ML24003A834
| ML24003A834 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Crystal River |
| Issue date: | 12/07/2023 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| References | |
| NRC-2631 | |
| Download: ML24003A834 (1) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Crystal River Unit 3 Nuclear Generating Plant License Termination Plan
Docket Number: (n/a)
Location: teleconference
Date: Thursday, December 7, 2023
Work Order No.: NRC-2631 Page 1-35
NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1716 14th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 234-4433 1
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
+ + + + +
PUBLIC MEETING
+ + + + +
CRYSTAL RIVER UNIT 3 NUCLEAR GENERATING PLANT
LICENSE TERMINATION PLAN
+ + + + +
THURSDAY,
DECEMBER 7, 2023
+ + + + +
The meeting convened via Video-Teleconference,
at 5:00 p.m. EST, Lynn Ronewicz, Meeting Facilitator,
presiding.
NRC STAFF PRESENT:
LYNN M. RONEWICZ, NSIR/DSO/ISB
ANDREW TAVERNA
TIM BARVITSKIE
ALSO PRESENT:
BRYANT AKINS, ADP CR3
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C O N T E N T S
Welcome............................................3
Opening Remarks....................................5
NRC License Termination Regulatory Process.........9
NRC Inspection and Oversight Program..............15
Crystal River Unit 3 License Termination Plan.....21
Public Comments and Q&A...........................30
Closing Remarks...................................36
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P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S
5:00 p.m.
MS. RONEWICZ: Welcome, everyone. This is
the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public
comment meeting to describe the license termination
process and the NRC's review of the license
termination plan for the Crystal River Unit 3 Nuclear
Generating Plant.
Good evening. My name is Lynn Ronewicz,
and I am an Information Security Specialist in the
Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response, but
I am also an NRC meeting facilitator. And I will be
helping to facilitate tonight's meeting.
I am joining you virtually from Microsoft
Teams, so I will be working with the NRC staff in the
room to ensure we hear all your comments and
questions.
As will be described in greater detail by
Neil Sheehan, Region I Public Affairs Officer, after
the conclusion of my short opening remarks, the
purpose of this meeting is to receive public comments
on the license termination process and the NRC's
review of the license termination plan for the Crystal
River Unit 3 Nuclear Generating Plant.
This meeting is a hybrid meeting which
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means the NRC is hosting this public meeting in person
at the Citrus County Chamber of Commerce, Crystal
River, Florida, and also virtually by Microsoft Teams.
Tonight's meeting is a common gathering
meeting. The NRC is holding this meeting specifically
to obtain public feedback on a regulatory issue, which
is the review and possible approval and implementation
of the license termination plan required for the
decommissioning of the Crystal River Unit 3 Nuclear
Generating Plant.
If you are joining us online via Teams or
if you have called in using the Teams bridgeline,
please be sure to keep your microphone muted unless
you are called on to speak. As a note, however, we
have automatically disabled all microphones. When we
call on raised hands of virtual attendees during the
public comments and questions, I will enable your
microphone when I call your name.
You will then need to unmute yourself to
speak. Please then re-mute your phone after you
speak. Also during the question and answer portion,
we will take about four questions in the room first
and then we will alternate virtually to hands raised.
And we'll go back and forth that way.
We have disabled chat messaging for this
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meeting because we want to hear all questions and
comments verbally for the court reporter
transcription.
If at any point during tonight's meeting
you are having Microsoft Teams issues, I wanted to
provide the bridge number if anybody wants to write it
down. The bridge number is 301-576-2978. The
passcode is 540972190.
The NRC's agency-wide documents access and
management system known as ADAMS Accession Number of
the Slide presentation is ML23335A081.
The meeting is being transcribed by a
court reporter as indicated. That's all for me now.
And I am going to hand it over to Neil Sheehan.
MR. ANDERSON: Thanks, Lynn. I'm actually
going to take it over from here.
Good evening, everyone. My name is Shaun
Anderson from the NRC's Office of Nuclear Materials
and Safety and Safeguards, or NMSS, in Rockville,
As you may be aware, Crystal River Unit 3
is undergoing a decommissioning process. In December
of 2022, Crystal River submitted their license
termination plan by Accelerating Decommissioning
Partners, which is NRC's licensee for the LT plan.
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The plan was submitted in -- supplemented
in June 2023 and initially accepted for NRC review.
And that's why we're here tonight to get your public
comments on the license termination plan for us to
consider as part of our review.
If you're here for any other purposes,
please refrain and hold your comments for a more
appropriate venue so that we can hear from the local
community. And for those in the room, if there is an
emergency, we will exit between the two exit doors to
your left or the one where everyone came in, and we'll
reconvene at the parking lot adjacent to the building.
And if you are planning to use the restrooms, the
restrooms are located again behind the door where you
entered on the left-hand side.
Next slide, please. Before we go any
further, I do want to reiterate or mention again that
this meeting is being transcribed and will be made
publicly available as far as a meeting summary for
this meeting.
During this presentation, we will provide
an overview of how the NRC conducts and oversees the
decommissioning process as well as our review process
for the license termination plan.
Bryant Akins from ADP will cover the
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contents of the LTP and provide an overview of the
current decommissioning status and activities at
Crystal River. And before coming back for us first,
provide an overview of NRC's licensing termination
process.
After that, we will ask for comments from
the elected state and local officials or any
representatives from the Native American Tribes who
may be present with us tonight, and we will also
double-check online. And then Neil Sheehan and Lynn
Ronewicz will be facilitating the public comments
during the portion of this meeting. And we will give
instructions at that time so that everyone can have an
opportunity to provide any comments or speak to us
both in person and online.
We hope that everyone has an opportunity
to provide comments. We do want to remind everyone
that the facility will close at 8 o'clock so we do
want to make sure we get all the comments in at that
time --before that time.
Next slide, please. Joining me today,
there are several NRC staff from various parts of the
agency in person and online, most who have extensive
experience with the decommissioning process and the
regulations and across the country for our nuclear
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power reactors.
Again my name is Shaun Anderson. I am the
Chief of the Division of Decommissioning Branch and
the Division of Decommissioning Uranium Recovery and
Waste Programs.
I have the pleasure of working with a lot
of highly technical staff across the Agency and within
our division.
Here with me today I have Jack Parrott and
Tim Barvitskie, our project managers coordinating the
technical and license reviews of power reactors across
the U.S. and are the project managers for the Crystal
River Unit 3 facility here.
I also have Andrew Taverna who is joining
us online who is a decommissioning reactor inspector,
who is located in King Prussia, Pennsylvania. He is
here with us virtually. He is going to provide us the
inspection program that verifies that safety is being
maintained during decommissioning.
And finally, I have Neil Sheehan, who is
our public affairs officer for Crystal River, and he
will be facilitating the public comment portion of the
meeting. And he is here with us today in person.
Again, I thank everyone for joining us
today. We are interested in hearing your comments for
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the Crystal River LTP, and I am going to pass it over
to Tim, who is going to kick us off with a
presentation.
MR. BARVITSKIE: Next slide. Thanks,
Shaun. As part of the decommissioning process, the
NRC oversees each stage of radiological cleanup and
making final surveys to verify the site meets our
strict specifications.
Once the NRC terminates the license, the
bulk of the site may be used for other purposes as
identified by the licensee in accordance with any
state or other local approvals.
However, until that time comes, the NRC
will be here to inspect the decommissioning activities
throughout the entire process. In fact, the NRC will
continue to provide oversight for the independent
spent fuel storage installation, or ISFSI, until fuel
is removed from the site.
Next slide, please. This graph shows the
NRC's extensive experience in the decommissioning of
commercial facilities throughout the years.
Specifically, the NRC has regulated the completion of
decommissioning at over 80 complex material sites,
research and test reactors and commercial power plants
over the last 20 years, including overseeing 14 power
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reactors as they completed the decommissioning
process.
The most recent of these are the La Crosse
and Zion Nuclear Power Stations, who had their
licenses terminated earlier this year.
Next slide, please. Crystal River is
planning to conduct the safe dismantling and
decontamination of the Crystal River Unit 3 Nuclear
Generating Plant to reduce residual radioactivity so
that the property may be released for use under
unrestricted conditions and the license terminated.
Under the NRC's decommissioning
regulations, the site will be considered acceptable
for unrestricted use if the residual radioactivity
that is distinguishable from background does not
exceed 25 millirem per year, including that from all
exposure pathways and the residual radioactivity has
been reduced to levels that are as low as reasonably
achievable, or ALARA.
Fourteen reactors that have completed
decommissioning have typically been a small fraction
of the 25 millirem per year limit. For comparison, on
average, Americans receive a radiation dose of about
620 millirem each year, half of that dose comes from
natural background radiation, mostly from radon and
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also cosmic rays and the earth's natural
radioactivity. The other half comes from manmade
sources of radiation, including the use of medical,
commercial and industrial sources.
In general, a yearly dose is 620 millirem
from all radiation sources has not been shown to cause
humans any harm.
Next slide, please. The NRC's
unrestricted release criteria established the
radiological dose limits associated with
decommissioning but did not prescribe a specific end
state for decommissioning facilities. So you could
end up with two end states shown on the slide, both of
which would be considered to be decommissioned
radiologically.
The sites shown on the slide were
decontaminated and released for unrestricted use. As
can be seen on the left slide, some sites, such as
Maine Yankee, elected to dismantle and remove the
majority of the structures, while others, such as
RANCHO SECO on the right side chose to decontaminate
the structures remaining on the site to a level that
allowed for unrestricted release and then left a
number of their structures standing at the site.
Both of these approaches are acceptable
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under the NRC's decommissioning regulations, and it is
ultimately up to the licensee working within our state
and local requirements or other agreements to
determine what the final condition of the reactor site
will be.
Under the approach outlined in the current
LTP for the Crystal River site, the ISFSI, including
the security building, is only allowed inside the
restricted area scheduled to remain at the time of
license termination.
All other above grade structures will be
removed, and the site will be graded. The remaining
licensed property outside of the restricted area will
be surveyed and released back to Duke Energy Florida.
Next slide, please. This slide gives an
overview of the NRC's decommissioning program and
highlights the opportunities for public involvement
throughout the process.
The first six steps are two phases that
have been completed at the Crystal River site with
some dismantling and demolition still be performed.
Since permanent shutdown in 2011, ADPS
continually has been decommissioning their facility.
During this time, NRC inspectors have been onsite
providing oversight via decommissioning and spent fuel
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inspection programs.
Crystal River is currently in the third
phase of decommissioning after receipt of the LTP.
And as Shaun has already mentioned, we are here today
to collect any comments you may have related to their
plan.
Before we open the floor to public
comments, let's discuss more about the specifics of
the LTP and the NRC's inspection program during
decommissioning.
Next slide, please. Each nuclear power
reactor of licensee is required to submit a license
termination plan prior to, or along with, their
application for termination of the license.
The LTP is required to be submitted at
least two years before termination of the license and
must include the following.
Site characterization information that is
used to understand the environmental and radiological
conditions of the Crystal River site in order to
appropriately prepare for cleanup activities as well
as identification remaining dismantlement activities
associated with decontamination and dismantlement to
get to the final configuration of the site.
The plan also includes plans for site
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remediation that describes how the Crystal River site
will be remediated to reduce the residual
radioactivity so that the property may be released for
use under unrestricted conditions and includes a
detailed plan of final radiation surveys that
demonstrates to the NRC that residual radioactive
material does not exceed NRC criteria for termination
of the license.
The plan includes an updated site specific
decommissioning cost estimate to ensure NRC has
adequate assurance that the licensee has sufficient
funds to complete the radiological decommissioning of
the site and also includes a supplement to the
environmental report, which includes an evaluation of
site specific environmental impacts from
decommissioning activities to ensure that they will
not result in any significant environmental change
associated with the licensee's proposed termination
activities.
During the review of the LTP
decommissioning, the NRC continues to maintain
oversight of the licensee's activities. This is where
Andrew will provide us with more details of the NRC's
decommissioning and spent fuel inspection programs.
Next slide, please.
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MR. TAVERNA: Thanks, Tim, the inspection
program for decommissioning reactors is based on the
licensee meeting NRC regulations license-based
documents and guidance documents such as NUREGs as
appropriate.
The one thing about guidance documents
like NUREGs that they are such -- they are just
guidance documents unless the licensee makes it part
of their licensee, such as conditions or tech specs.
The program office at NMSS will perform
licensing reviews as well as safety evaluations of
licensee amendments.
Regional inspectors like myself we perform
onsite and remote inspections. The onsite inspections
typically involve direct observations of licensing
activities and remote inspections include remote
documentation reviews as well as calls and discussions
with the licensee.
MS. RONEWICZ: Could I interrupt for just
a moment? And I know we have a hands raised. There
seems to be the echoing. And I'm not sure, maybe what
the hands raised person was going to mention also.
You're echoing Andrew, and I don't know if anything
can be done.
MR. TAVERNA: It's just the delay from
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when I'm speaking to the mic in the conference room.
MS. RONEWICZ: Okay. And the person that
had their hand raised, I'm assuming maybe that's what
you were going to comment on.
COURT REPORTER: This is the court
reporter. It is also a bit difficult for me to
understand who is saying what. Would it be possible
for Ardath Prendergast to mute when there's someone
remote calling in or speaking?
MR. ANDERSON: Absolutely.
COURT REPORTER: Because that's what's --
thank you so much.
MR. TAVERNA: Okay. Is that better?
MS. RONEWICZ: It's better now.
MR. TAVERNA: Okay.
MS. RONEWICZ: And I don't see the hand
raised anymore so I think --hopefully we're good.
MR. TAVERNA: Okay. Where was I? So I'll
start from the program office. The program office
staff will perform licensing reviews as well as safety
evaluations and proposed licensee amendments.
So the regional inspectors like myself we
perform onsite and remote inspections, onsite meaning
direct observations of licensee activities.
Remote inspections include documentation
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reviews and calls and discussions with the licensee.
This is all to ensure that the licensee is following
the regulations and license requirements. And after
that we document the results and inspection reports
along with any violations that might be found.
Enforcement actions as well as dispositioning of
violations are done in accordance with NRC enforcement
policy, which is available for the public to review.
Next slide, please. The inspection
program is outlined in Inspection Manual Chapter 2561
titled Decommissioning Power Reactor Inspection
Program.
Once the fuel is removed from the vessel,
the licensee enters into the program. We inspectors
perform oversight and verification of the
decommissioning projectat the site, and the program
ends when the license is terminated at the site.
Next slide, please. So the NRC
decommissioning reactor inspection program overall
objective is to obtain information through direct
observation and verification of licensee activities to
determine whether or not the work that they are doing
is being done safety, that spent fuel is safely and
securely stored onsite and that the site operations
and license termination activities are in conformance
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with applicable regulatory requirements, licensing
basis, licensee commitments and management controls.
Next slide, please. So decommissioning
activities that we look at, we observe a variety of
activities and licensing programs. The inspections
are typically multifaceted and intrusive. We look at
a lot of things. The programs that are assessed by
inspection include plant status, modifications,
maintenance, surveillances, fire protection, rad
protection and transportation.
As the amount and complexity of the
decommissioning work increases, so does the number of
inspections will also increase. An example of a
complex decommissioning activity that we observed
previously at Crystal River, we observed GTCC ways
from reactor internals being moved and stored in a
canister on the ISFSI pad.
GTCC is Greater-Than-Class C. It's a
significant level of rad levels for waste and that was
stored safely. We looked at how it was controlled,
how it was moved. And no safety significance of more
than minor issues were identified during that
operation.
Next slide, please. So the region, like
myself, inspectors developed a master plan so to speak
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in advance of performing the annual inspections by
considering what activities the licensee might be
undertaking during the upcoming year, and we
coordinate the scope and timing of these inspections
with the program office.
The inspection effort includes reviewing
the licensee correspondence, previous inspections,
then we perform the inspection. We identify any
findings or violations, and we communicate these to
the licensee during exiting.
Again, as I said before, dispositioning of
violations are in accordance with NRC enforcement
policy.
Now one thing I want to say, with regard
to scheduling inspections, we typically schedule one
or two inspections per quarter. And, again, as I
said, previously in the previous slide, that depends
on the work activities. And we increase our frequency
due to complexity or if the site is having issues like
multiple violations, repeat violations.
The master schedule is very tentative.
Activities in decommissioning slide frequently to
various reasons from like the work taking longer than
projected, staff (inaudible) et cetera. It is
essential to have good and open communication with the
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site to ensure and understand what is going on there.
As you saw in the previous slide, you saw
that we had biweekly calls with the licensee.
Typically an inspector and a project manager from the
NRC will be on the call discussing activities. That
varies from site to site, and it depends on what is
going at the site. Some sites have weekly calls.
Other sites have monthly calls. So it just depends on
what's going on.
Next slide, please. And after the
inspection is completed, we perform a debrief of the
findings from the inspection to NRC management. And
then the report is issued within 30 to 45 days after
the inspection is complete.
Thirty days are for solo inspections.
Forty-five days are for team inspections. As you can
see here on the slide, the inspection reports are
available through ADAMS. And you can look at previous
inspection reports that have been sent out. And you
use that docket number there to search for any
previous inspection reports.
And now that completes my presentation.
And I will hand it over to the site, please. Thank
you.
MR. ANDERSON: Thank you, Bryant.
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MR. AKINS: I'll come stand up here. Jack
is going to run the slides. My name is Bryant Akins.
I'm a rad protection manager. Most in this room know
me.
For those that are on audio and other
places, I'm a hometown guy from Crystal River, born
here. My family has been here, still here. And we
live here. In this plant I started work back in 1983
as a contractor. Shortly thereafter, permanent with
Florida Power Corporation.
I subsequently moved over to Progress
Energy, who bought the nuclear plant. And after that
Duke Energy bought the plant. I stayed in the same
position as rad protection manager with him.
And when we selected NorthStar
Decommissioning Services for decommissioning the
plant, demolishing the plant, I accepted a job as rad
protection manager again in the same position with
NorthStar Services. So I've been with them since they
took over in October of 2020.
On the slide, you can see the progress
from the time we had a construction permit in 1968,
operating license in '76, started operating March of
1977 and final reactor shutdown was September 2009.
Then we moved the fuel in May of 2011. And then
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announced permanent cessation of operations, basically
declaring we wanted to decommission the plant, in
February of 2013.
We completed that spent fuel move in
January of 2018, so all the spent fuel was moved out
to a safe storage area out in the independent spent
fuel storage area and is safely stored there now.
The NRC approved a partial site release
for our site. It was very huge. For some reason
decided when we were doing our license application, we
would just encompass all the land that Florida Power
owned and put that in the license. It was 4,700
acres.
And we have taken the non-impacted land,
surveyed it, made sure it was clean, applied to the
NRC to take that out of our license. So we have
already removed 3,854 acres out of our license. And
we have about 884 left. And that's part of the
license termination process now is to look at that
land area, survey it, and make sure it's clean, make
the confirmatory surveys behind us from the NRC. They
will then analyze all our data and our application.
And if everything goes successful, then they will
terminate removing either as a partial site release or
will in the future remove the ISFSI and all the fuel
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and that's when we'll terminate the license from the
site.
Next slide, please. Next slide. There we
go. So we're looking at some photos here of the
plant, how it was originally taken over when NorthStar
got here. The plant was off of this area you are
looking at was where the large transformers that fed
high voltage electricity from the plant out to the
grid. And this is what it looked like.
Next slide, please. And we started with
that. And then here you can see the outbuildings for
different shops and maintenance shops and transformer
areas being removed and devised. Then that equipment
was safely picked up, put in trucks and railcars and
removed from the site.
The materials we're showing here were all
clean or non-radioactive and taken offsite to either a
landfill or a scrap yard to recycle materials.
Next slide, please. And here is what the
slide on the part on the left, that photo shows how
the plant was originally taken over. And then next to
it is the slide that shows how we went to the turbine
building and taken all the interior portions of that
out. And it's a skeleton, and we have removed that
all the way to the ground.
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Next slide, Jack, please. So here on the
left, you can see our emergency feed pump building
made out of some very thick concrete, and on the right
is demolishment of that building, removing the
concrete, rebar and other equipment out of there.
Next slide, please. And then again, this
shows the plants and the sides of it and how we've got
cranes out there and take down this thing piece by
piece safely, put it into railcars, trucks and various
things and take it offsite.
Next slide, please. So here is the
interior of the turbine building and equipment and
large equipment that is in most plants that generate
electricity. It's very large in size, hundreds of
tons. It takes a lot of specialty people to
disassemble this, get it out safely and/or cut up this
into pieces and put it into carts.
In these areas, the turbine will be able
to be worked on to remove any residual contamination,
make sure it's clean and then get it ready to take it
to Philadelphia.
Next slide. And you can see the skyline
changes as they took the exterior of the building off
all the way until we just got a skeleton and getting
ready to take it down.
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Next slide. And here is the turbine
building as it's being taken apart, demolished and
chopped over. And one on the right there, it has the
whole three-fourths of the building are down in the
basement. And then we have large equipment goes into
those areas, picks up that metal, cuts it up, puts it
in the trucks and/or railcars and sends it out.
And for me it's very interesting to see
this work because I was all about building and running
the place. I was here, like I said, when I was fairly
young when they started building it, seeing it go
together. And to see it taken apart like this to me
is very interesting, how they go in with big
equipment. It's like competence related stuff, you
know. And they can do this fast and efficient. And
it's not your normal way of a nuclear plant taking
apart pieces of equipment. It's quite different.
So NorthStar had the expertise to do this.
And we're glad we chose them.
Next slide. And here again it looks at
the north. NorthStar is taking down the turbine
building and the skylights. You can see the afternoon
with the sunset and the skyline going down.
Next slide. This is the interior for the
auxiliary building. And some of the systems in there,
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you can see it's packed with pumps and pipes and large
stuff on the left. And then the slide on the right is
as we've taken all of that material out and started
shipping it off, loading it in railcars and/or trucks
and leaving the site.
The good thing and in most of these areas
we were able to successfully decontaminate these
systems. We didn't have to ship it in rad material or
handle it and get it out. And that's a really good
craftsmen that come from demolition that can do this
inside a building with large equipment and do it
safely.
Next slide, please. Again, this found in
that seawater room, some of the larger equipment for
the pumps and pieces of equipment down there. It's a
little A-frame framed so when you kind of walk through
this area, you can barely get through it. Now it's a
large open room, just concrete walls and ready going
into the license termination process.
So to get to that process, you remove
everything. When you get down to bare basement walls,
that's where we'll do the surveys. That's where the
license termination will leave the plant. It's only
the basement walls. Everything above about 20 foot
high from the floor, everything up to the top of the
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building will leave site and it either goes for waste
disposal or recycling to landfills.
Next slide, please. And like I was
saying, they've got some neat toys with all this
decommissioning stuff. In my job, I don't get to
drive any of those. I wish I could. They won't let
me.
And they go in with good stuff, and they
can do so much work so fast inside a building where
you wouldn't expect it. And you're used to seeing
people with hand tools, and they drive in with big
equipment to make a path, make it safe. And then they
can take out large volumes of heavy sealed concrete,
materials and equipment and get it loaded and gone.
Next slide, please. And at the end is
material removal. This is one of the very important
things for license termination. This is how you keep
buildings clean. So when you get ready to terminate
the license, you have no radioactive material left.
You take the radioactive material. You
cut it out, pull it apart, cut it up and you put it
into these really heavy duty bags. They are shipping
approved bags. This material, steel, concrete,
whatever, you put it in there. You latch it down.
It's sealed. And then it's transported out of the
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building where there's no radioactive material on the
outside or can be moved to the outside of the
building.
Next slide, please. This is how we do it.
This is inside the reactor building. And you're
looking from up on the polar frame down into the
reactor cavity and e-rings, things like that. So
that's how it looked with a lot of equipment in there,
steam generators and large pumps.
Those steam generators, you know, they are
60 some feet long, 14 foot diameters. And the first
time ever for taking these, we took these long wire --
a piece of wire rope and slice these things into
pieces and were able to package them. And that sounds
like, okay, that can be done except they were 15,572
tubes that were cut. And they're hanging there like
toothpicks.
Can you imagine holding a pack of
toothpicks from the outside and trying to keep the
middle ones from falling? That was quite a feat. So
they applied some putty like material. It was gummy,
and it hardened, and it kept all those in place. They
brought it up and put a sack around it like those
other sacks, put it inside that, transported it out on
a truck. And these were many, many tons to do this
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work. They're not lightweight.
Next slide, please. And this is the
picture after those have been removed, those
(inaudible) removed. And the hole in the floor over
here was where there used to be a reactor. So that's
been pulled out and has been packaged. To do that,
they took all the internals in there of the reactor.
Of course, the fuel is gone. But there is a lot of
high radiation in internals.
They took those, pulled them out
underwater, cut all those in pieces, selected how
they're going to package it and then packaged it back
inside the reactor vessel, put a grout like concrete
in it, and then took that wire rope again and sliced
it into three pieces and pulled those out, packaged
them into approved transport containers.
Next slide. And here they are. You can
see the portion of the reactor being lifted on the
slide on the left, and the Apollo crane bins put it
into the white containers and that's how it will be
shipped by barge to West Texas and be disposed out
there as rad waste.
That's the end of my presentation. Thank
you, Jack.
MR. BARVITSKIE: Thanks, Bryant. So this
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slide provides an overview of the NRC's steps and
review of the LTP. Since the LTP is incorporated into
the facility license as an amendment, there is an
opportunity to request a public hearing on the license
amendment associated with the plan. So this is where
we would like your comments.
As part of the NRC's ongoing review of the
technical, financial and environmental aspects of the
Crystal River LTP, the staff may ask the licensee for
additional information in order to determine whether
the plan meets the information needs outlined in the
decommissioning regulations and associated regulatory
guidance.
If the plan demonstrates that the
remainder of the decommissioning activities will be
performed in accordance with the NRC's regulations, is
not detrimental to health and safety of the public and
does not have a significant effect on the quality of
the environment, the Commission will approve the plan
by a license amendment subject to whatever conditions
and limitations the NRC deems appropriate and
necessary.
The NRC will continue to inspect the site
and will perform independent confirmatory radiological
surveys and sampling to verify the licensee's results
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to ensure the residual radioactivity levels meet the
NRC requirements for unrestricted use of the land and
remaining structures.
Next slide, please. The Crystal River LTP
and supporting documentation is accessible
electronically from the NRC's agency-wide documents,
access and management system, ADAMS, at the accession
numbers listed on the slide.
You can go to the NRC's website at nrc.gov
to access ADAMS and perform a search for the accession
numbers listed to access the LTP and supporting
documents.
Next slide, please. In closing, the
public comments on the Crystal River LTP will be
accepted during this meeting and by mail at the
address listed on this slide. You can also go to the
federal rulemaking website at regulations.gov and
perform a search on the associated docket identifier,
which is NRC-2023-0174 to provide formal comments on
the Crystal River LTP. Please note that comments are
due by March 7 of 2024.
Next slide, please. (Simultaneous
speaking) facilitate the public comment portion of the
meeting.
MS. RONEWICZ: Thank you. We are now
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going to open the meeting up for public comment. We
request you keep your comments or questions at three
minutes for the first round of comments to allow all
those interested in speaking an opportunity. We will
go back for a second round of comments as time
permits.
I will be watching Teams for raised hands
and coordinating with the NRC staff in the room to
allow both audiences an equal opportunity to speak.
We will take about four questions in the room and then
about four questions virtually and alternate that way.
To get a clear and accurate transcript of
everything said, please be sure to introduce yourself
first, including your affiliation if you have one,
before you begin your question or comment. Please
speak loudly and clearly.
If you are in the room with the NRC, you
must use a microphone so everyone tuning in via Teams
and phone can hear you speak. The NRC staff in the
room will guide people one by one to the microphone to
speak.
We are starting in the room, but ask
people on Teams to raise their hand by clicking on the
hand icon on the top or bottom of their Teams screen.
And if you are on the phone, you can raise your hand
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by pressing star 5. If you are on the phone, you will
need to press star 6 to unmute yourself. So now we
will go to the room.
MR. SHEEHAN: (inaudible) for the NRC,
we'd like to start here in the room first. And again,
we'd like to get a few comments here and then we'll
switch to those online.
Let's start first of all if there are any
elected officials who are present who would like to
make any comments? We'd like to try to keep to three
minutes or so for each comment. No?
Do any of you want to check online to see
if there are any elected officials?
MR. RONEWICZ: Are there any elected
officials? If so, please raise your hand, and I will
unmute your mic. No hands raised.
MR. SHEEHAN: Hearing none, any
representatives of agencies who would like to speak at
this point? Okay. Seeing none, anybody in -- any
member of the public that would like to speak at this
point, offer comments? Any Native American,
representative of Native American groups that would
like to speak? No? Okay.
Well, Lynn, if you would like to go ahead
and switch to online to see if there are any comments
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there?
MS. RONEWICZ: Sure. There are no hands
raised yet, but let's go ahead and anybody that is
joined virtually, please raise your hand if you would
like to speak. And once your hand is raised, I will
call your name, I will enable your mic, and then you
will unmute yourself to speak.
And so far no hands raised, but we'll give
it a little bit of time. And no hands raised yet.
We'll go back to the room.
MR. SHEEHAN: And we'll go back to the
room and get another opportunity if anybody would like
to offer comments. It must be a very good license
termination plan. All right.
Well, seeing no comments in the room,
we'll try it one more time online, Lynn, and if not,
we'll turn it over to Shaun to wrap up.
MS. RONEWCIZ: Sure. Again, no hands
raised yet, but maybe we'll give it 30 seconds or so.
Anybody that would like to comment or ask a question,
please raise your hand. And there are no hands raised
at this time.
MR. SHEEHAN: Okay. Well, the comment
period will remain open as we already mentioned. So
there will still be an opportunity to send in written
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comments to communicate with us through the other
channels. So feel free to do that. But at this
point, I will turn it back over to Shaun to close
things out. So thank you.
MR. ANDERSON: Thanks, Neil. And thanks,
everyone for supporting this meeting. Thanks to the
Citrus County Chamber of Commerce for giving us the
facility to host our meeting and then also the
community of Crystal River.
Again, the commentary period will be open
until March 2024 so please provide any comments that
you may have. For us, we will still be in the room.
We'll stay in here for approximately the next hour or
so just in case anyone trickles so we can make sure we
address any comments from the community while we're
still here.
We'll go ahead and end the public meeting
and the virtual meeting at this time. Thanks for all
of those who have supported virtually. That's it.
(Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went
off the record at 5:44 p.m.)
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