 15 years and then we can put it 14 in casks.

15 And they've stated the casks are not to be 16 long term storage. They've stated that. Now how long 17 is long term? Will it be how much of your kid's life.

18 But it's limited by that cask review.

19 But a new plant license the answer is, you 20 know, you can still go just like, you know, when these 21 plants were originally licensed you didn't have a high 22 level repository. It was envisioned that you'd just 23 build it by then.

24 So there's no, we're at this new plant 25 build, there's no view of whether it, you know, would NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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50 1 be a factor in deciding for an up or down yes or no.

2 MR. TADISCH: The game starts in ten 3 minutes so we have to hurry up.

4 MR. HOLIAN: All right. That's the 5 Phillies so you know what he's talking about.

6 MR. TADISCH: The only thing is I was going 7 to say it also says that those spent fuel rods have to 8 be in the water for five years --

9 MR. HOLIAN: Yes.

10 MR. TADISCH: -- before it can go in the 11 casks.

12 MR. HOLIAN: Yes. That's, right, that's 13 right. And there's usually not a problem with that.

14 The fuel that's in there it's plenty of room in those 15 spent fuel pools. The original design for, you know, 16 for 10 or 15 years of amount of fuel going in there.

17 So there's no problem keeping it in there 18 for five years. You're right. You don't want to take 19 it out before five years there's too much heat and you 20 wouldn't be able to cool it by air outside of that.

21 So they do keep it in there for at least 22 five years. And it's a good, good thing they've done 23 it.

24 You know, one of the plan, I'll just 25 mention, you know, has, it was on a New York plant NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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51 1 just drained one of their old spent fuel pools and 2 actually moved some of the fuel that had been in there 3 30 years. And just, you know, moved it over to 4 another pool.

5 But there's been a lot of talk about even 6 then you might be able to store it not in a cask 7 outside but in some kind of, you know, right within 8 the plant boundary in concrete and just air cool it 9 there.

10 Now they didn't do that. But I'm just 11 telling you there's other methods for, you know, 12 putting that fuel in storage that maybe haven't been 13 thought about yet.

14 So I know that's an unsettling issue. I 15 know in this community it's unsettling for some state 16 reasons really for some kind of financial equity.

17 And, you know, I understand that.

18 There was a state rep here this afternoon 19 and he heard that again and that was good for this 20 forum to bring that up. We were keyed into it even by 21 the regional people that that would be an issue to 22 come up.

23 And I, you know, I apologize sometimes the 24 NRC, the federal government, you know, doesn't have 25 more of a say in a state issue. Well, it just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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52 1 doesn't. You know, I got asked in a New York meeting 2 what if the governor of New York says he doesn't want 3 that plant re licensed. And I said well he can just 4 add his name to, you know, another list of people.

5 I mean some of the state individuals don't 6 have, you know, as much say as an individual who lives 7 within 10 miles of the plant.

8 You know, you have an opportunity if you 9 have a safety issue to put a contention in and say, 10 you know, maybe for some reason I don't think those 11 casks are as safe as the guy from the NRC told me they 12 were.

13 You know, I think something might happen.

14 And, you know, you can raise that issue.

15 It is being done. If you, and you're very 16 well read and I appreciate that because out in several 17 states and I think California was one they raised the 18 issue of whether on security after 9/11 we should even 19 do more with the casks and do some kind of other, you 20 know, berms around them or dirt berms and other 21 things.

22 So there have been petitions raised about 23 that. I just want you to know and the NRC, there's a 24 lot of written documentation about what courts have 25 looked at and caused us to do on that issue.

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53 1 But post 9/11, you know, a lot of issues 2 were looked at on the impacts and even fire impacts of 3 planes landing anywhere on site. And a lot of those 4 reviews if they demanded changes were made but it the 5 results were kind of inconsequential we left them as 6 designed.

7 You know, I don't get into this often but 8 not only the casks themselves with the thickness of 9 that concrete but even the thickness of those 10 containment buildings or you're talking feet and feet 11 of concrete.

12 And that is one area that does get 13 reviewed by the NRC. I don't know if I mentioned it 14 earlier but not only piping and, you know, the fatigue 15 of piping, how many heat up and cool down cycles it 16 can take.

17 But concrete just the ability of the 18 concrete itself to last temperature effects over 60 19 years that's one of the items we look at here.

20 I don't want to drag it out too long but, 21 you know, as we do close the meeting we'll be around 22 here. We'll be packing up some of the material that 23 you don't, decide not to take for going to the next 24 meeting.

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54 1 concerns that you just want to get a different answer 2 to while we're closing up tonight feel free to grab 3 us.

4 Any other questions on the process?

5 We will be back for, you know, other 6 meetings when these documents come out in draft form.

7 The safety evaluation and the environmental report.

8 You know, there will be another meeting like this 9 scheduled somewhere here in the area to go over that 10 and here's what we found.

11 It's probably still a, you know, a year 12 away some of those meetings but.

13 Well, thank you for coming out tonight. I 14 know it's an upset to your schedules to get out but 15 we're glad you did come out and that's what we're here 16 for.

17 And you can get us by e-mail. You can 18 contact us by the web site itself. So please feel 19 free to give us a call on any other issues. Thank 20 you.

21 (Whereupon the meeting concluded at 8:00 22 p.m.)

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