ML18130A906

CISF Public Scoping Meeting May 3, 2018, Transcript

ML18130A906
Person / Time
Site:	HI-STORE
Issue date:	05/03/2018
From:	Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards
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References
NRC-3674
Download: ML18130A906 (193)

Text

Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION

Title:

Public Scoping Meeting for the Environmental Impact Statement for Holtec International's Hi-store Consolidated Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel Located in Lea County, New Mexico Docket Number:

N/A Location:

Carlsbad, New Mexico Date:

May 3, 2018 Work Order No.:

NRC-3674 Pages 1-192 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.

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

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

1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2

+ + + + +

3 PUBLIC SCOPING MEETING FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT 4

STATEMENT FOR HOLTEC INTERNATIONAL'S HI-STORE 5

CONSOLIDATED INTERIM STORAGE FACILITY FOR 6

SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL LOCATED IN 7

LEA COUNTY, NEW MEXICO 8

+ + + + +

9

THURSDAY, 10 MAY 3, 2018 11

+ + + + +

12 CARLSBAD, NEW MEXICO 13

+ + + + +

14 The Public Scoping Meeting was convened in 15 the Meeting Room at the Eddy County Fire Service, 1400 16 Commerce

Drive, at 7:00 p.m.,

Chip

Cameron, 17 facilitating.

18 19 NRC STAFF PRESENT:

20 CHIP CAMERON, Facilitator 21 BRIAN SMITH, Deputy Director, Division of Fuel Cycle 22 Safety, Safeguards, and Environmental Review, 23 Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 24 Safeguards (NMSS) 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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2 JILL CAVERLY, Environmental Review Project Manager, 1

Environmental Review Branch, NMSS 2

JOSE CUADRADO, Licensing and Safety Review Project 3

Manager, Spent Fuel Licensing Branch, NMSS 4

JOHN McKIRGAN, Chief, Spent Fuel Licensing Branch, 5

NMSS 6

CINTHYA ROMAN, Chief, Environmental Review Branch, 7

NMSS 8

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3 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 1

2 Opening Remarks.................

4 3

Welcome and Meeting Purpose...........

4 4

NRC Licensing Review/EIS Process

........ 10 5

Question and Answer Period

........... 22 6

Public Comments................. 23 7

Closing Remarks................

192 8

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4 P R O C E E D I N G S 1

7:04 p.m.

2 MR.

CAMERON:

Hey, good

evening, 3

everybody, and welcome. My name's Chip Cameron, and 4

it's my pleasure to serve as your facilitator for 5

tonight's meeting.

6 And this is a Carlsbad edition, so to 7

speak, of a series of public meetings that the Nuclear 8

Regulatory Commission is holding on its review of the 9

license application that we received from Holtec 10 International to build and operate an interim spent 11 fuel storage facility in Lea County.

12 And the focus of the meeting is something 13 called scoping. And scoping is a term that's used in 14 the connection with the preparation of an 15 Environmental Impact Statement under the federal law, 16 the National Environmental Policy Act. And we're 17 going to try to keep the acronyms down. But three 18 that you will hear tonight are NRC, EIS, for 19 Environmental Impact Statement, and NEPA, National 20 Environmental Policy Act.

21 So scoping is pretty simple really. It's 22 what should be considered by the Agency, in this case 23 the NRC, when they prepare an Environmental Impact 24 Statement. What should be covered, what should be 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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5 addressed, and what does it need to be addressed in 1

the Environmental Impact Statement. Therefore, what's 2

the scope of it?

3 And the NRC staff is here to tell you 4

about their review process, the environmental process, 5

but also the safety review. Those are the two primary 6

segments of how the NRC decides whether to grant a 7

license or to deny a license. So we have 8

environmental review, we have the safety review.

9 Tonight, we're going to focus on the 10 scoping part of the environmental review, and after 11 the NRC receives comments in meetings like this or in 12 writing, they're going to prepare what's called a 13 scoping report, and that will be available to the 14 public. They'll summarize what they heard in the 15 scoping meetings.

16 But they're also going to use those 17 scoping comments to prepare a draft Environmental 18 Impact Statement. I want to emphasize draft, because 19 it won't be finalized until the come out here again 20 and they get written public comments on that draft 21 Environmental Impact Statement. And then they'll 22 finalize it.

23 So two objectives, key objectives tonight.

24 One is for the NRC to clearly explain their review 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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6 process to you, review of the license application.

1 And secondly to give them an opportunity to listen to 2

your comments, advice, recommendations on this 3

particular project.

4 And those two objectives correspond to the 5

format for the meeting. First of all, we're going to 6

have presentations from the NRC staff, and they're 7

going to be fairly crisp, too, okay. And the second 8

part of the meeting is public comment, and we're going 9

to ask you to come up here to the microphone and give 10 us your comments.

11 And we are taking a transcript. We have 12 Matthew McMullen over here, and he's our court 13 reporter. And that transcript will be made public, 14 and it's going to be probably about three weeks. But 15 it'll be on the NRC website, and the NRC staff will 16 tell you how to access that.

17 We have a lot of people signed up to 18 speak, and I think it's going to be a pretty 19 interesting meeting. Some of the people we've heard 20 at the previous two meetings that we did Monday in 21 Roswell and Tuesday in Hobbs, but they can speak 22 again.

23 But because we have so many people, 24 instead of having five minutes, which we, which I like 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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7 to give people five minutes. You can usually make 1

your comments, thoughts known in five minutes. We're 2

going to go four minutes, okay. Because we would like 3

to get out of here before midnight, okay. But no, 4

we've been finishing up about 10:45.

5 And I'll remind you at the three-minute 6

mark, gentle reminder, can you finish up. And I know 7

people are getting sick of me, tired of me saying to 8

every speaker, can you finish up. So I'm going to 9

take something from the soccer world.

10 When you got a minute left, I'll just tell 11 you, you got the yellow card, all right. And then 12 when your time's up, we're going to be nice and gentle 13 and give you the pink card instead of the red card, 14 okay.

15 But any rate, I apologize if I have to ask 16 you to stop, because I know you spent a lot of time 17 preparing remarks. But luckily, you can amplify on 18 your remarks you give tonight by submitting written 19 comments, and the staff will tell you how to do that.

20 The staff is not, they're here to listen 21 carefully to what you're saying. But they're not 22 going to respond to any comments that you have. And 23 sometimes people ask questions during their comments.

24 And they're not going to be answering those questions.

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8 But when they evaluate the transcript, the comments 1

from the meeting, they'll carefully look at what you 2

suggested.

3 And I just want to tell you that we do 4

have Beverly Allen here. Beverly, where are you?

5 Beverly is from Senator Tom Udall's office, and thank 6

the Senator, thank you for being here, and thank the 7

Senator for having you come to the meeting. I just 8

wanted people to know that you were here.

9 MS. ALLEN: Diane Ventura from Senator 10 Heinrich's office is on her way.

11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. So when Diane gets 12 here, maybe we'll just interrupt and we'll introduce 13 her. So when we do get to the comment period, I'm 14 going to call four or five names in a row. And it 15 cuts down on the time if you can get ready to come up 16 and speak.

17 So we're going to try to be really crisp 18 and efficient tonight. But I think you're going to 19 hear a lot of good comments. NRC's going to hear a 20 lot of good comments. And one other thing is is that 21 when we do these public meetings on a license 22 application, the public is always interested in 23 talking to the license applicant, in this case, Holtec 24 International.

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9 Well, we do have Joy Russell here from 1

Holtec International, and some of her colleagues. And 2

she'll be available after the meeting to talk to you 3

about any questions that you might have.

4 So let me introduce the NRC staff for you.

5 We're going to start out with Cinthya Roman, okay.

6 And Cinthya is the Branch Chief of the Environmental 7

Review Branch at the NRC in the Office of Nuclear 8

Materials Safety and Safeguards. She's going to 9

introduce some information about the NRC.

10 And then we're going to have Jill Caverly, 11 who's right here. Jill is the project manager for the 12 environmental review of the Holtec International 13 license application. So she is a key person, and 14 she's going to tell you about that review.

15 And our senior NRC official is Brian 16 Smith. And Brian is the Deputy Director of the 17 Division of Fuel Cycle Safeguards and Environmental 18 Review, and he'll also close out the meeting for us 19 when we're done hearing from all of you.

20 And we have our safety analysts here with 21 us from the Agency, and we have the Branch Chief, John 22 McKirgan. And we have the Safety Project Manager, 23 Jose Cuadrado. And the, oftentimes there's a 24 correspondence between the environmental review 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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10 material and what the NRC needs, the safety findings 1

they need to make.

2 So they're here to listen to, if there's 3

any safety issues, they're here to listen to that.

4 And finally, and I'll get out of here, we 5

have Dave MacIntyre here somewhere. There's Dave 6

MacIntyre, he's a senior Public Affairs official at 7

NRC Headquarters in Rockville. We have Bill Maier.

8 Bill, are you here? Bill Maier, okay. He's from our 9

regional, he's the Regional Liaison Officer at the NRC 10 office in Texas, Region IV. So he's with us, and we 11 have Angel Moreno, who's with our Office of 12 Congressional Affairs. We also have some other people 13 here from Congressional Affairs.

14 But final thing, just be courteous to 15 everybody. You may hear things that you don't agree 16 with, but just respect the person who's given that.

17 And Cinthya, are you ready? Okay, Cinthya Roman.

18 MS. ROMAN: Hi. First I want to say a 19 couple of things in Spanish. He provided a lot of 20 information, so I just want to make sure that people 21 that speak Spanish have that information.

22 (Foreign language spoken.)

23 MS. ROMAN: Good evening, as Chip 24 mentioned, staff in my branch is going to be working 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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11 on the Environmental Review Branch for the Holtec 1

license application. And our main goal today is to 2

hear from you, so I'm going to be very brief.

3 First, I want to give you a very quick 4

overview of what NRC does and our role in regulating 5

the Holtec project. Our agency is charged by federal 6

law to be the nation's only regulator of commercial 7

nuclear

fuel, nuclear materials, independently 8

ensuring these materials are used, handled, stored 9

safely, securely.

10 Our mission is to protect the public 11 health and safety, promote the common defense and 12 security, and protect the environment by regulating 13 the civilian use of radioactive materials. To 14 accomplish our mission, we carefully review each 15 license application we receive before making a 16 decision on whether or not to grant the applicant's 17 request. Next slide.

18 NRC regulates the operation of 99 nuclear 19 power reactors that generate about 20% of the 20 electricity in the United States. We also regulate 21 civilian use of nuclear materials, research reactors 22 at universities, transportation of nuclear materials, 23 and their storage and disposal.

24 NRC strives to be open and transparent in 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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12 its review. As such, stakeholders have many 1

opportunities to participate in public meetings on 2

environmental and safety issues. This scoping meeting 3

is one of those opportunities. Next slide.

4 As an independent regulator, the NRC 5

determines whether it is safe to build and operate a 6

storage facility at the proposed site. The NRC does 7

not promote or build the nuclear facility. Also, we 8

do not own or operate the nuclear facility. Again, 9

our mission and our regulations are designed to 10 protect both the public, workers, and the environment.

11 Holtec is applying for a license to store 12 waste. Holtec is not asking for permission to 13 reprocess or generate more nuclear waste. NRC does 14 not select the location for the storage facility, we 15 just evaluate the impacts of building and operating 16 the storage facility at the location proposed by the 17 licensee.

18 As we will explain later in this 19 presentation, the results of our environmental review 20 will be documented in an Environmental Impact 21 Statement, which is also a public document. This 22 analysis, along with other factors, will form the 23 basis for the staff decision to issue a license or 24 not.

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13 Now, Jill Caverly will provide additional 1

details about the Holtec project and the environmental 2

review process. Thank you.

3 MS. CAVERLY: Good evening, I'm Jill 4

Caverly, and I'm going to be the Environmental Project 5

Manager for the review. The next few slides will be 6

specific to the Holtec storage facility application 7

and its review.

8 Holtec has applied for a license to 9

construct and operate the storage facility under 10 10 CFR Part 72, or the NRC's regulations governing 11 storage of spent nuclear fuel and reactor-related, 12 greater than Class C waste.

13 If granted, the Holtec would receive a 40-14 year license to construct and operate a consolidated 15 interim storage facility. The current application 16 before the NRC requests construction and operation of 17 only the first phase of up to 20 planned phases. This 18 is the current -- in this current application, Holtec 19 is requesting storage of up to 500 canisters of spent 20 nuclear fuel.

21 This spent fuel would come from shut down 22 and operating nuclear power plants from around the 23 country. Holtec anticipates applying for up to 20 24 phases of construction and operation of 500 canisters 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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14 of spent nuclear fuel each, for a total of 10,000 1

canisters of spent fuel storage.

2 These additional phases would require 3

separate applications from Holtec, and would be 4

subject to their own safety and environmental reviews.

5 The Environmental Report provides information on the 6

full build-out of the site for 10,000 canisters. Next 7

slide, please.

8 This slide shows the approximate location 9

for the proposed consolidated interim storage facility 10 in New Mexico. As you can see, the facility is 11 located approximately halfway between the cities of 12 Carlsbad and Hobbs in Lea County. Next slide.

13 Holtec plans to use the HI-STORM UMAX 14 system for the storage of the spent fuel. HI-STORM 15 UMAX stands for Holtec International storage module 16 underground maximum capacity, and is an NRC-certified 17 design. That means that we have evaluated it and 18 determined it meets NRC regulations and can safely 19 store spent fuel.

20 The system is a dry, in-ground, spent fuel 21 storage system, and each of these modules holds one 22 canister of spent fuel. Holtec has applied for 23 storage of 500 canisters of spent fuel. The 24 canisters' transfer facilities would be below ground.

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15 This is a low profile design, as seen in the 1

conceptual drawing from the Holtec application. Next 2

slide.

3 This flow chart provides the overview of 4

the license application process, which could be 5

described generally as a

three-parallel-phrase 6

process. After the application is submitted, NRC 7

conducts an acceptance review to determine if the 8

application has sufficient information to begin a 9

detailed technical review. If so, NRC dockets the 10 application, and this begins the safety and 11 environmental review phases.

12 From a safety standpoint, we work through 13 a separate review to decide if the license should be 14 issued. The result of this phase of the review is a 15 safety evaluation report. This is graphically 16 represented on the left column of the flow chart in 17 the steps in orange.

18 The environmental review results in an 19 Environmental Impact Statement, which describes the 20 impacts on the environment from the proposed project.

21 On the right side, you'll see the adjudicatory 22 hearings. This blue box on the figure refers to the 23 opportunity for the public to request a hearing on the 24 application.

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16 These hearings would be held if a petition 1

to intervene is granted. So the results of these 2

three processes, a hearing if granted, the results of 3

the environmental review, documented in the EIS, and 4

the safety review, documented in a safety evaluation 5

report, will factor into NRC's final decision whether 6

or not to grant the license to Holtec for the storage 7

facility.

8 It's important to note that the focus of 9

this meeting is the environmental review process.

10 Next slide.

11 This flow diagram outlines the 12 environmental review process, or the middle column of 13 the previous slide. The opportunities for the public 14 involvement are highlighted in light blue.

15 The NRC starts its review by publishing a 16 notice of intent to inform the public of our plan to 17 prepare an EIS and to conduct a scoping process. The 18 light blue box on the right side identifies the 19 current scoping process, in which this meeting is 20 included.

21 The purpose of this phase is to gather 22 more information to use to help us prepare our EIS.

23 Comments gathered from this meeting, as well as many 24 other information collections, will be independently 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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17 evaluated for impacts of this particular project on 1

the environment.

2 We will document your comments today in a 3

meeting transcript. The public can also provide 4

written comments through the end of the scoping 5

period.

6 We will analyze all the information 7

gathered, develop a draft EIS, and issue it for public 8

comment. At that time, we again invite the public's 9

comment on the draft EIS, that's the lower blue box, 10 the lower left blue box. At that time, the staff will 11 continue -- oh, sorry. At that time, the staff will 12 schedule a meeting to hear your comments. The staff 13 will evaluate those comments and consider modifying 14 the draft EIS before issuing a final EIS.

15 The final EIS and the results of the 16 safety evaluation, or the Safety Evaluation Report, 17 will contribute to our final decision. Next slide.

18 The environmental is based on the 19 requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, 20 or NEPA. NEPA requires federal agencies to apply a 21 systematic approach to evaluate the impacts of its 22 actions on the environment. NRC will prepare an EIS 23 in accordance with regulations and guidance. Next 24 slide.

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18 This is a graphical representation of the 1

types and sources of information that NRC gathers when 2

preparing an EIS. We will conduct a site visit and 3

meet with local and state officials and other federal 4

agencies. We will also meet with tribes.

5 We are currently gathering information for 6

scoping that will help determine which issues should 7

be considered in our review. We also expect to 8

request additional information from Holtec following 9

the completion of this process. Next slide.

10 The NRC will gather information on a wide 11 range of topics related to our environmental issues.

12 This slide shows the resource areas that we will 13 consider in our Environmental Impact Statement. The 14 NRC typically includes these environmental resource 15 areas in its reviews.

16 So this slide is a high-level timeline for 17 our anticipated environmental review. This stepwise 18 approach meets our responsibilities under the National 19 Environmental Policy Act. We started the review with 20 a notice of intent to conduct scoping and prepare an 21 EIS. This started the 60-day scoping period. This 22 public meeting is part of that scoping process. We 23 will continue to gather and analyze information 24 related to the review and develop the draft EIS.

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19 We tentatively expect to publish the draft 1

EIS in June of 2019. At that point, we'll publish a 2

notice of availability, and that will start a 45-day 3

period for the public and other agencies to comment on 4

the draft EIS. These comments will also be addressed 5

and the analysis adjusted if necessary. We 6

tentatively expect to issue the final EIS in mid-2020.

7 Next slide.

8 So the scoping process helps the NRC to 9

determine the scope of the EIS and identify 10 significant issues to be analyzed in depth. It also 11 helps to identify and eliminate issues which are not 12 significant.

13 Finally, it helps us to identify other 14 environmental reviews and consultation requirements 15 related to the proposed action. So in other words, we 16 want to hear from you, because you live in the local 17 area and bring issues to our attention that we may not 18 be aware of. Next slide.

19 The NRC is requesting information and 20 input specific to this proposed facility regarding 21 what should be included or excluded from the scope of 22 the EIS.

23 Some examples of information that NRC is 24 requesting are, are there any local projects that are 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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20 being planned or developed nearby? Have you 1

identified wildlife or habitat that should be 2

considered? Are there cultural resources that should 3

be considered in the evaluation? Are there particular 4

populations nearby that should be considered? Are 5

there any other unique characteristics of the project 6

site or local communities that the NRC should consider 7

in its evaluation? Next slide.

8 These are the ways that you can submit 9

comments on the scope of the EIS. You may present 10 your comments orally or in writing at this public 11 meeting. You may submit comments through the 12 regulations.gov website by searching for the docket ID 13 NRC-2018-0025, submitting those comments there.

14 You may also mail your comments to the 15 address on this slide. But remember that all the 16 comments should be submitted by May 29 to ensure that 17 they will be considered. That's the end of the 18 scoping period.

19 Additional information on the application 20 and the review can be found on the federal rulemaking 21 website, or at NRC's public document room, or through 22 NRC's project-specific website for the Holtec 23 application. In addition, we've provided the 24 libraries of Hobbs, Carlsbad, and Roswell with 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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21 Environmental Reports for your review.

1 If you want to be on our mailing list or 2

email list, please make sure that your name and 3

address are provided to one of the NRC staff at the 4

registration area. This is just one way to ensure 5

that you will be notified of upcoming meetings at the 6

issuance of draft and final EIS.

7 At the bottom of the slide you'll see the 8

points of contact for the Holtec application. So 9

that's wrapping up my portion of the presentation, but 10 please remember to submit all your comments by May 29.

11 Thank you. Brian.

12 MR. SMITH: Good evening, welcome, and 13 thank you for attending our public meeting tonight.

14 We look forward to hearing all of your comments.

15 The NRC's job is to protect the public 16 health and safety and the environment by thoroughly 17 reviewing each license application we receive before 18 deciding whether or not to grant an applicant's 19 request. We understand that in the audience tonight, 20 there are those who may oppose Holtec's license 21 application, as well as those who may support it.

22 I want to assure you that we want to hear 23 from both sides this evening. However, I want to 24 remind you that the purpose of this meeting is to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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22 gather comments for the scoping of our EIS. We want 1

to know what important information and issues we need 2

to consider and analyze in our EIS.

3 We treat all the comments we receive the 4

same, whether a comment was made one person, or by a 5

hundred people. We give each comment we receive the 6

same careful consideration through the preparation of 7

the EIS. We will consider all of the oral and written 8

comments we receive here tonight, as well as those we 9

receive via letter, email, or through the federal 10 rulemaking website, regulations.gov.

11 The EIS, combined with NRC's safety and 12 security review of Holtec's license application 13 request, will result in an NRC licensing decision to 14 either approve the license request or disapprove it.

15 I'll end my remarks there and turn it over to Chip.

16 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, thank you 17 very much all of you. And I introduced Beverly Allen 18 before from Senator Udall's office, and we have Diane 19 Ventura here with us from Senator Heinrich's office.

20 So thank you both for being here.

21 And is the review process clear to all of 22 you? Basically, does anybody have a question about 23 the review process? Yes.

24 MS. HADDEN: I understand there was an 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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23 email set up now for comments to come in. Have you 1

announced that already?

2 MS. ROMAN: We need to issue a Federal 3

Register Notice. That's going to take a couple of 4

days. But you should see it soon, probably next week.

5 MR. CAMERON: And we apologize for the 6

feedback, but let's get started with our comments 7

tonight. And we're going to go to elected officials 8

first, and we're going to lead off with the Mayor of 9

Carlsbad, Mayor Janway, then we're going to go to 10 Commissioner Susan Crockett, and then three City 11 Council people. But I'll do that later. Go ahead, 12 Mayor.

13 MR. JANWAY: Start over here. Good 14 evening. As the Mayor of Carlsbad, I'd like to 15 welcome the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to our town.

16 Tonight's scoping meeting has been in 17 development for a long time. We're here thanks to the 18 hard work of the members of the Eddy-Lea Energy 19 Alliance, Holtec, and NRC itself. And this is a key 20 milestone in a very lengthy effort.

21 To best understand this project, you need 22 to go back quite a bit further than that, to the Blue 23 Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future, which 24 of course included former Senator Pete Domenici. The 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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24 BRC's mission was to draft recommendations on closing 1

the fuel cycle.

2 Spent fuel was sitting at locations across 3

the country and a

repository is years from 4

development. The BRC's recommendations included an 5

interim storage facility and a consent-based formula 6

for moving forward. Tonight's effort is a combination 7

of those two recommendations.

8 You can't talk about consent-based in the 9

nuclear industry without looking at Carlsbad. This 10 community's efforts when it came to the waste 11 isolation pilot plan are legendary. While activists 12 from other parts of the nation have suddenly all 13 convinced themselves they can speak for our interest 14 here, residents of Carlsbad have taken the approach 15 that we want to examine the actual scientific data and 16 make a wise decision.

17 Most of our citizens took that approach 18 decades ago, and they are taking it again now.

19 Carlsbad may well happen, and we believe we can make 20 this consolidated storage facility happen as well.

21 What we're examining now is a Holtec system that is 22 the safest in the world. They have a transportation 23 system that is the most robust system ever licensed.

24 This is an excellent proposal.

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25 Carlsbad, as well as Hobbs, Eddy County, 1

and Lea County has passed resolutions in support of 2

this interim storage facility because we know there's 3

a great need for these facility, and because we're in 4

the ideal remote site with Holtec's subsurface system.

5 This is a system that has been designed 6

with safety and security in mind, and we appreciate 7

all the hard work that brought us to this point.

8 I strongly support this project and 9

believe it is vital to the future of Carlsbad and the 10 area. Thank you.

11 MR. CAMERON: Mayor, thank you very much.

12 And we're going to do two things here that will help.

13 It's maybe, can we put one of the cordless mics there?

14 We're going to get a better mic, but also in a few 15 minutes we're going to get -- okay.

16 MS. CROCKETT: I'm good. Ready? We're 17 playing musical mics. All right, good evening, I want 18 to welcome the NRC. And thank you so much for taking 19 time to listen to the stakeholders.

20 My name is Susan Crockett. I am Chairman 21 of the Eddy County Commission, President of the 22 Carlsbad Department of Development, member of the 23 Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance. And I'm also on the Mayor's 24 Nuclear Task Force.

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26 I have been involved in the development of 1

the interim storage facility for over eight years, and 2

I have educated myself and learned about the facility.

3 And I'm confident in the safety and security of the 4

proposed design. There is a huge need for this 5

project throughout the country, and we have a great 6

site for it.

7 I have learned, as I've educated myself, 8

that we have spent fuel stored on rivers, around 9

lakes, oceans, and in communities that don't need this 10 in their communities. This puts these areas at an 11 environmental risk. Our site is remote and a great 12 location until a repository is developed.

13 Holtec's proposed casks passed all the NRC 14 testing and modeling with flying colors, and I think 15 the 15-inch thick wall of the cask with the impact 16 limiters make it indestructible. Holtec's subsurface 17 system is the safest and most secure system in the 18 world.

19 I come from a fourth generation farming 20 family, and it was mentioned in a previous meeting 21 that this facility could have an economic impact on 22 farmland. If there were a leak of radioactivity, it 23 could possibly affect the Pecos Valley Compact. That 24 comment is totally unfounded and not true.

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27 I am a lifelong resident of Eddy County, 1

my husband is a lifelong resident of Eddy County. We 2

have raised our two grown children here, and our 3

oldest son, daughter-in-law, and my eight-month-old 4

grandson live here. And all of them support this 5

project and have no fear of living near this proposed 6

site.

7 I have never been one to believe in hype 8

and hysteria. I believe in following science, 9

engineering, and testing to come to informed 10 decisions, and I fully support this project. Again, 11 thank you for your time and for listening to the 12 stakeholders. We appreciate it.

13 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, thank you 14 very much, Commissioner. And we'll move this back a 15 little bit and it'll give, I think there's going to be 16 plenty of light. Okay, Lisa, did you want to come up 17 and talk to us? And just introduce yourself to 18 everybody. Thank you.

19 MS. ANAYA-FLORES: Good evening, NRC 20 members. My name is Lisa Anaya-Flores. I am a 21 lifelong resident of Carlsbad. I am retired from the 22 Carlsbad School District, and I serve our community as 23 a city councilor. I am a mother and a grandmother, a 24 wife, sister, aunt.

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28 I've been following the development of the 1

interim storage facility for some time. I have to say 2

I'm impressed by the safety and security of its 3

design. There's no question of its need in our 4

nation. I believe we have an ideal setting for it.

5 And I believe that it's an ideal place to have these 6

spent fuels stored until a repository is developed.

7 I strongly, strongly support the project.

8 Thank you for hearing my comments, and I appreciate 9

you being here.

10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much.

11 And we're going to go to three members of 12 the Carlsbad City Council now. And let's go to Ed, Ed 13 Rodriguez, and then JJ Chavez and Mark Waltersheid.

14 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Thank you. And again, 15 welcome to my little neighborhood here. My name is 16 Eddie Rodriguez. I am a city councilman for Ward 1.

17 I am also the Mayor pro tem for Carlsbad. Been here 18 my whole life, and I welcome you to our little slice 19 of paradise here.

20 I too am in total support of Holtec coming 21 into our neighborhood. There is a lot of safety 22 precaution that has been looked at, examined, and 23 passed by you sitting at this table. All of those 24 safety features are designed to protect everyone. All 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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29 along the route, everywhere we go, everywhere it moves 1

from beginning to end, you guys have considered all 2

safety aspects and addressed them.

3 In the design that Holtec has moved 4

forward with, and which their design is actually now 5

being implemented by another company in order to 6

ensure the safety of their fuel rods in the same 7

manner as Holtec is able to secure.

8 Now one thing I'd like to address is the 9

transportation of those casks. These are very heavy, 10 as you know. They will have to travel by rail. And 11 there has been made comments about environmental 12 justice.

13 Environmental justice as defined by EPA is 14 the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all 15 people, regardless of race, color, national origin, or 16 income with respect to the development, 17 implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, 18 regulations, and policies.

19 This was intended to protect people, and 20 we all understand that. Now, the basic concept is 21 good. But if it's misused or misappropriated or 22 mislabeled because we don't agree with something that 23 is going to happen, that does not make it an 24 environmental injustice.

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30 If we were to build a coal plant and 1

decide to build it, it's a brand new coal plant that 2

we're going to build, and we look at a poor 3

neighborhood that cannot defend itself against our 4

actions, then that would be a social, an environmental 5

injustice. That's not what we're talking about here.

6 We are talking about railroad, which is 7

the backbone of America. It was built, it was laid, 8

and we built American cities around that for that very 9

reason, so that we could get the goods that we wanted 10 and that we needed in order to conduct business and 11 further our own ventures.

12 So as we move forward here, I want to be 13 careful that we don't use that environmental justice 14 as a golden ticket, a claim that we can make just 15 because we don't agree with something that's going to 16 happen.

17 The proposed Holtec location is 35 miles 18 from Carlsbad and Hobbs, as has been well described.

19 Carlsbad and Hobbs are by no means poor communities.

20 We have very robust industries, we have a lot of oil 21 and gas, and we have very high paying salaries here.

22 So because environmental justice cannot be applied to 23 the cities, it's being applied to the rail transport 24 system.

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31 And that's not an accurate application of 1

that. And I would hope that as you look forward and 2

move forward with this that environmental justice is 3

considered for what it really should be. And in the 4

event of an accident on the rail, the least of the 5

worries would be the cask and any radiation leak.

6 Those casks would survive. They've been 7

dropped on a spike, they've been submerged in water, 8

they've shot at by a rocket to show that it could 9

survive a jet impact. So you have done your due 10 diligence, and we are trying to do our due diligence 11 here in getting this thing done and passed. And I ask 12 that you consider all of these as you move forward.

13 And I

believe that instead of 14 environmental justice, we as Americans should be 15 talking about responsibility. We have all the waste 16 that has been mentioned before stored at facilities, 17 and we should be very worried about where it's stored, 18 because it's stored very close to waterways. One is 19 on the ocean in a fault area. That should really 20 concern us. We need to get that out of there. And 21 they're in very populated areas.

22 So I strongly support the Holtec project 23 and believe it will make safer the lives of American 24 citizens of all race, color, creed, and ethnicity.

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32 Thank you for your time and once again, welcome to our 1

little slice of heaven.

2 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, thank you very 3

much. And we're going to hear from JJ Chavez and, 4

Chavez, and Mark Walterscheid. But we also have Eddy 5

County Commission James Walterscheid here with us.

6 Okay.

7 MR. CHAVEZ: Good evening, my name is JJ 8

Chavez. I was recently elected to the Carlsbad City 9

Council. Myself and my family are lifelong residents 10 of Carlsbad. Myself and several of my peers grew up 11 with the WIPP project, by getting informed by 12 presentations at school, by having family members work 13 there, friends and neighbors work at the WIPP and 14 URENCO facilities. Carlsbad, Hobbs, Eddy, Lea.

15 We have a strong understanding of the 16 nuclear issues, such as transportation and storage.

17 Not only do we have an understanding, the community 18 came together to reopen WIPP after the 2014 events.

19 The community knows how vital the facility was to the 20 city and to the United States.

21 As the community knows how vital Holtec is 22 to the community and to the United States by it being 23 safe, stable. And it's placed 35 miles from any 24 population. The containers have been tested in every 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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33 which way imaginable, and will withstand with 1

stringent safety measures. The intermittent storage 2

provides a great temporary storage until a repository 3

is developed. I strongly support the project. Thank 4

you.

5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Chavez.

6 MR. M. WALTERSCHEID: Okay, my name is 7

Mark Waltersheid, I'm a lifelong member, I've lived 8

here all my life. Member of this group, right. I'm 9

a member of this Carlsbad City Council, I'm in favor 10 of the NRC's process of permitting this proposed 11 facility, and I will stand very vigilant in every step 12 of the process.

13 We are very diverse in our business 14 makeup, and this project would only strengthen our 15 economy here. Thank you.

16 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. And is 17 Eddy County Commissioner James Waltersheid here?

18 Thank you, Commissioner.

19 MR. J. WALTERSCHEID: Good evening, 20 members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, we 21 welcome you to Carlsbad and Eddy County. And like 22 Councilor Eddie Rodriguez said, this is the slice of 23 heaven. That's the way we think of it. The weather's 24 been fairly good here today, so I hope you all enjoy 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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34 it.

1 I would like to point out to, one thing 2

I've heard, I was at the NRC scoping meeting in Hobbs 3

last year. And it was brought up about, the business 4

about the nuclear spent rods need to stay put at the 5

power plants. And I think it's a no-brainer. They've 6

got to come out of those power plants because of the 7

reason that they're mostly located on lakes, rivers, 8

streams, and oceans.

9 I've seen the San Onofre plant in 10 California when I was there, living there about 30, 40 11 years ago, and it's right on the water, you know. And 12 the reason they're all on these bodies of water is the 13 cooling. There is no doubt about that.

14 And so I mean, to me, I think there was, 15 I've heard it said there was like 200 sites across the 16 country that they're holding these spent fuel rods and 17 will hold in the future. And they're going to keep 18 holding them, and some have been there 30 years or 19 more in these swimming pools being cooled.

20 So anyway, you would think from a 21 practical way of looking at this thing, they need to 22 be put somewhere away from lakes, any kind of bodies 23 of water. There is no doubt in my mind about that.

24 I think that was a, I can't understand why people 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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35 would argue that point.

1 But anyway, it appears that this is, you 2

know, it's going to be probably out west. That's the 3

least population center. Nevada looked like a good 4

place for the repository, people in Nevada weren't too 5

happy with it. So this area has WIPP, and there's a 6

lot of people are educated and have a lot of knowledge 7

about the nuclear industry here.

8 And so this appears to be a pretty good 9

place to put it. But anyway, I just think the Nuclear 10 Regulatory Commission will, trust that they will do a 11 good job in thoroughly scrutinizing this application.

12 So thank you for doing this, thank you.

13 MR.

CAMERON:

Thank

you, County 14 Commissioner. We're next going to go to Michael 15 Hernandez, and then John Heaton and Police Chief 16 Skinner, Fire Chief Lopez if he's here. John Moyer.

17 And those are our next ones, and here's Michael.

18 MR. HERNANDEZ: Good evening, my name is 19 Michael Hernandez, and I'm employed by the city of 20 Carlsbad as the City Administrator. I'm a longtime 21 resident of Eddy County. I want to thank the NRC for 22 taking time to come visit this site and learn the 23 information from the locals.

24 My family and myself have lived here for 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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36 many years, and we are well acquainted with WIPP and 1

the URENCO projects. My family and myself like and 2

support these projects and what they do to our area.

3 The proposed site is an ideal location.

4 The remoteness, the 35 miles from any populated area 5

is key, it's really important. This location would be 6

great to temporarily store the fuel until a repository 7

is developed.

8 I very much endorse this project and 9

encourage the NRC to expedite the licensing process, 10 and I thank you for your time.

11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Hernandez.

12 And now we have John Heaton.

13 MR. HEATON: Thank you again. Good 14 evening, welcome to Carlsbad, and thank you for being 15 here. I am the current Chairman of the Eddy-Lea 16 Energy Alliance, and we do really appreciate you being 17 here to listen to the community.

18 Eddy-Lea had purchased 1000 acres of land 19 for the GNEP project. It didn't materialize. Then 20 when the focus of the Blue Ribbon Commission on 21 Consolidated Interim Storage occurred, we recognized 22 that there was a huge problem in the country, as you 23 already heard. Many power plants, or most of them, 24 are all located on

rivers, streams,

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37 oceanfronts, and some are in very seismic sensitive 1

areas.

2 Fuel pools are overpacked, and many sites 3

had no storage capacity at all. And now the taxpayer 4

is paying the utilities to maintain their fuel because 5

DOE didn't take the fuel in 1998 by contract. The 6

utilities had never anticipated on-site storage, and 7

now a third of the population of the United States 8

lives within 50 miles of a power plant. That's 120 9

million people.

10 We all know we need a repository. But in 11 the absence of one, and knowing it will be several 12 decades before there is one, the BRC recommended 13 interim storage. We then recognized that we had an 14 ideal site. Remote, 35 miles from any population, 15 seismically stable, dry, a local nuclear workforce, 16 and a population with two nuclear facilities that what 17 I call have a high nuclear IQ.

18 The local population understands nuclear 19 materials and know they can now be handled 20 competently. Even WIPP, which was designed with a 21 HEPA filter system in case of a leak from a rock fall, 22 worked just as it was designed to do.

23 Eddy-Lea spent considerable time 24 evaluating the systems travel to manufacturing sites 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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38 of the big three and invited bids. We chose Holtec 1

not only because they are a great company with a 2

fabulous record, but they have the best, safest, most 3

secure system in the world. And a contract is a 4

contract, but they are doing everything that they 5

agreed to do and even more.

6 I think that represents the character of 7

the company, their leadership, and their great 8

employees. We are very impressed by Holtec. The 9

Holtec system is, as you've heard, a subsurface system 10 and has virtually no interaction with the environment.

11 It is resistant to floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, 12 seismic events, terrorist attacks, rockets, and plane 13 crashes.

14 Because of its robustness, it was the 15 system, as you heard, chosen for San Onofre, which is 16 literally on the oceanfront. And it is impacted by 17 the San Onofre, or the San Andreas fault. Holtec's 18 high star transportation cask has a 15-inch wall of 19 steel and lead and is virtually indestructible.

20 Testing requires to be dropped on the most 21 vulnerable point, dropped on a spike, burned in jet 22 fuel at 1400 degrees, and then submerged in 30 feet of 23 water, and it cannot leak. The release of the cask on 24 the surface of the cask is five times less than the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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39 NRC standards at two meters. At only a few meters 1

more, it is indistinguishable from background.

2 It will travel on a unit train with a 3

security guard, with security guards, travel at 4

reduced speeds, and will be satellite tracked. We 5

can't tell you that there won't be an accident. There 6

are a lot of crazy people that will pull in front of 7

a train. But we can tell you that there won't be a 8

release.

9 This is deja vu for us. We went through 10 this same thing with WIPP. We went through all the 11 fearmongering. WIPP has shipped more than 12,000 12 shipments and traveled over 14 million miles. That's 13 like going to the moon and back 28 times, without a 14 serious accident and absolutely no release.

15 We hear comments that say why would we 16 ship it twice and double risk. Believe me, a 17 repository will be in the West, and moving the spent 18 fuel two-thirds of the way to the repository will only 19 impact the mileage traveled slightly more. There is 20 really no real increase in travel risk.

21 There are no pumps, no moving parts, it 22 just sits there and decays. I can't think of a more 23 totally benign project. It is a great economic 24 development for our area, and we support it strongly.

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40 And again, thank you for being here.

1 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, John. We are 2

going to go to Chief Skinner, Chief Lopez, and 3

Assistant Chief Moyer. But then we're going to go to 4

Don Hancock and Melanie Deason. Hi, Chief.

5 MR. SKINNER: Good evening, my name is 6

Shane Skinner, and I'm Chief of Police of the Carlsbad 7

Police Department.

8 I appreciate the opportunity to speak 9

tonight. Obviously, you'll have a lot of people to 10 come up here and speak about the nature of the 11 project, and I tend to stick to what I know, what I 12 see, what I experience. And that is is, obviously as 13 a key member of this city's emergency services, we've 14 had the opportunity to work with WIPP over a long 15 period of time.

16 WIPP has not only been a local facility 17 that has employed a large local workforce, but it has 18 long been integrated with the community of Carlsbad.

19 I have witnessed the great effort that WIPP has placed 20 on educating the community and local citizens on 21 nuclear material. I've often spoke to many citizens 22 who feel very informed and are pleased the WIPP 23 facility is here in our area.

24 As a key stakeholder in the community's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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41 public safety, I must say that WIPP has always been 1

accommodating in engaging with us on a proactive 2

level. With the help of the WIPP staff, we have 3

coordinated on-site visits, training opportunities for 4

staff members, development of emergency response 5

plans, and dedication to a mutual and continual 6

communication.

7 I feel like WIPP has always been 8

transparent in their efforts to be part of the 9

solutions that arise for potential problems that I 10 face and encounter as the Chief of Police.

11 Therefore based on my knowledge of the 12 WIPP facility and my past working experience with 13 industry team leaders, it has become glaringly 14 apparent that safety and security has always been a 15 top priority.

16 I know that there's going to be a lot of 17 people that come up and speak for good and for bad.

18 I feel like our, I'm very proud of our community, that 19 we're very involved on both sides of it. I know that 20 you will get a lot of good information, a lot of good 21 comments and come to a good decision.

22 But me as the Chief of Police, if this was 23 approved by the Commission, we would welcome to, you 24 know, to endeavor to build the same kind of great 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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42 working relationship that we have with the WIPP 1

facility. Thank you.

2 MR. CAMERON: And thank you, Chief 3

Skinner. And is Chief Lopez here? Oh, here he comes.

4 Okay, great.

5 MR. LOPEZ: Good afternoon, as he said, 6

Richard Lopez, Fire Chief. Born and raised in 7

Carlsbad, and honestly I don't even plan on leaving 8

when I retire. I plan on staying here a while, 9

especially with the four grandkids here.

10 Anyways, as Chief Skinner said, we train 11 with WIPP on a regular basis, to the point that with 12 the equipment and the training that we have, Carlsbad 13 Fire Department's Hazmat Team, we're ready to handle 14 radiological release of one ever happened, which the 15 likelihood is not very high. So we're very 16 comfortable with that.

17 On another note, WIPP has been able to 18 assist us in first response around their area. So 19 their fire department, their fire and EMS have 20 provided first response to these incidences until we 21 get there and we can continue on and mitigate that 22 situation.

23 So again, we support this project. I look 24 forward to the facility. I have no reservations about 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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43 it. And I appreciate you guys this evening, thank 1

you.

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

Chief. And is Assistant Chief Moyer here? Okay.

4 Well, in that case, let's go to Don Hancock. And then 5

we'll go to Melanie Deason and Joy Russell. This is 6

Don Hancock.

7 MR. HANCOCK: Good evening, I'm Don 8

Hancock from Southwest Research and Information Center 9

in Albuquerque.

10 The Holtec Environmental Report is the 11 basis for the draft Environment Impact Statement that 12 NRC is going to do. Even a quick review indicates 13 that there are many factual errors in the document, 14 unsupported assertions that are contrary to law, and 15 important omission that casts severe doubt on the 16 reliability of Holtec's application documents, its 17 ability to be truthful and transparent to the public, 18 and its nuclear safety culture.

19 I don't have time to go into all of that, 20 but I do have a handout that's outside. It's called 21 Don't Rely on Holtec. I would be delighted for Holtec 22 to actually respond to that.

23 Holtec also doesn't own any of the spent 24 fuel, doesn't want to own any of the spent fuel, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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44 doesn't want to pay for any of the costs of 1

transporting the material. But, and they want the 2

federal taxpayers to pay for it. But the current law 3

does not allow that to happen. So we're in a 4

situation where they're proposing something that 5

legally can't happen without changing the law.

6 Turning to NRC and its responsibility to 7

do this environmental review that's been talked about, 8

a number of, there are many things that could be 9

mentioned about what would be needed in an adequate 10 draft Environmental Impact Statement. I'm going to 11 mention a few of them.

12 An adequate Environmental Impact Statement 13 should provide a comparative safety analysis of the 14 Holtec proposal versus continuing storage at the 15 reactors where the waste is located. You've heard 16 comments tonight about relative safety. NRC documents 17 should actually document a

comparative safety 18 analysis.

19 Adequate EIS should provide an analysis of 20 whether continued storage at the reactors meets NRC's 21 regulation. The analysis should include the time 22 frame in which continued storage at existing license 23 sites would not meet the requirements of 10 CFR 51.23, 24 NRC's continuing storage rule.

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45 An adequate EIS should discuss whether any 1

or all of the existing 70 licensed ISFSIs at reactor 2

sites are reasonable alternatives for storage. An 3

adequate EIS should consider the impact of the waste 4

never leaving the Holtec site, since there is no 5

repository or other disposal site. And neither Holtec 6

nor NRC can guarantee that there would be such a site.

7 An adequate EIS should consider whether 8

Holtec's site meets the requirements of 10 CFR Part 60 9

for geologic disposal of spent fuel. There is no 10 geologic repository, there's no basis to state that 11 there will ever be such a site. Thus, all the waste 12 that would come here could stay here forever.

13 An adequate EIS should provide the amount 14 of radioactivity in each canister, including the 15 maximum amount and the median amount for the analysis 16 of routine of accident releases during transportation 17 to the site, handling, and storage of the waste at the 18 site. Again, this is something that the Holtec 19 Environmental Report does not include.

20 An adequate EIS will consider the impacts 21 on oil, gas, and potash production, processing, and 22 transportation on the Holtec site. And inversely, an 23 adequate EIS will consider the impacts of routine and 24 accidental releases from the Holtec site on the oil or 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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46 gas, potash, dairy, livestock, and other agricultural 1

activities.

2 An adequate EIS will consider the impacts 3

of military and civilian aircraft crashes into the 4

UMAX containers at the site.

5 So we know that these issues have not been 6

adequately addressed in the Holtec EIS. So if there's 7

a lot of work that's going to have to be done to 8

actually address all of those issues that Holtec 9

should have addressed but did not address. So that's 10 a heavy burden that NRC holds that we will be 11 interested in seeing how it does and have further 12 comments on the draft EIS.

13 Finally, there are two basic questions 14 that NRC is not going to answer but need to be 15 strongly considered by people here and all across the 16 nation. First, if the waste is safe where it is, why 17 bring it to New Mexico? Obviously, if it's not safe 18 where it is, that creates difficulties in terms of why 19 is it allowed to be there, how would it be 20 transported, etc.

21 Secondly, if waste storage actually is 22 good for the economy, why do the nuclear reactor 23 communities not want to keep it? Thank you.

24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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47 you, Don.

1 And we have Melanie Deason coming up now 2

and I believe she has a demonstration that she's going 3

to do or bake a cake. I'm not sure what's going on, 4

but here she is.

5 Okay. This is Melanie.

6 MS. DEASON: Thank you. I've been 7

speaking the last couple of nights at other locations 8

in science and I wanted to play a bit with the 9

hydrology around here and give a demo. It's been real 10 serious and heady and I want to give you a visual.

11 Hopefully some of you can see what's going on here.

12 This demo is something that a fifth grader 13 can do, and so be welcome to teach others. And also 14 welcome to New Mexico's underground called playa lakes 15 or New Mexico lakes in Southeast New Mexico. This 16 will be a little demo about the science of hydrology.

17 The glass basin here underneath is like a 18 mixing bowl, clear glass. It represents the playa 19 basin which holds New Mexico's underground water 20 resources, especially around here and up around Las 21 Vegas. These are recharged by playas above including 22 those Holtec is admitted are on their site plus four 23 others nearby.

24 Now the green colander, you know, like 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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48 straining spaghetti, that will represent the ground 1

above the water table and aquifers and which allows 2

permeability or migration between these two areas.

3 Now the white rice; I've already poured it 4

to save me time, represents the soil. And it's poured 5

into the colander. Now playas are unique and briefly 6

they recharge our water tables and aquifers.

7 the funnel

here, kitchen

funnel, 8

represents the draining capability of playa lakes into 9

the underground aquifer. It's like having a big plate 10 with a drain on it, and that big plate could be 11 thousands of acres draining down. And so you have it 12 hanging here on the edge. In this case it will sit 13 right here. It's perfect. My kitchen was well-14 stocked this morning.

15 So the funnel represents the draining 16 capability of our playa lakes into the underground 17 aquifer and what we call in New Mexico our desert 18 lakes. But you don't see them. So I'm going to now 19 open this gallon of water here and I'm going to pour 20 from this unopened gallon.

21 PARTICIPANT: What are we seeing here?

22 MS. DEASON: Water is going down into the 23 aquifer below through the soil, through a special form 24 of hydrolity that playas give us. It's very unusual.

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49 Basically it's water. It's clean. Nobody's mussed 1

with it. Go a little more.

2 Now we have Ogallala Aquifer and several 3

others in this region and they serve eight states, the 4

Ogallala does, including New Mexico.

5 Holtec states that their two playas will 6

capture the site's water with a capacity of up to 7

seven-and-a-half inches of rain in one day event if 8

necessary. Now that's a little over an acre-foot of 9

water for those of you who do agricultural farming, 10 etcetera.

11 Now this little bottle represents water 12 from rain and snow being stored on Holtec's site. Now 13 I'm making it red so that we can see it. Since you 14 can't detect radiation with the five senses, it's been 15 dyed with food coloring so we can see it. After all 16 Holtec's site proposes storing the nation's high-level 17 nuclear waste as rods. Now that's pretty hot stuff.

18 However, since their containers need air circulation 19 between the steel and concrete, it will still 20 contaminate the soil nearby regardless. Plus with 21 those vents they grab the air above at ground level.

22 By the way, their canisters are designed for breathing 23 in and out just like we do, and the same air that we 24 breathe.

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50 Now let's imagine they've had a rain event 1

or maybe a big snow storm like Goliath a few years ago 2

at Christmas. Let's pour Holtec's water, which we 3

know is radioactive, it's given on that site -- they 4

say they're catching it. We're going to pour it down 5

the drain into the water table below. Now their water 6

table is only 35 to 50 feet below, however, remember 7

their cylinders, like tubes standing upright, they're 8

storing these casks, are buried over 20 feet in the 9

ground. So that's way over halfway to the water table 10 by the reports on emission. And everything below 11 ground is the water table and the aquifer is starting 12 to turn red, you will see here.

13 (Pause.)

14 MS. DEASON: Now remember in real life you 15 can't see it, but it's still there.

16 I think we're good. I don't have to pour 17 the second in there. I think you get the point.

18 Maybe water, if we have a big flood event, 19 it will flood the concrete tower vents too that they 20 have in their design and down their air gaps. Oops.

21 Hydrogen explosion and the concrete tops blow off.

22 Remember Fukushima, Chernobyl. That's what it was 23 about. There was a hydrogen explosion when water got 24 in there.

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51 Now let's pretend we're going to drill a 1

well somewhere else. For sake of time I'm not going 2

to do that.

3 MR. CAMERON: Melanie --

4 MS. DEASON: I'm closing.

5 MR. CAMERON: -- I'm going to have to ask 6

you to --

7 MS. DEASON: I'm closing.

8 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

9 MS. DEASON: We're drilling the well. I'm 10 in another state maybe drilling that well. See if I 11 can get in here. I don't want to make a mess. I 12 promised I wouldn't.

13 Anyway, I was going to use the syringe to 14 drill a well; we all know what wells are good for, and 15 suck up some water and put it in a glass. I have to 16 ask who wants to be the first to pour radioactive 17 water onto their crops or feed it to livestock making 18 meat and milk for the families around the nation?

19 Better yet, who wants to be the first to take a drink 20 of this water? Any takers? I've heard some in the 21 room that probably said they would. But be careful 22 you don't get a second chance. Think again and follow 23 the hydrology. It's right here in this fifth grade 24 science project.

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52 And thank you all for allowing me the 1

opportunity to give you this simple example. And NRC 2

members, please deny Holtec's application in its 3

entirety. As I've said before the proposal is 4

genocide. The definition is destroy an ethnic group 5

of nation. We in New Mexico and elsewhere, we matter.

6 I'm Melanie Deason. Do not consent.

7 (Applause.)

8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. We're 9

going to go to Joy Russell and then Russell Hardy, 10 John Waters, Karen Howard-Winters. This is Joy 11 Russell.

12 MS. RUSSELL: Good evening. Can you hear 13 me? Good.

14 Good evening. My name is Joy Russell.

15 I'm Vice-President of Business Development and 16 Communications for Holtec International. I've been an 17 engineer at Holtec for over 20 years. I want to thank 18 the NRC for the opportunity to come to speak to you 19 this evening. I want to give Holtec's commitment that 20 we will provide quality and timely responses to any 21 questions that you have that you are gathering from 22 the folks here and the other meetings that we had. So 23 we make that commitment to continue to provide timely 24 and quality responses to continue the licensing 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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53 process.

1 Holtec already holds 13 licenses from the 2

Nuclear Regulatory Commission for storage systems 3

which are used in the United States.

4 I also want to say it's my pleasure to 5

speak with you this evening. I want to provide you 6

facts about the HI-STORE project. We have a table 7

located right by the door when you came in. I had the 8

pleasure of speaking with several of you when you came 9

in. My colleague Joyce Tomlinson is also here.

10 Please feel free to ask us any questions that you may 11 have. Joyce is also an engineer at Holtec. She is 12 our licensing manager.

13 We're proud to have the partners that we 14 do in the ELEA organization. As you've heard from 15 many of them this evening, they are long-time members 16 of this community. And we were invited by them to 17 come into this community after they evaluated our dry 18 storage system to be determined as the safest and the 19 most secure system that's available in the world. The 20 nuclear community also agrees with that because over 21 60 percent of the nuclear plants in the United States 22 use our storage system.

23 Holtec International's core business is 24 and has been for the past 32 years the safe storage of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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54 spent nuclear fuel. That is what we do. We are an 1

American company. We're American-owned. Everything 2

we deploy is manufactured here in the United States.

3 We have a factory in Pittsburgh, a factory in Southern 4

Ohio and a new factory in Camden, New Jersey. We 5

employ around 1,000 people at those factories in the 6

United States. We ship our equipment all over the 7

world. We're the largest exporters of nuclear storage 8

equipment in the world. So we've very proud of that.

9 We're also very proud of our safety 10 record. We have an impeccable safety record. None of 11 our equipment has ever experienced a safety issue.

12 None of our equipment has ever leaked. Never has our 13 equipment ever caused any injury.

14 ELEA selected our system based on its 15 safety and security. We commit that the system that 16 we are deploying is indeed safe and secure. We did 17 provide some information. Again, any additional 18 questions that you may have -- I want to make sure you 19 understand spent nuclear fuel is solid. Our canisters 20 are seal-welded. There is no contamination. Please 21 understand the difference between contamination and 22 radiation. If the system doesn't leak, there's no 23 potential for contamination. I want to make sure 24 everyone understands that concept.

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55 The dose that's received from our systems 1

are very low. It's equivalent to a chest X-ray when 2

you're near it. And as you get away from it, as John 3

Heaton said, it's essentially indistinguishable from 4

background radiation.

5 We're very proud to be a part -- to have 6

the opportunity to become a part of this community.

7 As you've heard tonight, this community is rich in 8

knowledge. The WIPP and the URENCO site provide the 9

nuclear IQ that's unmatched in many parts of the 10 country. I applaud you for that.

11 I just want to close by saying that we're 12 proud to offer a temporary, safe and secure storage to 13 spent nuclear fuel from the United States. We don't 14 intend to bring anything in from overseas. It's all 15 from the United States. We commit to being good 16 stewards of the environment and we commit to being 17 good neighbors. And again I think you for this 18 opportunity and we -- I again echo my commitment to 19 the NRC for the licensing process. Thank you.

20 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 21 much, Joy.

22 (Applause.)

23 MR. CAMERON: This is Russell.

24 MR. HARDY: Good evening. My name is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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56 Russell Hardy. I'm a lifelong resident of Southeast 1

New Mexico. I support the proposed project for the 2

interim storage of spent nuclear fuel at the site 3

proposed between here and Hobbs. The reasons that I 4

support this project are fourfold: No. 1, I believe 5

that the NRC-approved Holtec HI-STORE UMAX canister 6

system is a very robust containment device that will 7

keep the spent nuclear fuel in a safe condition once 8

it's placed in the interim storage facility.

9 Second, I believe that the proposed site 10 is a safe place to hold the spent nuclear fuel because 11 it is geologically stable and has been contractually 12 withdrawn from potash, oil and gas activities for the 13 duration of the time that the facility will be in 14 operation.

15 Third, I believe that the local region is 16 supportive of and will continue to be supportive of 17 nuclear-related activities and is well-positioned to 18 complement this project by having an abundance of 19 nuclear trained workers, engineers, contractors and 20 emergency responders.

21 Lastly, as the director of the Carlsbad 22 Environmental Monitoring and Research Center, an 23 entity of New Mexico State University that performs an 24 independent environmental monitoring program in 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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57 conjunction with the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, I 1

know firsthand that there will be extensive 2

environmental monitoring activities conducted with the 3

licensing of this proposed facility, as well as 4

continued environmental monitoring after spent nuclear 5

fuel is delivered and then placed at the facility.

6 This will ensure that the workers, the communities and 7

the environments are safe and readily informed of any 8

potential releases or detections at above background 9

levels of alpha, beta and gamma-emitting isotopes.

10 My only recommendation is that through the 11 scoping and licensing process the NRC mandate as a 12 part of this scoping and licensing process that Holtec 13 be required to provide sufficient funding for the 14 duration of this project such that an independent 15 monitoring organization like the Carlsbad 16 Environmental Monitoring and Research Center be 17 engaged to work on behalf of the communities of Hobbs 18 and Carlsbad, Eddy and Lea Counties, to independently 19 monitor the proposed site and later the operational 20 facility for the presence of radioactive isotopes 21 and/or fission products that are likely to be 22 associated with the interim storage of spent nuclear 23 fuel.

24 Having an independent organization such as 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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58 CEMRC perform an independent environmental monitoring 1

program in tandem with any licensing-required 2

environmental monitoring provides a

level of 3

redundancy with respect to the environmental data 4

being collected and analyzed, and more importantly 5

ensures a level of honesty and transparency with 6

respect to the results that are communicated to the 7

regulators and the public at large. As a community we 8

witnessed the importance of having an independent 9

environmental monitoring program during the 2014 10 radiation release event at the WIPP facility, and I 11 believe it's imperative to emulate this independence 12 with respect to any proposed siting of any nuclear-13 related repository in the future. Thank you.

14 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much.

15 John, you can -- if it's easier to put it 16 in there, you can just put it in. There you go.

17 Okay. Go ahead.

18 MR. WATERS: First of all my name is John 19 Waters. I'm from Carlsbad. I've lived here most of 20 my life. I want to thank you for coming to Carlsbad 21 and listening to us. Certainly there are folks from 22 other places, but the stakeholders here in Carlsbad, 23 whether they are for or against it, really appreciate 24 you spending the time to come here and talk to the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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59 community and listen to the community. So again on 1

behalf of the community, thank you for coming.

2 My wife and I were raised here in 3

Carlsbad. In turn we've back to Carlsbad, raised our 4

four children. We chose to come back to Carlsbad to 5

raise our kids after WIPP opened, but when I was here 6

throughout high school and throughout the early parts 7

of my career I was here and watched WIPP. And you've 8

heard a lot of our Carlsbad citizens talk with pride 9

about WIPP. It's because we are proud.

10 We're proud that here in New Mexico, in 11 Carlsbad, specifically in Southeastern New Mexico, 12 that we took that mantle of protection on and we 13 brought a project in that we knew helped save a major 14 problem in the United States. It seems a little 15 wacky, but when we go to Washington, D.C., we're very 16 proud of it and we don't mind; it doesn't matter who 17 we're talking to, telling people that we're proud of 18 that.

19 And we're solution seekers here in this 20 community. We're very busy. We do a lot of different 21 things. We have a very diverse community. But one of 22 the things that I'm very proud of is that we don't 23 look at other places and say, oh, leave that over 24 there. That's their problem. We don't. We take --

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60 New Mexico, we were there at the beginning of the 1

nuclear age and I'm proud to say that Carlsbad is 2

helping at the end of the fuel cycle.

3 And solutions are what I'm here to talk 4

about. You're aware that Carlsbad, Eddy County, went 5

out and they worked really hard. A lot of people have 6

talked about what we went through to bring WIPP in.

7 It wasn't just, oh, my gosh, we need money or we need 8

jobs. It was a very long process that we educated 9

ourselves and I'm proud to say that the community is 10 very educated. At the time I worked for the National 11 Park Service and you couldn't probably find a group of 12 more anti-nuclear folks on the plant.

13 But one of the things that I was very 14 excited about is that the folks from the nuclear 15 industry came forward and talked to us to educate us.

16 It was a process to where we brought up questions. A 17 lot of people were very educated. They brought up a 18 lot of questions and they never failed to come back 19 with answers. They never failed to come back after, 20 hey, we've looked into this. And I want to say that 21 that's something that I'm very proud of is that the 22 community has educated themselves. You've got a well-23 educated community here, and what that's produced is 24 that's produced a very solid workforce that is one of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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61 the most adept at working in the nuclear industry in 1

the entire world. I would stack them up against 2

anybody.

3 We have two national laboratories with 4

lots of employees here. We have more Ph.D.s per 5

capital than any town in New Mexico save maybe Los 6

Alamos. A very smart group of people that are here.

7 I'm very proud of that. Our children learn from these 8

folks. It's just a tremendous place to live, and it 9

is our little slice of heaven and I think that it's 10 great.

11 We've cleaned up 22 sites with WIPP around 12 the world -- around the United States. I mean, if 13 you're in Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, you 14 can thank WIPP. If you've been to -- and I have a 15 background in environmental biology and one of the 16 things they always taught us about was Rocky -- the --

17 your Rocky Flats area in Colorado, and that's cleaned 18 up now. It's cleaned up because the people in 19 Carlsbad worked, learned and fought hard enough to get 20 something in here that was a solution for the country.

21 Proud of that.

22 We have another solution here in 23 Southeastern New Mexico and I'm really excited to say 24 that -- you know, there is a problem out there, and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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62 we're not here to debate the nuclear energy industry.

1 We're here to talk about the waste and find a safe 2

solution for it. Right now it's a temporary solution, 3

and we realizes that. We've heard a lot of people 4

talk about the possibility of a repository. And it's 5

a while off. I mean, anybody that looks at that, that 6

reads the documentation, you know that a repository is 7

out there, but it's out there in the future.

8 I have a little more positive outlook on 9

that. From an economic development standpoint I see 10 the opportunity here. I see the opportunity of taking 11 care of this waste in a safe manner temporarily until 12 one of two things happens: We all know about the 13 repository. Nuclear energy, it's no carbon emission, 14 it's a great source of baseload energy. And you know 15 the one issue we got to deal with is what do we do 16 with that waste afterward? That's what we're to talk 17 about.

18 You can reprocess it. Technology and 19 economics are coming to such a place that it will be 20 feasible in the United States to reprocess this, to 21 recycle it. Eighty percent of that power is left in 22 that rod when it's pulled out of our reactor.

23 Wouldn't it be great if we couldn't just recycle that 24 and end up with a soup can full of waste instead of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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63 something larger than that? I don't look at it as 1

waste. I see it as a resource.

2 And it's something in the future that if 3

you're going to look at the possible negative things 4

in an EIS, you got to look at the possible positive 5

things as well. This gives our country another 6

solution, maybe a more permanent solution to deal with 7

that nuclear waste in the future. And I think that's 8

something worth mentioning and it's something to look 9

forward to in the future from our perspective to solve 10 another problem.

11 The operation of a such a facility would 12 also offer an opportune place to study the aging 13 process in the -- with the fuel and the containers.

14 It's my hope that the NRC's Regulatory Research 15 Program would take advantage of the central facility 16 as the Department of Energy has with WIPP and fund 17 some of those research projects to take a look at and 18 learn as much as they can about the temporary solution 19 so they learn more about the permanent solution.

20 So again, I have comments that are written 21 here. I certainly will submit those, but I tried to 22 summarize them. Thank you again for coming to 23 Carlsbad.

24 (Applause.)

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64 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 1

you, John.

2 We're going to go to Karen Howard-Winters 3

now and then Kyle Marksteiner, Anthony Lee Alanzo and 4

Ralph Jennings. This is Karen.

5 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: Hi, y'all. I'm back.

6 (Laughter.)

7 MR. CAMERON: And you -- okay. You're 8

going to go to the mic?

9 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: Yes.

10 MR. CAMERON: Yes, okay.

11 MS.

HOWARD-WINTERS:

Hi, y'all in 12 Carlsbad. Thank you for having me and thank you, 13 Nuclear Regulatory Commission for listening to me 14 again tonight. And I know there's a lot of folks out 15 there in Carlsbad. I'm from Odessa, Texas. Y'all may 16 not think that I'm a stakeholder here, but yes I am, 17 too, because y'all are thinking about putting this 18 project on an aquifer that I use, too. So don't think 19 that I'm not a stakeholder in this project because 20 y'all are thinking about Holtec putting this project 21 on oil that I use. So that makes my livelihood in 22 Odessa, Texas. So don't y'all think that I'm not a 23 stakeholder, too, because I am. Okay?

24 And also we're talking about an 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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65 Environmental Impact Statement. There's a little 1

lizard that was causing the oil field a whole lot of 2

trouble back in 2011-2012. It was called the Dunes 3

Sagebrush Lizard and it was causing -- oh, the oil 4

people, they -- oh, they don't like him at all. It 5

was causing them a lot of trouble back then. But I 6

don't know what happened to this little guy back then 7

or what's happened to him now, but I'd sure like for 8

y'all to check him out, because I'm pretty sure that 9

he hangs around this area, too. It's called the Dunes 10 Sagebrush Lizard. And they were going to make him an 11 endangered species back then. But I think the oil 12 people kind of got involved in that and -- I don't 13 know what happened to him. Anyway, he became 14 unendangered. So anyway, I think he's probably still 15 endangered, but anyway not according to oil.

16 Okay. So at any rate I'm worried about 17 him because that ground out there where Holtec is 18 going to put this stuff in the ground gets really, 19 really hot, so I worry about that little guy, you 20 know, and what's going to happen to him and all of his 21 little lizard babies and what's going to happen to him 22 and his family, her and her family. So maybe we ought 23 to check the environment about the Dune Sagebrush 24 Lizard and what's going to happen to -- how it's going 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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66 to impact him and her.

1 Now as far as a ideal site, yes, it's only 2

interim. And there's a lot of fracking that goes on 3

around here, too. And I have family that lives in 4

Oklahoma and Oklahoma never used to have any 5

earthquakes, but since they started fracking there 6

there's a whole lot of earthquakes that have been 7

going on. They had only three way back when before 8

they started fracking, but now that they've started 9

fracking they've had well over 100. So that's kind of 10 something to think about because if we're going to 11 have some earthquakes around here with all the 12 fracking that's going on, that's something to think 13 about when we start thinking about putting this stuff 14 in the ground here.

15 Okay. Social injustice and the railroads.

16 These rails, like I said before, are not meant to 17 carry this load. They are old, they're antiquated, 18 we're going to be carrying across D-bridges. Who's 19 going to -- where's the money going to come from to 20 beef up these rails? Who's going to pay for that?

21 And who's going to pay for -- when there is some kind 22 of radioactive -- oh, let's say a rail car falls off 23 the track or whatever and there is a radioactive spill 24 or something, just an accident that nobody's counting 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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67 on. Because when we're talking about odds, maybe 1

Holtec has never had an accident, but just because 2

they've never had an accident yet doesn't mean they're 3

not going to have one. We can't count on that.

4 So who's going to pay for that? What kind 5

of insurance is Holtec going to have to pay for 6

damages done to folks that in the farming industry or 7

whatever -- do I need to wrap up?

8 MR. CAMERON: Yes, if you could, please.

9 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: Yes, sir. For the 10 farming industry or folks that are damaged by a 11 radiation spill or whatever? At any rate, I think 12 that pretty much -- I think I pretty much got 13 everything. Oh, I do want to say one more thing.

14 These caverns out here are a beautiful natural wonder 15 and it would really be a shame if anything were to 16 happen to harm them. And once the genie's out of the 17 bottle, you can't put him back in. Thank you.

18 (Applause.)

19 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: I'm Karen Howard-20 Winters and I appreciate your time. Thank you very 21 much.

22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 23 Karen.

24 Kyle?

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68 MR. MARKSTEINER: I might register to 1

speak a second time so I can stand up some more. This 2

feels good.

3 I want to thank you all for coming out 4

here today. We've got a lot of out-of-town visitors 5

and we welcome them all to Carlsbad.

6 My name is Kyle Marksteiner and I've been 7

in Carlsbad for about 20 years now. I first moved 8

here as a reporter for the local newspaper and when I 9

got here there was this project I was supposed to 10 learn about called WIPP, Waste Isolation Pilot Plants, 11 and I thought what is this? I don't know about it.

12 So I went through the newspaper archives; 13 they actually had old microfiche back then, and I 14 found a column written by the former publisher named 15 Ned Cantwell. It was a fascinating column. It was 16 right when WIPP was first introduced to the community.

17 And at the time there were a few people who were 18 hesitant about WIPP and a few opposed to WIPP. There 19 were anti-nuclear activists from other parts of the 20 state ready to go against WIPP. There were people at 21 the meetings holding signs, similar signs.

22 But what Mr. Cantwell suggested is that 23 the citizens of Carlsbad at that time just get all the 24 facts. He didn't take a stand for or against the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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69 project. He said Carlsbad residents should keep an 1

open mind and keep themselves informed. How 2

revolutionary is that, just to suggest that instead of 3

automatically opposing something because it feels like 4

we should be afraid it that we keep an open mind and 5

inform ourselves?

6 WIPP has turned out to be a huge success, 7

and I say that in -- considering and including the 8

events of 2014. The residents of this community 9

helped get WIPP open and confidently helped get WIPP 10 back open over the past few years.

11 This project, I encourage my fellow 12 Carlsbad residents to follow the original 13 recommendation of Ned Cantwell to reject the NIMBY 14 approach and to keep an open mind. Show me how this 15 will be done safely and I will support it.

16 I would also ask my Carlsbad residents 17 here tonight to be cautious about the tactics utilized 18 by some anti-nuclear groups. The reality is that we 19 have well-funded organizers from Texas and Northern 20 New Mexico here today to do what they can to heighten 21 the illusion of opposition to this project. These 22 same groups will then go to other communities and do 23 everything they can there to also delay or halt other 24 projects all associated with the nuclear industry.

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70 I've stayed in Carlsbad for the past 20 1

years because I believe the residents here are better 2

than that. We put science first. We get all the 3

facts and we keep an open mind. I encourage everyone 4

to do so with the consolidated interim storage 5

facility. Thank you.

6 (Applause.)

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 8

you, Kyle.

9 Anthony? Anthony Lee Alanzo is coming up 10 and then we'll hear from Ralph Jennings.

11 Anthony?

12 MR. ALANZO: Good evening. My name is 13 Anthony Lee Alanzo. I was recently running for city 14 councilman here in Carlsbad, New Mexico. A 15 opportunity came for me, but I'm very proud to be a 16 citizen of Carlsbad and I thank you guys coming here 17 to Carlsbad and to listen to the people that are 18 opposed for it and the ones that are disagreeing to 19 it. Thank you for the opportunity.

20 It's been very good to me and my family 21 for the years that I've been here. I love Carlsbad.

22 This is a community I love. I've raised two of my 23 sons here. I've been married 20 years. And I'm also 24 an employee of the WIPP site. I'm actually an RH and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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71 a CH waste handler.

1 And hearing the design of Holtec, it is 2

almost similar to what we do with RH shipments, and 3

I'm very strongly proud of what I do, especially with 4

my colleagues. If you heard our councilman J.J.

5 Chaves, he pretty well understands the concept. He's 6

one of my colleagues up there at the site. And 7

hearing your project, I've heard of it, we've talked 8

about it at WIPP and I'm more than willing to give a 9

great opportunity not only for me, but for also for my 10 family to get the opportunity to educate us, because 11 we are educated to keeping this nuclear issue that we 12 have across the nation. And we've done a great job.

13 In the 20 years that I've been at WIPP I 14 seen the first shipment come in. I was part of the 15 project when we reopened. And you guys actually 16 overlooked us. And we did a great excellent job of 17 reopening WIPP and we're still running the project.

18 And seeing this new opportunity for Carlsbad and also 19 the local areas in Hobbs, it's been wonderful to all 20 of us. And now that we have another opportunity, at 21 least my children will have an opportunity to not only 22 get educated, but also have an opportunity in the 23 future to find a great facility also to store nuclear 24 waste here and clean up the sites.

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72 I mean, I didn't think I was going to 1

capitalize on what John Waters said. Clearly we've 2

cleaned up quite a few sites. I've been at those 3

milestones. I was part of that project. And seeing 4

that we have another opportunity for us to expand the 5

nuclear industry, we have the place for it. Some may 6

oppose to it, but I highly recommend and I'm very, 7

very proud of what we do here in Carlsbad.

8 If you take in consideration, please look 9

at us. We've got the knowledge. We have the IQ here.

10 I've got the colleagues. I stand behind then 100 11 percent. And this is the reason why I came tonight to 12 let you guys know we have the knowledge. And now if 13 you guys give another opportunity, that even expands 14 our mission. Thank you.

15 (Applause.)

16 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks. Thanks, 17 Anthony.

18 And we have Ralph Jennings coming up. And 19 then we're going to go to Kevin Kamps, Karen Hadden, 20 Charlene Hernandez, Dave Rogers and Gail Seydel.

21 MR. JENNINGS: My name is Ralph Jennings.

22 I spent 15 years in the Navy, 9 of those in nuclear 23 submarines, so I'm exposed to radiations of various 24 difference.

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73 One of the things that I saw here was 1

WIPP. I became aware of WIPP back in 1976 when I was 2

a high school student at Thomas Jefferson in El Paso.

3 That's where I'm originally from. The -- I had to do 4

a toxicology report on nuclear radiation as part of my 5

continuing education to college and eventually went 6

and submitted this to the Dallas Symposium, Science 7

Symposium, and got selected. I went into the Navy, 8

did my time, came back out, came back to Carlsbad. I 9

recruited here 1984 through '87.

10 WIPP was still having a hard time trying 11 to get out of the ground and into the -- putting waste 12 in there after 10,000 that they -- everybody wanted 13 and everybody had ideas of. Well, the time came when 14 they finally put nuclear waste underground. That was 15 one milestone that I saw that was the best thing that 16 had happened for the country. Not for Carlsbad, but 17 for the country. There's no place to put a lot of 18 this trash. We got to select one place in the world.

19 This is probably the most studied area in the whole 20 country for radiation.

21 I would suggest that we keep an open mind.

22 This nuclear waste, there's got to be a better place.

23 I've been to San Onofre, I've been to the Cherokee, 24 and I've been to Three Mile Island nearby. And same 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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74 thing. You're close to water. Look what happened to 1

Fujiyama. They're close to water and they got water 2

-- now radiation almost every part of the ocean. It's 3

not going to go away, folks, but we can keep our 4

country clear and eliminate it to one certain 5

location. And that's what I'm going to do. We have 6

the Gnome Project here, so it's already been 7

radioactive. For you guys forgot Gnome Project, that 8

was a nice cavern for fracking. Thank you very much.

9 (Applause.)

10 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Ralph.

11 We're going to have Kevin Kamps come up 12 now and then we're going to hear from Karen Hadden, 13 Charlene Hernandez, Dave Rogers and Gail Seydel.

14 MR. KAMPS: Good evening. My name is 15 Kevin Kamps with Beyond Nuclear and I've spoken at the 16 previous meetings, so this will be a supplement to 17 that. And I wanted to get back to this issue of 18 temporary or permanent.

19 So regarding the risks of a phrase 20 "institutional control being lost," the risks of loss 21 of institutional control. And what this means is that 22 this facility instead of being temporary could become 23 de facto permanent surface storage, or a parking lot 24 dump. And if abandoned and containers failing and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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75 releasing catastrophic amounts of hazardous 1

radioactivity into the environment -- that is a 2

distinct risk with this proposal.

3 Loss of institutional control is 4

guaranteed to take place over a long enough period of 5

time. No society can last forever. In fact, the very 6

oldest human institutions are at most a few to several 7

thousand years old such as Roman Catholicism, 8

Christianity, Tibetan Buddhism and Judaism, to name a 9

few examples, and of course Native American cultures, 10 which date much longer than that, actually. But 11 highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel is 12 hazardous for a million years. It's deadly 13 forevermore, in other words.

14 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 15 was forced to acknowledge this million-year hazard by 16 a court order over a decade ago. EPA had wanted to 17 cut off regulations at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the 18 proposed national burial dump, after just 10,000 19 years, but a coalition of environmental groups, 20 including years in public citizen, as well as the 21 State of Nevada, challenged the EPA legally. But even 22 a million years of hazard is a huge underestimate.

23 Artificial iodine-129, a reactor product, 24 an alpha emitter, is present in irradiated nuclear 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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76 fuel. It's ultra-hazardous and it has a 15.7 million 1

half-life, which means 157 million years or more of 2

hazardous persistence.

3 The Department of Energy in its February 4

2002 Yucca Mountain final Environmental Impact 5

Statement warned that irradiated nuclear fuel, if 6

abandoned at reactor sites with a

loss of 7

institutional

control, would eventually leak 8

catastrophic amounts of radioactivity into the 9

environment over time as dry casks containing it 10 failed as due to corrosion, exposure to the elements, 11 etcetera. They were saying that in the context of 12 trying to sell the Yucca Mountain dump to the rest of 13 the country. You'd better get rid of it quick before 14 the worst happens. But the same of course would be 15 true at an abandoned centralized or consolidated so-16 called interim storage facility such as here at 17 Holtec.

18 Up to 173,000 metric tons of highly-19 radioactive waste, more than twice what currently 20 exists, could leak into the environment from this 21 shallowly sub-grade storage at this location, and that 22 would be truly catastrophic. The forever-deadly 23 radioactive wastes would blow with the wind and flow 24 with the water harming people and other living things 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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77 downwind, downstream, up the food chain and down the 1

generations forevermore.

2 Forevermore happens to the title of a 1986 3

book by Barlett and Steele, subtitled Nuclear Waste in 4

America. The book contains a compelling chapter about 5

the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant located so close to 6

the targeted Holtec site.

7 WIPP, as has been mentioned tonight, made 8

claims about start clean, stay clean and the supposed 9

impossibility of leaks over 10,000 years, or even 10 200,000 years, but it leaked after only 15 years.

11 Holtec has made similar claims about centralized 12 interim storage. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 13 twice, shame on me.

14 And I'd like to conclude with a warning 15 from two whistleblowers, one an industry whistleblower 16 named Oscar Shirani and another, an NRC whistleblower 17 named Dr. Ross Landsman, regarding quality assurance 18 on the Holtec containers, which is non-existent 19 actually. They -- Shirani led a team of Holtec user 20 group utilities that inspected that Pittsburgh factory 21 that Joy Russell mentioned earlier tonight, and in a 22 short three-day period they documented nine categories 23 of quality assurance violation on the fabrication of 24 these containers. The NRC design criteria are 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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78 inadequate to begin with and these quality assurance 1

violations associated with Holtec that NRC has done 2

nothing about in 18 years after they were documented 3

risks a catastrophic radioactivity release.

4 Shirani questioned the structural 5

integrity of these containers sitting still at zero 6

miles per hour, let along going 60 miles per hour down 7

the railways. Thank you very much.

8 (Applause.)

9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Kevin.

10 And this is Karen Hadden coming up. And 11 then we're going to go to Charlene Hernandez.

12 MS. HADDEN: Good evening. My name is 13 Karen Hadden and I'm with the Sustainable Energy and 14 Economic Development Coalition. I'm one of those 15 outside agitators that people have been talking about; 16 and proud of it, and I want to tell you why I'm here.

17 First of all, we've been working in 18 coalition with folks in Texas and New Mexico. We've 19 been invited to be part of this work because we all 20 share the love of this region. We have a proposal for 21 a site in Texas as well. They're both a risk to this 22 region. And while there's a border lying in between, 23 this is the same area of the country. We share a lot 24 in common. We love our communities. We want to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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79 protect them. We want to be safe. We love our 1

families. We share those values, and we need to move 2

forward with that in mind.

3 I am unhappy about some of the statements 4

made earlier that somehow those who do not favor 5

bringing the nation's radioactive waste to this 6

community are ill-informed or are fear mongering. In 7

fact, the people I know that are working on this issue 8

spend a great deal of time diving into documents, 9

studying, doing the homework, asking the questions.

10 And this is a project of huge magnitude that could 11 impact the future of the entire country and it should 12 not be taken lightly.

13 We should be studying. We should know.

14 I think that the environmental report should include 15 the SMU study that was just done about this region of 16 the world having problems with the land rising and 17 falling. I mean, that's an issue here in Carlsbad.

18 The trains that would carry this 19 radioactive waste and their rail cars, they would be 20 very heavy. I have read 196,000 tons and up. The 21 rails are rated for 143,000. This is heavier than the 22 rails are rated for. So you've got a sinkhole here.

23 And I'm sorry, but I think it's an important image.

24 "Radioactive Waste Train Meets Sinkhole." What 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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80 happens? I mean I think that should be analyzed in 1

the environmental report, because it's the things that 2

you don't think of. It's the things that we didn't 3

count on, that we didn't plan for. We have to look at 4

those on the front end. It's not good enough to find 5

out afterwards that, oh, we were wrong.

6 And you know, mistakes happen and I'm not 7

casting aspersions, but the WIPP site had a very 8

serious accident that cost billions of dollars and put 9

people at risk. People had health impacts. So we 10 can't afford to have those kind of accidents. And 11 this is not WIPP waste. This is the fuel rods from 12 inside nuclear reactors that come out of the reactor 13 a million times more radioactive than the fuel that 14 went in.

15 So we have an inflatable prop that we've 16 been using. It's quite large, about 16 feet long, 8 17 feet tall. That's the kind of waste we're talking 18 about. This is not small. It's very heavy, very 19 large. Each rail car would carry as much plutonium as 20 was in the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. It is not in 21 bomb form. No one is saying that. But just for 22 perspective we're talking about a lot of radiation.

23 This is not something that can be taken lightly.

24 The NRC's own studies say that if a person 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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81 is three feet away from unshielded waste, they would 1

be immediately incapacitated and would die within a 2

week. That's not me. That's the authorities. This 3

waste can cause health impacts, cancers of various 4

kinds. It can cause genetic damage leading to birth 5

defects, permanent changes to our DNA. These things 6

need to be looked at.

7 Now if this is fear mongering, I want to 8

know why considering the health and safety of the 9

community is fear mongering. I resent that. This is 10 looking out for the health and safety of people and 11 wildlife.

12 I'll wrap in a minute.

13 Okay. The other things that need to be 14 included in the environmental report is a clear total 15 number of tons of waste because there is ambiguity in 16 this report. There is also a lot of information 17 missing. The most recent version of the environment 18 report is much smaller than the first one. Both of 19 them are available in the library here. And you can 20 see that it has shrunk. I'm very concerned about what 21 got left out. I think what needs to be included is 22 the Ogallala Aquifer, the depth at which it is, where 23 it is. Under the site, near the site needs to be 24 clarified. There's very little discussion about that.

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82 Also how much water goes into Lake Laguna Gatuna and 1

other playas and how much comes down.

2 I'll wrap up quickly.

3 But with groundwater, subsurface water 35 4

to 50 feet underneath the ground and canisters that 5

come down however deep they're coming down -- somebody 6

help me out. So in Texas the entire Radioactive Waste 7

Division at the TCEQ, the Texas Commission on 8

Environmental Quality, voted that the agency should 9

not approve the license application for waste control 10 specialists to have even low-level waste because there 11 was only 14 feet of water -- of distance before they 12 could hit water.

13 MR. CAMERON: And, Karen, I'm sorry, but 14 we're going --

15 MS. HADDEN: I am wrapping up. I am 16 wrapping up.

17 MR. CAMERON: Well, you said you were 18 wrapping up and you're not.

19 MS. HADDEN: I am wrapping up.

20 MR. CAMERON: So we're going to bring 21 Charlene on.

22 MS. HADDEN: I'm wrapping up.

23 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

24 MS. HADDEN: And for that reason they 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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83 recommended denying the license. Three employees quit 1

over that. I think we should be looking at how much 2

distance there is to water and whether it could shut 3

off the cooling systems which are supposed to be air 4

flow. Thank you.

5 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

6 (Applause.)

7 MR. CAMERON: And this is Charlene 8

Hernandez.

9 MS. HERNANDEZ: Yes, I'll introduce 10 myself. Charlene Hernandez. And for those Spanish 11 speaking people here, yo soy Charlene Hernandez. I am 12 a semi-retired RN. I was born in Lincoln County. I 13 moved to California. Then I came back here in 2007 14 and I was shocked to find that this was the situation 15 in my state of my birth.

16 Okay. I will begin with this information 17 of which I did begin to do my own self-education, and 18 these are some of the things that I found. I wasn't 19 looking for them, but they showed up. And then I did 20 do -- take some action to see if we could change the 21 situation a little bit.

22 The latest estimate for clean-up at LANL 23 is 2.9 billion over 19 years. And I'm going to read 24 this a little bit about clean up at Los Alamos. That 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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84 LANL is Los Alamos. "The Federal Government now 1

estimates that it will cost 2.9 billion through the 2

year 2035 to clean up the radioactive and hazardous 3

waste left over from decades of nuclear weapons work 4

at Los Alamos National Laboratory. That's on top of 5

3.2 billion already spent on clean-up work at LANA 6

according to presentation made Wednesday." And this 7

is an old article. Well anyhow, I will end that part 8

right there because this is a paper article that I 9

found.

10 Another thing, another article. "UT 11 Research Links Most Recent Texas Quakes to Oil 12 Activity." "Dallas. A new study by researchers at 13 the University of Texas at Austin concludes that human 14 activity, particularly oil and gas production, has 15 been a factor in earthquakes throughout the state for 16 nearly 100 years. The study's conclusions are in a 17 paper to be published Wednesday in the journal 18 Seismological Research Letters. The Dallas Morning 19 News reported the study concludes that manmade 20 earthquakes in Texas began in 1925 and that activity 21 associated with oil and gas production almost 22 certainly or probably triggered 59 percent of the 23 earthquake in the state in 1975 and 2015 including 24 recent seismic activity in North Texas. Another 28 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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85 percent of the quakes were possibly triggered by oil 1

and gas exploration production and just 13 percent 2

were caused naturally."

3 Now, this area is not a stable area. Most 4

recently I learned that Fort Stanton has discovered 5

some caves 30 miles long from one end of Fort Stanton 6

all the way to underneath the airport in Ruidoso.

7 Caves. Then I talked to cousins in Lincoln County and 8

they said, Charlene, those caves go all the way to 9

Carlsbad. I said I see.

10 And then you think about the water -- what 11 you call, the bottomless lakes. Okay. Potential for 12 problems. I don't think it's a safe thing.

13 I want to go onto another thing real 14 quick. This is another issue I found. "The civil 15 rights complained to EPA about Triassic Park 13 years 16 and no resolution. The 202 complained that allegedly 17 the department discriminated against Chaves County 18 residents on the basis of race, color and national 19 origin and violation of the Title V of the Civil 20 Rights Act of 1964. During the Triassic Park 21 permitting process CARD alleged that the department 22 did not examine possible disparate impacts on the 23 basis of

race, ethnicity and conducted an 24 administrative process in a manner hostile to Spanish-25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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86 speaking residents. Chaves County residents are 1

mostly Hispanic New Mexicans and New Mexicans of 2

Mexican origin. A high percentage live in poverty and 3

infant mortality rates are high. The complaint also 4

alleged the department obstructed -- well, anyway 5

CARD.

6 All of this is on the computer. This is 7

stuff that I found, okay, trying to educate myself.

8 And finally, here's one thing. "Federal 9

Report Slams Safety Lapses at New Mexico Nuclear 10 Facility." All this. HR 994 in the House of 11 Representatives. Ugh, a bill to amend the Radiation 12 Exposure Compensation Act. That's the RECA Act. Look 13 that up on the computer. The RECA Act, New Mexico.

14 And finally, we didn't discuss the permit 15 which is the license request. There are 10 parts to 16 the permit. I have not yet heard the name of this 17 project and I don't even know what -- like for 18 example, No. 1, general permit conditions, 20.41. NMAC 19 incorporating -- well, that's in regulations anyway.

20 But I will give these to you so that you can review 21 them and look at -- and think about this issues 22 because they're a reality. Thank you very much.

23 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

24 (Applause.)

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87 MS. HERNANDEZ: And thank you all for 1

being here.

2 MR. CAMERON: And Dave Rogers and then 3

Gail Seydel and then Danny Cross.

4 Okay. We're going onto the next speaker.

5 And so the NRC staff has to give their attention.

6 NRC staff, we're going to go onto the next 7

speaker, so let's pay attention to that.

8 And, Charlene, if you could give that to 9

them later on so that we can go on with the meeting?

10 MR. ROGERS: Good evening and thank you 11 for coming to Carlsbad. My name is Dave Rogers. I 12 have been a resident of this community for 16 years as 13 a local pastor and hospice chaplain. My family lives 14 here. I have children here, grandchildren here and my 15 wife and I intend to live here for the rest of our 16 lives. We love Carlsbad.

17 But what I want to share with you is a 18 story from my own family. It's about my late-19 grandfather Richard Caldwell Rogers. Grand-dad fought 20 in World War II. He was a Navy Seabee in the South 21 Pacific during the war. And professionally he was an 22 electrical engineer and worked his entire civilian 23 career in Kentucky Utilities. But one of the things 24 that grand dad always shared with us from his 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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88 experience in the war was being in the South Pacific; 1

quite some distance from Japan mind you, but still in 2

the South Pacific, when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 3

bombed.

4 When he came back working in the 5

electrical industry for Kentucky Utilities he would 6

always say that the real problem with nuclear power 7

was that it was introduced to the world in such an 8

unconscionable horrific manner and that the use of 9

nuclear weaponry to introduce the world to the 10 potential of nuclear would forever create a fear 11 factor that would be very difficult to overcome and 12 very easy to exploit.

13 I will not say that nuclear is perfectly 14 safe and wonderful and I certainly recognize that it 15 is dangerous. I don't think anybody in this room 16 would say that nuclear is not dangerous. That's why 17 there are so many very strong safety precautions put 18 in place. But I also remember, just as an example, in 19 the 2014 accident that happened at WIPP when even 20 reputable organizations across the United States were 21 showing images of this toxic death radioactive plume 22 that was going to take out half of the United States, 23 which obviously was fear mongering. It never 24 happened.

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89 Look at the facts. Do the science. Also 1

look at the safety record of the nuclear industry as 2

a whole. Yes, it has its problems, but as a safety 3

record it's probably one of the safest industries on 4

the planet. There are a lot of dangers, but there is 5

also a lot of potential. And as one who raises his 6

family here and plans to stay here, who loves Carlsbad 7

and also who has a great appreciation for the sage 8

wisdom of my late-grandfather, I am in support of 9

this. All I ask is listen to the facts, not the fear.

10 Thank you.

11 (Applause.)

12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Dave.

13 Thank you.

14 And this is Gail.

15 MS. SEYDEL: Hey, folks. Thanks. I think 16 I'm a known quantity to most of you having spoken to 17 many of you in Roswell. And thanks again for coming 18 out. Can you hear me -- am I --

19 MR. CAMERON: That's good.

20 MS. SEYDEL: Okay. There you go.

21 So I guess I am one of those outside 22 agitators. I live south of Albuquerque. I'm proud to 23 be one of those outside agitators. I live south of 24 Albuquerque in a farming community about a little less 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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90 than two miles from the railroad tracks. And like 1

many people here, my home is my major investment in my 2

life. And if there to be an accident along those 3

railroad tracks, I would lose probably everything. Do 4

I'm hoping that you will -- in your socio and economic 5

area of inquiry that you will please find ways to 6

assure that Holtec and insurance companies can 7

indemnify us and make us whole if there's an accident.

8 That is a key concern for many of us.

9 I also have been hearing a lot of folks 10 saying that these casks have been tested extensively 11 and dropped on all sorts of things. My understanding 12 is all those tests were done in the '70s at Sandia 13 Labs. If there are new tests, I would like to know 14 where they are written about and what reports there 15 are.

16 I would like to have those new tests 17 included in the EIS. We have a very different 18 technological awareness these days. There are all 19 sorts of people who might do us harm. And those tests 20 might have been appropriate in the computer modeling 21 that they did in the '70s at Sandia. Might have been 22 appropriate then, but I don't believe that it's still 23 appropriate now almost 50 years later. And so I would 24 require from both Holtec and Sandia, or whoever wants 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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91 to do those testings, that we do a whole other spate 1

of testing given what we are facing in terms of what 2

we saw at 9/11 and so many other things that are going 3

on in the world now that were not going on in 1970.

4 I also want to just say that I come from 5

a community that was promised that a nuclear facility 6

was going to be safe and clean forever. I am also 7

from a community that experience cancer clusters and 8

had a variety of deaths including my mom who died 9

really young, my aunt who died after fighting three 10 kinds of pretty unusual cancers, and all sort of other 11 health effects throughout the neighborhood that could 12 not be said to be genetic because it's of the same 13 family, but neighbors all around us and all through 14 the community.

15 And so the promises of Holtec and the 16 promises of so many other people that it's going to be 17 safe and clean forever, I just can't believe it and 18 I'm not buying their bridge. So I hope that you will 19 please really look very carefully. Accidents will 20 happen even when they're not thought that they're 21 going to happen and we just cannot believe those 22 promises. We will experience those releases. We will 23 cause other cancer cluster and health problems in our 24 communities, and that really needs to be taken into 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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92 consideration.

1 Thanks so much for coming to hear us. I 2

hope that you will hold hearings in Albuquerque so I 3

don't have to come five hours away from my little farm 4

to speak to you. So thanks a lot.

5 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

6 (Applause.)

7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Gail.

8 And before we go to Danny Cross, let me 9

brink Jack up.

10 And, Jack, you can introduce yourself.

11 And then we'll go to Danny Cross, Denise 12 Madrid Boyes, Phil Green, and Lon Burnam.

13 MR. VOLPATO: My name is Jack Volpato.

14 Thanks for coming to our neck of the woods. I'm a 15 lifelong resident of Eddy County, born and raised in 16 Carlsbad. I am also one of the founding members of 17 the ELEA group. We saw an economic opportunity to 18 partner with Lea County and the City of Hobbs to bring 19 this to our area. We see it as a very valuable asset 20 to the community. We've looked at Holtec's system and 21 vetting it from all the other systems, and by far it's 22 one of the best. You have licensed them in other 23 places and we feel they're the safe and most reliable 24 system on the market.

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93 We see the economic benefit to the income 1

to come back to our schools and to our roads which we 2

desperately need in this area due to our extreme 3

growth due to the oil and gas industry boom that we're 4

experiencing.

5 We have been slowly and deliberately 6

moving forward with this project and we feel that you 7

coming to our community and listening to us is very 8

important. Good or bad and people that are for and 9

against it, I'm sure they appreciate the opportunity 10 to talk to you. I believe this project will benefit 11 our community. I have done the research and I feel 12 completely safe. I'm going to live here for the rest 13 of my life and I don't mind having it my back yard.

14 Just one point of clarity. I've heard 15 several people say it's over the Ogallala Aquifer. It 16 is not over the Ogallala Aquifer. That is a 17 misconception. There is -- the only aquifer near 18 there is the Rustler Formation, not the Ogallala.

19 In closing I want to say thank you for 20 coming. And the nuclear industry is one of the safest 21 industries. if you compare it to the oil and gas 22 industry or mortalities, injuries and deaths, the 23 bottom line is that more people get killed in one year 24 in the oil and gas industry than have in the history 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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94 of the nuclear industry. Relatively risk and safety 1

is very important and I think that this project has a 2

very high safety margin and a very low risk margin as 3

well. Thank you very much.

4 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

5 (Applause.)

6 MR. CAMERON: And this is Danny.

7 MR. CROSS: He cut in front of me. That's 8

not fair.

9 My name is Danny Cross and I'm a local 10 businessman, long-time resident, my family Carlsbad, 11 and I just want to say that we've been around URENCO 12 and WIPP for many, many years. They have been great 13 partners for our community. They've enriched our 14 schools. They've enriched our economy. Like they 15 say, we have more Ph.D. scientists in this area than 16 almost anywhere in the state except for maybe Los 17 Alamos.

18 I think this is a great project. I've 19 looked at the science. I've listened to all the 20 people talk and I just want to say that we welcome 21 nuclear projects in this part of the country. We 22 believe that you guys do a great job as well as Holtec 23 in keeping us safe and we really need that kind of 24 infrastructure and tax base and stuff that this stuff 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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95 brings to our local economy and our businesses. And 1

thank you and we -- I support this project.

2 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 3

you, Danny.

4 (Applause.)

5 MR. CAMERON: Is Denise Madrid Boyes --

6 okay. Denise is coming up. Then we'll go to Phil 7

Green, Lon Burnam, Ford Stone and Wally Taylor.

8 MS. MADRID BOYES: Good evening. Thank 9

you for coming to our community. I greatly appreciate 10 your time and attention this evening.

11 I've lived in Carlsbad for 35 years. I 12 moved here to start my career as an attorney. I'm a 13 private attorney and I've represented many individuals 14 over the last 35 years in many different areas of the 15 law. I addition, I own a charter bus company that 16 provides charter bus transportation to many local 17 businesses including the employees that work at the 18 WIPP site, which is located here in our area.

19 My husband just recently retired; he's 20 with me here in the audience today, from the WIPP site 21 after serving with that facility for 30 years. We are 22

-- I have neighbors, I have friends, I have employees 23 all who support the WIPP site, and they're all used to 24 the regulation and the oversight that occurs as a part 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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96 of the same regulations that you all are looking at 1

with this particular facility that Holtec is 2

proposing.

3 I believe that there is a safe and 4

appropriate way that this facility can go into our 5

area. I believe that they will be very good community 6

partners with both Lea County and Eddy County if they 7

perform similar to what the WIPP site has done. And 8

I am in favor of this project and I ask that you 9

strongly consider allowing this application to be 10 approved. Thank you.

11 (Applause.)

12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 13 you, Denise.

14 And Phil, Phil Green. Oh, okay. This is 15 Phil Green and his dog Porter is coming up to help 16 him. And Lon Burnam is also helping.

17 MR. GREEN: Okay. Hello. My name is Phil 18 Green. I live in Fort Worth, Texas. I'm retired from 19 the government. I worked at the Centers for Disease 20 Control in Atlanta for 19 years. The first nine years 21 of that work I was in contracting. The last 10 years 22 of my work I worked in the Radiation Studies Branch, 23 which is within the National Centers for Environmental 24 Health. My job at the Radiation Studies Branch was to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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97 perform as a designated federal official managing the 1

Public Health Effects Subcommittee at Savannah River 2

site for six years and to be the project manager at 3

Los Alamos for a Document Retrieval and Assessment 4

Program for 10 years. So my perspective entirely 5

comes from public health. I'm going to have to say up 6

front I do not agree that this is a good idea from a 7

public health perspective.

8 Now I've heard a lot about how safe this 9

community is, how willing you are to take on this 10 enormous project, but I wonder in this slice of heaven 11 whether you really know what you have here. Do you 12 know what rates of diseases, cancer, birth defects and 13 all of these environmental hazards and regular disease 14 hazards may bring to you?

15 So I'm offering you an assignment. That 16 assignment is to visit the Centers for Disease web 17 site and to go to two different locations. They're 18 both databases in which you can look for various 19 diseases and environmental hazards and their effects.

20 You can use these query tools and print out maps, 21 charts and graphs about disease rates by county and by 22 ZIP code. So you can go in to this area and you can 23 find out what your community is really experiencing at 24 the current time.

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98 And that may be important because you may 1

find that everything is great, you are safe, or you 2

may find that you're not safe, which means you're 3

either going to bring incredible amounts of hazardous 4

waste into your safe community, or, if you find out 5

that your community is not safe, you may not want to 6

bring in more of it and make it even more unsafe.

7 Now I hate that word "safe" and "unsafe,"

8 and I'm amazed that the government is still using it, 9

because I never used it in my work because there is no 10

-- in public health "safe" is not an accurate word to 11 use for public health risk.

12 I am I guess an outsider, although I own 13 property in San Miguel County. I pay county taxes 14 there. I grew up in New Mexico, met my wife at the 15 University of New Mexico, and I come here two or three 16 times a year. So I guess if I'm an outside, I like 17 being an outsider.

18 I'm very impressed with this area of New 19 Mexico. I have old college friends that live down 20 here, and they love it. And I'm impressed that your 21 infrastructure, your roads -- your city halls are 22 wonderful. In -- what we just -- what -- oh, I can't 23 remember the name of the town. Well -- yes, well, 24 Roswell, of course. But -- and you have universities 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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99 here. It appears to me on the outside from looking at 1

it, in what we call in public health is a windshield 2

tour, that it's a great place.

3 But I encourage you to look at these 4

sites. And I also encourage the Nuclear Regulatory 5

Commission to include a public health assessment as 6

part of the EIS. Public health assessment is separate 7

from an EIS. The CDC and its sister agency, the 8

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, 9

regularly have done these over the years at all the 10 DOE sites that our radiation studies worked at and at 11 the two sites that I worked at.

12 I'm reminded that -- this whole process 13 reminds me of a book written in the '60s by John 14 Nichols called The Milagro Beanfield War, and it 15 parallels this because there's a lot at risk, a lot at 16 stake. And in that there are classic battles between 17 state, stakeholders, agitators, politicians, health.

18 It's in a microcosm and in a very humorous book, but 19 it's very serious. In The Milagro Beanfield War a man 20 plants beans in a place where he's not supposed to, in 21 a place where he's not to get water.

22 Well, this place you're attempting to 23 bring thousands of what I call radioactive beans and 24 eventually, as beans do, beans blow. Thank you.

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100 (Applause.)

1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. So and 2

thank you, Lon. And Lon's going to be up to talk to 3

us as soon as he gets Phil settled.

4 Okay. There he is.

5 MR. BURNAM: As you might guess by my 6

friendship with Phil, I'm one of those Texans. And so 7

the first thing I'm going to say to NRC is when are 8

you coming to Fort Worth? I'm a stakeholder. And the 9

165,000 people that I represented for 18 years --

10 165,000 people from Central City, Fort Worth, that's 11 a larger population than the three Southeastern New 12 Mexico counties combined. The 165,000 people that I 13 represented for 8 years -- 18 years in the Texas 14 legislature knew that I spent a disproportionate 15 amount of my time fighting waste control specialists 16 because they consistently lied, including about the 17 aquifers, because the WCS facility is over the Edwards 18 Aquifer. They moved the maps. Ogallala. I'm sorry.

19 Over the Ogallala. The point, the relevant point is 20 this industry has consistently lied to people over the 21 decades.

22 I'm here at state expense in that my 23 retirement check is from the State of Texas, but every 24 Texan that's here tonight that has spoken is here 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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101 because we are stakeholders and we're here at our own 1

expense.

2 So first, you guys are invited to come to 3

Albuquerque and Midland, Odessa, and Fort Worth. Fort 4

Worth is known as Tarantula City because we have eight 5

railroad lines coming through Fort Worth. I'm very 6

familiar with Union Pacific and the management 7

problems there. I'm very familiar with Tower 55 on 8

the Southeast edge of downtown Fort Worth where over 9

half of what we comb into the Port of Los Angeles goes 10 through and sits for hours at a time waiting to make 11 it through Tower 55. I'm familiar with a lot of 12 things that make me very concerned about both the WCS 13 facility proposal and this one.

14 One, Holtec is looking at trying to become 15 a vertical monopoly. I'm one of those old-school 16 people that thinks almost all monopolies are a bad 17 idea. They're usually under and inadequately 18 regulated and are a threat to our health and safety 19 and welfare.

20 Chip, I blew it during the process 21 questions. I wanted to remind you that there is a 22 considerable question whether or not there is 23 congressional authority to be holding these public 24 meetings at this time, because there's certainly not 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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102 NRC authority to authorize the application. But if 1

you're going to hold three in Southeastern New Mexico 2

with a

population less than the district I

3 represented, you might as well come to Fort Worth.

4 You should recognize that there's a constant threat of 5

artificial segmentation. The transportation lines are 6

important.

7 This week in the three public meetings 8

there have been two derailing of rail cars in Texas on 9

the local racks downtown Fort Worth, seven or eight 10 blocks from our courthouse on North Main just today.

11 This is all about risk management. I'm one of those 12 people that opposed the local nuclear power plant in 13 the first plant because I knew we didn't have the 14 answer to dealing with waste. I know the problems 15 with this. I've been studying it since 1970.

16 I'm here because I think what I'm really 17 hearing from these communities is concrete contracts 18 are more important to some of you than public health.

19 Let's get our value system in order.

20 (Applause.)

21 MR. BURNAM: Oh, and finally, we've talked 22 a lot about cumulative impacts. I'd like to make 23 certain that this map of New Mexico is entered into 24 the record. So, Chip, I'm going to hand it to you.

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103 I was born in Artesia. My grandmother died at age 62.

1 Our family will always suspect it was because she 2

worked at the Artesia General Hospital in the X-ray 3

lab before they knew enough to know that she should 4

have been shielded. Carlsbad, we're 70 years into 5

this. You need to know some things.

6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 7

you, Lon.

8 (Applause.)

9 MR. CAMERON: Ford? Ford Stone? Ford 10 Stone, Wally Taylor. Come on up, whoever you are.

11 This is Wally Taylor. Are you Ford Stone?

12 MR. STONE: Yes, I'm Ford Stone.

13 MR. CAMERON: You're Ford Stone. Okay.

14 Good.

15 MR. STONE: I'm Ford Stone. I've lived 16 here for 35 years. I rise in opposition. I have no 17 experience with this whatsoever. I'm sorry.

18 I want to preface this by simply saying 19 the problem is not the casks, the problem is the 20 pools. All right? That will become clear in a 21 minute.

22 The proponents of the Holtec Eddy Lea 23 Alliance proposal advance four main arguments 24 justifying the transfer of the nation's depleted fuel 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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104 rods to Eddy Lea County. I have found these arguments 1

unconvincing for the following reasons:

2 First the moral argument. The depleted 3

fuel rods are stored in two modes depending on how 4

hot, both thermally and radioactively, they are. The 5

fuel rods that are no longer thermally hot enough to 6

boil water in the reactor are removed and replaced 7

with new ones. The removed ones are still plenty 8

thermally hot such that they need to be kept 9

constantly water-cooled in cooling pools lest they be 10 exposed to air, in which case they could get so hot as 11 to cause their zirconium alloy tubes to catch fire.

12 If such were to happen, the result could 13 be a catastrophe on the order of Chernobyl spewing 14 radiation far and wide and requiring permanent 15 evacuation of everyone for miles around. This is the 16 real liability of spent fuel reactor rods, a matter of 17 real concern and a genuine first class moral problem 18 for the risk that they represent to the population at 19 each and every one of the 100 or so power plants where 20 they are located. It's a big problem, but this 21 serious problem is not addressed at all by the Holtec 22 and Eddy-Lea Alliance proposal.

23 These hotter fuel rods are mandated by the 24 Nuclear Regulatory Commission to remain in their water 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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105 cooling pools for a minimum of five years. You could 1

bring all of the cooler fuel rods currently in dry 2

cask storage at their present locations here tomorrow 3

and not change this situation one bit. You simply 4

cannot speed up the heat generating nuclear decay 5

process. This is -- can you hear me?

6 PARTICIPANT: No, there's something wrong 7

with that mic. We can't hear you very well and I 8

don't know what it is.

9 MR. STONE: Can I just talk?

10 (Simultaneous speaking.)

11 MR. CAMERON: I can hear you fine. I can 12 hear you perfectly well.

13 MR. STONE: All right.

14 MR. CAMERON: So go ahead.

15 MR. STONE: All right. Anyway, you can't 16 speed up the heat generating nuclear decay process.

17 It must run its course. What you will do is encourage 18 the nuclear industry to produce still more of this 19 waste once they see they can put their spent rods out 20 of sight and out of mind.

21 Now, the problem is the casks. I've heard 22

-- all right. Second, they say the above-ground 23 aspect of the present casks designs places them at 24 risk at aircraft crash. Well, as to their putative 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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106 vulnerability to air crash you will note that in 1945 1

a B-25 two-engine bomber crashed into the Empire State 2

Building in New York City with virtually no damage to 3

the building's structural integrity. To a structure 4

of concrete or steel an airplane is just a thin-5 skinned aluminum balloon full of people and fuel.

6 The Twin Towers which might come to mind 7

in this context collapsed not due to their steel 8

framework being damaged by the aircraft's impact, 9

which it was not, but by their steel structures being 10 weakened by the prolonged exposure to the subsequent 11 fuel-fed fire. Any structural engineer or architect 12 will tell you that steel loses all its strength in a 13 fire. The Twin Towers' steel insulation was never 14 conceived to be exposed to the amount of prolonged 15 heat to which the fuel-feed fire brought by the planes 16 exposed them.

17 Now, why did I go and say all that? In 18 total contrast the dry storage fuel rod casks 19 currently where these rods are -- the cooler rods are 20 stored are double-layer welded steel containers with 21 thick steel reinforced concrete cladding. They would 22 be fairly impregnable to this kind of impact.

23 Third, that the casks in their present 24 locations above ground are vulnerable to terrorist 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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107 attack --

1 MR. CAMERON: Can I get you to just sum 2

up, please, Ford?

3 MR. STONE: Yes.

4 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

5 MR. STONE: The cooler rods would not 6

catch fire if they were exposed to an attack, however, 7

there would be a problem, but it would not be a 8

Chernobyl-type problem. It would be nasty, but the 9

thing about it is these casks are specifically 10 designed to be capable of withstanding just such an 11 attack. The NRC describes the dry casks used in the 12 U.S. as "designed to resist floods, tornados, 13 projectiles, temperature extremes and other unusual 14 scenarios." I quote. So these present storage 15 containers weigh hundreds of tons. They ain't going 16 nowhere.

17 How much more do I -- no more time?

18 MR. CAMERON: You're over time.

19 MR. STONE: Oh, okay. I'm so sorry.

20 MR. CAMERON: So I just wanted to give you 21 as much time as --

22 (Simultaneous speaking.)

23 MR. STONE: All right. I got it all -- if 24 you want to go to fordstone.wordpress.com, you can see 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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108 the rest of the argument.

1 MR. CAMERON: You can -- and if you want 2

to give that to the NRC staff, you can.

3 MR. STONE: I've made so many marks on it 4

that it's illegible.

5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. All right.

6 PARTICIPANT: Mail it in.

7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Ford.

8 MR. STONE: All right.

9 (Applause.)

10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much. Thank 11 you.

12 And now we're going to hear from Wally 13 Taylor and then Chad Ingram and Tom Martin.

14 Go ahead.

15 MR. TAYLOR: Thank you for allowing me to 16 comment. I have three comments on the scope of the 17 EIS. Others have touched on these, but I want to 18 expand a little bit.

19 The first is about earthquakes. The 20 environment report submitted by Holtec pretty much 21 dismisses the idea of earthquakes impacting this 22 project, but the ER is based on historic data, 23 historic incidents. There is much more recent data 24 which I will give to you in written comments that the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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109 drilling and fracking for oil and gas in this area has 1

increased dramatically in the last few years. And a 2

recent study by some geophysicists at Stanford, which 3

was published in February of this year, documents 4

recent faults in the area of the Holtec site and 5

around the Holtec site that weren't there 6

historically. And it's a proven fact; someone 7

mentioned Oklahoma, where fracking for oil and gas 8

does induce earthquakes. And that's been shown in 9

Texas as well. So you need to do a really thorough 10 review for the impacts from earthquakes.

11 Secondly, the no-action alternative, which 12 means basically leaving the waste at the reactor site.

13 The ER submitted by Holtec admits that the no-action 14 alternative is a reasonable alternative, but it tosses 15 it aside saying, well, it's safer to put it in a 16 consolidated -- in a storage facility. But the NRC's 17 own continuous storage rule determined that it's 18 perfectly safe to leave the waste on site basically 19 forever. You remember you had to do -- because the 20 court said so you had to do an evaluation for 21 indefinite storage on site, and you found that it was 22 safe. The Blue Ribbon Commission, which Holtec cites 23 as the basis for supporting a CIS site, said also that 24 on-site storage was just as safe as a CIS site. So 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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110 with all of that you need to really take a strong 1

thorough look at the no-action alternative.

2 Thirdly, you must evaluate for indefinite 3

storage at the CIS site. That's exactly what the 4

circuit court in D.C. said back in 2012 in New York v.

5 NRDC that NEPA requires an evaluation for all possible 6

scenarios including indefinite storage. And if there 7

is never a permanent repository sited, this CIS site 8

will become a de factor permanent repository. You 9

need to evaluate that in the EIS.

10 (Applause.)

11 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Wally.

12 And is Chad Ingram --

13 MR. INGRAM: Yes, right here.

14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Good. Thank you.

15 MR. INGRAM: Good evening. We sure do 16 appreciate you all being here in Carlsbad, and what a 17 community we have, huh? You know, I've been standing 18 over here and I've heard a lot of my fellow 19 Carlsbadians come up here and I've had to change my 20 speech three times because they keep stealing my 21 lines.

22 Bottom line is that we know nuclear here.

23 We have some of the smartest people on the planet in 24 Carlsbad, New Mexico, and people around the world 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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111 backing them up with the science. Holtec has shown in 1

their testing that this can stand up to an airplane 2

strike. The science is there. The science is sound.

3 Carlsbad is a perfect location to have such a 4

facility. We have the WIPP site here already. We are 5

willing to take this on.

6 We've heard a lot tonight as well it could 7

be and it sits above ground and we've got these 8

problems. The science has already been done. And 9

we're here tonight to ask you to approve Holtec.

10 Let's get it here. Let's get this stuff stored. Even 11 if it's on a temporary basis, it's the best 12 alternative for us at this point. Appreciate you all.

13 Thank you.

14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Chad.

15 (Applause.)

16 MR. CAMERON: I'm going to go to Tom. Tom 17 Martin with us?

18 Okay. Richard Doss, John Buchser, Doug 19 Lynn, Bob Forrest. Richard? Richard Doss? And John.

20 John -- he was here. Okay. Oh, here he is.

21 MR. BUCHSER: Thank you. Thank you to 22 everybody for hanging in there. I am -- there is a 23 lot of audience that has disappeared from the front.

24 My name is John Buchser. I am here representing the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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112 10,000 members of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra 1

Club. I worked about ten years at Los Alamos, five 2

years at Sandia, half a dozen years in public health.

3 I am a computer geek. I am also a crazy activist and 4

I am from Santa Fe.

5 I agree with statements that city and 6

county officials stated early on that some storage 7

sites at reactors of cast fuel rods need to be 8

evaluated for risk and are potentially not safe -- as 9

safe as they could be. The goal of waste management 10 should be to minimize risk in management of used fuel 11 rods. If a storage location at a given reactor is 12 determined to be at risk, moving as short a distance 13 as possible is best unless we know where the long-term 14 location is. Current law does not allow a CIS site.

15 I am impressed that the whole tech system, as proposed 16 here, appears to be safe. However, this is only the 17 case for the permitted 20-year period for this 18 storage.

19 The storage site problems are one, helium 20 leakage should be continuously monitored. As far as 21 I can tell, it's not monitored at all, so you don't 22 know if anything is linking. Murphy rules. No long-23 term storage management exists to handle leaking 24 casks. Radiation and heat will degrade casks. It 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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113 actually starts peaking out at about year ten through 1

about year 25 -- it gets pretty darn hot. It actually 2

makes a case for not putting it underground until the 3

heat diminishes, there is so much heat coming off of 4

it. I really like to use my car. I heat my house 5

with gas. Guess where it comes from -- this area 6

around here. Until we get to the point in technology 7

where I can use something else, I don't want to 8

destroy the oil and gas boom here. I need it. I like 9

it. I want to transition, but I -- we're not there.

10 I like dairy and meat. Same problem. I 11 don't want to make it go away. Tourism is safe, 12 mostly. Lots of jobs. Holtec is only providing 50 or 13 100. That is not many. Transport, to me, is the 14 biggest problem. An anti-tank missile will cause a 15 failure. It's not clear to me how awful that failure 16 will be, but I happened to be at Los Alamos watching 17 the satellite photos of Chernobyl the day after it 18 happened, and I have watched videos of people going in 19 there for half-an-hour just to do some videos of 20 Chernobyl -- nobody lives there, except some of the 21 animals are managing to. The Yucca Mountain analysis 22 was extensive. It showed that in the transport 23 process to Yucca Mountain, which is actually less 24 waste than this is proposing over the 20-year renewals 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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114 that they will be looking at, that there will be a 1

failure in transport of this waste. Same problem with 2

releasing that waste.

3 There is -- I have three things in 4

conclusion. One is, stop the production of this 5

dangerous waste. Two is, don't reprocess and 6

perpetuate the problem. The only way this project can 7

actually be profitable to the community in the long 8

run is to reprocess it, and you are just perpetuating 9

the problem, creating bomb-grade material. I don't, 10 you know -- I don't nuclear war any more than anybody 11 else does, except for the folks building things for 12 war. We have a wonderful thermonuclear process a few 13 million miles away. The region is already putting it 14 to great use with wind and solar collectors. It 15 generates a whole heck of a lot more jobs and is a 16 whole heck of a lot safer. Thank you very much for 17 your time, and I appreciate your being here for us.

18 (Applause.)

19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, John.

20 Is Doug Lynn? Here is Doug. And then we will go to 21 Bob Forrest, Larry Mitchell and then Gene Harbaugh.

22 And this is Doug.

23 MR. LYNN: Thank you. I appreciate the 24 opportunity to speak to everyone tonight. It's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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115 getting a little cold in here. Is everybody kind of 1

2 (Simultaneous speaking.)

3 MR. LYNN: Yes, I was going to hang some 4

meat back there, but --

5 (Laughter.)

6 MR. LYNN: I too am kind of a life-long 7

resident of this area. My family homesteaded a ranch 8

between Carlsbad and Jal. It's not that far south as 9

the crow flies from the proposed Holtec site. I have 10 a great deal of passion for the desert. I was trained 11 as a range land ecologist. My first 12 years -- most 12 of them are gone now. I was going to have them raise 13 their hand. But for the first 12 years of my 14 professional career, I was a school teacher. I taught 15 biology and environmental ecology. Oh, there's one 16 right there. One of my old students. But I -- we had 17 a whole room full of them. I counted about 15 or 20 18 in here -- my old kids. And my -- my kids, in fact, 19 received state and national accolades for excellence 20 in environmental education and ecology and 21 contribution -- and their contribution to America's 22 resources -- natural resources.

23 We have -- I would like to preface one --

24 one further comment I would like to make is that we --

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116 we looked up here a while ago about things like 1

wildlife. And there was a comment made tonight about 2

the dune sage brush lizard. There were questions 3

asked of us yesterday -- I was a tour guide out there 4

-- and we were -- I was asked very politely and very 5

graciously, questions about the lesser prairie 6

chicken. Both of these species are species of concern 7

to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. And they 8

currently have agreements in place to help manage the 9

conservation of both species. And I can state 10 unequivocally, I've been -- I've been sitting on these 11 boards since 2002 -- I have sat on every single 12 working group that has -- that was -- that were the 13 main contributors to the strategic plan to manage both 14 the dune sage brush lizard and the lesser prairie 15 chicken. I can tell you unequivocally, with absolute 16 surety, that that area out there is not conducive, it 17 is non-suitable habitat. Neither of those species 18 reside there, nor will they ever reside there. It is 19 hardpan muskee (phonetic). Those -- neither species 20 does that.

21 So, now that being said, I will go on --

22 after my -- after my career as a school teacher I went 23

-- I actually got hired by the WIPP site. I was a 24 little uncomfortable. I had a little bit of fear 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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117 about nuclear. And I got hired at the WIPP site and 1

went out as one of their primary land use 2

coordinators. I was their wildlife guy. I was their 3

range specialist. I was their reclamation specialist.

4 I wore a lot of hats. And I also was assigned the 5

principal investigator and the team leader for all of 6

the radiological environmental sampling. And when you 7

do that, they send you to Oak Ridge Associated 8

Universities in Tennessee and they put you through 9

some of the most rigorous and intensive training on 10 radiological environmental sampling that you can go 11 through.

12 And as I -- as I got smarter about 13 radiation, I got less fearful about radiation. As I 14 learned more about how radioactive materials behave --

15 as I learned more about how radionuclides behave -- I 16 became a lot more comfortable in how I went about 17 doing my business as an environmental sampler. And 18 they had us at Oak Ridge -- I told some people 19 yesterday, they had me, in my frame, crawling around 20 through duct work over laboratories with pitot tubes 21 taking air samples. So once I learned about the 22 behavior -- how a radionuclide behaves, I became more 23 comfortable. And I became less fearful. And I -- so 24 I conducted that for 15 years at the WIPP site.

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118 That's what I did. All of those different activities 1

I just described.

2 Based on my training and my experience in 3

that arena, I can state that there is a reality -- I 4

tell this to my employees all the time. You know, 5

they want to do the right thing sometimes, or they 6

want to -- they have a lot of passion or emotion 7

wrapped up in things. I have a lot of passion about 8

the Chihuahuan desert. I love the desert. That's why 9

I choose to live here. And that's why I choose to 10 learn about the desert and was trained in the desert.

11 But there is a reality. The reality here is that we 12 have spent nuclear fuel. The reality is is that fuel 13 is not particularly in the best place. And in my 14 opinion, based on my training and experience, the 15 Holtec facility is by far the best option that we have 16 to handle that reality. And so, that being said, I 17 thank you again for your time.

18 (Applause.)

19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much. And 20 how about Bob? Bob Forrest?

21 (No audible response.)

22 MR. CAMERON: Larry Mitchell? Gene 23 Harbaugh? Oh, here is Larry. Okay, and then we will 24 go to you, Gene. We have Larry right here. Go ahead.

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119 MR. MITCHELL: Good evening, ladies and 1

gentleman. We welcome you to Carlsbad and my name is 2

Larry Mitchell. I am speaking on behalf of myself as 3

a citizen. I've been in Carlsbad for almost -- well, 4

it was over 24 years. I was imported here, so I too 5

am from Texas. Been proud to be here. Again, I am 6

speaking as a businessman and as a citizen. We -- I 7

am pleased that Holtec is showing interest. I am 8

pleased that you have shown up here as well to hear 9

what the concerned citizens have to say -- whether 10 they be from here or from outside. I mean, we -- we 11 welcome everybody. This is -- this is our backyard 12 and I heard one -- can't remember who it was that said 13 not in my backyard. Well, I followed what he was 14 saying. I said, we do welcome Holtec to our backyard.

15 And one of the things that we see -- the promises that 16 we've -- that we've -- or, the promise I see in this 17 program is that, you know, this -- the program we have 18 right now as far as WIPP, it has been a fantastic 19 contribution to this community, not just by what it 20 does for employees and what the employees do for 21 Carlsbad and for the surrounding areas, but what -- I 22 believe it does a service. And it does come at a 23 cost, but that cost, considering what could be done 24 with it, is minimal. This is, as many others have 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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120 said, this is a well-educated community. I have never 1

felt like I was being misled or, you know, 2

misinformed. I believe the kids in this community 3

know more, being that they are raising up in this --

4 being raised up in this, that they know more about it 5

than many others. And so this is, I believe, a well-6 educated community.

7 One of the things we've seen over the 8

years when I -- when I moved out here is potash was 9

beginning to decline. Tourism has been pretty much 10 waning off a little bit. It's -- now you see what oil 11 and gas does. It is extremely volatile. If it's up, 12 it's up. If it's down, then the whole region can be 13 down. But one of the things I have noticed here ever 14 since WIPP came on board, it's really kind of leveled 15 out the economy. It's been that constant -- and I 16 know that you -- your profession, your job, you want 17 to make everything as safe as possible. And I do 18 believe that Holtec has a solution, be it temporary or 19 whatever it is -- but we certainly would like to 20 welcome Holtec to our community. Thank you.

21 (Applause.)

22 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. This is Gene, 23 right?

24 MR. HARBAUGH: I admire you folks so much.

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121 You have sat there so patiently. Wouldn't you like to 1

stand up? I mean, goodness, goodness.

2 (Laughter.)

3 MR. HARBAUGH: Anyway, I appreciate the 4

opportunity speak to you tonight. My name is Gene 5

Harbaugh. I am a retired Presbyterian pastor, 6

approaching 82 years old. And I have lived in 7

Carlsbad 32 years. I live within 300 yards of a 8

switching rail yard, which makes me nervous when I 9

think about the condition of the railroad 10 infrastructure across this country and how much time 11 some of these canisters will spend on a siding. The 12 proposal that we have before us is for a temporary, 13 interim storage facility. And even though, obviously, 14 a lot of attention has been given to the safety of 15 these canisters, the fact that this is a temporary 16 storage facility is its fatal flaw. Until a permanent 17 repository is authorized by

Congress, it is 18 counterintuitive to move radioactive material around 19 the country.

20 (Applause.)

21 MR. HARBAUGH: We have had experience in 22 Carlsbad with private companies. As you know, about 23 our brine well situation. And if there is to be a 24 national repository for nuclear waste, the federal 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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122 government, not a private company, should be 1

responsible for the conducting of the entire project 2

and its design. We are talking not just 100 years, we 3

are talking thousands of years when we are talking 4

about finding a repository for this kind of waste.

5 Another point that I would make is that this proposal 6

is not in any way connected to WIPP. WIPP is a 7

project that those of us in this community have come 8

to accept and, in fact, for me personally, if we were 9

putting these canisters 2,000 feet below the surface, 10 that would be a different story. That is not the 11 case, obviously. It is disingenuous to suggest that 12 the proposed storage will be temporary when there is 13 as yet no permanent site for the waste.

14 So Holtec is obviously motivated by profit 15 in this plan. Nothing wrong with that. However, I 16 wonder how much attention and how much information we 17 have about the impact on farming and ranching, on 18 tourism, on retirement, on the oil and gas industry, 19 on the dairy industry, on the mining industry. I 20 think all of that needs to be looked at. And my hunch 21 is that, as I talk to people, the impact is going to 22 be negative.

23 And finally, I would just say that we have 24 a situation in this community that is not unique. But 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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123 due to the fact that we are in a community that has 1

only one newspaper -- one community newspaper -- which 2

has dramatically declined in circulation and is now 3

published in El Paso, Texas, and has no effective 4

network for public communication, this project is 5

virtually unknown in Carlsbad. I will wager that you 6

cannot talk to 20 people that you don't know on the 7

streets of Carlsbad and find one of them that has even 8

heard of this project. This has been under the radar 9

for a long time. I appreciate the opportunity to 10 speak to you, and I am amazed at your stamina.

11 (Applause.)

12 MR. CAMERON: Well, you're not doing too 13 badly yourself at 82, you know. Are the Squires here?

14 Yes, Mrs. Squires goes first. If you still want to 15 talk. And then we are going to go to the Hoffmans --

16 after Mr. Squires. This is Linda Squires.

17 MS. SQUIRES: Good evening, I -- I spoke 18 at the Roswell meeting. And I just wanted to make a 19 few comments about what occurred at the Roswell 20 meeting. And I am addressing you tonight as a -- a 21 dairy owner, a veterinarian and most of all as a mom.

22 But also as a Baby Boomer. We old farts at the 23 meeting in Roswell were schooled by the nuclear 24 engineering students in the many benefits of having 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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124 Mr. Atom in our lives. Reminded, pretty much, of the 1

benefits that x-rays gave us for diagnosis of our 2

cancers and determining which teeth to have pulled --

3 and to be told we had -- if we had a banana that day, 4

we had just consumed radioactive material.

5 Basically, what they were ridiculing was 6

the fears of the old people. And as baby boomers, I 7

think we have every right to be -- have some fear of 8

radioactive materials. When I was a kid, we had a 9

shoe store in the little town that I grew up in, and 10 we had a fluoroscope in that shoe store. And I 11 remember standing in front of that thing and wiggling 12 my toes in my new shoes. But the fluoroscope was not 13 shielded. It provided no protection whatsoever. And 14 I often wondered if I had received radiation that 15 caused some physical problems that I had later on in 16 life from that machine. But I never -- I would never 17 know.

18 Then every person that's -- that was born 19 after World War II, every person alive in the United 20 States during those years in the '50s and '60s was 21 exposed to huge amounts of unprecedented radiation 22 falling from the skies. They did studies in -- in St.

23 Louis on baby teeth that were submitted by moms. And 24 then the followed these teeth throughout the years of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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125 the people's lives. And this was called the baby 1

tooth study. And they tested for strontium 90 levels 2

in those baby teeth. And they found that with 3

increasing strontium 90 there was increased cancer 4

rates and decreased survivability of those baby 5

boomers.

6 Many of our friends and neighbors are 7

already gone. We have a very close friend right now 8

who is fighting cancer. Nobody knows what causes 9

these things, but the fact remains that fear is a 10 protective mechanism. It allows us to raise children 11 successfully without them dying, and it allows us to 12 do all the things in our lives that we need to do 13 safely, because we have respect for what can happen in 14 the worst-case scenarios. Now, all these years later, 15 baby boomers face devastating debilitating 16 neurological diseases for which nobody knows the cause 17 and there is no prevention and no cure. And I am 18 referring to Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and a horrible 19 disease called Creutzfled-Jakobs disease, which is the 20 human form of mad cow disease. All of these diseases 21 are now linked to prions. And this is the same tiny 22 particle known to be present in cows with BSE, or mad 23 cow disease, and it -- they are also present in deer 24 and elk with chronic wasting disease and in sheep with 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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126 scrapie. But scientists don't know anything about how 1

these particles initiate disease or how they can be so 2

resistant to disinfectants.

3 I have been studying cluster patterns of 4

all the prion-related diseases for quite a few years 5

now -- just an independent study. And I -- as I 6

mentioned at the other meeting, I came up with four 7

factors -- radionuclides, various combinations of 8

heavy metals such as lead or manganese, and fluoride 9

and aluminum.

10 And I am turning in a copy of my notes and 11 summary paper to you tonight so that you can be free 12 to take this information and create studies so that 13 you can find out -- work with the Department of 14 Defense, who is now doing research on prion diseases, 15 for some strange reason. Find out if you can do some 16 studies. I have a suggestion for a study for CWD in 17 Colorado. Find out if -- what is causing these. If 18 there is indeed any link to radioactive materials, we 19 need to find out before we create more contaminated 20 places. And I urge you to -- to follow up on this. If 21 I am wrong, I will be surprised. But if I am right, 22 you will be glad that you checked this out first.

23 Thank you.

24 (Applause.)

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127 MR. CAMERON: And Mr. Squires? Then we're 1

going to go to -- to Shareon and Ace Hoffman.

2 MR.

SQUIRES:

Thank you for the 3

opportunity to speak to you folks again. I spoke the 4

other night in Roswell for a few minutes. My wife 5

Linda and I

both we are both graduate 6

veterinarians. We graduated from Ohio State a few 7

years ago. We now own a dairy in Hagerman, which 8

coincidentally, I guess one of the railroads that is 9

going to transfer this nuclear waste goes right 10 through the town of Hagerman. We currently have over 11 50 employees. And one of the things I would like to 12 talk about tonight is one of the things that we have 13 learned in veterinary medicine -- one of the more 14 important aspects of it, we feel, is preventive 15 medicine. This is something not a lot of people think 16 about. They think about what pill can I take to fix 17 this problem? And in preventive medicine, it's what 18 we use when we are working with herds, with animals, 19 just to try to evaluate the situation. We evaluate 20 the risks of the disease. We evaluate the costs of 21 the disease. And then we evaluate the cost of the 22 prevention and what methods we can use to prevent a 23 disease. And after that, we try to make a plan to 24 help prevent disease, whether it is something to do 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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128 with nutrition, cow

comfort, calf

comfort, 1

vaccinations, immunology -- all of those things. And 2

we use that to help run our dairy as well as -- when 3

I was consulting for other dairies, we -- we would use 4

that same information in those cases.

5 A lot of our dairy feeds are transported, 6

as I said the other night, on the same railways that 7

the proposed nuclear fuel rods would use. The rest of 8

the feed is raised locally, and as I said the other 9

night, the risks of contamination of any of our feeds 10 or any of the milk supply, or even the hint of 11 contamination would devastate our industry. I am not 12 a -- I am not an anti-nuclear activist. We believe in 13 a lot of the uses of radiation and things like that.

14 But there's a place and a time for it.

15 I feel that it's impossible for us to 16 prevent some kind of accident of any kind from 17 happening with a railroad or a truck. Murphy, that's 18 running the loader, when they're -- when they're 19 moving these canisters. Any accident leak or any 20 other problem. And it is nearly impossible to know 21 when it is occurring because you can't see it, smell 22 it or tell it by any of your other senses. So we have 23 to rely on responsible people who are around there to 24 let us know if something happened. And we are 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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129 dependent upon their honesty and integrity to report 1

these problems.

2 I am not really comfortable with that 3

situation. Even though I have been told that it is, 4

I do not believe that it is my moral and patriotic 5

duty to take the high-level nuclear waste from around 6

the country. I think it should be stored where it 7

already had a contaminated home. And that's all I've 8

got to say tonight. Thank you.

9 (Applause.)

10 MR. CAMERON: And here is Ace Hoffman.

11 Ace?

12 MR. HOFFMAN: Good evening. I am a 13 stakeholder. I am from Carlsbad. Not Carlsbad, New 14 Mexico; Carlsbad, California, which is about 15 miles 15 as the crow flies, or the plutonium flies, from San 16 Onofre. So it was very important to me that we do 17 something about this waste. However, Rocky Flats 18 still has a dead zone where people can't live.

19 They've made it into a nature preserve, it's -- it 20 doesn't preserve anything. Chernobyl has a dead zone.

21 Fukushima has a dead zone. Hanford has a dead zone 22 and no money to build it.

23 I did a mathematical calculation of the 24 thickness of the dry casts. They're not much thicker 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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130 than an egg shell, proportionately. And if you 1

imagine an egg shell filled with lead -- well, uranium 2

is 1.7 times heavier than lead. So this -- these are 3

not safe canisters. The drop tests, all those other 4

tests, they're not nearly as strict as the tests that 5

they give them in Europe. The tests are really 6

designed so that the dry casts that they can -- that 7

they want to build will pass the tests. They're not 8

real -- they don't have anything to do with the real 9

world and what can really happen.

10 The -- the -- what we're talking about is 11 probability versus possibility. So by considering 12 only the first 500 casks, that's one-twentieth of the 13 probability of an accident. How bad that accident --

14 well, it's 20-times more likely that it's -- that it's 15 going to happen if you're taking the whole 10,000. If 16 you take all of those. And another thing is, if you 17 built this thing, the nuclear industry is going to 18 say, well, we have a solution to the nuclear waste 19 problem. But what kind of a solution is it? It's a 20

-- it is supposed to last 40 years? That's one number 21 that I hear. A hundred-and-twenty years is another 22 number. Three hundred years is a number we have been 23 tossed at as well. But the truth is, it may be there 24 forever because those casks corrode. And trying to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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131 move them after 40 years may be an extremely risk 1

thing if you can do it at all.

2 Now, we spent the day at the Carlsbad 3

Caverns. And you've got a lot of wind here. Oh, it 4

was windy. And you've got a lot of water seeping 5

through your ground constantly. So if there is a 6

problem it is going to affect everything. It is going 7

to affect your tourism. It is going to affect your 8

livestock. It is going to affect your environment in 9

so many different ways. And let's talk about 10 terrorism. They are not prepared to -- they are not 11 going to protect against an airplane strike -- even an 12 accidental airplane strike. The turbine -- the center 13 of the turbine of an airplane is a very solid rod.

14 And that will go through just about anything. And the 15 fuel test -- the fire that would occur if an airplane 16 actually crashed into this enormous place -- would 17 burst these casks. So they're not protected against 18 any kind of terrorism -- not to mention, I mean, we 19 had a -- a drug guy that they dug a 500-foot tunnel in 20 Mexico to get him out. Just this one person. If 21 somebody wants to get into this thing, fence isn't 22 going to -- isn't going to stop anybody. They can go 23 under it. They do that all the time in California.

24 (Laughter.)

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132 MR. HOFFMAN: Also, the bill that -- that 1

is being proposed, it -- they need -- they need a new 2

bill because legally they can't build this thing yet.

3 And part of the bills -- it's being rewritten just in 4

the last day or so -- such that nobody can sue if the 5

DOE doesn't put enough money in to solve the problems 6

that might come up. So, I mean, if -- from top to 7

bottom, it's a farce. Twenty years ago we were told 8

at San Onofre that the casks they were going to use 9

were going to be two inches thick and a quarter of an 10 inch lead. And they are actually five-eighths of an 11 inch thick. And that's thicker than they used to be.

12 The ones that we were going to get when they were 13 telling us they would be two inches thick were only 14 half-inch thick. So don't expect anyone to be telling 15 you the truth about what is possible or what is going 16 to happen. And I strongly advise -- even though I 17 would love to get rid of the waste, and I would love 18 to find a sucker that will take it -- but don't be 19 that sucker. Thank you.

20 (Applause.)

21 MR. CAMERON: This is Sharon -- Sharon 22 Hoffman. And then we're going to go to Robert Defer 23 and Robert Baldridge. Sharon?

24 MS. HOFFMAN: Thank you, Chip. And thank 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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133 you to the -- to everybody for staying this long and 1

listening. And thank you to Carlsbad for welcoming us 2

here. As my husband said, we are from Carlsbad, 3

California and we -- we recognize the -- the sentiment 4

that says we can take this problem. But this is 5

everybody's problem. And it cannot be moved to any 6

one place. So I want to ask the NRC if you are going 7

to consider this -- if you are going to do an 8

environmental impact, then do an environmental impact 9

of what is really going to happen. This is going to 10 become a de facto permanent repository. We are still 11 going to have waste at every nuclear power plant in 12 the country that is open. We are very happy that San 13 Onofre is closed. It is a really bad place for the 14 waste. But that doesn't mean that we solve the 15 problem by moving it to a different place. We have to 16 look at the transportation. we are talking about 17 moving the most dangerous stuff on the planet all over 18 the country. And if we moved it all today, we would 19 have more tomorrow.

20 So if we are going to do an environmental 21 impact, let's do an environmental impact of what is 22 really going to happen. So the real question here is, 23 when are we going to shut down all these plants and 24 stop making more waste? That's really the problem.

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134 (Applause.)

1 MS. HOFFMAN: The other thing that I think 2

is very important to consider is nobody has ever 3

opened a cask. There has been a lot of discussion at 4

San Onofre about the casks and a lot of questions 5

about that. And we had some folks come in from the 6

nuclear industry group and say, well, we are starting 7

some studies about what might happen if we ever had to 8

open a cask. But nobody has ever opened a real cask.

9 So nobody knows what would happen. This is a 10 beautiful place, as so many of you said -- as we saw.

11 And it might be contaminated forever. This is not 12 something that you want to take on for the rest of the 13 country. Yes, you can help the rest of the country.

14 You can say, stop making this, and then let's figure 15 out together the best thing to do with what is left.

16 Thank you.

17 (Applause.)

18 MR. CAMERON: Okay, and I think this is 19 Mr. Defer. I am not sure if I am pronouncing that 20 correctly, but I just wanted to report on -- they 21 tried to -- to shut the cold air off here, okay? And 22 apparently it's computer controlled and it's still 23 going to be cold. So we apologize for that. And we 24 have a -- we have a number of people left. And I am 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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135 going to go to the people who we haven't heard from 1

this week. And -- and I am sure there's one right 2

back there waving her hand at me. And I am -- I am 3

going to go to them and I would ask, when I call the 4

people who have already talked to us, just try to make 5

your main point. Be crisp. So before this poor woman 6

freezes up here. But anyway, I am sorry. Go ahead, 7

Mr. Defer.

8 MR. DEFER: Good evening. Thank you very, 9

very much for coming. I thank you for allowing me to 10 come and share some thoughts with you. Your task that 11 you've got was very daunting and very, very serious.

12 And it affects our whole -- not just our community, it 13 affects our whole United States. And let me say that 14 I am for and in support of moving and bringing it here 15 to Carlsbad. I do live here. I am a resident of 16 Carlsbad. And I plan on being here for quite some 17 time. It is very, very serious, not just for us but 18 for the whole world. And not just the whole world --

19 for the United States, for what you're doing. And 20 you've got a hard task.

21 But I think that this is a beginning, or 22 a start, for a solution to be able to house the 23 nuclear waste. And we've got to make those decisions, 24 even as hard as they are, and as daunting as they are 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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136 and whether we like them or not, but we've got to make 1

those decisions to look to the future to get to the 2

results that we need. Thank you again so much for 3

coming. I am in support. Thank you so much for what 4

you're doing, and for your decisions that you have to 5

make.

6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much. Is Mr.

7 Baldridge -- here is Mr. Baldridge, and then we are 8

going to go to Marie Johnson.

9 MR. BALDRIDGE: Good evening. When you 10 sit back and you think about an EIS process, I think 11 it's an incredible thing. And so, part of the goal --

12 and having gone through it and coming out of the 13 mining industry -- the key -- the thing that I think 14 is so important is that all of the pieces are heard.

15 Every concern needs to be considered inside of the 16 process, and that's why we're here. So whether you're 17 for it or not, getting the pieces and parts the facts 18 out so that those can be evaluated is critical.

19 I am a long-time Carlsbad resident --

20 Native New Mexican. I have raised my family -- my 21 wife and I have two kids and we've raised our family 22 here in Carlsbad. I have been involved in the 23 extraction industry through potash mining for over 30 24 years. And so that's a little bit about what I am 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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137 going to talk about today is because there has been 1

some -- some concern raised in and around potash 2

mining and what the impacts and the considerations in 3

and around that and oil and gas. I am very fortunate 4

to participate and sit on the joint technical 5

committee with oil and gas development and look at the 6

risk factors between those two operations and how the 7

interface with each other. And so, when we have 8

underground employees and we have oil and gas 9

drilling, and the safety and hydro-carbons involved 10 and those factors come to play, understanding those 11 and understanding the science behind that becomes 12 critical. And as the general manager for Intrepid's 13 operations here in New Mexico, I take that very 14 seriously -- the safety of our employees and -- as we 15 go through that process.

16 And so one of the things that we 17 determined after taking quite some time to look at 18 that was -- is that we saw that it was -- we didn't 19 see a credible risk factor in drilling, in fracking, 20 underneath our operations. And let me explain why 21 that is. And so, when fracking takes place, one of 22 the things is is you're applying pressure. And that 23 pressure, the release of that pressure is driven 24 horizontally along the bedding plains from a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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138 geological feature that exists. And so, that's the 1

natural tendency is for it to release that. It 2

doesn't mean that it doesn't ever go vertically. But 3

what it has to do to reach the surface, or even reach 4

the -- the salt formation that we mine potash in, is 5

that it has to go through numerous bedding plains.

6 And so every time that occurs, there is a place for 7

the release of that energy that exists. And so, it is 8

-- we are extremely confident. And the fact is is 9

that we can frack and mine potash safely and coexist 10 with each other in the same basin.

11 And so, when you think about that, now 12 taking a look at that surface expression and it does 13

-- fracking or oil and gas development or potash 14 mining have an impact inside of this operation, and 15 you have to sit back and think, look, not only do you 16 have the bedding plains that exist between where the 17 oil and gas development is, you have over 150 bedding 18 plains that exist inside of the salt formation to the 19 surface for addition. As well, one of the unique 20 things that -- in and around salt, is -- is that it 21 absorbs energy. And so, whether that is from any 22 potential seismic or fracking or anything that is, 23 what a unique place in geologic feature to place this 24 facility over the top of is our very salt bed? It is 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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139 an extremely unique, safe location to be able to do 1

that.

2 So, because of these things as well, I had 3

the opportunity when Holtec came in, they were looking 4

for a facility, and who ended up having the mining 5

leases where they were looking at happened to be our 6

facilities. And so took a great deal of time to take 7

a look at their project -- the technology that they 8

were utilizing and the licensing behind it. So we 9

felt comfortable because we are going to be neighbors 10 with that project before we agreed and signed 11 contractually with them to release our mining leases 12 to support this project.

13 So, not just from a -- a personal 14 standpoint, or from a business standpoint, and a 15 community standpoint, the organization that I work 16 for, Intrepid Potash, was willing to release their 17 mining leases for this to exist because we think that 18 this economic development will help and support the 19 quality of life for our employees here in Carlsbad.

20 So, thank you for your time.

21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Baldridge.

22 We are going to Marie. And then we are going to go to 23 Roxanne Lara, Jay Jenkins, Norbert Rempe. This is 24 Marie.

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140 MS. JOHNSON: Let's see how this works.

1 Okay, it works pretty good. My name is Marie Johnson 2

and I want to thank my husband there because, like, 3

when we came in I said, baby, we are only going to 4

stay for a few minutes. We are not going to stay that 5

long. And when I started hearing these people talk.

6 And then I -- it got to me. Our lives begin to end 7

the day we become silent about the things that matter.

8 And this matters to me. I am from Carlsbad. I am a 9

mother. I am a grandmother. I have got a son that 10 was on a nuclear submarine. They called him a nuke.

11 So I am not anti-nuclear. But what I have heard 12 people talk about -- talk about the animals, talked 13 about how safe it was -- right? Talked about, oh, it 14 is only going to be temporary. So, like, permanent?

15 When you've got to get them every six weeks? You 16 know? Because you've got to get a touch-up, but it 17 ain't really permanent?

18 (Laughter.)

19 MS. JOHNSON: That's what I hear you 20 talking about. So I want to take a line from 21 Hamilton, and it says, hear ye, hear ye, Nuclear 22 Regulatory Commission. The elected officials, the 23 city councilman, the businessmen, do not speak for me.

24 I am Carlsbad.

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141 (Applause.)

1 MS. JOHNSON: Let me tell you about the 2

people that aren't here that look like me and who 3

don't look like me. This is a sparse population. We 4

have transportation problems. We have things coming 5

up. People can't get around if you don't have a car.

6 We don't have mass transit here, okay? So the people 7

that look like me, they aren't here. So guess what, 8

who is going to speak for those people?

9 PARTICIPANT: You are.

10 MS. JOHNSON: Yes. I thought I was 11 through doing this kind of stuff.

12 (Applause.)

13 MS. JOHNSON: But I guess I am not.

14 Because let me tell you something, just because we 15 have a sparse population, did we matter less than 16 somebody who has 160,000 people? Or has 2 million 17 people? Do we matter less?

18 (Simultaneous speaking.)

19 MS. JOHNSON: So, when you're doing that 20 impact statement, I want you to look at the people and 21 think about what happened to the people in New Orleans 22 when the levy broke. Oh, yes, the PhDs got out. The 23 people with the Mercedes got out. But guess what 24 happened, we -- we couldn't get out. So what happens?

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142 Think about that, okay? And I know I am getting a 1

little excited, so let me just take a breath.

2 (Laughter.)

3 MS. JOHNSON: Namaste, whatever. All I 4

want to say to you is that -- think about the people.

5 And just because we are not a lot of people -- this is 6

only 35 miles away from a population center. We live 7

in the desert where -- it's not like a place where 8

you've got lots of rain and lots of water and if you 9

mess up you go, oh, that's all right, baby, we'll 10 clean that up. And there's going to be some rain and 11 it's going to grow again. Once you mess us up, we're 12 stuck like Chuck. Thank you very much.

13 (Applause.)

14 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 15 Marie. And this -- Rocky?

16 MS. LARA: Now, if you hear me shiver, 17 it's not because I am nervous. I have been shaking 18 the last few minutes here. Good evening, my name is 19 Rocky Lara. And I am a former county commissioner, a 20 former member of the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance -- a 21 former officer with the Energy Communities 22 Association, former member of the Mayor's Task Force 23 and all of those things. But more importantly, I am 24 a citizen and resident and business owner in this 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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143 community. I was born and raised in Carlsbad. My 1

parents were born and raised in Carlsbad. My husband 2

was born and raised in Carlsbad. All of our family 3

remains here. We built our business here and we never 4

look to live anywhere else.

5 And that's more important than all of 6

those jobs I've had because I would never support 7

anything that I thought was not safe for our community 8

and not safe for our family. And I support this 9

project because here's the thing, experience is what 10 counts. I come from a background of law and politics, 11 and the one thing that carried across the board was 12 the likelihood of success often depended on 13 experience.

And this community has unique 14 considerations. This community has experience --

15 experience in knowing its Cinderella geology. It's 16 just right. Experience in knowing the processes and 17 the procedures. Experience in dealing with nuclear 18 waste for a number of years.

19 So what that brings is the fact that we 20 know what questions to ask. We know when something 21 doesn't sound right. We know when we should be 22 looking out for our families and our community. And 23 those questions have been asked. And that's why so 24 many leaders and so many residents of this community 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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144 support this project. So you will hear a lot of 1

opinions and a lot of opinions that are built on what-2 ifs and built on fears and built on not taking the 3

time to really become educated about this particular 4

project and the things that are involved in this 5

particular and very specific process. And opinions 6

are great for discussion. But decisions are made of 7

acts. And the facts, coupled with our experience, 8

support the licensing of this project. I worked on 9

this project many years ago for several years. I 10 supported it then. I support it now, and my family 11 stands with me. Thank you.

12 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. And here is a 13 former, student, right? Okay, it's Jay -- Jay 14 Jenkins. And then we're going to go to Norbert Rempe 15 and we're going to go to Sister Marlene.

16 MR. JENKINS: Thank you. Good evening, 17 thank you, my name is Jay Jenkins and I am a local 18 businessman here in Carlsbad. I grew up, attended 19 Carlsbad schools, moved away to go to college. Ended 20 up getting a job, but had an opportunity to relocate 21 back to Carlsbad in 1998 and I have been here ever 22 since. My family lives here and I plan on being here 23 the rest of my life. I have had the opportunity to be 24 involved in the community in several different aspects 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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145 and love Carlsbad. I am a resident now of Eddy 1

County. I live south of Loving and with that I have 2

had the opportunity also to serve -- and currently 3

serve on the Mayor's Nuclear Task Force. I chose to 4

do that to educate myself with the nuclear industry.

5 As such, I had the opportunity with a 6

separate group about two to three years ago to travel 7

to Minnesota and tour the Xcel nuclear facility known 8

as the Monticello Plant. I got to witness firsthand as 9

a lay person what that whole facility was about. I 10 also got to witness and visualize the spent nuclear 11 fuel at that facility. I also got to see and listen 12 to the challenges that they face with the facility 13 that they're out of room with storing that particular 14 product. And I come today to speak in favor of this 15 project. I speak in favor of Holtec for all the 16 reasons that have been voiced before.

17 With that, it was said earlier, just like 18 with WIPP, it's great that we are providing solutions 19 for the country. Here is another opportunity that we 20 have chosen to be a part of and provide another 21 solution for the country. In some of the involvement 22 I've been -- I have had the opportunity to go to 23 Washington, D.C. on several occasions, and there is no 24 more pride that someone as a local person can have to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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146 go to the Department of Energy facility and you see 1

that big map when you walk in, and there's a little 2

dot -- there's dots for the Department of Energy 3

facilities around the country, and there's one dot 4

right there that shows Carlsbad, New Mexico. It will 5

be great to show another dot representing this 6

facility. So thank you for hearing our comments this 7

evening and thank you for the opportunity.

8 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Jay.

9 Is Norbert here? Okay. And then we will go to Sister 10 Perrotte.

11 MR. REMPE: Good evening. I am Norbert 12 Rempe, a resident of Carlsbad. I am going to speak 13 from a perspective as a U.S. taxpayer and electric 14 rate payer because they will eventually pay for this.

15 There are currently three options that are apparently 16 reasonably viable -- and that's Yucca Mountain, 17 Holtec, and WCS. I count Yucca Mountain among them 18 because the regulations say Yucca Mountain has to be 19 retrievable for up to 300 years if it ever starts 20 operating. And the blue ribbon commission was 21 mentioned several times. It was basically political 22 cover for the attempted assassination of the Yucca 23 Mountain project by the previous administration in 24 collusion between the Senate majority leader at the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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147 time and the president.

1 Without the Yucca Mountain politics, I 2

don't believe we would even be looking at either the 3

Holtec or the WCS proposal. This project is therefore 4

premised on the ultimate death of Yucca Mountain. I 5

have been to Yucca Mountain twice. I have read a lot 6

of literature about it. I can't think of a real show 7

stopper of why it wouldn't work. So that up front.

8 Now about trust in the NRC. I think the 9

trust in the NRC has been compromised over the last 10 few years, and I will give you two examples why.

11 First, the NRC under its previous chair -- two chairs 12 back -- collaborated in the attempted assassination of 13 the Yucca Mountain project for political reasons. And 14 it has now for over three years already virtually 15 ignored a former petition to challenge the discredited 16 linear north-end theory and the ALARA concept. And 17 both of those have recently been discredit for this --

18 for decades and lead to enormous cost for the 19 taxpayer. Many decisions are not driven by science, 20 not even by evidence. And I can quote a bunch of 21 examples from the DOE National Labs and I just did 22 from the NRC.

23 So the NRC really must reestablish the 24 reputation it once had. And it can do that only if it 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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148 look not only at nuclear safety -- and say nuclear 1

safety is number one. It needs to look at the whole 2

safety. My guess is Holtec is probably safe from a 3

nuclear perspective. But we have one recent bad 4

example here in Carlsbad. For example, tonight, when 5

there was the talk about the 2014 incidents at WIPP, 6

everyone was talking about the radiological incident.

7 The fire was the one that was the one that was most 8

threatening to the workers at WIPP at the time. The 9

radiological consequences were insignificant compared 10 to the potential hazard from the fire.

11 So we need to ask ourselves, do the 12 radiological risks really outweigh the simple risk of 13 industrial and transportation accidents? For example, 14 if we have interim storage instead of taking this 15 stuff to a final repository, we need to double handle 16 it. We need to transport it twice instead of once.

17 And that would, of course, not be needed if we 18 proceeded with the Yucca Mountain project instead. So 19 I am very doubtful that the Holtec proposal, or the 20 alternative CWCS proposal would be a good and prudent 21 use of taxpayer funds. I do remain open to be 22 convinced otherwise, but that has not yet happened.

23 If I may be allowed to make one other brief comment 24 and that is, it was mentioned by a previous speaker 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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149 about the death zones in Hanford, Rocky Flats, 1

Chernobyl, Fukushima, et cetera. That's utter 2

nonsense. I personally have been to Chernobyl three 3

years ago and I got five to six times more radiation 4

exposure in flying over there than I got in the same 5

time that I spent in the exclusion zone. So, we need 6

to really talk about facts rather than emotional 7

claptrap.

8 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 9

Mr. Rempe. Sister Perrotte? And then we are going to 10 go to Dayton McCullough and Mark Schinnerer. I'm --

11 I know I mispronounced that. But, Sister?

12 SISTER MARLENE PERROTTE: Good evening.

13 I am sister Marlene and I am a Sister of Mercy. And 14 I am here just to bring up a few considerations. One 15 of the consideration that I think happens is that 16 we're looking at the interim depository. However, I 17 think before we look at that, there's a false 18 assumption. And I think the false assumption is that 19 communities that already have spent rods want them 20 moved. I have signatures of over 100 Sisters of Mercy 21 that live in different parts of Connecticut; New 22 Hampshire; Vermont; Maine; New York; Omaha, Nebraska; 23 and California. And the conversation was ethical 24 consideration. Because there is no endpoint.

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150 Endpoint in no more nuclear spent rods -- no more 1

nuclear power plants and no permanent repository.

2 Therefore, what this permit is is just in the middle.

3 It doesn't consider the beginning, getting the rods to 4

the place. All it is is the middle. So I think this 5

is a real ethical dilemma because what we're talking 6

about is the cumulative issues. And we're also 7

talking about the precautionary principle. And I 8

would just want to say, there are accidents. They --

9 several people brought up the accident at WIPP, which 10 was not supposed to happen, and it happened in 15 11 years. But what is not said is how many other 12 canisters have the same material? And could it happen 13 again?

14 So, precautionary principle -- there is no 15 way that we can see within those canisters whether 16 there's cracks, how we can remedy them, et cetera. So 17 on behalf of over 100 sisters, I would say we do not 18 consent to New Mexico becoming a national radioactive 19 waste dumping ground for all the high-level nuclear 20 waste from commercial power plants nationwide. We do 21 not consent to transporting up to 10,000 canisters of 22 highly radioactive waste through thousands of 23 communities nationwide and subject them to 24 possibilities of accidents. While we do support the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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151 alternative of hardened onsite storage at the DEER 1

(phonetic) reactor sites. And I believe Don Hancock 2

said we should be looking at comparative values.

3 Thank you.

4 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you Sister.

5 Thank you. And is Dayton here? Come on up Dayton and 6

then we'll see if Mark is here. This is Dayton.

7 MR. MCCULLOUGH: It's actually Denton.

8 MR. CAMERON: Oh, Denton. Okay, sorry.

9 This is Denton.

10 MR. MCCULLOUGH: It's a common mistake.

11 My name is Denton McCullough, I am a resident at 12 Carlsbad and I'm here to protest this project.

13 Carlsbad is a very unique place. We have 14 a river runs through it, we have two national parks, 15 we have the forest, Sacramento Mountains, Guadalupe 16 Mountains. It's a very wonderful recreation area.

17 We have a lot of tourism and a lot of 18 retirees. I think if we have a nuclear facility like 19 this it's going to impact our city. As a city, it's 20 going to change and it won't be recognizable if this 21 project goes through.

22 I've heard people say that this is a 23 remote area. Actually, it's not so remote anymore.

24 We've had a population of 26,000 people 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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152 here for the last 50 years. And I've heard in the 1

last, last year, now we have a population of 70,000, 2

with the oil and gas industry, Caroline is supposed to 3

be talking to you on, 70,000 people in Carlsbad.

4 So, with the local, total population, I 5

think with Eddie Lee and Chaves County, is probably 6

over 200,000 by now. So it is not a remote sparsely 7

populated area anymore.

8 So I don't think it's fair this many 9

people to take the risk of having this nuclear waste 10 here. Let's see if I had something else to say here.

11 Basically, I think it would actually 12 destroy the character of Carlsbad. I live here and I 13 like this place, it's a great place. It's a good 14 place to live. We have great weather, we have a 15 river, we have lots of recreation, lots of things to 16 do.

17 So I think it's a matter of perception.

18 If people are aware of that this nuclear waste is 19 going to be sent to Carlsbad, I don't think that many 20 people want to come here. They're not going to want 21 to retire here. And I'm pretty sure it will affect 22 our tourist industry as well.

23 So, I do not consent, I don't support this 24 program. Thank you.

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153 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 1

Mr. McCullough. Is Mark, no, okay.

2 Sister Joan, do you want to come up?

3 Thanks. Thanks, Jose. This is Sister Joan Brown.

4 SISTER JOAN: Good evening and thank you 5

for being here again, and I'm here again. I was in 6

Roswell and back to Albuquerque and back here again.

7 And I am because this is a very important 8

issue. And I want to speak to the environment justice 9

concerns again.

10 In our religious traditions, we really 11 believe that we need to be prudent in making decisions 12 and care for generations. And we have not been in the 13 past.

14 And I don't think that by moving this 15 nuclear waste from one place to another without a 16 permanent repository is being prudent. Because we 17 haven't dealt with the waste, moving it to another 18 spot is not solving the issue.

19 And the environmental justice concerns are 20 huge. And so the map that Lon put forth earlier, I 21 have an original copy of that.

22 We did this in collaboration with 23 community organizations throughout the state to help 24 in education so that they saw that their accumulative 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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154 effects of the choices that have been in this state in 1

regard to the nuclear fuel chain.

2 People have talked about health concerns.

3 Maybe we need to put money into cleaning up the 4

uranium mines and the contamination that's causing 5

cancer and polluted water in our state.

6 Maybe we need to be addressing that 7

nuclear problem that we have below Los Alamos National 8

Lab with the San Ildefonso Santa Clara and the Acequia 9

People. Those are some of the issues.

10 Its compounded upon compounded here in the 11 state. So if we're looking at environmental justice 12 it's for this region, but it's actually the entire 13 state.

14 Which is, if this industry were so good, 15 we would not be the poorest in the nation, the 50th in 16 education, 50th in health, 50th in poverty, 50th in 17 children's poverty. Those continue to be realities 18 for the entire state. And the great deal of that is 19 here.

20 No matter what people say about, this is 21 a very wealthy area, it belies that if you look at the 22 statistics. So I invite you to look at those 23 statistics for the entire state.

24 One last thing that I would like to just 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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155 mention is, we, the faith leaders that, and I 1

appreciate your reading the letter that we had with 70 2

faith leaders signing that, and I am reporting back to 3

them some more information, but there is a concern for 4

things like the seismic activity.

5 Bloomberg put out, several weeks ago, a 6

study from Stanford stating that in Oklahoma, and the 7

headline stated, Mexico and Texas you need to look at 8

this, but in Oklahoma, within a five year period, 9

there was seismic activity for 6,000 years. And so we 10 are looking at a boom here in this area, in the 11 Permian basin, that will be happening into the future, 12 that I am sure the research that you have, or that has 13 been presented, is old and it is no longer accurate.

14 Added to that is one other piece of 15 science so folks here are so into science, which I am 16 so grateful for, is climate science. And I would like 17 to have you look at the future and what would be the 18 challenges in terms of heat here and also 19 unprecedented flood, torrential flood.

20 Which this region has had. Which is 21 predicted for our region to have with climate change.

22 So I think those are things that also need to be 23 considered. So thank you very much.

24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Sister. Rose 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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156 Gardner. And then Noel.

1 MS. GARDENER: I'm so glad you called.

2 MR. CAMERON: Does it make you feel 3

warmer?

4 MS. GARDENER: A little bit. A little 5

bit. Hi everybody, I'm Rose Gardner from Eunice, New 6

Mexico, also a

member of the Alliance for 7

Environmental Strategies.

8 I wanted to ask if at all possible if we 9

could have some of these applications available to 10 some of the other communities? For instance, Eunice, 11 Jal, Lovington, Tatum and other communities in Eddy 12 County which are too numerous to name.

13 I just feel like a lot of times we don't 14 have the access to computers, the internet is slow, 15 the ADAMS system doesn't always work like it needs to.

16 Anyway, we need to have more information, if at all 17 possible, please.

18 I would also ask for an extended comment 19 period. It's way too short, the deadline is coming up 20 and there is a lot of community work being done right 21 now.

22 I would ask that you extend meetings to 23 many, many more communities that are in the transport 24 routes. Some are small, some are big but there are 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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157 major hubs especially that I feel need to have the 1

knowledge about what's fixing to happen if this thing 2

gets approved.

3 I'm also concerned, and feel like the 4

communities need to be informed about H.R.3053. That 5

has not been passed, it has not been changed therefore 6

it makes this NRC scoping hearing not legal.

7 I

would also ask that additional 8

characterization of the site, it has been several 9

years since it was done for the GNEP project. Things 10 change, the land changes.

11 We know that there are studies already 12 showing that things are happening. I would request 13 that additional studies be made.

14 We've already been made aware of the two 15 train derailments on May 1st in Barstow, Texas and 16 Odessa, Texas. The head-on train wrecks in Monahans, 17 Texas, which is another hub where trains are very 18 numerous.

19 Numerous political leaders today made 20 reference to the WIPP facility, how they feel it's a 21 success. It's a $2 billion failure.

22 My information is that also, these testing 23 that were done on some casks, not necessarily the 24 Holtec casks, are not really legitimate and valuable 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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158 in this situation since they were not Holtec casks.

1 Were those casks loaded with radioactive materials, 2

probably not. Because that would be very dangerous to 3

do tests on materials like that, wouldn't it?

4 We've been told that they've been having 5

drop tests and missiles, but not with loaded casks.

6 So how can those be postulated and made more real.

7 Again, those tests need to be redone using the casks 8

that are being considered.

9 My community of Eunice is becoming very 10 concerned about what's going on. A lot of the Eunice 11 folks that have never turned out to these hearings 12 showed up in Hobbs.

13 They came home calling me up and asking 14 me, what are we going to do, what can we do to stop 15 Holtec. They are asking me to give them information 16 that you people need to give. That --

17 (Off microphone comment) 18 MS. GARDENER: Yes. I believe that there 19 is a lot of anxiety and angst that questions have been 20 raised. And the NRC needs to deal with it not just 21 the local community.

22 I want to also add that I vehemently 23 oppose the transportation of the high-level nuclear 24 waste on our rails and roads in New Mexico and Texas, 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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159 for the purpose of consolidated interim storage. It's 1

not that I'm unpatriotic, I'm just not stupid.

2 (Laughter) 3 MS. GARDENER: We are considered the land 4

of enchantment with a wonderful forest and mountains 5

and these rivers that are so precious. We are not 6

going to be considered the land of high-level nuclear 7

waste. I will continue to fight against this 8

facility. Thank you.

9 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you.

10 (Applause) 11 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Rose. And Noel.

12 And since it is so cold in here I would just ask, 13 those of you who have talked before to speak to Chris.

14 (Off microphone comment) 15 MR. CAMERON: They've tried everything, 16 you know. Go ahead, Noel.

17 MR. MARQUEZ: Noel Marquez, Artesia, New 18 Mexico.

19 (Speaking foreign language) 20 MR. MARQUEZ: If you feel left out of this 21 conversation, think about what we feel.

22 (Applause) 23 MR. MARQUEZ: As a Chicano and Mexican 24 community, we are being targeted by not only the DOE 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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160 as a sacrifice zone, but also by other government 1

agencies which are aiming to deport us and put us in 2

detention centers.

3 It is no wonder our communities hesitate 4

to come to these badly designed meetings over two 5

hours long and limited to a very short statement on 6

such an advertent and extremely important issue. All 7

our lives are at stake.

8 If we still live in a democracy, this 9

eminent domain attack should be put up for a vote for 10 the citizens of New Mexico to decide whether they want 11 this Holtec high-level radioactive storage business 12 that will be subsidized without tax dollars in the 13 long run.

14 These NRC meetings should also be in Gala, 15 Las Cruces, Albuquerque, Alamogordo and Santa Fe.

16 This should start at no later than 4 o'clock for 17 citizens to speak and exercise our responsibilities.

18 We are the protectors of our freedoms and 19 our environment better than the flawed, the business 20 of flawed science. We have been overwhelming, we have 21 been the overwhelming opposition, a number of voices 22 of repeating in Hobbs, Roswell and Artesia where we 23 were not invited.

24 Will the NRC listen and take our voices 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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161 seriously.

1 MR. CAMERON: And, Noel, could you sum up 2

for us please?

3 MR. MARQUEZ: The racism of this area has 4

a long dark history of deportations and segregation.

5 My mother was a student in the loving schools which in 6

the mid-1940's put Black, Indian and Chicano students 7

out in the small shack apart from the White students 8

in the new school building. U.S. Senator Denis Chavez 9

came to Carlsbad and Loving and threatened to end 10 federal funding if this racist practice was not ended.

11 An attack on the money made to school 12 system complied to let in all students, stay in the 13 same building together. But that did not end the 14 racism as we are seeing today.

15 I honored these brave and hard-working 16 ancestors, grandparents and parents in my mural in 17 front of the Carlsbad Library.

18 During that segregated period, my aunt 19 told me they were constantly told they were not meant 20 to have an education, they were born to work the 21 fields like burros. They worked very hard so we could 22 go to universities and get our education so we could 23 defend our communities, and ourselves, and tell their 24 stories.

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

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162 I appeal to the good people of Carlsbad, 1

which are the majority. Don't let John Heaton and his 2

group of compromised politicians have their way.

3 Thirty state representatives already came out in favor 4

to slow this process down --

5 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Noel, thank you.

6 MR. MARQUEZ: -- in order to allow them --

7 MR. CAMERON: I'm going to have to ask you 8

to stop.

9 MR. MARQUEZ: -- and the people to have an 10 11 MR. CAMERON: Noel?

12 MR. MARQUEZ: -- opportunity --

13 MR. CAMERON: Noel?

14 MR. MARQUEZ: -- to make --

15 MR. CAMERON: Noel, come on, we got a lot 16 of people.

17 MR. MARQUEZ: -- an informed decision.

18 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Okay, goodnight.

19 MR. MARQUEZ: It's fine, you allow us to 20 speak.

21 MR. CAMERON: Goodnight.

22 (Applause) 23 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

24 (Off microphone comments) 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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163 MR. CAMERON: At four minutes, hey, look 1

2 (Off microphone comments) 3 MR. CAMERON: No. Some people, okay.

4 (Off microphone comments) 5 MR. CAMERON: Mary Beth Brangan. We're 6

going to go on. Is she here?

7 (Off microphone comment) 8 MR. CAMERON: I said that. I said that.

9 (Off microphone comments) 10 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

11 (Off microphone comments) 12 MR. CAMERON: Phillip Valdez. Phillip 13 Valdez?

14 (Off microphone comments) 15 (Applause) 16 MR. CAMERON: We're not switching minutes, 17 sorry. Okay?

18 (Off microphone comments) 19 MR. CAMERON: Oh, good. Good. Glad 20 you're there. Thank you. Are you going to talk?

21 MR. VALDEZ: I'm going to talk briefly --

22 MR. CAMERON: Good. Okay.

23 MR. VALDEZ: -- but I'm asking that you 24 give Noel his proper time.

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164 MR. CAMERON: I did give Noel his proper 1

time.

2 MR. VALDEZ: People are timing.

3 MR. CAMERON: Four minutes.

4 (Off microphone comments) 5 MR. VALDEZ: People are timing.

6 MR. CAMERON: That's right, and I said it 7

was a four minute thing at the beginning.

8 (Off microphone comment) 9 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

10 MR. VALDEZ: So you're not cutting him 11 off?

12 MR. CAMERON: I asked him to sum up, I 13 wasn't badgering him.

14 MR. VALDEZ: He is from here --

15 MR. CAMERON: Okay? Do you want to talk?

16 MR. VALDEZ: I do want to talk --

17 MR. CAMERON: Then go ahead and we'll 18 talk.

19 MR. VALDEZ: -- I want to address what 20 just happened.

21 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead. Nothing happened.

22 Okay, Noel, we're going to give you one 23 more minute and, Kevin, Kevin?

24 MR. KAMPS: Yes.

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165 MR. CAMERON: Will you time the minute and 1

when it's up --

2 MR. KAMPS: Hey, Chip, I'll time you any 3

time you want.

4 MR. CAMERON: Go ahead. Go ahead. Go 5

ahead, you got a minute, Noel. Go ahead.

6 MR. KAMPS: -- because I don't trust you.

7 MR. MARQUEZ: As I was saying, if we live 8

in a democracy, the same eminent domain and time 9

should be put up for a vote for the citizens of New 10 Mexico to decide whether they want Holtec high-level 11 radioactive storage business that will be subsidized 12 with their tax dollars.

13 These NRC meetings should also be in 14 Gallup, like I said, Los Cruces and Albuquerque and 15 Alamogordo and Santa Fe.

16 We are the protectors of our freedoms and 17 our environment better than the business of flawed 18 science. Okay, so, I appeal to the good people of 19 Carlsbad, which are the majority, not to let John 20 Heaton continue.

21 John continues to repeat the same target 22 mantra over and over, that the community is extremely 23 informed on nuclear issues and everybody in Eddy 24 County is in favor of nuclear waste. Not true, money 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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166 is their religion. A very few bad jobs are not 1

anywhere close to our livelihood and health of future 2

generations of the southwest region of the USA.

3 (Foreign language spoken) 4 MR. MARQUEZ: The ecology is all 5

connected, as my daughter has told you in Roswell.

6 (Native and foreign languages spoken) 7 MR. MARQUEZ: Power to all the people.

8 (Applause) 9 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Noel. And 10 is this Shaughnessy?

11 MR. SHAUGHNESSY: My name is Brendan, yes.

12 MR. CAMERON: Yes, Brendan Shaughnessy.

13 Go ahead.

14 MR. SHAUGHNESSY: You incorrectly assumed 15 that we were married? Yes, thank you. I don't trust 16 you either.

17 MR. CAMERON: I don't care.

18 MR. SHAUGHNESSY: This should be fair.

19 Every person should get the same amount of time, 20 that's basic.

21 MR. CAMERON: Why don't you use your time 22 now.

23 MR. SHAUGHNESSY: Yes, I will.

24 I'm using it. This is my voice and guess 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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167 what, I'm using it. That's your job, at the very 1

minimum.

2 I'd like to thank all of us stakeholders 3

gathered here in this cold garage that care about our 4

one and only planet earth that we all live on and call 5

home, that came out to these hearings to speak truth 6

to our educated concerns. You don't need to be a 7

local PhD to share concerns for this project that has 8

a far greater impact than is easily comprehensible.

9 I do not consent to bringing the highest 10 level of radioactive nuclear waste from the nation, 11 none of which New Mexicans benefitted from, to New 12 Mexico. I ask that the scoping period be extended and 13 that additional hearings be added in communities on 14 and around proposed transport routes.

15 Because this isn't just about Carlsbad, 16 Hobbs or Roswell, this stuff is coming from all over 17 the United States, to here. And even if you want it 18 here, what about all those people, those children, 19 those schools, those hospitals that are near the 20 trains, those highways, the truck drivers, the 21 conductors, all of those people that don't have a 22 voice tonight.

23 (Applause) 24 MR. SHAUGHNESSY: Thank you. So I ask 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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168 that the scoping period be extended and I also ask 1

for, sorry, I'm trying to find it, additional hearings 2

be added in those communities.

3 Some may shortsightedly think that this 4

project is okay in the short-term, but what about the 5

voiceless and their fragile future. The born and 6

unborn children whose fragile futures we are talking 7

about, plants, aquifers, wildlife and livestock who 8

are vital to our sustain survival, who aren't 9

represented at these hearings.

10 And just one final

thought, the 11 stakeholders aren't just Carlsbad residents but the 12 entire nation and ecosystem. Thank you.

13 (Applause) 14 MR. CAMERON: Mary Beth.

15 MS. BRANGAN: I realized I should have 16 spoken as a Texan as well as from California, because 17 I am from San Antonio and I'm very concerned about my 18 Texas family as well as all of the other people in the 19 country.

20 I wanted to add to the comments that I 21 made the other night, about the huge number of train 22 accidents that are occurring every year. Even though 23 it's not a good idea to leave the canisters on the 24 beach in San Onofre, we're concerned that even moving 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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169 them minimally may be disastrous, because we don't 1

know what's inside.

2 I hope you can add to the scope the 3

examination of the contents of the canisters should 4

happen. And they can't be, right now with the method 5

used by Holtec, which is to weld them shut.

6 And currently the use of high burn up fuel 7

is effecting all of this as well. And that should be 8

investigated and added to the scope.

9 The high burn up fuel increases the 10 buildup of hydrides, which cause a buildup of gases 11 that are explosive. We don't know whether the train 12 vibrations will be enough to cause those hydrides that 13 are building up because of the high burn up fuel.

14 High burned up fuel is more than twice as 15 radioactive as the old kind of fuel and more than 16 twice as thermally hot. This really stresses the 17 zirconium cladding on the fuel rods and causes 18 potential, incredible, explosions.

19 So, this all needs to be added to the 20 scope. We need to make sure that, we would like to 21 move it, but minimally, minimal movement to the 22 closest appropriate place. Not to New Mexico.

23 So, as it stands now, Holtec's canisters 24 can't be inspected, they can't be repaired, you can't 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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170 open them to see what's going on. And currently, 1

that's an NRC requirement, if I'm not mistaken. So 2

that should be looked into as well.

3 There is no guarantee that, and these are, 4

again, containing the equivalent, roughly, amount of 5

cesium in each canister as was released in Chernobyl.

6 We have, one of our researchers in 7

California calls them Chernobyl cans. So we need to 8

look into all of those things in order to even do the 9

minimal transport.

10 Not to mention putting them on the rails, 11 which as I said the other day, we are having an 12 average of 12,000 major train accidents a year just 13 for the oil trains. An average of 8,000 to 9,000 14 injuries and an average of 800 fatalities per year.

15 Thank you.

16 (Applause) 17 (Off microphone comments) 18 MR. VALDEZ: Hello, everybody. And I'd 19 like to thank you guys again for taking the time, 20 everybody here, to listen to the comments and 21 concerns. I know it's cold and late, I just want to 22 say I appreciate it.

23 Some of the comments that I have for 24 tonight, the proposal says that it's 32 miles away 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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171 from population. It's been spoken about tonight, 1

multiple times, but that's just not so.

2 Traveling along the roads, the highways, 3

the lease roads around this proposed site are 1,000's 4

of members of this community. It happens 24/7. It's 5

part of our economy.

6 It kind of like be saying that the area 7

between Dallas and Fort Worth is a safe place to store 8

highly radioactive nuclear waste. I mean, there's 9

literally that much traffic and population around this 10 proposed site, all day, all the time.

11 So, for it to be said that it's 32 miles 12 away from population is just simply not true.

13 Also, I know it was stated earlier that it 14 wasn't effecting the Ogallala aquifer, the maps that 15 I've looked at shows that it is. And 32 miles is a 16 lot greater distance than 50 feet.

17 Fifty feet to the water table that effects 18 millions of people in many different states in this 19 country. So, that was a concern that I had, that I 20 wanted to bring to you all's attention.

21 Also, this future site that they're, I'm 22 sorry, one second, let me find, I just wanted to add 23 that, and this is taken from my friend Lorraine 24 actually, that they're calling the state a future site 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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172 as if it's already been approved. That's not the 1

case, this is just a proposal and its consent based.

2 So it sounds like to me that the members of this 3

community do not consent to this.

4 So, I wanted to also make a point, I 5

wanted to speak for those who cannot speak, that don't 6

have a voice, in the wildlife.

7 In 2008 the Bureau of Land Management 8

approved a consent plan for two rare species in 9

Southeastern New Mexico. And I know this has been 10 covered, it's the prairie chicken and the sand dune 11 lizard.

12 One of the actions taken in this 13 protection of one of these species, the prairie 14 chicken, is that they designate times where there can 15 be no activity in these areas during the mating 16 season. And I've worked in the oil field for 16 years 17 and I've been witnessed to, jobs don't go out until 18 9:00 a.m. because the hours prior to that is 19 designated for these prairie chickens.

20 I would just ask, how can it be said, as 21 it was earlier, that they do no inhabit the area when 22 the conversation plan covered 465 square miles that 23 include this proposed site?

24 A gentleman earlier said he had never seen 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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173 a prairie chicken, I have never seen a prairie chicken 1

or these lizards. One individual's opinion that they 2

aren't in this site is not factual. He's not out 3

there all the time. Not to mention the other forms of 4

wildlife that are in the area.

5 So, those are points that I wanted to 6

bring up for the animals that cannot speak. And so I 7

just ask that you will consider that.

8 And I just wanted to say one more thing.

9 To the gentleman earlier that said that we need to get 10 our facts, the fact is that we don't want this here, 11 that's a fact.

12 (Applause) 13 MR. VALDEZ: So, thank you.

14 MR. CAMERON: Lorraine?

15 MS. VILLEGAS: Hello again. Hello, 16 everybody. My name is Lorraine. I am not getting 17 paid to be here. I work in the oil and gas industry 18 so I am actually losing money for being here.

19 This is absolutely a greater cause. So I 20 am not from the outside, I am actually from the inside 21 and I have been inside for a long time. I interact 22 with my community on a daily basis on a personal 23 level.

24 I'd just like to repeat something that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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174 seven senators wrote to you in a letter that talks 1

about the efforts that have been made to fully educate 2

the general public about the project and to address 3

concerns that have been raised.

4 And we are constantly reminded by ELEA and 5

Holtec how concerned they are about our safety and 6

about our questions and about transparency, of course, 7

transparency, of course.

8 If we are transparent then why weren't we 9

allowed to participate in the tour of yesterday's 10 facility?

11 FEMALE PARTICIPANT: Right.

12 MS. VILLEGAS: I am expected to roll out 13 this red carpet and accept this waste into my 14 community but we can't even participate in the grand 15 tour of where this indestructible fantastic facility 16 is going to be located.

17 (Applause) 18 MS. VILLEGAS: So I am confused as to 19 where the transparency is. Today you met in Lea 20 County, my hood, and I wasn't invited. That meeting 21 was not open to the public.

22 So you are encouraging public 23 participation, you've had two chances in two days to 24 include us, but you did not include us. So I need a 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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175 scientist to answer the question as to why we are not 1

included.

2 I know there is a lot in here who can 3

answer that, so if anybody is in here who can answer 4

that question I will be willing to ask it again later.

5 Thank you, guys.

6 This waste is not welcome, it's not 7

welcome here. Thank you.

8 (Applause) 9 MR. CAMERON: Susan? Susan Schuurman?

10 MS. SCHUURMAN: Thank you so much. It is 11 really cold in here. My name is Susan Schuurman. I 12 am a New Mexico resident. I have lived in New Mexico 13 for 25 years. I am a cancer survivor and I do not 14 consent to Holtec International brining high-level 15 radioactive waste to our State.

16 On Tuesday I spoke at the meeting in Hobbs 17 and shared my concerns that New Mexico has suffered 18 enough from the hands of the nuclear industry.

19 Yesterday I traveled with other concerned Americans to 20 the proposed site where Holtec wants to bring a 21 100,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste 22 for 120 years, but probably indefinitely.

23 We had been informed that there was going 24 to be a tour at the site and we wanted to learn more 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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176 about the project that this New Jersey based 1

corporation wants the NRC to approve.

2 To my surprise when we arrived to the site 3

and tried to join the group of people getting the tour 4

we were prevented from walking up to the tour by local 5

law enforcement, armed local law enforcement.

6 The sheriff's deputies very politely 7

informed us that they were instructed by the tour 8

organizers, which include the NRC, ELEA, Holtec 9

International, and a very mysterious non-profit called 10 the Center of Excellence for Hazardous Materials 11 Management.

12 It took a lot of work for me to figure out 13 what that acronym stood for. It was very unclear.

14 They call themselves the Center for Excellence, but 15 they are actually the Center of Excellence for 16 Hazardous Materials Management, and it is chaired by 17 none other than John Heaton.

18 Anyway, the sheriff's deputies were 19 instructed to keep the public away from the tour 20 leader. My question, if this project is as safe as 21 the booster's claim why prevent the public from going 22 on the tour? What do they have to hide?

23 And since you are spending taxpayer money 24 on this project why are you leaving taxpayers out of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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177 the process? I also would like to respond to Carlsbad 1

City Councilor Eddie Rodriguez who spoke tonight. He 2

brought up environmental justice.

3 He read the first part of EPA's definition 4

of environmental justice, he didn't read the second 5

part, and I quote, the second part says environmental 6

justice "will be achieved when everyone enjoys the 7

same degree of protection from environmental and 8

health hazards and equal access to the decision-making 9

process to have a healthy environment in which to 10 live, learn, and work." I and many others --

11 (Applause) 12 MS. SCHUURMAN: It's kind of obvious, 13 right, what got left out. I and many others argue 14 that New Mexico, a majority minority State, has not 15 enjoyed the same degree of protection from 16 environmental and health hazards already from the 17 contamination from the nuclear industry since the mid-18 1940s.

19 You've heard of the term piling on in 20 football, when more players than necessary jump on the 21 quarterback after he's already been sacked. Approving 22

-- You know where I'm going with this?

23 (Multiple yeses) 24 MS. SCHUURMAN: Approving CIS in New 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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178 Mexico would be just that, piling on to a community 1

that has already been tackled with an immense health 2

burden from uranium mining, spills, bombs, leaks, 3

nuclear stockpiles, and cancers. Don't pile on New 4

Mexico.

5 As for our funding, we are all unpaid 6

volunteers who are passionate about protecting New 7

Mexico from all things nuclear. Hold off, Chip. And, 8

finally, I just want to share --

9 MR. CAMERON: That's four minutes, go 10 ahead.

11 MS. SCHUURMAN: -- that any attempts, I 12 just want to share this, any attempts at intimidation 13 by project leaders will only strengthen our resolve.

14 And, finally, this is finally --

15 MR. CAMERON: I got it.

16 MS. SCHUURMAN: -- if we can't operate the 17 air conditioning how can we handle spent fuel rods?

18 (Applause) 19 MR. CAMERON: Leona?

20 MS. MORGAN: Okay. Good evening. To all 21 of those who were not at the previous scoping meeting 22 I am just going to introduce myself in my language 23 which is our traditional way that we, Dine, identify 24 ourselves, it's a form of kinship, a system that 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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179 existed long before the United States, and so I would 1

like to remind everybody that we are on stolen land of 2

the Mescalero Apache and the Comanche peoples, whom of 3

none I see here.

4 And so my people are from the northwestern 5

part of New Mexico and earlier I heard a lot of talk 6

and just these warm sentiments about how this part of 7

the State knows about nuclear science and how much you 8

all welcome it.

9 Well in our corner of the State we know 10 about uranium mining, we know about the cancers, we 11 know about the birth defects, we know about 12 contamination to our lands, our water, our air, our 13 plants, our people, and we know that this will impact 14 us for generations to come.

15 Uranium mining is no joke.

The 16 contamination that was left by the United States 17 Government is an atrocity, it's a sin. It's a 18 violation against our human rights and it's a form of 19 genocide, and that's exactly what this project is.

20 New Mexico should not be proud of its 21 nuclear legacy. New Mexico is the birthplace of 22 nuclear colonialism and you all today have a lot of 23 power in your position to stop this from continuing 24 and you all have a huge responsibility to our future 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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180 generations.

1 And I want to remind you that all of us in 2

this room are here because we care about this issue 3

and are passionate about it. Some people might be 4

passionate in support of it, but a lot of those folks 5

already left because they were lucky enough to be 6

called first, they were lucky enough to be at the head 7

of the line, all of whom are proponents of this 8

project, representatives of ELEA.

9 And it's really not a surprise to me that 10 the first brown man to speak against this project was 11 cut off before his time. This is a joke. This is 12 something that should not happen at a public meeting, 13 the same thing that happened yesterday when we were 14 all excluded from your site visit.

15 And so the other people I would like to 16 acknowledge here who are not here are the multitudes 17 of communities along the transportation routes who are 18 not here today, many of which do not even know about 19 this project.

20 So today I am going to read several 21 statements from folks who cannot be here today. And 22 so today our organization, the Nuclear Issues Study 23 Group, has a box of letters that we have collected 24 from New Mexicans and residents and community folks 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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181 who are very concerned about this project.

1 And I see you looking at your watch and I 2

am not going to stand here and take less time than you 3

gave other people earlier today. So --

4 MR. CAMERON: Let me get one thing clear 5

is that I gave all the people --

6 MS. MORGAN: You're taking some of my time 7

right now.

8 MR. CAMERON: Well I gave all the people 9

more time, okay.

10 (Off microphone comments) 11 PARTICIPANT: Please let her finish.

12 MR. CAMERON: Yes, great, I'd love to. Go 13 ahead.

14 MS. MORGAN: Okay. So right here in my 15 hand I have a box of more than 1300 signed letters 16 from people across the State who do not consent to 17 this project --

18 (Applause) 19 MS. MORGAN: -- most of whom don't even 20 know that this project exists. There is a lack of 21 transparency, there is a lack of inclusion, and it's 22 clear that you have all violated your own public 23 participatory process by excluding us from your 24 meeting yesterday.

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182 And so many of these people also feel 1

excluded. They are not standing here in this cold 2

room shivering waiting to get their five minutes, or 3

four minutes in some cases.

4 So I am going to read a couple statements 5

from some of these folks who deserve to be heard 6

today. "There is nothing safe about transporting or 7

storing nuclear waste. Los Alamos is proof enough of 8

this fallacy.

9 Recent accidents at Los Alamos National 10 Lab in WIPP indicate the process lacks rigor. The New 11 Mexico public demands detailed safety and 12 environmental review of all federal activities."

13 And this one was from a young resident who 14 was accompanied by their mother. "Hi. I am 14 years 15 old and I have two brothers, one sister. I don't want 16 to see my siblings get cancer. Don't put nuclear 17 waste in my State."

18 And this one comes from an Albuquerque 19 resident. "We can no longer afford to be the 20 sacrifice State. We can no longer afford to be at the 21 bottom in all categories. This effort connects 22 directly to our democracy, economy, health, and 23 education."

24 And then this one is also from another 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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183 Albuquerque resident. "As a family medicine physician 1

and public health practitioner in New Mexico I insist 2

that the full potential impact of this site might have 3

on my patients and our community be analyzed and 4

published prior to any further consideration of the 5

project."

6 And this, I'm going to skip a couple 7

because I know we are short on time and it is really 8

late. "New Mexico is worth more than to be a 9

wasteland. The United States should be a leader in 10 environmental solutions, not destroying it more.

11 Thank you."

12 And this one is from someone from Sandia 13 Park, New Mexico. "The choice to once again non-14 consensually expose residents to these dangerous 15 materials reflects poorly on you and yours. You work 16 for the citizens, yet your choices imply you believe 17 otherwise. Rectify this."

18 And the last comment I want to save is 19 from someone who worked at a nuclear facility that 20 caused a lot of contamination and was not properly 21 cleaned up. It says "used to work at Fernald in Ohio 22 as a union concrete finisher. This should be stopped.

23 Very dangerous."

24 So with that I will hand these over to you 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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184 all to add to your comments and I assure you we will 1

be sending plenty more before the deadline and I 2

formally request that you extend this public comment 3

period to have more meetings and to also give time to 4

the Tribes who will be later in getting themselves 5

involved in this process, because there is not just 6

community folks left out, there is also several 7

indigenous nations that I mentioned at the previous 8

meetings. Thank you.

9 (Applause) 10 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Janet. Janet, do you 11 want to -- Go ahead.

12 MS. GREENWALD: So I am Janet Greenwald 13 and I am a co-coordinator of Citizens for Alternatives 14 to Radioactive Dumping. I am from Albuquerque and I 15 raised my children in Dixon, New Mexico, where some of 16 my children and grandchildren still live.

17 Dixon is a bedroom community and a 18 downwind community from Los Alamos National Lab and it 19 has been for 50 years. So from my perspective all the 20 projects, other nuclear projects except uranium 21 mining, are pretty youthful compared to Los Alamos.

22 And I wanted to say that when people get 23 up here and say that nuclear is good and nuclear isn't 24 dangerous I'd like to invite them to come with me to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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185 a meeting of a contaminated Los Alamos workers support 1

group on Saturday mornings in my library, or to come 2

with me to go through what a lot of pregnant couples 3

go through up there, and that is having to consider 4

whether their babies are going to be born deformed, or 5

come with me to talk with farmers who don't know 6

whether they are going to be able to sell their crops 7

because the headwaters of the river has been 8

contaminated with cesium, you know.

9 Our organization has monitored WIPP 10 forever and what we saw was that as time went by that 11 safety slipped, safety standards slipped, until 12 finally Susana Martinez decided not to fund the 13 training for workers from the New Mexico Environment 14 Department to be in the room with the people that were 15 packing the barrels to come to WIPP.

16 I think about this a lot. What if those 17 people had been there? What if they had been in the 18 room when those barrels were mispacked with the wrong 19 kind of kitty litter would they have caught it? Would 20 the workers at WIPP be safer now?

21 That's human nature. It's like I 22 understand from living in a bedroom community how you 23 need to sometimes balance safety risks, your own 24 safety, your own health, with support for your family.

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186 Well it isn't just individuals that have 1

to make those decisions. Governments, corporations, 2

everybody makes decisions. They put safety against 3

money and as a project grows older and nothing has 4

happened yet then safety starts slipping and cuts 5

start being made.

6 And in this case with high-level waste if 7

that happens it could be the end of everything that we 8

know and love. This whole project needs to be re-9 examined and the people that are doing it because of 10 money I don't know what to say about them.

11 I can only pray that somehow they change 12 their minds. It's a crazy project. It's so crazy.

13 It would endanger so many people. Thank you.

14 (Applause) 15 MR. CAMERON: And, Cody? Cody? And then 16 we are going to go to Eileen and then that's the end 17 of the speakers for tonight. This is Cody.

18 MR. SLAMA: Hello, everyone. So my name 19 is Cody Slama and today I am turning my back on the 20 NRC because yesterday they turned their back on me.

21 (Applause) 22 MR. SLAMA: It was a very disappointing 23 experience yesterday to go out and try to see that 24 site and learn a little bit, you know, but we didn't.

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187 We went out there and we were intimidated 1

by some of these elected officials and, yes, we were 2

intimidated a little bit, but that didn't scare us off 3

though.

4 We continued on because it was a county 5

road and you are allowed to go down that county road 6

and to see the site. But what we didn't do was we 7

didn't listen to the NRC because they didn't let us.

8 We didn't hear what the Eddy-Lea Energy 9

Alliance had to say because they kept us on the county 10 road while they walked a distance where we couldn't 11 hear them.

12 So that's a little bit about what happened 13 yesterday and I just wanted to share that with you 14 all. And there was ten of us out there, ten concerned 15 public citizens, and you know what, they just ignored 16 us, they did.

17 At one point one of them walked a few feet 18 in front of me and I said are you just going to ignore 19 us and not talk to us at all. Just shook their head 20 no, not going to talk with you guys today.

21 So, yes, that's how we are being treated, 22 you know, and here I am 11:00 -- What time is it 23 anyways, 11:30 at night, probably almost 12:00, I 24 don't know, but I am from Albuquerque and the reason 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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188 I am here is because they are not having meetings in 1

Albuquerque.

2 That's why these meetings are going so 3

late. I had to put that out there. I mean, yes, I'm 4

an activist just really concerned about everyone who 5

could be affected by this waste, particularly this 6

community the most because this is where all the waste 7

is going to end up and if an accident happens, a 8

barrel explodes, you all will be the most impacted, so 9

I am really concerned.

10 And, yes, I want to actually take a moment 11

-- Is Kevin still in here? No, Kevin walked out. I 12 don't know, I don't trust Chip with the time. Can 13 someone -- Kevin, one minute.

14 I need one minute, I just want a moment of 15 silence because as an activist -- It's actually really 16 hard to be anti-nuke activist because you go out into 17 the community, right, you collect 1300 letters and all 18 the time you have these people walk up to you and then 19 they tell you some horror story, right, like how 20 someone in their family worked in some uranium mines 21 and got cancer and they lost like their family, or you 22 hear about people at the labs who got sick because 23 they worked there, you know, and there wasn't proper 24 shielding and what not.

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189 So, yes, I just want to give one minute of 1

my time and if Kevin you could just signal whenever 2

it's up.

3 (Moment of silence) 4 MR. SLAMA: All right, so the minute is 5

up. Yes, let's keep those people in our hearts that 6

we lose to these issues and let's not let it happen 7

any more than it has to.

8 (Applause) 9 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Eileen?

10 MS. SHAUGHNESSY: All right. A round of 11 applause for all of us who are hanging in here with 12 these freezing garage.

13 (Applause) 14 MS. SHAUGHNESSY: Well, I spoke at a few 15 of the previous meetings and shared my thoughts as an 16 educator and as a concerned citizen and now I would 17 like to share my thoughts as a musician.

18 I believe art can be a powerful medium for 19 conveying information and I have written a song that 20 is particularly raising awareness about the 21 transportation issues with this proposed project, and 22 we have heard all night about the risks, we have heard 23 about how the railroad tracks are, they are not built 24 to hold this waste, and we have heard about how there 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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190 are hospitals and elementary schools along the way and 1

there are risks to the workers as well.

2 I also want to remind us that the U.S.

3 Department of Transportation says that on average 4

annually there is about almost 6000 train accidents 5

and there was a really horrific one in Roswell four 6

years ago that I want to remind people about.

7 And thank you, Leona, for reminding us 8

that we are on stolen land. Thank you, Cody, for 9

reminding us about all of the lives that have already 10 been harmed by nuclearism, and for the voiceless.

11 So this song, I just want to remind us 12 that we are all human beings with hearts pumping blood 13 through our bodies right now, that we are all 14 breathing the same air that, you know, is refueling 15 our bodies, and hopefully not hurting us.

16 Obviously when we are talking about 17 radiation it does hurt us. So I just want to remind 18 us that we are talking about future generations, 19 future life on this planet.

20 So this song is called "That Train Ain't 21 Going Nowhere." George, you worked on your railroad 22 lines, he loved taking pictures of the sky. What he 23 didn't know working there on the tracks was that 24 cancer was growing inside of him fast.

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191 See, he got a dose of radiation each time 1

he worked there at the station and his whole life he 2

never saw his mother cry. She never did till the day 3

he died too young.

4 That train ain't going nowhere. Baby, 5

that train ain't going nowhere. Baby, that train 6

ain't going nowhere. Baby, that train ain't going 7

nowhere. I'm seeing tears in the children's eyes, I'm 8

seeing broken hearts all down the line.

9 Wherever these trains will go they'll 10 leave a trail of pain and sorrow. Baby, this train 11 ain't going nowhere. Baby, that train ain't going 12 nowhere. Baby, that train ain't going nowhere. Baby, 13 that train going nowhere.

14 Antonia loved her first grade class. Her 15 school sat next to a railroad track and she loved to 16 watch those trains go by, and she'd count the cars 17 till it got too high.

18 Well she never learned about nuclear waste 19 or the spent fuel rods passing by her face. Her 20 family couldn't understand why she got ill, but now we 21 know radiation kills.

22 Do you hear it? Do you see it? Do you 23 feel it and believe it? We are the people, our hearts 24 are broken. We don't want this waste and we have 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.

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192 spoken.

1 Baby, that train ain't going nowhere.

2 Baby, that train ain't going nowhere. Baby, that 3

train ain't going nowhere. Let me hear you. Baby, 4

that train ain't going nowhere.

5 It's not going anywhere. Baby, that train 6

ain't going nowhere. Baby, that train ain't going 7

nowhere.

8 (Applause) 9 MS. SHAUGHNESSY: From my heart to yours, 10 NRC. Don't let this happen.

11 (Applause) 12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We're giving it over 13 to Brian Smith to close the meeting out for us.

14 MR. SMITH: All right. Well, thank you 15 again, everyone, for coming out tonight. We really 16 appreciate all the comments we received. We will take 17 them into consideration as we complete our review and 18 draft our environmental impact statement.

19 We will be back out again probably next 20 summer after issuance of the draft EIS seeking further 21 public comment on that, so thank you again and have a 22 good evening.

23 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 24 off the record at 11:50 p.m.)

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