ML18130A901

Holtec Cisf Public Scoping Meeting April 30, 2018, Transcript

ML18130A901
Person / Time
Site:	HI-STORE
Issue date:	04/30/2018
From:	Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards
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References
NRC-3668
Download: ML18130A901 (172)

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1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2+ + + + +3 PUBLIC SCOPING MEETING FOR THE ENVIRONMENTAL 4 IMPACT STATEMENT FOR HOLTEC INTERNATIONAL'S 5 HI-STORE CONSOLIDATED INTERIM STORAGE FACILITY 6 FOR SPENT NUCLEAR FUEL LOCATED IN 7 LEA COUNTY, NEW MEXICO 8+ + + + +9 MONDAY, 10 APRIL 30, 2018 11+ + + + +12 ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO 13+ + + + +14 The Public Scoping Meeting was convened in 15 the Commissioners' Hearing Room at the Eastern 16 University of New Mexico-Roswell, Campus Union 17 Building, 48 University Boulevard, at 4:00 p.m., Chip 18 Cameron, facilitating.

19 20 NRC STAFF PRESENT:

21 CHIP CAMERON, Facilitator 22 BRIAN SMITH, Deputy Director, Division of Fuel Cycle 23 Safety, Safeguards, and Environmental Review, 24 Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 25 2 Safeguards (NMSS) 1 JILL CAVERLY, Environmental Review Project Manager, 2 Environmental Review Branch, NMSS 3 JOSE CUADRADO, Licensing and Safety Review Project 4 Manager, Spent Fuel Licensing Branch, NMSS 5 JOHN McKIRGAN, Chief, Spent Fuel Licensing Branch, 6 NMSS 7 CINTHYA ROMAN, Chief, Environmental Review Branch, 8 NMSS 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 1 2 Public Comments.................4 3 4 Opening Remarks and Introductions........5 5 6 Welcome and Meeting Purpose...........21 7 8 NRC Licensing Review/EIS Process........27 9 10 Question and Answer Period...........40 11 12 Public Comments.................49 13 14 Closing Remarks................169 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 4 P R O C E E D I N G S 1 3:55 p.m.2 MS. KNIGHT: My name is Cathy Knight. I 3live in Roswell, New Mexico. I appreciate that you 4have been tasked with a difficult decision. Many 5lives will be affected by your choices. I do not want 6 high-level nuclear waste moved across the United 7States. In 1982 the U.S. agreed to provide permanent 8disposal of high level nuclear waste. During the last 9 36 years, our knowledge concerning nuclear waste has 10evolved. It is no longer a prudent choice to move 11high level nuclear waste to a large storage site. The 12 dangers of transport should not be underestimated.

13 Environmental contamination, illness and death of U.S.

14 citizens will occur.

15 A better option is to leave the high level 16nuclear waste where it is. Store it according to the 17 Nuclear Regulatory Commission Guidelines of five years 18 in spent fuel pools and then transfer to dry cask 19storage. Have a robust system in place to assure 20compliance. Monies collected from nuclear electricity 21 producers and placed in the Nuclear Waste Fund totals 22approximately $40 billion. It can be returned to 23 those energy producers on a set schedule so they have 24 the resources needed to follow the National Regulatory 25 5Commission's storage guidelines. I do not consent to 1 bringing high level nuclear waste to New Mexico.

2 (Pause)3 MR. GROGAN: I just want to speak out in 4favor of the storage site. We have some 90,000 metric 5 tons of nuclear waste. I feel like that is the best 6 place that I could think of to put it -- for future 7 generations our nation needs to have somebody to 8 dispose of it, or do it in a safe manner. That's 9 about it.10 (Pause)11 MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everyone. I 12 am Chip Cameron and I am going to be facilitating the 13public meeting tonight. We have a poster session 14 scheduled from 4:00-7:00, and then we are going to 15have comments from everybody. Some NRC presentations 16 and then comments from all of you that we're putting 17 on the record with our court reporter. The reason I 18 asked you all to come in is that we have the mayor of 19Roswell here, Dennis Kintigh. And Dennis has a 20conflict later on at 7:00.

And so I wanted to give 21 him the opportunity to just say a few words to all of 22 you before he has to leave. And thank you for all 23 coming in.

24MR. KINTIGH: Thank you. All right, full 25 6 disclosure, my wife went to Texas on Thursday to visit 1grandkids. She is on her way home tonight. So, I am 2 sorry, I am going to go see my wife who I have not 3 seen in four days. Nothing personal. Don't mean to 4 diminish the importance, but family does come first.

5 I want to thank everybody from Roswell for coming out 6 tonight. I want to thank you folks from the NRC for 7participating and putting this forward. This is an 8opportunity for a respectful dialogue. And I know 9 that the folks from Roswell here are that kind of 10people. So I look forward to a honest, respectful, 11 informative dialogue. Share of concerns, state your 12 opinions, listen for each other and have a great 13evening. And I encourage everybody here who is not 14 from Roswell to check out some of our sites while you 15 are here. We have a couple of great art museums. I 16 encourage you to go visit. And check out our -- we 17have some wonderful restaurants. And it's a 18 fascinating town. So, without further ado -- and I 19do apologize, I have another meeting now -- actually, 20 I have two meetings now, but I will have to move on.

21 So, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Have 22 a great evening.

23 (Pause)24MS. BROOKS STEPHENS: I have toured the 25 7website. Prior to the accident. I've been to Los 1Alamos multiple times. This is all an accident 2waiting to happen. I was witness to a pickup truck 3 almost plowing into a WIPP truck that was taking waste 4 to Carlsbad. And they were within inches -- it was 5a drunk driver. They were within inches and it was 6 just during the trial period before they really 7 started shipping. And I know that accidents happen.

8 Again, I know multiple people that are dying or have 9died from working at Los Alamos. And I know that this 10waste leaks. Even though they tell us it doesn't, it 11does. And it's going to be leaking on our roads.

12 It's going to be leaking on our railroad track. You 13 have tracks running by schools. Dexter, New Mexico, 14 you're within feet of the -- of two of the schools, 15the junior high and the high school -- or, mid-school 16and high school. And there -- this is far too 17dangerous for us to have in our state. Let them keep 18 it where they created it. This will be going across 19 the entire United States and they may very well bring 20it in internationally. And I am fed up with the whole 21discussion. They need to stop it. We don't want it.

22I have over -- I counted them up last night -- over 2360 relatives in the Roswell area alone. I don't want 24 my children, grandchildren and extended relatives to 25 8light up like lightbulbs. And they swore to me at 1WIPP it would never happen. But within a couple of 2 months of my touring WIPP, it did happen there. And 3 as I said, I know multiple people -- a neighbor, my 4 former boss -- all dying or dead because of the Los 5Alamos situation. We don't want this. It's that 6 simple.7 And I am not just representing me, I am 8representing a lot of people. And I teach my students 9this. As a teacher, I teach my students. I 10challenged the young people at the -- when I was 11teaching in the Apache and the Navajo. They didn't 12 even know that -- that we were doing storage on the 13reservations. And I challenged them to go home and 14ask their parents.

Their parents didn't know. So 15 they went to the tribal headquarters and found out 16that, yes indeed, we were. And they got upset and are 17 making the government clean that up. And this isn't 18 something that just popped out of my ear. I've been 19watching this for years. I grew up in Alomogordo part 20 of my life is growing up there, even though I am 21 Roswell native. I don't want it.

22 Again, I grew in Alomogordo, but I am from 23 Roswell originally and I simply don't want it. Seen 24enough of it. We don't need it. Don't know how much 25 9else to say other than I've watched it firsthand. So 1-- thank you so much.

2PARTICIPANT: You said you grew up where?

3MS. BROOKS STEPHENS: I was born in 4Roswell, I grew up in Alomogordo.. So I would have --

5I watched the Trinity site. I had the friends that 6 have died from that. Up in Los Alamos, I had a boss 7that died from there. I had a neighbor that died from 8working up there. All of them with these horrible 9cancers and -- enough. And it's -- we don't want 10our kids going up in smoke. Thank you so much. Just 11let them keep it where they creat it -- onsite. Not 12dripping it on our roads. Not dripping it past our 13schools. Remember two years ago when they had the 14 WIPP site closed down and they were having them store 15 it on trains?

16PARTICIPANT: Do you want this to be more 17 of your comment? Or -- -

18MS. BROOKS STEPHENS: Yes, this part.

19 Three years back, two years back they stored nuclear 20waste on trains on our tracks. And some of those 21 trains were sitting on the railroad tracks between 22here and Albuquerque. It was all over the new shows.

23But we have schools next to these tracks. We have 24churches and homes and neighborhoods. And again, 25 10 we've had enough. We don't want any more.

1 (Pause)2 MS. SUDERMAN KING: Ronda Suderman King.

3 It's R-O-N-D-A and then S-U-D-E-R-M-A-N and then 4 second name -- or, third name King, K-I-N-G.

5 PARTICIPANT: Whenever you're ready.

6MS. SUDERMAN KING: Okay. Well, I am from 7Carlsbad, New Mexico. And I am one of the increasing 8number of people who oppose strongly the nation's 9deadliest radioactive waste in our community. This 10 waste site would consist of used fuel rods that have 11 bene inside operating nuclear reactors. And much of 12 those used fuel rods can be degraded within a century, 13but some remain active for 1,000,000 years. My 14 concern is that it's considered a temporary 15repository. And that's what Holtec International's 16project is, is a temporary repository. But these fuel 17 rods come from all over the country. But only for a 18temporary site. But there's no permanent site.

19 Holtec has no long-range plans for a permanent site.

20 And I haven't heard anything from the federal 21 government that they have plans for a long-range 22 permanent site.

23 My concern is for the generations beyond 24me. I am not going to be here in 125 years when --

25 11 or maybe less than that when it needs to go to another 1site. But my children, my children's children, my 2children's children's children -- they're going to be 3here. And I think a permanent site needs to be 4 planned before this temporary site comes into 5 operation. In fact, the temporary site doesn't make 6much sense to me. A permanent site will, and I would 7 be glad to entertain plans for what that permanent 8 site is.9 The federal government has failed to come 10 up with a plan for a permanent site for many decades.

11Holtec International is a for-profit company. And 12when they cease to make a profit over this, then 13 what's going to happen to these spent nuclear rods?

14Are they going to stay where they're at? Or is there 15 going to be a plan for a permanent site for these 16kinds of things? So it seems ridiculous to me how 17 people can think that a temporary site is a good idea 18 when there's no permanent plans for this nuclear 19waste. Which is important. I agree that it's very 20important to come up with a permanent site. And I 21 agree that nobody wants nuclear waste in their 22backyard. But at this point, it's because there is no 23 permanency to this site and no permanency to what 24they're going to do with it. And that's my objection.

25 12 Okay, thank you.

1 (Pause)2MR. HARBAUGH: Gene Harbaugh, G-E-N-E, 3Harbaugh, H-A-R-B-A-U-G-H. Okay, just a moment there.

4 Well, I think that the main objection to this proposal 5is that it is to be a temporary or interim site. And 6 I do not co nsent to that for the reason that 7 continuing to move nuclear waste around the country to 8 temporary sites simply exposes more people to the 9 dangers and raises the possibility of accidents, 10 especially given the state of the infrastructure in 11this country. I am speaking particularly of rail 12shipment. I live within 300 yards of a railroad 13switch yard. They are constantly having to repair 14 track and work on that facility and I am sure it is no 15 different in other parts of the country where this 16waste will pass through. So until there is a 17 permanent repository, I believe the NRC would serve 18 the best interest of the people of this country by 19 denying this Holtec proposal.

20 (Pause)21MR. BURNAM: Okay, I am Lon Burnam, I live 22 in Fort Worth, Texas. For 18 years I served Central 23City Fort Worth in the Texas Legislature. And during 24 that time I learned quite a bit about the rail system 25 13 in Texas, but particularly in Fort Worth where we had 1 eight different rail lines coming into Fort Worth.

2 The rail transportation infrastructure in this country 3 is totally inadequate to handle the proposed transport 4 of these really, really heavy casks through our urban 5 centers and over our rural bridges, some of which are 6100 years old. It's ludicrous to think that our 7 transportation system can handle what's being proposed 8 and any environmental impact statement that is worth 9 its weight in the paper it will be printed on will 10take into consideration that this is a national 11environmental impact. They're proposing to transport 12this waste from over 100 plants, most of which are 13 east of the Mississippi, through my home community in 14Fort Worth, and to Southeastern New Mexico. And 15 that's enough for now.

16 (Pause)17MS. C. SMITH: Okay, my concern is nuclear 18waste, accidents happen. I live in Pennsylvania where 19 Three Mile Island happened and my youngest daughter 20ended up with a birth defect. I am part Native 21 American, and I am not really concerned for our 22 generation or the next generation, but for the next 23seven generations. That was one of my concerns of 24many, but that is my main concern -- that the 25 14environment will be safe. My generation and my 1 children's generation and my grandchildren's 2 generation -- their generations. That's it.

3 (Pause)4 MS. CARDONA: Patricia, P-A-T-R-I-C-I-A, 5Cardona, C-A-R-D-O-N-A. Okay, I am ready. Okay, what 6 I would like to do is talk about several areas. One 7 is the liability for losses to the state -- in case 8 of accidents to private individuals and property 9 damage as well as personal injury, property 10devaluation and stigma that will -- that may occur to 11 businesses as well as to the property of the 12individual residential areas. But I'd also like to 13 talk about stewardship and continuous stewardship of 14 any proposed site to be sure that there is no 15 abandonment in the future of the site and the casks.

16 And the casks themselves, the process for possessing 17-- for taking possession of the casks -- who takes 18possession? And who has liability at what point in 19the process? How the casks will be labeled? And the 20 documentation preserved in order to ensure that the 21 company maintains liability for any casks that are 22improperly -- are improperly passed on to the -- you 23 know, passed on to the -- to the next step.

24One of the -- so, I am going to start 25 15with the liability for losses. One of the things that 1 you have liability exposure and State Representative 2Brown has stated that the federal government will 3assume the liability for any and all losses. However, 4 it is not clear what the role is of the utility 5 company and whether or not the utility company has the 6right to transfer the risk to other groups. Or to 7 another state or to another entity. One of the 8 problems is that if there is an LLC in the middle of 9this, an LLC can declare bankruptcy. And in the case 10-- this happened in New Mexico with the brine well.

11 We can end up with the state of New Mexico for any 12 accident or any loss of revenue because of an 13 accident, shutting down businesses, shutting down 14 state revenue. Who is going to assume the liability 15 for those losses? The State of New Mexico has a lot 16of gas and oil. And activity at the -- near the site 17and all along the area of Southern New Mexico. If 18 there is some kind of leak and shutdown, is it indeed 19 the federal government who is going to assume the 20 liability for the loss of the business as well as for 21state revenue? Because the businesses generate 22revenue to the state -- about 30 percent of our 23revenue comes from gas and oil. So that -- those 24issues need to be dealt with. Who is responsible for 25 16that? Especially when an LLC can just declare 1 bankruptcy and have no -- no liability in it.

2 The other thing in this area is if there 3 is an incident or a release of radioactive material, 4it will devaluate the property. It will also 5 devaluate products, especially if they're, like, dairy 6products, tourism -- people are going to be loathing 7 to come to an area that is infected with radiation.

8And products become permanently stigmatized. Who pays 9 for the property devaluation and who pays for the 10devaluation of products? Does the federal government, 11as stated by Cathrynn Brown, our representative? Does 12 the federal government assume that liability?

13 I am moving on to another issue which is 14 the issue of how that site, should it become -- it 15 should become constructed, how will stewardship be 16handled? Will it continue on to how many generations?

17 There is no provision at all that I can see for making 18 sure that the site does not become abandoned after, 19 say, ten, fifteen years. They -- something happens 20with a budget and there's no longer any money -- how 21 are they going to ensure money will continue to be 22 available for guarding the site and for repairing 23casks that may be damaged during the -- during the 24process of storage? And there is a real big issue, 25 17 which I am not going to talk about right now, is the 1 fact that that area that is proposed has karst 2formation. There's a lot of caves, brine wells and 3that -- and water running around that -- underneath 4 those areas -- in and around those areas. If there 5 is an incident, who is going to repair the cask?

6Where's the money going to come from? Does it come 7from the federal government? Holtec is a company.

8They can declare bankruptcy. Then where is -- where 9 is the population left?

10The cask itself -- at what point does the 11federal government assume liability for the cask? And 12at what point in the initial transfer -- how is that 13cask going to be labeled? The source? The date? The 14condition? How are they going to document the 15condition of the cask? And if it is improperly 16 transported because it, in fact, is damaged, who --

17 who has the liability for that? And how is it going 18 to be document? In other words, are the casks going 19to be numbered? The utility company's name on the 20cask? And the date of the transfer and the inspector?

21Who inspected the cask? And who verified that it was 22 in good condition to be able to be transported?

23 That's my statement for today.

24 (Pause)25 18MS. J. SMITH: So, my name is Judith Smith 1and I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Unfortunately, 2 I had to travel three hours in order to be able to 3 talk to the Holtec company and to talk to the EPA 4people about this -- whatever your group is -- NRC?

5What is this? Whatever. They're very good -- the 6 government people were very helpful. My biggest 7 concern right now is that the way these canisters are 8 going to be sticking up to the surface of the earth 9 and the only thing protecting them is a six-inch steel 10plate on top. And I don't see how that can withstand 11some clever terrorist attack. Bomb, drone -- I don't 12know what. It's a huge target. It's a huge field --

13 out in the open, in the middle of the desert near the 14 border with another country that's probably a little 15 bit upset with us right now anyway, and I can't be 16 sure that that steel plate is going to protect us.

17 I am also concerned about any cleanup 18 because the government and the companies have been 19 very unkind to New Mexico over the years with uranium 20 cleanup, which is still making people in the northwest 21part of our state sick. And there are also companies 22 here who are leaking methane all over the place and 23polluting our air. And the government and other --

24 whoever else is responsible d oesn't seem to be 25 19stepping in. We're trying to struggle with it as a 1 state, but we're taking waste from all over the 2country, which seems to us -- that this state 3 shouldn't be held responsible for these possible 4 disasters.

5 (Pause)6MS. J. SMITH: Should I just continue with 7my own comment? I just want to add a comment that the 8 people from the NRC have been very kind and very 9forthcoming. However, the problem I have is that this 10 opportunity is three hours from my home and along 11 drive through the desert, and three hours drive back.

12 It couldn't be much further from one end of the state 13 to the other -- probably five hours -- and I think 14 that these opportunities need to be spread out across 15 the state, especially to places in our state where 16 there are large populations who would like to make 17their thoughts known and ask questions. Because in 18this state, we all care about each other. There 19aren't that many of us. It's big and we love it. And 20 it's the Land of Enchantment. And it's not going to 21 be enchanting if we get a reputation for leaked 22 nuclear radioactivity. That's it. Thank you.

23 (Pause)24MR. JOHNSON: Daniel Johnson. Thank you.

25 20My concern is from the permian basin. How will it 1affect the oil drilling in that area? Because of our 2dependence on the fossil fuels. And especially in New 3 Mexico -- our economic impact. If our fossil fuels 4are somehow impeded or somehow they're not -- we 5can't get into them because of this area. And will it 6 affect it going down, burying this stuff like they 7intend to -- if it will affect the fossil fuels. So 8 I am looking at the economic impact of the oil 9industry -- and drilling and so forth. It's -- I 10see that as a possible problem. Also, I know 11 something about that grade of waste in twenty year, 12Navy Marine. I've been around it. And it's 13 dangerous. So that -- that's my comment.

14 (Pause)15MR. RAMERO: Okay, so I thought I would 16come out here today. I am the chairman of the 17 Democratic Party of Chaves County. Just to give you 18a brief -- without getting into, you know, specifics 19of anything -- had a rudimentary sense, in my 20 opinion, I know there will be arguments in favor of 21this. But my opinion is I am against this. I think, 22 you know, dumping radioactive waste in our backyard, 23 honestly, I think just at any level for me, at least, 24 is a bad idea and I am against it.

25 21 (Pause)1MR. CAMERON: Good evening, everybody.

2 It's so nice to see all of you tonight and thank you 3 for coming out to join us for the first of three NRC 4 meetings in Southeastern New Me xico on the NRC's 5 review of the license application that they received 6 from Holtec International to build and construct an 7 interim spent fuel storage facility in Lea County, New 8 Mexico. 9 And my name is Chip Cameron and I'm going 10 to be the facilitator for the meeting tonight, and in 11 that role I'll try to help all of you to have a 12 productive meeting.

13 The focus of tonight's meeting is on 14 something called scoping, and scoping is a term that's 15 used under the National Environmental Policy Act, a 16 federal law that requir es the preparation of an 17 Environmental Impact Statement in certain 18 circumstances, and this is a circumstance that the NRC 19 is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement.

20So what does scoping mean? It's simple 21really. It's what should be evaluated in the 22Environmental Impact Statement? What doesn't need to 23 be evaluated in the Environmental Impact Statement?

24 In other words, what's the scope of the statement?

25 22 And the NRC staff is here tonight to hear any comments 1 or suggestions you have on that matter.

2 And there's two objectives tonight for the 3meeting. First objective for the NRC staff is to 4 clearly explain the NRC license review process to you.

5 Second objective is for the NRC to have an opportunity 6 to listen to your comments, your advice on the 7important issues. And those two objectives, they 8 correspond to the two segments of the meeting, to the 9 agenda of the meeting.

10 First of all, we're going to hear from the 11NRC staff. They're going to explain the review 12 process to you on this license application. And the 13 second part of the meeting is to hear public comment 14from all of you. And there's going to be a few 15 minutes; and probably I should emphasize "few," to see 16if there's any clarifying questions on the license 17 review process. And I'm emphasizing "process." See 18 if we can answer some of those before we go on to 19 public comment.

20 We have an amazing amount of people who 21 want to talk tonight, around 50 people. And usually 22 I set a guideline of five minutes a speaker, but 23 because there's 50 people, we're going to go to four 24 minutes. And I apologize to those of you who I have 25 23 to ask to finish your comments tonight because I know 1 that you've spent time and energy preparing comments 2 and coming to this meeting.

3 Now fortunately there are several other 4 ways to comment, provide scoping comments to the NRC 5 staff; and the staff will tell you how to do that, but 6basically you can send a comment in in writing. Even 7 if you comment tonight, if you want to amplify on your 8 comments, feel -- you're perfectly free to do that.

9So we have sort of a safety valve on that score for 10 people to comment.

11 And only one comment per person, 12obviously. We won't go around for a second round, but 13it is for minutes. Try to be crisp in your comments, 14okay, so that we might get out of here at a decent 15 time.16 Now we are taking a transcript. We have 17 a court reporter here. Matthew McMullen; thank you, 18Matthew, is here. He's taking a transcript, so that's 19 going to be a formal record of everything that was 20 said here tonight and it's going to be publicly 21available to all of you on the NRC web site. And I 22 think we'll say a little bit more about how you will 23get into that. It's probably going to be two to three 24 weeks before that transcript will be on there, but 25 24 you'll be able to see it all.

1 One important point is that the NRC staff 2 is here to listen carefully to what you have to say.

3 They're not going to be responding to your comments.

4 They're not going to be responding to any questions 5 that you have in your comments, okay, but they will be 6 reviewing those comments including questions when they 7 evaluate the scoping comments. And the NRC issues a 8 Scoping Report that will also be on the web site where 9 they evaluate the comments that were given.

10 So they're going to be carefully 11 evaluating your comments and questions when they 12 prepare the draft Environmental Impact Statement, when 13they prepare the Scoping Report. The draft 14 Environmental Impact Statement is also subject to 15public comment, public meetings. So they'll be out 16 here again with all of you.

17 And I know that when we're in a situation 18 where there's a company, a private enterprise that is 19 a license applicant to the NRC, people understandably 20 have a lot of questions that they'd like to ask the 21license applicant. Well, we do have Holtec staff here 22 with us tonight and they're going to be available 23 after the meeting to talk with you, to tell you know 24 you can contact them, if you want to communicate with 25 25 them. And I'd like to introduce Joy Russell.

1 Joy, can you just stand up?

2 Joy is the leader of the team from Holtec 3International. They'll be here to talk to you if you 4 need to talk to them.

5 In terms of the NRC presenters, the 6speakers tonight, we have three speakers: We have 7 Cinthya Roman, who's right here. Now she's Chief of 8 the Environmental Review Branch at the NRC, and it's 9in the Division of Fuel Cycles, Safeguards, and 10 Environmental Review in the NRC's Office of Nuclear 11Material Safety and Safeguards. So Cinthya is the 12 branch chief.

13 The project manager for the environmental 14 review of the Holtec application is Jill Caverly, and 15 she's going to be talking to you about the process.

16 And we also have our senior NRC official 17here, Brian Smith. He's the Deputy Director of the 18 Division of Fuel Cycles, Safeguards, and Environmental 19Protection. He'll say a brief comment after Jill's 20 done, but he'll also close the meeting out for us.

21 I also want to introduce the main NRC 22 staffers who are responsible for the safety review.

23And this is an important point. You're going to hear 24about it. When the NRC reviews a license application 25 26 to see if it should be granted, there is an 1environmental review. Jill. Cinthya. And this is a 2 scoping meeting on the environmental review, but 3 there's also a safety review to see if the application 4meets the NRC's safety regulations. And tonight we 5 have John McKirgan here, right here, and John is the 6 Branch Chief where the safety review for this 7application takes place. Jose Cuadrado, he's the 8 project manager on the safety review.

9They're here tonight so that if any of 10 your comments fall more in the safety area rather than 11 the environment scoping area, they're here to listen, 12 to know that you made those comments, to consider 13 those safety issues as they do their safety review.

14 Okay. We're fortunate to have the staff 15 of two of New Mexico's congressional delegation here 16 tonight. And Diane Ventura is right here, and Diane 17is with the Roswell Office of Senator Heinrich. We 18also have Gloria Ann Salas. Gloria is with 19 Representative Steve Pearce.

20 So thank you for being here and thank you 21 for the attention of the congressmen.

22 Now what I'd like to do is just -- I don't 23 think I need to say this, but I always like for all of 24 us to remember courtesy, and I mean all of us: NRC 25 27staff, myself, whatever.

You may hear comments 1 tonight that you disagree with, but just respect the 2 person who's giving that particular comment.

3 Now I'm going to go to Cinthya Roman, the 4 branch chief, and she not only is going to give you an 5 introduction to this, but she's also going to say a 6few remarks in Spanish to you. So I'm turning it over 7 to Cinthya right now.

8MS. ROMAN: Thank you. I'm going to start 9with a Spanish person. It's basically summarize what 10 he said.11 (Spanish language spoken.)

12MS. ROMAN: So as Chip mentioned, staff in 13 my branch is going to be working on the environment 14review for the license application for Holtec. Our 15main goal today is to hear from you. So I'm going to 16 try to be very brief in my remarks.

17 First, I want to give you a very quick 18 overview of what NRC does and what is our role in 19 regulating the Holtec project.

20 Our agency is charged by federal law to be 21 the nation's only regulator of commercial nuclear 22 materials independently ensuring these materials are 23used, handled and stored safely and securely. Our 24 mission is to protect the public health and safety, 25 28promote common defense and security and protect the 1 environment by regulating the civilian use of 2 radioactive materials. To accomplish our mission we 3 carefully review each license application we receive 4 before making a decision on whether or not to grant 5 the applicant's request.

6 Next slide. NRC regulates the operation 7 of 99 nuclear power reactors that generate about 20 8 percent of the electricity in the United States. We 9 also regulate civilian use of nuclear materials, 10 research reactors at universities, transportation of 11 nuclear materials and their storage and disposal.

12 NRC strives to be open and transparent in 13their reviews. As such, stakeholders may have many 14 opportunities to participate in public meetings on 15environmental and safety issues. This scoping meeting 16 is one of those opportunities.

17 Next slide. As an independent regulator 18 the NRC determine whether it is safe to build and 19operate a storage facility at the proposed site. The 20 NRC does not promote or build any nuclear facility.

21Also we do not own and operate the facilities. Our 22 mission again is to protect the public and the workers 23 and the environment.

24 Holtec is applying for a license to store 25 29waste. They are not asking NRC for permission to 1reprocess or generate more nuclear waste. NRC does 2not select the location for the storage facility. We 3just evaluate the impacts of building and operating 4 the storage facility at the location proposed by the 5 licensee.

6 As we will explain later in this 7 presentation the results of our environmental review 8 will be documented in an Environmental Impact 9 Statement which is a public document. This analysis 10 along with other factors will inform the basis for the 11staff decision to issue a license or not. This 12 concludes my remarks and now Jill Caverly will provide 13 additional details about the environmental review 14 process.15 MS. CAVERLY: Thank you, Cinthya. So my 16 name is Jill Caverly and I'm the environmental project 17 manager for the review, and I'm assisted by Stacy 18 Inboden who you might have met outside in the lobby.

19 The next few slides will be specific to 20 the Holtec storage facility application and review.

21 Holtec has applied for a license to 22 construct and operate a storage facility under 10 CFR 23Part 72. The NRC regulations governing storage of 24 spent nuclear fuel and reactor-related greater than 25 30Class C waste. If granted, Holtec would receive a 40-1 year license to construct and operate the consolidated 2interim storage facility. The current application 3 before the NRC requests construction and operation of 4 only the first of up to 20 planned phases.

5 In this current application Holtec is 6 requesting storage of up to 500 canisters of spent 7nuclear fuel. The spent nuclear fuel would come from 8 shutdown and operating nuclear power plants from 9 around the country. Holtec anticipates applying for 10 up to 20 phases of construction and operation of 500 11 canisters of spent nuclear fuel each for a total of 1210,000 canisters of spent fuel storage. However, 13 these additional phases would require separate 14 applications from Holtec and would be subject to their 15own safety and environmental reviews. The 16 Environmental Report provides information on the full 17 build-out of the site, or 10,000 canisters.

18Next slide, please. This slide shows the 19 approximate location of the proposed consolidated 20 interim storage facility in New Mexico, and as you can 21 see the facility is located approximately halfway 22 between the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs in Lea 23 County. 24 Next slide, please. Holtec plans to use 25 31 the HI-STORM UMAX system for the storage of the spent 1fuel. HI-STORM UMAX stands for the Holtec 2 International Storage Module Underground Maximum 3 capacity and is an NRC-certified design, which means 4 we have evaluated it and determined that it meets NRC 5 regulations and can safely store spent fuel.

6 The system is a dry, in-ground spent fuel 7storage system. Each of these modules hold one 8 canister of spent fuel and Holtec has applied for 9storage of 500 canisters of spent fuel. The canister 10transfer facility will be below ground. This is a 11 low-profile design as seen in the conceptual drawing 12 from Holtec's application.

13Next slide, please. This flowchart 14 provides an overview of the license application review 15 process which can be described generally as a three 16parallel phase process. After the application is 17 submitted the NRC conducts an acceptance review to 18 determine if the application has sufficient 19information to begin a detailed technical review. if 20 so, the NRC dockets the application and this begins 21 the safety and environmental review paths.

22 From the safety standpoint we work through 23 a separate safety review to decide if a license should 24be issued. The result of this phase of the review is 25 32a Safety Evaluation Report. This is graphically 1 represented in the left column of the flowchart or the 2steps in orange. Jose Cuadrado, as we mentioned, will 3 be the project manager coordinating that aspect of the 4 review.5 The environmental review can be seen in 6 the middle column and the results of that are the 7 Environmental Impact Statement, which describes the 8 impacts on the environment of the proposed project.

9 On the right-hand side you'll see the 10adjudicatory hearings. This blue box on the figure 11 refers to the opportunity for the public to request a 12 hearing on the application. These hearings would be 13 held if a petition to intervene is granted.

14 The results of these three processes: a 15 hearing if granted, the results of the environmental 16 review documented in an Environmental Impact 17Statement, and the safety review documented in the 18 Safety Evaluation Report, will factor into the NRC's 19 final decision on whether or not to grant the license 20to Holtec for the storage facility. It's important to 21 note that the focus of tonight's meeting is on the 22 environment review process.

23Next slide, please. This flow diagram 24 outlines the environmental review process or the 25 33 middle column of the previous slide. And as you can 1 see the opportunities for public involvement are 2highlighted in light blue. After staff receives an 3 application it is reviewed to ensure it is complete 4 and technically adequate, and if acceptable, the 5 application is docketed and we proceed on both the 6 environmental and safety reviews.

7 The NRC starts the environmental review by 8 publishing a Notice of Intent which informs the public 9 of our plan to prepare and Environmental Impact 10Statement and conduct the scoping process. The light 11 blue box on the right identifies the current scoping 12process, which is the meeting tonight. The purpose of 13 this phase is to gather more information to use to 14 help us prepare our EIS.

15 Comments gathered from this meeting, as 16 well as many other information collections, will be 17 independently evaluated for impacts of this particular 18project on the environment. We will document your 19comments today in the meeting transcript. The public 20 can also provide written comments through the end of 21 the scoping period.

22 We analyze all the information gathered.

23 We'll develop an EIS and issue it for public comment.

24 At that time we again invite the public's comments on 25 34 the draft EIS, and that's represented in the lower 1blue box. At that time the staff will again -- at 2 that time the staff will schedule a meeting to hear 3comments on the draft EIS. We'll again evaluate those 4 comments and consider modifying the draft EIS before 5issuing a final EIS. The final EIS will result -- the 6 final EIS and the results of the safety review, 7 otherwise known as the Safety Evaluation Report, again 8 contribute to our final decision.

9Next slide, please. Our environmental 10 review is based on the requirements of the National 11Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. NEPA requires 12federal agencies to apply a systematic approach to 13evaluate the impacts of its actions. For major 14 federal actions NEPA requires agencies to document 15their evaluation the EIS. NRC will prepare the EIS in 16accordance with these regulations and guidance. NEPA 17 also encourages public participation in the process.

18That's why we're here. We are looking for public 19 input to our environmental review process.

20Next slide, please. So here's a graphical 21 representation of the types and sources of information 22 that NRC is gathering when we're preparing our EIS.

23 We'll conduct a site visit, we'll meet with local and 24 state officials and other federal agencies, and we'll 25 35also meet with tribes. We're currently gathering that 1 information for scoping to help us determine which 2issues should be considered in our review. We also 3 expect to request additional information from Holtec 4 following the completion of these activities.

5Next slide, please. NRC will gather 6 information on a wide range of topics related to the 7 environmental issues, and this slide provides many of 8the resource areas we will consider in our 9Environmental Impact Statement. So as you can see, we 10 include many different resource areas including 11 transportation and environment justice, groundwater, 12 surface water, waste management, air quality, geology 13 and soils.

14Next slide, please. This slide is a high-15 level timeline for anticipated environmental review.

16 This stepwise approach meets our responsibilities 17 under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, 18that we talked about a little earlier. We stated that 19 the review -- we started with the review with a Notice 20of Intent to Conduct Scoping and to prepare an EIS.

21 This started a 60-day scoping period. The public --

22 this public meeting is part of that process and we 23 will continue to gather information and analyze 24 information as the review continues and we develop the 25 36 EIS.1 We tentatively expect to publish the draft 2EIS in June 2019. At that point we'll publish a 3 notice of availability, and that starts a period of at 4 least 45 days for the public or other agencies to 5comment on the draft EIS. Those comments will also be 6addressed and the analysis adjusted if necessary. We 7 tentatively expect to issue the final EIS in mid-2020.

8Next slide, please. So the scoping 9 process is intended to do many things: to determine 10 the scope of the EIS and identify significant issues 11 that NRC should analyze in depth; also to identify and 12 eliminate issues which are not significant; to 13 identify other environmental reviews and consultation 14requirements related to the proposed action. So in 15 other words, we want to hear from you because you live 16 in the local area and may bring issues to our 17 attention that we're not aware of.

18Next slide, please. The NRC is requesting 19 information about -- the NRC is requesting information 20 and input specific to the proposed facility regarding 21 what should be included or excluded from the scope of 22the EIS. Some examples of information that NRC is 23 requesting are are there local projects that are being 24planned or developed nearby? Have you identified 25 37wildlife or habitat that should be considered? Are 1 there cultural resources that should be considered in 2the evaluation? Are there particular populations 3nearby that should be considered? Are there unique 4 characteristics of the project site or local 5 communities that NRC should consider in the 6 evaluation?

7Next slide, please. So there are many 8ways that you can provide your scoping comments. You 9 may present comments orally or in writing at this 10 public meeting. You may submit comments through the 11 regulations.gov web site by searching for the docket 12ID listed here. And I'll just say it for the record.

13It's NRC-2018-0052. You may also mail comments to the 14address on this slide. Remember that all the comments 15 should be submitted by May 29th in order to ensure 16 that they will be considered.

17Next slide, please. So additional 18 information on the application and review can be found 19on the Federal Rulemaking web site or at the NRC's 20 public document room through the NRC's Agencywide 21 Document Access and Management System, also known as 22 ADAMS, or through the NRC's project-specific web site 23 for the Holtec application. And all those links are 24listed here. In addition, the public libraries in 25 38 Hobbs, Carlsbad and Roswell have agreed to hold a copy 1 of the environmental report for public review.

2 If you want to be on our mailing list or 3 our email list, please make sure that your name and 4 your address are provided to one of the NRC staff at 5the registration table. This is the one way to ensure 6 that you will be notified of upcoming meetings and 7issuance of the draft and final EIS. At the bottom of 8 the slide are the NRC's points of contact. And just 9 to remind you once again to please provide your 10 comments by May 29th.

11 And I'm going to pass -- turn this over to 12 Brian Smith for comments.

13 MR. SMITH: Thank you, Jill.

14 Good evening and thank you for coming out 15 tonight and attending our scoping meeting.

16 My division, the Division of Fuel Cycle, 17 Safeguards, and Environmental Review, has a 18 responsibility for leading and conducting and 19 preparing this Environmental Impact Statement. It's 20 a responsibility that we take very seriously.

21 We encourage and welcome your comments 22tonight on the scope of the NRC's EIS. The NRC's job 23 is to protect the public health and safety and the 24 environment by thoroughly reviewing each license 25 39 application we receive before deciding whether or not 1 to grant an applicant's request.

2 We understand that in the audience tonight 3 there are those who may oppose Holtec's license 4application as well as those who may support it. I 5 want to assure you that we want to hear from both 6sides. However, I want to remind you that the purpose 7 of this meeting is to gather comments for the scoping 8of our EIS. We want to know what important 9 information and issues we need to consider and analyze 10 in our EIS. We treat all of the comments we receive 11 the same, whether a comment was made by one person or 12 by 100 people.

13 We give each comment we receive the same 14 careful consideration during the preparation of our 15EIS. We will consider all of the oral and written 16 comments we receive here tonight as well as those we 17 receive via letter, email, or through the federal 18 rulemaking web site, regulations.gov.

19 The EIS combined with the NRC's safety and 20 security review of Holtec's license application 21 request will result in an NRC licensing decision to 22 either approve the license request or disapprove it.

23And to allow as much time as we can for 24public comment I'll turn it over to Chip. Thank you.

25 40MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Cinthya 1 and Jill and Brian.

2 As I mentioned earlier, we have a few 3 minutes to see if there's any clarifying questions on 4 the process, the review process that we could answer.

5 And I wonder does anybody have a question? Yes?

6 PARTICIPANT: Thank you.

7 MR. CAMERON: Here, let me give you this 8 so they get you -- it's not --

9 PARTICIPANT: I can speak up.

10 (Laughter.)

11 MR. CAMERON: It's not -- I'm not saying 12 anything on that.

13 PARTICIPANT: Oh, you're not -- he's 14 not --15MR. CAMERON: I'm not saying anything.

16 But it's not so people can --

17 PARTICIPANT: That's fine.

18MR. CAMERON: -- hear you. It's so we get 19 it on the transcript.

20 PARTICIPANT: Oh, that's fine.

21 MR. CAMERON: That's why it has to be 22 on --23PARTICIPANT: Well, my question is is what 24 is with the police presence? They come in. They go 25 41out. They circle the room. They stare us down. I'm 1afraid -- no offense, hon -- I'm afraid. I mean, what 2is going on? I'm trying not to wiggle too much. I'm 3trying to breathe too hard. Serious. What is with 4the police presence? We're highly educated, 5reasonably intelligent people. Why all the cops?

6 What are you guys going to do?

7MR. CAMERON: Well, there are several 8 paddy wagons outside --

9 (Laughter.)

10 MR. CAMERON: -- waiting for you.

11 (Laughter.)

12 PARTICIPANT: I wouldn't doubt it.

13 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

14PARTICIPANT: You know, could they take --

15 (Simultaneous speaking.)

16 MR. CAMERON: No, no. No, it's a -- and 17 I have to tell you that Chief Newberry and his people 18have been very helpful all night in terms of making 19 sure that, for example, the NRC staff leave if we have 20to bring people in. So the NRC -- and I'll answer 21 this process question for the NRC, is that when we go 22 to public meetings, we sometimes encounter people who 23 may be violent. Okay?

24 (Laughter.)

25 42MR. CAMERON: I know you find that hard to 1believe, but that's why we have security. And in this 2 case when we're -- and I have to thank the university.

3 When we're using a space at the university, the 4 university is going to want to make sure -- if it's a 5 meeting on a controversial subject, they're going to 6 want to make sure that they have their security staff 7here in case something does happen. so we'll all take 8 a chill pill.

9 (Laughter.)

10MR. CAMERON: Okay? So I'm going to go on 11to other questions. And I'm going to go to Kevin 12 Kampus in the back and we'll come up to you next.

13 Okay? Okay. This is Kevin Kampus.

14 Kevin?15MR. KAMPUS: Hi, Kevin Kampus with Beyond 16 Nuclear, and I had this question last Wednesday, but 17 didn't get to ask it because there was no time.

18 Twice now I've heard Cinthya Roman say 19 that NRC is not a promotional agency, but I attended 20 a Spent Fuel Project Office regulatory conference in 21 North Bethesda where Tony Hsai, who was acting 22director at the time said, together we can get this 23done, speaking about centralized interim storage. And 24that was just a few years ago. So tremendous concern 25 43 that at least for him that day this was something he 1wanted to get done. So can you address NRC's role?

2 Has NRC ever denied a permit for something like this 3 in its history?

4MR. CAMERON: And thank you for that 5 question. And that is a process question because it 6goes to the neutrality of the NRC review. So thank 7 you, Kevin.

8 Is there -- I don't know if, Brian, you 9 can talk to Tony's remark, but you can certainly 10 clarify what the NRC position is.

11MR. SMITH: Yes, I was not at the 12 conference that you're referencing, so I don't know 13the context in which Tony made that remark. Tony Hsai 14 is still the Deputy Director of the Division of Spent 15Fuel Management. The division has the lead for the 16 technical safety review of this license application.

17 Our role is, as Cinthya said a couple of 18times, is not a promoter of the industry. As I 19 mentioned in my remarks, our job is to protect public 20 health and safety and the environment to making sure 21that the applicants and the licensees meet our 22 regulations so that they can be protective of their 23 workers, the public and the environment itself.

24 You had a question about have we ever 25 44 denied or turned down an application like this in the 1past? I'm not aware that we have. There's only been 2 two other applications that I'm aware of. One was 3 private fuel storage in which we did issue a license 4back in 2006. The facility was never constructed. We 5 did receive the waste control specialist license 6application. That has been on hold for some months 7now. And now we've received the Holtec license 8 application.

9MR. CAMERON: So there haven't been many.

10 But thank you, Kevin, for that.

11 And thank you, Brian, for clarifying that.

12And, yes, ma'am? Could you just please 13 just tell us your name, too?

14MS. HERNANDEZ: My name is Charlene 15 Hernandez, a concerned citizen and I just want to ask 16 you a question, if the person is here that's applying 17 for the license, the agency or whatever?

18MR. CAMERON: Yes, I introduced Joy 19 Russell, who's right back there, and she's here with 20two of her colleagues. And in fact Joy, like --

21 Holtec International, like anybody else here, can sign 22 up for their time to speak. So she's going to speak 23 later on and you'll be able to hear her and know who 24 she is.25 45 MS. HERNANDEZ: Okay. Thank you.

1 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.

2 Let me go here and then we'll come up to 3 you. Yes?

4MR. BURMAN: Chip, as you know, I'm Lon 5 Burman and I had 18 years in the Texas legislature, so 6I'm real familiar with bureaucratese, but I'm still 7 struggling with the concept of bifurcating health and 8 safety with EIS. To me they're kind of interrelated 9 and I'm not sure how to frame my comments since I 10 think health and safety are the most important 11 environmental issues.

12MR. CAMERON: Now that's a very good point 13 because they're separate reviews, but there will be 14 information probably in the environment review that 15has safety implications. And I heard a good 16 discussion of how that works.

17 And, John, are you going to talk to that, 18 because that's a -- people need to know that?

19MR. McKIRGAN: Yes, thank you. I 20 appreciate that question. So this is John McKirgan.

21 I'm Chief of the Licensing Branch.

22 And I think there are two very important 23 points to differentiate the environmental review and 24 the overall licensing process. And so it really has 25 46 its roots in the statutory requirements that both of 1 these review processes are seeking to comply with.

2 One is based, as you heard, in the Environmental 3 Policy Act and the other of course is based on the 4Atomic Energy Act. And those two statutory 5 requirements work together and the NRC implements both 6 of those to achieve an overall finding when we issue 7 the license, but the NRC is working towards ensuring 8 compliance with all of the relevant statutes there.

9 As Chip mentioned, the environmental 10 review and the safety review often touch on very 11similar concepts and themes. Certainly siting 12characteristics. Soil characteristics for example are 13 one that impacts both the environmental review and the 14safety review. And we talk quite commonly amongst the 15 reviewers to make sure that the information is shared 16across those two. So even though the processes are 17 somewhat unique, there is a great deal of connection 18 between those two activities.

19MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much. And 20that last part about the consultation between the 21 review -- environmental staff and safety staff is a 22 very important one.

23 Yes, sir?24MR. CARASCO: Aldo Carasco and I live here 25 47 in Roswell, New Mexico and somehow have managed to 1 live here since 1974.

2 In a couple of the slides the word 3"interim" was included in there. And it's interesting 4 because my background is in linguistics. Believe it 5 or not, I didn't waste my time at New Mexico State.

6 And there -- in the field of linguistics you have 7 what's called a gradable ambiguity, and some people 8 would define for instance the climate in here as cold.

9 Others may cool. Others may say warm.

10 So right now this university, if I'm not 11 mistaken, has an interim president until they find a 12suitable replacement. So we know there will be 13 eventually another president.

14 When we talk about interim storage who 15gets to stipulate the limits? Who gets to define that 16 word? Will it be Holtec, or will it be you guys, or 17will it be the voters? But there has to be more 18 accuracy in the definition of the word "interim," 19 because I used to be a member of the Concerned 20 Citizens of Roswell and we were concerned that this 21 would happen eventually, that they would bring spent 22nuclear rods and store them here indefinitely. So if 23 you could possibly -- one of you define the length of 24 time, please.

25 48MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very 1 important question, and I don't know where the term 2"interim" actually originated, okay, but, Jill, 3 Cinthya, Brian, I think you see what the concern is 4 behind the question.

5 And there may not be something that we 6 really -- there may be a larger issue than the NRC, 7 but, John, do you want to talk to that?

8MR. KcKIRGAN: Yes, thank you, if I could.

9 So the application as put forward is for 1040 years. And now we do need to be clear and candid, 11right? There are opportunities to renew that license 12 for an additional 40 years. But that is the interim 13 concept that's being put forward today is a 40-year 14license. A renewal would be subject to further review 15 by the NRC staff, but that's the term that's put 16 forward here.

17MR. CAMERON: And on that particular issue 18 all of us: NRC, citizens, you sort of have to follow 19 what the Congress is doing in terms of connections 20 between storage facility and Yucca Mountain or 21 wherever the repository, if there is a repository --

22 so that's sort of the game we're in and -- but great 23 question.24 We have time for one more, and there's a 25 49 gentleman back there that we're going to go to on 1 this.2 Yes, sir?3PARTICIPANT: Yes, you're asking for 4 names, addresses and contact information of everyone 5 who signs in here in the front, and that is all the 6 information that you have and the knowledge you have.

7And knowledge is power. So may I suggest that as soon 8 as this meeting is over you post these lists on the 9 Internet so that we all have exactly the same 10 information that you NRC and Holtec have?

11 (Applause.)

12 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.

13 Okay. There's a recommendation.

14Okay. We're going to go to public comment 15 now, and we have a lot of commenters.

16 I'm going to start with people from 17 Albuquerque, from Midland, Texas, from Los Cruces, New 18Mexico who have long travel. So we're going to go to 19 these people first. Okay?

20 PARTICIPANT: Sister Joan came with some 21people that have to leave tonight. If her group could 22 speak first, that would be --

23 (Simultaneous speaking.)

24MR. CAMERON: You know what? That's 25 50exactly who I was referring to. How about that?

1Okay. And in fact we're going to start with Sister 2Joan. Where is Sister -- oh, here's Sister Joan. And 3 I'm going to put this here, okay, sister, and you can 4talk to the NRC. The people will be able to hear you.

5 Okay. Go ahead.

6SISTER JOAN BROWN: Okay. Everybody hear?

7 Okay. Great.

8Thank you. My name is Sister Joan Brown, 9J-O-A-N, B-R-O-W-N, and I live in Albuquerque. I'm 10 the Executive Director of New Mexico Interfaith Power 11 and Light and I'm a Franciscan sister.

12 And I'm very happy to be here in this part 13 of our state in this desert place, which quite 14beautiful actually. And I come from a long tradition 15 and Christian tradition of people going to the desert, 16 not because it was a throwaway place or a place where 17 nobody lived or it was not important, but because that 18 is where people find God and that is where we find our 19 souls and we meet our souls and ourselves in a very 20deep place. So those of you coming from back East, I 21 welcome you these days to uncover that and discover 22 that here as well, as well as our friends from Holtec 23 who do not live here in the state as well.

24 So as a Franciscan sister in my Catholic 25 51 tradition there are several things that are really 1important: One is that we are brothers and sisters to 2everyone and everything, every element. Again, there 3 is no out there, there is nothing that is a waste, 4 there is nothing that is to be thrown away or 5discriminated against. We're also called to use 6 primacy of conscience, which means to follow the law 7 of God inscribed in our hearts, and that is a moral 8 law and a law that is high that we need to choose to 9 do what is right.

10 Also within my tradition there are some 11 environmental justice principles that we hold that I 12think are important for the NRC to understand. Human 13 life and dignity, that every human life is important.

14 It doesn't matter if you live in an urban area or if 15 you live in a rural area. A life is a life and none 16are dispensable. We need to be concerned about the 17safety and health of all lives. And in this state we 18 have a history of that not being respected. We have 19 many people dying of cancer who are downwinders who 20 are suffering from uranium mining, and we are very 21 skeptical because we do not want to see this 22continued. And that is why we are concerned with this 23 new proposed Holtec project.

24 We're called to be stewards of creation.

25 52That means to be caretakers.

Like your g ardens at 1 home, how many of us would put nuclear waste into my 2 garden, which I just planted my tomato plants in. I 3do not think so. It is holy ground. We have an 4 obligation to future generations far beyond -- I can't 5even imagine. In terms of reli gious traditions 6250,000 years that we're dealing with with this 7 nuclear waste is eternity. It's an eternity.

8 There is a concept of spirit of 9 subsidiarity, which really addresses environmental 10 justice. And this project is proposed in one of the 11 poorer areas of the state, a predominantly Hispanic-12 speaking area and very low-income area, as if people 13 here are not intelligent, do not have a voice and 14 cannot say, yes, we want something or, no, we don't.

15 It speaks of again human life and it is not just for 16 economic gain for a few individuals or a few 17 companies.

18MR. CAMERON: Sister, if I could have you 19 sum up now?

20SISTER JOAN BROWN: Okay. So these are a 21 few of the concerns. I do have some suggestions and 22 I'll make those very brief, that the storage site for 23 this needs to stay where it is at the nuclear power 24 plants where it is already stored.

25 53 Second, we need a longer comment period 1 and in other locations in the state because this will 2 be transported throughout the state and affect many of 3 us.4 And finally, that we need to have all the 5 information, adequate resources including financial 6 verifications and analysis. Thank you very much.

7MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank you 8 very much, sister.

9 (Applause.)

10MR. CAMERON: Sister Marlene Perrotte?

11 She's -- okay.

12How about Carol Merrill? And here's --

13 Carol, do you want to use this microphone up here?

14 Thank you.

15MS. MERRILL: Thank you. My name is Carol 16 Merrill, a retired librarian and teacher from 17 Albuquerque. I'm a published author and have been a 18 member of CARD, Citizens for Alternatives to 19 Radioactive Deposit -- Dumping for 30 years. I wish 20 you were having public meetings in Santa Fe and 21 Albuquerque so that more citizens could voice concerns 22 in person.

23 Two of my friends live in Cerrillos, New 24 Mexico, one block from a railroad. They want to say 25 54 to you leave the high-level waste where it is.

1 Another of my friends owns a newspaper 2 north of Albuquerque in the village of Corrales, the 3 Corrales Comment , where I work as a freelance 4reporter. He is unable to be here because it's 5deadline day. He wants to say; this is important, 6back in the '70s and '80s New Mexican citizens were 7 repeated reassured that locating the Waste Isolation 8 Pilot Project, WIPP, would not lead to the deposit of 9high-level waste in New Mexico. This current proposal 10 is an unconscionable breach of those promises never to 11 allow this to happen. This is inexcusable.

12 For my concerns personally there is no way 13 to justify hauling high-level nuclear waste across 14 thousands of miles of aging train tracks endangering 15 countless communities. The canisters that Holtec is 16 trying to get the Government to pay for are defective.

17For one, they are not able to withstand the high 18temperatures of Southern New Mexico. And engineer who 19 studied Holtec's specifications for their proposed 20 canisters told me this. Is this correct? I need to 21 know that. I want it on paper one way or the other.

22 The temperature around Southern New Mexico 23 sometimes reaches 120 degrees and their canisters are 24not effective at that high temperature. The canisters 25 55will be 12 inches up out of the ground. Perhaps this 1 project was not well-planned.

2 The spent fuel rods are from power plants 3mostly on the East Coast. We do not even receive 4 benefit from the electricity that was generated. If 5 the nuclear waste is so safe for us here, why don't 6 the people around the nuclear plants keep it there?

7 (Applause.)

8MS. MERRILL: The best solution is to 9 leave high-level waste near where it was generated.

10 It is important to have effective sealed storage on 11 site where it is now without exposing millions of 12 people along railroads to deadly high-level waste in 13 ineffective canisters.

14One additional concern: If there would be 15 a serious example -- for example, a derailment in a 16 heavily-populated urban area with a breach of the seal 17 on the canister necessitating a mass evacuation, with 18 an area becoming uninhabitable for a long, long time; 19 think Chernobyl --

20MR. CAMERON: And could you sum up for us, 21 Carol, please?

22MS. MERRILL: -- and Fukushima, who would 23be liable? I'm almost done. Is Holtec willing to be 24responsible should an accident occur? Do they have 25 56good insurance? If they are not liable, if they go 1 bankrupt, how can we as citizens expect them to invest 2 in an effective canister?

3I have three more sentences. They require 4 an act of Congress -- they require an act of Congress 5to proceed. What they're doing now is illegal. That 6is out of the question. Time to reconsider. This 7 proposition is unacceptable.

8One more sentence. For our energy 9 concerns in this great nation it is time to employ 10 natural genius to find more elegant, safe generators 11 using wind, sun, water, tides, solar, geothermal for 12 starters. Thank you for listening. Thank you.

13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you.

14 (Applause.)

15 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Carol.

16 And I'm going to follow the recommendation 17of the gentleman in the back. I'm going to call a few 18names so that you know you're coming up. And we have 19 three people here from Interfaith Power and Light from 20Albuquerque who signed up. They didn't give the last 21name. One of them did, but Tom, Stephen and Judy 22 Smith. And then we have a group of five coming up.

23 And is this Tom?

24 MR. GORMAN: Yes.

25 57 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

1MR. GORMAN: Good evening. I am Tom 2 Gorman and I live in Santa Fe County and I came down 3 here tonight just because I felt very strongly about 4 this project.

5 I have a background in emergency 6 management. I was an emergency manager for a number 7 of years in Colorado Springs and then when I moved to 8 New Mexico in 1992 I worked at the State Office of 9 Emergency Management for 14 years doing emergency 10 planning.11 And everything I can see about this 12 project tells me it's not properly planned. I agree 13 with the gentleman that brought up the idea of interim 14storage. Interim is an interesting concept for 15 something that might last 120 years.

16 In emergency planning we didn't think 17along those terms. We always had a

-- If we were 18 doing an interim plan we had a permanent plan in mind 19that we started working on. That isn't happening 20 right now.

21 So I am very much opposed to this and I 22 just, I don't want to go over the same comments others 23 have made, but I am very concerned on all of the risks 24 that are expected to be handled by the people of New 25 58 Mexico along the rail routes, around the communities, 1 near the site, and so for that reason I am very much 2 opposed to this. Thanks.

3 (Applause) 4MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Mr.

5 Gorman. And Stephen from Interfaith Power and Light 6 is here and then Judy Smith.

7MR. PICHA: Good evening. My name is 8 Stephen Picha and I am from Albuquerque as well. We 9 were greeted earlier this afternoon by the Mayor who 10 was unable to then stay on because he said family is 11 first.12 I make my passage here this evening 13because my family is first, too, and that family is 14 not just my immediate family but my New Mexican family 15 and my Creation family.

16This is an old place. People have 17 inhabited this land for many, many years, longer than 18 where people who have helped create this nuclear waste 19 come from, and that cannot be forgotten.

20 And it made me grateful to hear that you 21 said that there would be conversations with the elders 22 here because it is important in New Mexico that we 23 speak to our elders.

24 That has been lost in many places but that 25 59 is not lost here in New Mexico and the due diligence 1 calls us not as people of privilege to come in and do 2 what we think is best but as you have said to listen 3 and to listen closely and to listen carefully to the 4 people who can tell us what 120 years means to them.

5 In the native tradition they speak of 6seven generations. We make decisions based upon seven 7 generations, which, interestingly enough, is kind of 8 your 120 year model, and so I appeal to each of you to 9 draw from a deep place of your own wisdom.

10 I come forth as well remembering my father 11 who died less than a year ago and he said sometimes 12 that in your gut when you know something just doesn't 13 sound right you got to believe it, and this is one of 14 those where in my gut, and I think in many people's 15 guts, this just isn't right. Thank you.

16 (Applause) 17MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you 18very much. And we have

-- Judy Smith is coming up, 19 but we're going to go next to a group of five, Randy 20 Prude, Tim Carlisle, Cody Rogers, and Steve 21 Schafersman. Go ahead. This is Judy Smith.

22 MS. SMITH: So hello, everyone. My name 23is Judy Smith. I, too, am also living in Albuquerque.

24 I have been in New Mexico since 1979 and I love New 25 60 Mexico with all my heart.

1 When I heard about this project I thought 2 about not only the 120 years of the temporary storage, 3 because time matters, and it made me think back to the 4 time when my congregation, I belong to Congregation 5 Albert, which is a Jewish reform congregation that was 6 established in New Mexico a little bit more than 120 7 years ago, and so we have incorporated the wisdom of 8 the State into our own traditions and it made me think 9 more and more about the passage of time and that what 10 is temporary to some may not be the long view that we 11 need to take.

12 For example, my religion, according to our 13 scripture in the Old Testament, we received the wisdom 14of God from Mount Sinai 5778 years ago and that 15 tradition was discovered in the desert so I take that 16 as symbolic.

17 But I wanted to mention Genesis 2:15 which 18 says that not only will we as humans rule over the 19 earth but we are called on to tend it and keep it, and 20 those thoughts have guided us for these 5778 years and 21 sometimes we have been successful and sometimes not.

22 In this case I think we need to take a 23 long view in order to be sure that we are successful 24 and I call success keeping being, actions that keep in 25 61 mind justice, justice for the people of our State, for 1all of us who live in this beloved, enchanted land, 2 justice for the State itself and for the land, and 3 justice for the next generations in years to come, and 4 we need to think about the impact of these decisions 5 on the next generations.

6 I am asking for some actions that have 7 already been mentioned, including time for comments in 8 accessible locations for people across the State.

9 Thank you.

10 (Applause) 11MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 12 Judy. And this is Steve Schafersman. Okay.

13MR. SCHAFERSMAN: Good evening, everybody.

14 Thank you, NRC, for scheduling this unscheduled 15 scoping session tonight.

16 I am a consulting scientist in Midland.

17I work in both the petroleum and environmental 18industries. In Midland I live downwind from a 19 potential burning interim waste site with its 20 radioactive plume.

21 I can't think of a -- I have taught 22 environmental science and environmental geology and 23 environmental law and I am very experienced in sites, 24 waste sites.

25 62 I have been to six different superfund 1 sites in Houston where I got my Ph.D. at Rice and I 2 know I have been opposed to these sites from the 3 beginning.

4 I can't think of a worse place, well I 5 can, but it's hard to think of a worse place to choose 6 for placing an interim waste site than right here.

7 The area is surrounded by aquifers, some close, some 8 far.9 The sediments and the sedimentary rock are 10porous and permeable. The thin barrier they claim is 11on the top is not sufficient. It's just like the WCS 12 site, which is really no better.

13 So this is not a good place to put a 14 hazardous waste site, especially one for nuclear 15 waste. I could go into much more detail about these 16 since I am a geologist and understand this stuff, but 17 I'm not.18 The exposed casks on the surface are 19 subject to terrorism. They are exposed and a simple 20 attack with heavy explosives would create that burning 21 plume that I spoke of without much difficulty.

22 There are soluble rocks below the site, 23limestone and rock salt. There is karst limestone in 24 the area, which is a soluble limestone that develops 25 63 caverns, the caverns collapse and sinkholes develop.

1 It is conceivable that a sinkhole would 2 collapse and take down the depository with it, which 3would be a terrible, colossal tragedy. In addition 4 there is the soluble Salado formation below that.

5 In West Texas unplugged wells carry fluids 6 to this formation, the salt dissolves, and sinkholes 7develop. This is a matter of fact. Now I can't be 8 sure how close these are to the aquifers, but there is 9 several aquifers nearby, especially the Capitan Reef 10 Aquifer.11 I need more detailed maps to be sure, but 12 that's the aquifer that has developed Carlsbad 13Caverns. This is just not a good place to site this.

14What about transportation issues? You 15 always have to do a risk benefit analysis. There is 16a risk to transporting these hazardous materials. Ten 17 thousand canisters is calculated in a risk benefit 18analysis that there would be one accident. That would 19 be a terrible calamity.

20 If you double that transportation to move 21 it a second time that would double the risk, you would 22have possibly two. You might have none but you might 23 have four, it's just a statistical calculus.

24 Does the risk -- Is the risk ever 25 64acceptable? Yes. If you transport the waste once to 1 a permanent waste depository the risk is acceptable, 2 and that's what should be done.

3MR. CAMERON: And, Steve, could you sum up 4 for us, please.

5 MR. SCHAFERSMAN: Sure.

6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

7MR. SCHAFERSMAN: So why was the site put 8 here, proposed for this place, or for that matter the 9one in Andrews County? The companies want to exploit 10 the region's assumed favoritism for free enterprise 11 and business.

12 They also want to use who they think are 13 people who don't care much about dangers but just want 14 to get the jobs. In fact, the jobs are very few and 15 the dangers are enormous.

16 The oil companies provide plenty of jobs 17now, so this is not a good situation. The reason for 18 this proposal is that there is a fund of $50 billion 19 that the companies want to use to develop their waste 20 sites.21 It is likely the interim site, if 22 approved, would become a permanent site for two 23reasons. First, there would be no more motivation to 24 develop a permanent site because the companies would 25 65 no longer have title, the government would.

1 And, second, by that time the $50 billion 2 would be gone because they would be using that money 3 to transport the waste. So I want to make a modest 4 proposal, my last sentence.

5 I propose that we look for a good site 6 which would be hard, igneous rock that is non-porous 7 and non-permeable, bore into it, place the casks 8 there, call that the interim site, and then in 120 9years change the name to the permanent waste 10 repository.

11 That would solve all of our problems.

12 Thank you very much.

13 (Applause) 14MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Steve. Thank 15 you, Steve. And, okay, please introduce yourself to 16 us.17 MR. ROGERS: All right. My name is Cody 18 Rogers. I am going to be as brief as I can possibly 19be. I can never -- I can't believe I'm in front of 20 the NRC.21I am an ex-Navy nuke. I have operated 22nuclear reactors for eight years. I am a huge 23proponent of nuclear power. I think we need it, we 24 need to go to France's model.

25 66 Ladies and gentlemen, I was called here 1 today along with my friends from Midland to talk about 2this issue. This is a major, major, major problem in 3 the United States right now.

4 We have 99 operating nuclear reactors, we 5 do not have anywhere to dispose of the spent fuel, 6 okay. This is a major, major problem and we have to 7 fix it.8 I believe the NRC is doing their absolute 9 best to fix this problem. As Navy nuclear operators 10 we have been transporting full reactors across State 11 lines on railroads for over 60 years successfully 12 without accident or failure.

13 Now let me get to the main point that I am 14here today. I don't know what you guys have seen when 15 it comes to the studies of the geological parts of 16 Midland, Texas, but we are on the cusp of being the 17 world's largest energy producer, okay.

18We are going to control oil very soon. We 19 are going to control our own destiny. So West Texas 20 is one of the most valuable places in the world right 21 now, especially the United States, and, unfortunately, 22 because of this I implore you to look up Dr. Zong 23 Liu's study from SMU, this is very, very new, West 24 Texas is sinking.

25 67 We're not sinking slowly, we're sinking at 1 a rate of four inches per year. As a matter of fact 2 it is sinking so fast we have actually had a lake near 3 Pecos, it's a 4000 square mile area that is literally 4 sinking beneath us. I know we need a site. This is 5 not it.6 If this thing sinks and we get something 7 like the WIPP accident, that was never supposed to 8 happen, that was a non-serialized container of 9 radioactive waste that they had no clue what was in it 10 and had to re-dig up to find out, we can't re-dig 11 these canisters up and if it sinks below us and we 12 lose them the environmental impact is forever and if 13 we lose West Texas oil, n atural gas, the people of 14 Roswell, the people of New Mexico, the people of 15 Texas, the United States, we're done.

16 We're not going back to Saudi Arabia and 17getting their oil. We need independence and this site 18 is sinking and I truly believe that we need to look at 19 that and study its environmental impact. That's all 20 I have to say. Thanks.

21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

22 (Applause) 23MR. CAMERON: And I think we have -- This 24is Jim Carlisle and after the Midland crew is done 25 68 we're going to go to Patty Hughs, Ed Hughs, and we're 1 going to hear from Joy Russell. Go ahead, Jim.

2MR. CARLISLE: Thank you, sir, I 3appreciate it. My name is Jimmy Carlisle. I work for 4Fasken Oil and Ranch based in Midland. We are an oil 5 and gas company but we also are a major landowner in 6 the State of Texas.

7 We own some 200,000 net acres in the State 8of Texas. Our largest ranch is a 165,000 acre 9contiguous ranch just north and west of Midland. The 10 WCS site definitely comes into play in this 11 discussion.

12 The Holtec side, however, has the same 13 issues we believe, and Steve mentioned a few moments 14ago talking about groundwater issues. On our ranches 15 everything we look at, we look at vegetation, we look 16 at soil characteristics, we look at moisture in the 17soil, but the thing we watch the closest is the 18 quantity and the quality of our groundwater.

19 Our company is the first one really in 20 West Texas that made the determination to get off of 21 use of fresh water in our drilling and fracking 22 operations and we started recycling produced water and 23 using brackish water as a result.

24 So we believe firmly that the freshwater 25 69 issue is a major significance that has to be 1addressed. Steve mentioned the groundwater issues 2 around this site, the Holtec site, and the lenses and 3 the area that is unmapped in the New Mexico system.

4 The State Engineer's Office has maps, they 5 don't have complete mapping of what's going on out 6here. We need a better understanding of the 7 groundwater in New Mexico, which we don't have at the 8 moment.9 We're not alone in this battle when it 10 comes to ranchers that have a real issue with these 11two sites. We secured in less than two hours four 12letters from major landowners in West Texas, the 13 Cowden Ranch has been in the ranching business in West 14 Texas since the 1880s, we received a letter from the 15 Button Estes Ranch, they've been in business for over 16 100 years, the Barrow Ranch, been in business since 17 1906, and I don't think I said it, Fasken Oil and 18 Ranch has been in business since 1913. All of these 19 ranches are over 100 years old.

20 Groundwater, folks, is the life blood of 21the ranching business. If you don't have groundwater 22 you'd just own dirt. Think about that for a second.

23 The bottom line is we believe that this application 24 and the WCS application need to be withdrawn.

25 70We don't believe them. We think there are 1 great issues with both and it's a situation --

2 (Applause) 3MR. CARLISLE: It is a situation of 4 groundwater, because without groundwater in this area 5 of land that we live in we're out of, we don't have 6 anything.7 MR. CAMERON: And, Jim, could you sum up 8 for us, please.

9MR. CARLISLE: Certainly. And please 10 understand we are not against permanent disposal, and 11I mean permanent not this 120 year interim stuff. We 12 know as was mentioned earlier by Cody there is an 13issue with this waste that has to be addressed, we 14 agree with that completely.

15 But let's find the real permanent site 16 that doesn't have these issues, that doesn't impact 17 people's lives, it doesn't impact groundwater, and the 18 other things these other folks and all these folks are 19 talking about, let's get the right place the first 20 time and move this stuff, if it has to be moved let's 21 just move it once. Thank you very much.

22 (Applause) 23MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, Jim.

24 MS. RENTERIA: Hi, guys. I am Christina 25 71Renteria. I am a pilot out in Midland, Texas. Thank 1 you for listening to all of our comments tonight, we 2 really appreciate you guys taking the time to make us 3 know all of us count, our voices count.

4And thank you to all of you. We have come 5from Texas, we support you guys, and we support not 6 having all of this moved over here.

7 As I pilot I have flown all around, you 8know, Midland, New Mexico. One thing that we have in 9common with you guys is oil. Midland is covered in 10it. You have Hobbs, Euince, Lovington, there is pump 11 jacks everywhere you go.

12 Now while drilling is not directly 13 associated with earthquakes the extraction of water as 14 well as your brine water and basically the 15 redistribution of that has been proven by scientists 16 at the University of Texas to cause earthquakes with 17 a magnitude of 3.0 or greater. There have been some 18 between 4.8 and 5.8.

19 I think what we need to do is find ground 20 that is completely stable before we plan on moving any 21 of this nuclear waste b ecause we want to make sure 22 that it's not going to leak out, obviously.

23 So, oil, we're all involved in it.

24 However, it hasn't been, or the wealth associated with 25 72 that has not been proportionately allocated to 1 everyone out here.

2 Where this is being proposed is 3disproportionately not represented here. We have 4 millions of people that could be affected by this 5 project, however, look at this, we have less than 100 6 people in this room.

7 You know, in Andrews, Texas, there is also 8 a waste site. However, Odessa is one of the closest 9 towns to there. Nobody there knows that it's there.

10 The citizens are not aware of this and that is one of 11 the biggest things that needs to change both in Texas 12 and in New Mexico.

13We need our voices to be heard. You know, 14 there is also a disproportionate amount, or there is 15an age gap here, the people that this will be 16 affecting 80 years from now, no offense to anybody, 17 are not in this room.

18 (Laughter) 19MS. RENTERIA: More people need to know 20 about this and about what is going on. There we go, 21 right here. So I won't take up --

22MR. CAMERON: I think you just scared her.

23 (Laughter) 24MS. RENTERIA: I won't take up much of you 25 73 all's time, but, in conclusion, I don't believe that 1 this is the right area because of the unstability of 2 the ground, or the instability of the ground, but also 3 simply we need more people to be involved and more 4 voices to be heard on this.

5 New Mexico, their citizens need to be 6 aware of what is going to be going on with their land.

7 So thank you again for listening and I hope you all 8 have a good evening.

9 (Applause) 10 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. And this 11 is Randy Prude.

12MR. PRUDE: Yes. My name is Randy Prude.

13I am a county commissioner in Midland, Texas, and I 14have a county commissioner for 20 years and I just 15 choked myself so my voice is about to go.

16 By the way, speaking of uranium I have 17 titanium in my back so I kind of like the rare metals.

18 It's keeping me standing up right here.

19 I have been elected again for my sixth 20term, so, the Lord willing, I'll be serving for 24 21years. I am very passionate about this subject. I 22 spent over $2000 to bring our team here from Midland 23 and I think we have a great group.

24 I hope you have enjoyed meeting them this 25 74 evening. I am very proud of them.

1 (Applause) 2MR. PRUDE: And I will tell you in our 3 commissioners court we had all the employees of WCS 4 and even some public citizens come try to tell us why 5 this was a good idea to have WCS, which is similar, 6 all the employees of Holtec I am sure are really fine 7 people, all the employees of WCS are fine people.

8 They are raising their families there, 9 they believe in what they are doing, it's not a matter 10of bad people. And I will just tell you, I said your 11 oops is going to ruin everything for us for eternity, 12 your oops.

13 Our land is the same processes that formed 14 Carlsbad Caverns, I'll repeat something, are all 15throughout this region. The land is going up and 16 down.17 These SME studies, the first I've heard 18 of, and in fact they just recently came out, about 19 some pieces of land have come up 40 centimeters in the 20 last year and some have gone down.

21 We are extracting at a record, at ten to 22 100 times per year what we have ever extracted from 23 the permian basin, and I have lived here all my life, 24 since 1952, we've had oil and gas there for all these 25 75 years, and we are extracting more now by a factor of 1 ten to 100 than we have ever extracted, so whatever is 2 happening right now will be greater.

3 I intend -- I agree with everything my 4partners have said, we need to find one place, one 5time, and move it. I do know that there is a problem, 6guys. There is a problem in all these sites in 7 America, they are running out of space.

8 We have 100 sites for potential terrorists 9to attack. It does need to be moved. It does need to 10 be moved safely, it needs to go somewhere safe. The 11 Navy has proved that things can be moved safely, and 12so let's find a real place, like a geologist would 13 say, with igneous rock that is hard and solid and not 14 in a place that is subject to oil and gas.

15 And I will tell you one last thing, so 16 I'll sum it up right now --

17 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

18MR. PRUDE: -- is I intend to organize all 19 the ranchers and all the commissioner's courts and 20 everybody in all the governments in all this whole 21 region, right now many of them -- by the way, I will 22 tell you I am an odd duck, I am a Republican --

23 (Laughter) 24MR. PRUDE: -- and this is not a 25 76 Republican or a Democrat issue, this is an important 1 issue to all of us and I believe that there is -- I 2 just cannot tell you the horror that could happen if 3 we ever have an accident.

4 And so I intend to organize all of our 5 governments that are willing to listen, but the way I 6 am going to do that is get my friend Jimmy and all the 7ranchers and all the ranch oil men to contact their 8 commissioners and their mayors and their 9 representatives, house representatives, senators, and 10 so forth, and I don't intend to let this thing run 11 over us.12 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

13MR. PRUDE: So thank you so much, but 14 thank you for coming to listen to us.

15 (Applause) 16 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Randy.

17MR. PRUDE: And I apologize, my pilot has 18a real early flight tomorrow, so we have to leave. I 19 would love to hear the rest of your comments.

20MR. CAMERON: Well thank you for coming 21 up, all of you.

22 (Applause) 23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And we are going to 24 go to Ed Hughs and -- Do you want to talk, too?

25 77 (Off microphone comment) 1 MR. CAMERON: Yes, come on up. And then 2 we're going to go to Joy Russell and then to Dan 3 Holland and Timothy Jennings and Karen Howard-Winters.

4 This is Ed Hughs. Go ahead, Ed.

5MR. HUGHS: Thank you Mr. Cameron. My 6 wife Patty and I own and operate a ranch, a small 7 cattle ranch, in Quay County, New Mexico. My family 8 has been there over 110 years.

9 We just have lived through the attempted 10 borehole siting of high-level nuclear waste about 2-111/2 miles south of our south fence. Now looking at 12 this current proposal one of the major transportation 13 routes is the Union Pacific which runs right next to 14 our south fence so the problem has even gotten closer 15 if there is an accident somewhere, nobody knows where, 16 it could be there.

17 Coming down here on Highway 70 between, 18 north of Elida I passed about five railcars that had 19been turned over on the, had been in an accident. You 20 know, those happen.

21 I think the question -- What we have 22 learned in going through this borehole thing that we 23 have been living through is that these consequences 24 are essentially eternal and they are extremely non-25 78 partisan, as has been stated.

1 We just finished our spring branding this 2weekend and we came down to this meeting. We are very 3 concerned with passing on what we have to future 4generations. We have nine grandchildren right now who 5 are very interested in the place and we hope to pass 6 that on.7 Well here is our experience that I want to 8 share with you with the borehole. Our experience is 9 that the high-level nuclear waste industry pushes the 10 myth, and I want to repeat that, the myth, of economic 11 development when actually it is the end of our 12 sustainable base economy and it is an economic 13 replacement or disaster.

14 What happened with the borehole is that 15 several ranches were negotiating some loans from their 16 bank for their current operating system, season, they 17 didn't want to let their banker know what was 18 happening because they were afraid they were going to 19 have to put up more collateral.

20 Another rancher who wanted to get his 21 ranch evaluated was told that he couldn't do it now 22 because he didn't know the effects of the borehole 23 site that was awfully close to his ranch, what that 24 economic effect would be, but it would be negative.

25 79 So I think this -- A lot of things have 1 already been said tonight in a sense that I am 2 concerned with, but one of the things that came out in 3 the borehole controversy in Quay County was what was 4 the kill zone.

5 If there was an accident at the disposal 6 site what's the kill zone? It was a 50 mile radius.

7 I want to know what the kill zone is for this site 8 with that southwest wind blowing or -- What is it?

9 This is a much higher level contamination that what we 10 have had, what we were talking about at that borehole.

11 What is the kill zone?

12 Also, you know, the ranchers and 13 businessmen that when we were going through this 14borehole controversy in Quay County they made the 15 statement that death had come to our region with the 16 proposed disposal of high-level nuclear waste.

17 And I want you to think about that, death 18came to our region. We managed to fend it off in this 19 occasion, but, you know, if we are already approved, 20 and this is already approved as a safe storage 21 concept, which I kind of took from your comments that 22 you made, why are we here.

23 You know, I think there is a real issue of 24what we are talking about here. Where is the justice 25 80 in taking out whole regions that never benefitted from 1 building the economy and destroying the economy with 2 waste, high-level waste, that benefitted other 3 economies, where is the justice in that?

4 (Applause) 5MR. HUGHS: You know, we are putting at 6 risk, it's already been mentioned, the infrastructure, 7 huge infrastructure, incalculable costs if anything 8happens. Given that rail accident north of Elida 9there will be spills, the question is how many and 10 where.11 And I think that there are a lot of things 12to evaluate in this and looking at this, this just 13 came out in December, I haven't had a chance to look 14 at a lot of it, but there is a lot of questions in 15 here that have not been answered at this kind of 16 disposal site.

17 You know, what is -- One of the questions, 18how do you retrieve if there are accidents? How do 19you monitor? How do you repair? Those questions have 20 not been answered.

21So I guess in summing up I want to say 22 that the Holtec and Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, and I 23 agree with an earlier statement that, you know, you 24 aren't bad people in the sense that you are trying to 25 81 do us harm, but you are making a huge mistake, and I 1 thank Mr. Heaton and the rest of you involved in that, 2 you are in fact proposing to bring death to New 3 Mexico. Thank you.

4 (Applause) 5MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Ed. Thank 6 you, Ed. And now we are going to go to Patty, Patty 7 Hughs, and then Joy Russell, Dan Holland, Timothy 8 Jennings, Karen Howard-Winters, then Thomas Jennings.

9 Okay, Patty.

10MS. HUGHS: I want to I guess reinforce 11 the comments that Ed made about economic development, 12 whether this is economic development or not.

13 I have an article here from San Onofre who 14 has nuclear waste that wants to see it leave their 15 area and some people may be happy for it to come here.

16 This article says in the search for 17 finding a place to move the 3.55 million pounds of 18 nuclear waste from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating 19 Station one question always come up, sure, it would be 20 great to sent all that spent fuel as far away from the 21 beach as possible but who would ever be willing to 22 accept it.

23 On Thursday night those attending the 24 quarterly meeting of this community engagement panel 25 82 heard from representatives of a private entity wanting 1 to do just that.

2 That person says "one person's waste is 3 another person's most valuable possession" and the 4 Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance wants to build a massive 5 nuclear facility in the desert of Southeast New 6 Mexico.7 He goes on to say "we think it's an 8 important project for us in terms of jobs and capital 9 investment in our part of the State." 10 Unless the NRC can assure us that in 11 transporting 10,000 canisters of high-level nuclear 12 waste across the country handling aging canisters and 13 in doing that that we will never have an accident, I 14 want to say that while the Energy Alliance is looking 15for jobs and capital investment in our part of the 16 State that one accident could take out jobs and 17 capital investment of whatever economy is there.

18 All of the infrastructure that has been 19 built for the oil and gas industry, for the ag 20industry, and for every other enterprise going in 21 southeastern New Mexico, one spill can eliminate all 22 that.23 I was asked when I came in here to show 24 the contents of my purse to one of our security 25 83people. This is what she said, in case I had 1something in it that could do harm to someone else, 2 and I thought that's an interesting question to be 3 asked when we are going to be discussing one of the 4 most dangerous potential things on the planet.

5MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 6 Patty.7 (Applause) 8MR. CAMERON: And now we have Joy Russell 9 from Holtec International. Joy.

10 MS. RUSSELL: Hi, good evening everyone.

11 As Chip said, my name is Joy Russell, I'm the Vice 12 President of Business Development and Communications 13 for Holtec. I've been there for over 21 years.

14 It's my pleasure to be here tonight to 15meet you. I had the opportunity to meet several of 16you earlier at the open house. I appreciate the open 17 dialogue.18 We'll be here after to continue the 19dialogue should you choose to do so. Be happy to 20 provide to you, facts about our Hi-Store facility, 21 facts about storage of spent nuclear fuel, 22 transportation of spent nuclear fuel.

23 And I, overall, I ask, I come here asking 24for your support. I appreciate the sign, could you 25 84put it down because I like to see? Thank you. Thank 1you. Because I know what it says. I like to see what 2 everyone looks like. Thank you.

3 Our partner, the Eddy-Lea Alliance, who 4 members of that Alliance are here tonight, was formed 5 in 2006 to help you diversify the area, the economics 6 of the area and to help encourage economic growth in 7 the area. And we're happy to be a part of that.

8 Holtec International, my company, is a 9strong technology company. We, our core business has 10 been, and is, the storage, the safe storage of spent 11 nuclear fuel and has been for the past 32 years.

12 Sixty percent of the nuclear plants in the 13United States safely use our dry storage equipment 14every day with no issues, no incidents. We're very 15 happy, we're very proud of that.

16 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has 17 licensed all of those systems and they regulate the 18systems. They regulate the industry very rigorously.

19 All of the equipment that we supply from 20Holtec is made here in the United States. We're an 21American Company. We have three manufacturing 22 facilities here in the United States and we are the 23 largest exporter of nuclear products.

24 We have factors in Ohio, Pittsburgh and in 25 85Camden, New Jersey. We're an American Company and 1 we're very proud of that.

2We have an impeccable safety record. None 3 of our equipment has ever experienced a safety issue, 4leak, as you so call it. But I would like to point 5 out, spent nuclear fuel is not a liquid, it can't 6 leak.7 (Applause) 8 MS. RUSSELL: Thank you.

9MR. CAMERON: Okay, let's allow Joy to 10 finish her remarks.

11MS. RUSSELL: Thank you. Thank you. The 12members of Lea asked Holtec to be their partner in 13 2013 after performing a very rigorous evaluation about 14 the safety and security of our dry storage system.

15 Our storage system stores the canister 16 completely below grade. Unlike what we've hear here 17 this evening, it does not sit 12 inches above the 18 ground.19 I ask that you guys come and talk to us, 20 come and get the facts. You need to listen to both 21 sides of the story before you make your decision.

22 That's your prerogative, I understand that.

23Okay. We have asked the NRC to review our 24license application. The NRC will perform a rigorous 25 86 evaluation and review, taking into consideration, all 1of your comments this evening. And we look forward to 2 that review in responding to any information that is 3 requested of us.

4 The people here in the State of New Mexico 5 are very well versed in technology. You have a very 6 technically savvy state, especially in the nuclear 7 technology industry with two national laboratories, 8 both with offices in Carlsbad.

9 You have three air force bases, one Army 10 base. And in this particular area of New Mexico you 11 also have WIPP and Urenco.

12 The geology, the site characteristics, 13 environment and other factors in this region are 14 actually idea and very well suited for the storage of 15 spent nuclear fuel.

16 (Off microphone comment) 17MS. RUSSELL: Our goal is to offer a 18 temporary, safe and secure used fuel storage facility 19 to store the nation's used nuclear fuel. We vow, we 20 commit to be good stewards of the environment and also 21 good neighbors.

22MR. CAMERON: And if you could just sum up 23 for us, Joy.

24 MS. RUSSELL: Absolutely.

25 87 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

1MS. RUSSELL: And I look forward to 2 speaking with any of you that wish to speak with us.

3 Again, my colleagues and our partners from Lea will be 4 in the adjacent room after. Thank you very much for 5 your time and your attention.

6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Joy. Thank you 7 very much. Thank you. Dan. Dan Holland? And then 8 Karen. Oh, come on, Karen. Go ahead.

9 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: I wore this for you 10 all.11 (Laughter) 12MR. CAMERON: Karen, you're using your 13 time, but you can do it.

14 (Off record comments) 15MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: Okay, thank you so 16very much. I want to thank the Nuclear Regulatory 17 Commission for this opportunity to speak to you this 18 evening.19 And thank you, Ms. Russell and all of the 20people from Holtec. I know you all folks are not bad 21 people, I know you're not.

22 And you don't mean to do any harm, 23personally. And I understand that. And all the other 24 folks here understand that, you all are not bad 25 88 people.1 But one accident could just blow the whole 2game. And even though it may not be your fault or it 3 could be a slip or something could happen, you know, 4who knows. Accidents happen. And, it could just ruin 5 the whole ball game.

6We didn't make this. We didn't make this, 7this stuff. This stuff is made on the east coast, 8it's made on the west coast. We didn't make it, we 9 didn't benefit from it, I don't believe that it should 10 come here.

11 I live in Odessa. I live 202 miles away 12from here. Although I live very close to Andrews, and 13 that's another thing that we're talking about, I just 14 don't think that it's a good idea to move this, to 15 have an interim site. I think we need to have a 16 permanent site if you all are going to move it all, 17 okay.18The karst topography, huge. Just like the 19gentleman was saying, this place is sinking. You all 20 really need to take a look at what's going on with the 21 earth.22 That alone, without any even accidents of 23 human causes, nature has got a really big thing to do 24with this that none of us have control over. None of 25 89us. Only, that guy up there or her, whoever, has got 1 a big thing to do with this.

2 Also, we got bad people who might want to 3 drop a bomb, human domestic, I mean, enemies domestic, 4 foreign.5And the oil. The oil, we are the largest, 6 the Permian Basin has got the largest oil field in the 7 country. If anything happens to that, like that guy 8 was saying, we're shot, okay.

9 The railcars, we have got antiquated 10rails. And the infrastructure, the bridges, our 11 bridges are D minuses, how are we going to get that 12 heavy stuff across there?

13 I mean, you know, these, and we're not 14thinking about this stuff. Notification. All the 15 cities that are, these railcars are going through, 16these people really need to be notified. They need to 17 have a say in this.

18 People in New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama 19 and Charlottesville, North Carolina, they all need to 20have a hearing like we were having. They're important 21 too.22 I mean, our lives, out here, have just as 23much meaning as those lives do on the east coast. And 24 if they want to get rid of it, you know, why is my 25 90 life less important than theirs.

1 You got to follow the money. I mean, no 2 offense to you all folks at Holtec --

3 (Laughter) 4MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: -- I'm sorry, but you 5 all people can come in here and build this thing, make 6 money, 40 years later, you're gone.

7MR. CAMERON: And, Cinthya, could you sum 8 up for us too please?

9 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: Yes, sir.

10 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

11 MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: And the stuff could 12 still be here. The permanent site may not be built, 13 we don't know. We don't know into the future.

14 And the people who also live here and have 15 got the jobs there, we have to stay here. Our lives 16 are here.17 So, there is so many things that we 18haven't thought of yet. It's just not, it's just not 19 thought out yet, we need to think some more about this 20 before we do it, please.

21 And, again, I thank you for the 22 opportunity to --

23MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 24 Karen.25 91MS. HOWARD-WINTERS: You're welcome.

1 Thank you.

2MR. CAMERON: And, thank you, Karen. I 3usually don't do this, oh, good. I wanted to make 4 sure that my NRC colleagues did not miss anything that 5 you had to say so I was going to call a bathroom break 6 for them but I think that that's being taken care of.

7 How about, I guess Dan Holland is not here 8anymore. How about Timothy Jennings? Timothy and 9 then Thomas Jennings and Sean McDaniels, Ronda 10 Suderman King.

11 Okay, go ahead, Timothy.

12 MR. TIM JENNINGS: I'm Timothy Jennings, 13 I've been elected official in this area for 38 years.

14 I represent, I'm probably one of the, the only elected 15 official who was here when we started, when they had 16 the hearings on WIPP.

17My brother is also here. We both attended 18 the hearings on WIPP. And I will just tell you, for 19 something that started out as being nothing more than 20 transuranic waste, nothing but gloves and equipment, 21 we seem to have gone a little further a stream then 22 what they told us then.

23 Now, I would just tell you, in any public 24 hearing I hope our congressional delegation will be 25 92 informed in the manner in which this public hearing 1 has been held.

2 Number one, anybody who comes to a public 3 hearing should be able to be free to express for or 4 against any idea without any fear of anyone clapping, 5any retribution, anybody saying anything. They should 6 have that. And that has not happened here.

7 If you want to have a public hearing in 8 Albuquerque, have it, but don't come to Roswell and 9 tell the people in Roswell that they have to wait for 10 three hours or four hours more than they were supposed 11to, to come to a public hearing. When it was 4:00 to 12 7:00, it should have been 4:00 to 7:00.

13 And, you know, I'm just saying, you all 14need, NRC needs to be honest with us. And they 15 certainly weren't honest when they said WIPP was 16 nothing more than transuranic waste.

17 It has not, look at it today, it's not 18there. But that's exactly what they said, and we have 19 film, I think Pete White filmed it. So just look at 20 that.21 Now, I'm going to tell you that I think 22 when you look at this stuff, look at what you're doing 23 and come back and have a public hearing that is 24 meaningful and not one that comes in here and it's so 25 93 mismatched.

1 Our University here is placed with 400 2 seats in it, everybody can be there and sit in there.

3 Everybody can see everything that you put on display 4 up there. No one else in the back of the room, only 5 the first three rows can see that stuff.

6 You know what, do a decent public hearing.

7 You're a government employment, you should look after 8 all of us and not just the ones that you want to look 9 after.10 You know what I'm going to tell you, I 11 haven't complained much about WIPP or anything else in 12all my times with Mr. Heaton. I haven't said a whole 13 lot about WIPP being so bad or anything else.

14 WIPP is here because we had very little 15 political clout when it happened, that's why we got 16 it, and so we're making the best of it.

17 But this thing here is, it's 50 miles from 18 our ranch, and like other people from Midland and 19 Texas and everything, I don't have a 160,000 acre 20 ranch, I have one I share with my five other brothers 21and sisters. But you know what, it's just as 22 important to me.

23 And I think we really need to look at that 24 before we go through and you do this stuff, let's have 25 94real decent public hearings. Have some in Hobbs, have 1 some here, have some in Albuquerque, have some in 2Midland. And let's have some real decent public 3 hearings and do a good job of what we're doing and be 4 honest with the people.

5 And just remember that because I tell you, 6 transuranic waste is not what's in that place in WIPP 7now. And that's exactly what the people were told, 8no, don't clap. Please don't do that, that's not fair 9 in a public meeting.

10 But, you know, I spent 38 years doing this 11 stuff, about listening to people, and you need to 12listen as well as learned in the legislature in New 13 Mexico.14And I really, I think this is something 15 that we need to really look at and study very deeply 16 and have more than just six or seven little posters on 17 the wall in there and tell people that's what this is 18about. And so I really hope you will open this up and 19 do it right. Thank you.

20MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 21Timothy. And now we're going to hear from Thomas.

22 Thomas Jennings.

23 MR. TOM JENNINGS: Before my time starts 24I'd like a point of order for this meeting. This 25 95 meeting should be conducted under Robert's Rules of 1 Order.2 And there should be no clapping, cheering, 3 standing up and all that stuff, and the snide comments 4 in the back. So that's with due respect for the way 5 governments are run.

6 And, first of all, thank you for coming 7and listening to us. I too was with the WIPP 8 hearings.9 I went through almost all those hearings.

10 We were promised there would never be high-level waste 11 here.12 And I can tell, George President Bush, 13 Senator Domenici, Senator Bingaman, Representative Joe 14 Skeen, DO Secretary John O'Leary, officials from 15Carlsbad, Hobbs in Lea Counties, all promised that 16there would never be any high-level waste here. We've 17 been lied to, we've been deceived, we've been misled.

18We need to stop that. You need to stop 19 that. We don't want that any more. We're done with 20 that.21 Our roads are bad, you know, they fixed 22our road. Roswell has a two-lane bypass. It's the 23 only WIPP route road in the country with a two-lane.

24 And it has at-grade crossings, which are 25 96dangerous as hell. I've had friends almost killed at 1those crossings. That's not safe. We need to make it 2 safe.3 This Holtec deal, how much money comes out 4 of there for roads, for infrastructure, for training 5 for our emergency preparedness, not a damn dime, 6nothing. We got that with WIPP. We don't get 7 anything with Holtec.

8 And I'm in the oil business, and I'm 9 drilling more wells this year than I ever have in my 10whole life. And the Permian Basin is the hottest oil 11 play in the world.

12 There is major oil companies spending 13 literally multi-billions of dollars in this field.

14 And to put this, whatever it is in the ointment --

15 PARTICIPANT: Fly.

16MR. TOM JENNINGS: -- fly in the ointment, 17 I was going to say turd, but it should be fly in the 18 ointment, is wrong.

19You know, what happens if there is an 20 accident, what happens to our budget of our state?

21 Most of the money comes from the oil extracted 22 industries, including oil.

23 What happens to the State Permanent Fund?

24 If there is a reaction or there is incident or 25 97 accident, that funding will go away and we're going to 1 have to stop and shutdown the oil business.

2 And all my life savings is in the oil 3field. And I'll probably be broke. And I don't think 4that's fair to me. I don't think that we should have 5 this slammed down our throat.

6 It might be good for Carlsbad and Hobbs 15 7years ago, but today with the oil business, the way 8 the technology is, it's all technology driven.

9Horizontal wells, three miles long. Think 10how long of a threat that is. Underground lateral 11 costing millions, multimillions of dollars.

12 Technology, this is all technology driven.

13 We don't have the technology developed to store this 14 stuff in Southeast New Mexico.

15 MR. CAMERON: And, Thomas, can I get you 16 to sum up for us please?

17 MR. TOM JENNINGS: Okay. And, you know, 18 there is a lot of other businesses that are related.

19We have a lot of agriculture. If you look 20 at the Pecos River Valley, all the dairies, all that 21 stuff comes in on railroads and all that sand comes in 22on for fracking, all the feed for dairies. You know, 23 it would be devastating to our industry in this area.

24 I know we need jobs, but we don't need bad 25 98jobs. This is like 55 jobs. Thanks for listening, 1and I would ask you to refrain from clapping and 2 cheering and all that stuff because it's 3 inappropriate.

4MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 5 Thomas. Sean. Sean McDaniels?

6Ronda Suderman King? Karen Hadden? I 7know Karen is here. Oh, wait a minute, let's see if, 8 is this, no, that's not Ronda. Go ahead, Karen.

9 And then we're going to go to Mary Beth.

10No? Okay. Noel Marquez, Patricia Cardona and Lon 11 Burnham. Okay. And this is Karen Hadden.

12MS. HADDEN: Good evening, my name is 13 Karen Hadden, I'm the director of a nonprofit 14 organization called SEED Coalition, Sustainable Energy 15 and Economic Development Coalition.

16 There are so many reasons why I think this 17project ought to be withdrawn. This and WCS. Many 18 speakers have made those comments.

19 This is not the right place for high-level 20 radioactive waste. There is no justice. It doesn't 21 make sense, and it is not safe.

22 In one of your first slides you mentioned 23that you're here to ensure that it's safe. We're 24 here, I think you can get the message from the people 25 99in this room tonight, it is not safe. Let's be clear 1 about that.

2 And I've read through the documents, and 3 I've never seen an application like this that is so 4full of holes. Its half done. It's sort of like the 5karst topography which is Swiss cheese. It's like the 6 same thing. There is so much information missing.

7 And I've looked back, this land is the 8 exact same site for the GNET Project that was proposed 9years ago. For decades, there are some people in this 10 area who have been trying to bring in deadly poison 11and I don't know why. It's got to be greed, there is 12 no other good explanation.

13 And when you compare that previous 14 application and you look at the environmental 15 analysis, you will find that it is much more complete 16 than what is passing for an environmental report 17today. So in your review, I urge you to go back to 18that original document and study it and add in what 19 has been left out.

20 I also encourage you to look at climate 21 change, which to the best of my knowledge, is not 22being considered. And to look at the new SMU report.

23 There are so many factors that need to be considered 24 in this analysis.

25 100 Furthermore, when you come to 1alternatives, let's really consider some. Not just 2whether to do this site or not, let's consider what 3alternatives that land could be used for. Whatever it 4 may be because there are many.

5 And there are many ways to build the 6economy and to build this community. And everybody 7wants that. But why risk everything existing for a 8 few jobs and for money for some people.

9 I think the application should make clear 10 some things that are not clear. How much money, who 11gets it, how does it get distributed. And I found 12 myself trying to find an analogy for this.

13 It was very late at night and I was like, 14 this is all about paying people to do what no one else 15will do. Nobody on the east coast wants it, nobody on 16 the west coast wants this stuff so it's like, let's 17find a community that we can bride. How much money is 18 it going to take, what will it take.

19 And so I started thinking about the fact 20 that, okay, I like rattlesnakes, I'm fine with them, 21 but I kind of like them where they are, they have 22 their role, their place in nature. I have no desire 23to have a lose rattlesnake in my bedroom. And you 24could not pay me to, any amount of money, to have a 25 101rattlesnake in my bedroom loose for 24 hours2.777778e-4 days <br />0.00667 hours <br />3.968254e-5 weeks <br />9.132e-6 months <br />. That 1 would be a deadly poison.

2 And then you could not even pay me more to 3 do it for a year or 100 or 120 years, nor could you 4 give me any money that would say, okay, we're going to 5 keep adding snakes, so there is 10,000 of them in your 6 room over 20 years.

7 And you know, I can see some fancy math 8 because I look at the license application and I see 9 these fancy formulas that reduce it down to no risk 10because it's never happened before. Well, I'll bet 11 every single one of 10,000 snakes never bit anybody 12 before, but I'll bet if you put them all in my room I 13 get bitten. And who knows if I'd survive.

14 And I know that this is a very strange 15 analyses but, you know, I think this high-level 16 radioactive waste is a thousand times more risky than 17 the rattlesnake that never bit anybody.

18 And I don't by this mathematical magic 19 where we say, it's never happen before so it's not 20going to. NRCs own studies done for Yucca Mountain 21 show that accidents are going to happen, the question 22 is, how fast.

23 The testing, we see posters of the 24testing. That testing has mostly been computer 25 102 modeling, it is not full-scale testing.

1 A lot of times it can be small scale 2 testing, in a few instances, and they don't tell you 3 the full picture. They don't tell you what happened 4 after the test period, they don't tell you all the 5 details.6 We have already had train crashes head-on, 7 65 miles per hour in West Texas.

8MR. CAMERON: Can you sum up for us Karen?

9MS. HADDEN: I will. That exceeds all of 10 the testing that's been done.

11 Furthermore, I think that this license 12application needs to clarify. Because it says, 13 conflicting things on many points.

14 One of them who would have title to the 15waste, whether it's DOE or private hands. That has 16 got to be made clear because depending on that is 17 whether this is legal to move forward at all.

18 Secondly, there are two different numbers 19 for the tons of waste and there is not total number of 20waste. So, if you do 8,680 tons for 500 canisters 21times 20, you come out with 173,000 tons of waste, 22 whereas we are told this is going to be kept at 23 100,000. This needs to be clarified.

24 I will wrap-up in just a moment.

25 103 Furthermore, there needs to be a legal description of 1 the property because how can we, as members of the 2 public, truly analyze the site and get down into the 3 exact environmental issues when the defining 4boundaries are not given. I cannot understand why 5 that is not in there.

6 The heavy train cars need to be looked at 7 and the crumbling infrastructure of the rail lines.

8 Thank you.

9MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, Karen. Can 10 we have Noel Marquez? Okay, hi, Noel. Go ahead.

11MR. MARQUEZ: Hello, my name is Noel 12Marquez. I'm from the rural area of Artesia, New 13Mexico. The Town of Artesia is one of many rural 14 communities in New Mexico being left out of these NRC 15 hearings.16 I am the face of ground zero and the 17 father of this 11 year-old-daughter here that always 18 ask, why is that old people always make rules and 19 choices without considering us and future generations.

20 The NRC and Holtec International are 21 intentionally drowning the voices of thousands, if not 22 millions, of New Mexico people by limiting our 23 participation in the destination outcome of this 24 extremely hazardous and toxic waste proposal.

25 104Your rush to make this Holtec dump a 1 nightmare for us who live along the railroad tracks, 2 that only have one home, and we plant our own gardens, 3 we are outraged that you would disregard our families 4 and children and unborn generations.

5 Your nuclear regulated industries have 6 little consideration for our livelihoods and our 7 native people of the State of New Mexico. Nuclear 8 power plants want to pass on their worst waste 9 product, spent uranium fuel rods where it is now 10 currently in a safer mode of storage to a centralized 11 temporary storage facility.

12 Who can blame them, it's killer stuff.

13 And for the most part, 80 percent of our communities 14 in New Mexico do not know what the NRC and Holtec are 15 planning.16 And the issue as critically important as 17 this one, there should be an available environment 18 impact study available in English, Spanish and Navajo.

19 With plenty of time to inform the public through 20 newspaper, radio, television, billboards and other 21 public spaces in order for us to make an informed 22 decision.23 Thirty state representatives wrote a 24 letter to you, the NRC, to slow the process down for 25 105 this same purpose and you denied the request. The 1 reality is we don't live in the People First Democracy 2 but rather a Money Power First Reality, and the NRC is 3 their tomb.

4 The science and technology of your 5 experiments are always flawed as we have seen the WIPP 6 in Los Alamos where the nuclear industries are always 7 desecrating more of our lands, air and water.

8 Billions of tax payer dollars are being spent at WIPP 9 to repair the damages.

10 The State of New Mexico is already 11 overburden with ten official radioactive dumps. And 12 now you want to crown us with this worst possible dump 13 ever.14 Our current and future generations would 15 have suffered this stigma and health consequences for 16 hundreds, if not thousands of year, for being crowned 17 the official nuclear dump of America. Many possible 18 better job industries will reconsider before coming to 19 our hazardous radioactive waste first state.

20 The plain and simple truth is the ionizing 21 radiation hazards will not be contained to the Holtec 22 Site. My daughter always says, what makes you think 23 you can control the molecules.

24 (Laughter) 25 106MR. MARQUEZ: It will contaminate more and 1 more lands through the transportation route, railway 2 accidents from the eastern and western United States, 3 accidents, acts of terrorism, weather related causes 4 and sinkhole geology from the nearby extractive 5 industries.

6 There is also major concern of 7 contamination that the site with casks, that are made 8 for temporary storage, but will probably never make it 9 out of New Mexico.

10 Holtec's guinea pig experiment is to stack 11 these casks on top of each other, which has never been 12 done before.

13MR. CAMERON: And, Noel, can I get you to 14 sum up for us please?

15MR. MARQUEZ:

Well, the State of New 16 Mexico deserves better than this low-quality science 17 scheme and we will never consent to poisoning our 18 current and future generations. Thank you.

19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 20 much. Patricia? Patricia Cardona.

21 (Off microphone comment) 22 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

23 (Off microphone comment) 24MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks, Patricia. How 25 107 about Lon Burnham? Aha, here he is.

1MR. BURNHAM: So, good evening, my name is 2 Lon Burnham and I live in Fort Worth, Texas but I was 3 born in Artesia and my mother went to public school 4 there, my grandparents are buried there and I've come 5 to this part of the world every year of my life.

6 Sixty-five of them now.

7 I was also in the Texas legislature for 18 8 years and known as like the environmental activist in 9the Texas Legislature. And one of the thing in the 10 environmental, I always call it the DREG committee 11 because that's the nature of Texas politics.

12 In theory, it's about protecting people's 13health. And there is a permitting process. And I 14 always remind people, the permitting process is 15 permission from the government to pollute your air and 16 water.17 And so the question is, we now have an 18application to pollute the air and water. It is 19inherently a polluting activity. And the question is, 20 just how dangerous is this and what are the 21 probabilities, what kind of risk management are we 22 looking at.

23 In the environmental reg committee of the 24 Texas House of Representatives, we talked about 25 108 cumulative impacts of air pollution permits. If you 1 were to do a proper environmental impact statement, 2 you will take into consideration the cumulative 3impacts on the communities of New Mexico, starting 4 with the mining process where the Denae (phonetic) had 5 been so polluted that they died disproportionately of 6 cancer for any population in the country.

7 You will think about the cumulative 8 impacts on the plutonium that's already in the Rio 9 Grande River, which is a water supply for people from 10 Santa Fe downstream from them.

11 You will think about the cumulative 12 impacts of the three-year hiatus of the WIPP site.

13 What if that had been worse, what if that had been an 14 accident above ground, what kind of economic impacts 15 are we talking about?

16 See, I think the system is fundamentally 17 flawed because the NRC does not exist to support 18public health and welfare in the environment. The NRC 19 exists to serve as a Chamber of Commerce Agency of a 20 fundamentally flawed, and I think immoral industry.

21 I take it as immoral to split the atom and create 22 plutonium.

23 So I agree with the earlier speakers, the 24Faith Community. We are committing a sin against 25 109 creation and it is a cumulative impact as the NRC has, 1 as Kevin tried to point out with his question that was 2 parse the nuance, they've never denied a permit to 3pollute our air/water and soil. They have never shown 4 restraint that needs to be shown.

5 So I would ask each of you, as a person of 6 conscious, as Bishop Matthiesen said to the Pantex 7 workers, resign your post, you work for a 8 fundamentally flawed agency that is not about 9 protecting the health and welfare, it is about 10 corporate greed and corporate money, it is time to put 11 an end to this.

12 A true environmental impact statement will 13look at the concerns that I talked to Jose about. You 14know, I live within a mile of Tower 55. The 15 transportation system in this country is fundamentally 16 flawed.17The railroad system is not owed by the 18national government, they don't have to take this 19 product. And they can't.

20 A lot of those bridges you know are over 21a hundred years old. My grandfather worked on the 22 Santa Fe Railroad, they're fundamentally flawed.

23 The process here is fundamentally flawed 24 because you are serving the industry that you're 25 110supposed to be protecting us from. Thank you for your 1 time.2MR. CAMERON: All right, thank you. Thank 3 you, Lon. Rose, would you come up and talk to us?

4 And then we're going to go to Bobbi 5 Reydel, Robin Gail Seydel, John Buchser and Linda 6 Squire and Allen Squire. Rose.

7MS. GARDENER: Hi everybody, I'm Rose 8Gardner, I'm from Eunice, New Mexico. I'm also a 9 founder of the Alliance for Environmental Strategies.

10 I'm here to tell Holtec hell no, we don't 11want it. I am so sick and tired of all these big 12 companies coming into New Mexico or close to my town 13in Eunice, wanting to give us all this crap. This 14 crap that could kill us.

15 And you know what, these folks are sitting 16 up in their little mansions in New York, Minnesota, 17 San Antonio, heck, I don't know where you live and I 18 really don't care.

19 (Laughter) 20MS. GARDENER: But I am concerned about 21 the transportation issue of this cargo, 10,000 cargo 22 cars. They're already too heavy. They're too heavy 23 for the cars, they're too heavy for the railways.

24 I'm also concerned about the impacts that 25 111 it's going to have on the oil and gas and potash 1 industries.

2 Also, how is the health and welfare going 3to be considered in this area. We're already poor.

4 We don't have insurance. You got to have a good job 5 to get good insurance.

6 I'm also concerned that these canisters 7are inferior. Do you realize there are canisters out 8 there this thick and we're settling for something 9 that's this thick? That's stupid.

10 I'm also concerned that the waste will 11 never be moved. We already know that 120 years will 12be way longer than any of us in this room. My little 13 Pai there, it will be past her lifestyle, my time.

14This isn't the right thing to do. It's an 15 injustice to this state, to this community, to these 16 peoples.17 Most of the people in this area are like 18 me, Brown-skinned or darker. We speak another 19 language and we're at least 50 percent here.

20 And that's an environmental injustice 21 because they're basically saying it's okay to duck 22 because those people aren't going to speak up, because 23 they can get run over just like they've been run over 24 for the last several hundred years.

25 112 What I do think ought to happen is that 1 those big containers that I'm talking about, ought to 2be implemented at all nuclear facilities now. They 3 should be protected from that nasty waste that's been 4 created.5 They've had to live with it for this long, 6 they're going to have to live with it a little longer.

7 Let's make it safe for them until a permanent 8repository is found. Let's make sure that they're 9going to be okay, that they're babies are okay and 10 that they're babies are okay.

11 One thing I wanted to mention is that, I 12think it's already been mentioned that there were 13 about 30 political leaders in our state that sign on 14to a letter to the NRC that asked for more time. I 15 have copies of the letter in the other room if you 16 want to review it, and you can see some of those 17 people who signed that letter.

18 But then we got seven other, apparently 19more qualified, more intelligent, maybe they are on 20the take, I don't know. But Senator Carroll Leavell, 21 Senator Gay Kernan, Senator Ron Griggs, Representative 22 Cathrynn Brown, Representative Jim Townsend, 23 Representative Larry Scott and Representative David 24 Gallegos, how dare you.

25 113 How dare you withhold evidence, material 1 that they need to know to make fair decisions about me 2and my family. How dare they. They are wrong and 3 they should be called out on it.

4And you know what, they got voted into 5 office, let's boot them out. Thank you.

6MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, Rose.

7 I promised one of the public that I would 8put one thing out that he wanted to say. This is Bob 9Press. I don't know if any of you know him but his 10 ride was leaving so he just wanted me to offer one 11comment for him. And as the Facilitator, I'll do 12 that.13 He said that this should be put before, it 14should be put on the ballot in New Mexico about 15whether this facility should be here or not. So I 16 offer that, for him.

17And is Bobbi, Bobbi Reydel? This is 18Bobbi. Hi, Bobbi. And then we're going to go to 19Robin Gail Seydel and John Buchser. And the Squire's.

20 (Speaking foreign language) 21MS. SCHROM: I can do this in both English 22 and Spanish, but I don't know how many people speak 23 Spanish here in this room, but I'm here representing 24 Hispanic Women in Science.

25 114 My name is not Bobbi, my name is Jenna 1 Schrom, but she gave me her place to speak to you 2 tonight, so I just want to say that I'm woman, I'm 3Hispanic and I'm coming from a very conservative 4 Catholic family.

5 And I grew in a place where I was raised 6 to be intuitive and to always make questions about how 7to make this world a better place. So, and one of the 8 other things that is also very important to mention, 9 is that I'm coming from this new generation.

10 So, and I'm here to give voice to this new 11 generation. And the reason why I am here is because 12 I decided to choose a career that is going to change 13 people's lives in a positive way, and that is nuclear 14engineering. Because I do believe that nuclear 15 engineers will be able to provide a better future for 16 everybody.

17 So, I think that this consolidated interim 18storage is going to work. So, I know that many people 19 don't agree to that, but I mean, we need to use facts.

20 And I don't know if you guys have already checked the 21 reports, environmental reports, all the information is 22 there.23 And the other thing that I would like to 24 mention is, that thousands of people in this world, 25 115they benefit from nuclear industry. Thousands of 1people. So, that's also something that we need to be 2 aware of.3 So, one of the things that I've been 4 seeing, while being in this industry, is that I can 5smell the fear of the oil industry. I can smell it in 6 this room unfortunately.

7 So we know, actually, we already 8 transferred spent fuel and we haven't had a single 9accident. So I am here, as a woman, as a Hispanic, as 10 a millennial, to bring innovative ideas in the nuclear 11 industrial realm.

12 And also, I have a moral obligation to 13defend our future. And I believe that ignorance is a 14 very dangerous weapon, so I am here to defend this 15 future with knowledge and facts.

16 So, all the technical details about 17 security in environmental aspect, if they have been 18 realized, they have been checked already. But we're 19 still dealing with ignorance and that's why I'm here 20 because I believe that the nuclear industry is going 21 to regenerate the world in a positive way.

22And I know, even do you guys want it or 23 not, we are getting benefits from nuclear industry 24already. So, that's all that I am going to say 25 116 tonight because we already have all the records and 1 everything out there.

2 And I will invite you, everybody, to read 3 and to learn a little bit more. Thank you so much.

4MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Robin? Robin 5 Seydel.6MS. SEYDEL: Thank you so much. Thank you 7for your patience. I really appreciate you all being 8here. It was good to talk to some of you earlier. I 9 really appreciated that.

10 (Off microphone comment) 11MS. SEYDEL: This mic? This mic. Oh, 12 okay, I got the right mic now.

13So, I live two miles from the railroad 14 tracks and the transportation issue is very concerning 15to me. And just because there hasn't been an accident 16 doesn't mean that there wouldn't be an accident.

17 And really, statistically speaking, when 18 there hasn't been an accident yet, you have a greater 19 possibility or probability of having that accident 20 soon.21 I also ran a small food company for almost 22 35 years and we built six stores, six retail stores, 23 we employed 300 people and we worked with over 300 24farmers around the state. So, any kind of accident 25 117 could cause for us what people are calling radioactive 1 stigma.2 Which is, that all of those farmers, that 3$40 million business, which is really a drop in the 4 bucket when you think that the, just the dairy 5 industry alone is worth about $5 billion annually in 6 New Mexico, our $40 million looks really tiny. But, 7 it's the livelihood of 600 people.

8 And to trade that for a mere 55 jobs just 9doesn't make sense. And it seems that it's really not 10 a very well thought out project.

11 One of the things that your poster said is 12 that you're taking into consideration socioeconomic 13 issues. And so that to me is really important, that 14 you could bring, for 55 jobs, right, you could take 15 away 23,000 jobs in the dairy industry and our messily 16 little 600 jobs, 300 farmers and their livelihood and 17 300 retail grocery store workers.

18 So I would ask you also, if you've never 19 denied a project before, maybe now is the time to 20change that record. That you take a good look at 21 what's happening.

22 People here have so much more 23 technological knowledge than I have, and so I would 24 say to you, many people have spoken much more 25 118 eloquently than I could, but it's really time to deny 1 a project.

2 And I also would say that you need to, and 3 I'll wrap-up in a second, that you would need to 4 include in your financial strategies and information, 5 the alternatives of what happens if the dairy industry 6 goes down and how are you going to indemnify people, 7how are you going to reimburse all of those people 8 whose livelihood is one little accident, one little 9 leak has taken away.

10And so, that's really important. And that 11 needs to be in your environmental impact statement, 12 how much, where are you going to find the money, who's 13 going to cover that insurance cost, how are you going 14 to make all of us whole who might experience an 15 accident who live along the railroad lines, who farm, 16 who do all that. So, I would ask that.

17And, Rose, you were so eloquent and so 18 beautiful and so many people here have such deep 19 spiritual and social and cultural concerns and all of 20 that needs to be written really clearly in your 21environmental impact statement. And I really look 22 forward to seeing you again at the EIS draft hearings.

23 Thank you so much for your time.

24MR. CAMERON: No, thank you. Thank you 25 119 very much. John. Is it cold?

1MR. BUCHSER: Hi, my name is John Buchser, 2 I live in Santa Fe. I have lived in New Mexico most 3 of my life and I have come to love New Mexico and I 4 even come to love Texans.

5 (Laughter) 6MR. BUCHSER: They bring a lot of money to 7 our state and by golly, they are pretty nice people.

8 I think that Holtec is actually providing 9 a needed solution, however, they are proposing to use 10 it in an extremely inappropriate manner.

11 Currently, nuclear reactors produce 12 electricity. I use a lot of it, but I think we have 13 other alternatives at this point in time.

14 When a reactor fuel rods are used up they 15 are placed into fuel pools, and that's actually the 16 most vulnerable part of the fuel process after the 17used fuel. Then it's placed into a cask and left, at 18 present, it's mostly left onsite.

19 It may actually be that leaving the waste 20 for a longer period of time, at ground level, is good 21because it generates a lot of thermal heat. And if 22 you stick it in a long-term facility, it may not work 23out so well because of the amount of heat generated 24 that's not dissipated.

25 120We should be looking at a process that 1 considers potentially a waste site in every single 2 state, because this problem is not just New Mexico's, 3it's everybody's problem. Until a permanent solution 4 is determined, the waste should not move unless it's 5 a high-risk location.

6 San Onofre is a good example. It's both 7 at risk due to tsunami, due to corrosion from salt 8 water and from being very close to a fault line.

9 Potential destinations for this waste, 10 that's particularly high-risk, could be Military bases 11or nearby reactor sites that are already guarded. The 12 Holtec site is not a controlled airspace.

13 The public along routes needs to be 14 engaged on a regular basis not grandfathered in 15 because of a past NRC decision.

16We should stop creating this waste. We 17 should not reprocess it and perpetuate the problem.

18 We have a super nuclear reaction a few million away, 19 the waste is handled, our atmosphere deals with what 20waste products come our way. Let's use that, let's 21 not turn Southeast New Mexico and West Texas into a 22 waste site. Thank you.

23MR. CAMERON: Thank you, John. Thank you 24very much. Is Linda Squire or Allen Squire, Linda, 25 121 come on up. Please, talk to us.

1MS. SQUIRE: Thank you for hearing us 2 tonight. My name is Linda Squire and my husband and 3 I are here to speak tonight because of our experiences 4 owning and running a dairy in Hagerman, New Mexico.

5 My husband and I are both veterinarians.

6 We both graduated from Ohio State University in 1975.

7 And I was one of the first women to be allowed into 8 vet school in any great numbers and I remember well 9 being a woman in a man's profession.

10 And I will say to some of the younger 11 people here that I believe that, I thought I knew more 12 when I graduated than after I had worked for an older 13 veterinarian who was about 65 years old, worked for 14him for a couple years. So there is a learning curve 15 to all professions.

16 One book that I have found helpful 17recently is a book called Nuclear Wastelands. And it 18 gives a history of the nuclear industry and all things 19 nuclear. So that's a really good reference book.

20 For the past 25 years our family has had 21 this farm and I believe that a serious incident at a 22 nuclear storage facility, in really close proximity to 23 the dairy farms, could have a really serious negative 24impact on the local economy. I also see this facility 25 122 as a potential health threat to myself and my herd.

1 Animals can serve as sentinels to warn us 2of impending human health issues. Animals all around 3 us are telling us about the effects of exposure to 4 radioactive materials.

5 The materials can enter the bodies of the 6 animals through the respiratory tract or through 7 inhalation of airborne particles, followed by 8 deposition in lung tissue or absorption into the blood 9 stream.10 Entry into the gastrointestinal system is 11also possible. If the animal drinks contaminated 12 water or eats plants that have been contaminated with 13 radioactive elements.

14 And radionuclides absorption can also 15 occur across the skin. Direct skin contact.

16 Most of the uranium, thorium and radium, 17 taken in orally, will be eliminated by the kidneys and 18via the intestinal tract. But the fact that these 19 elements are of the heavy metal category means that a 20 certain amount of each of these will end up being 21 deposited in bone where they will be sequestered for 22 a very long time.

23 In the early 1990's, New Mexico 24 Environment Department, Division, Environment 25 123 Improvement Division, found high radionuclide levels 1 in cattle that were raised in proximity to abandoned 2 uranium mines and mills. Levels of uranium in the 3 kidneys of these cattle were found to be over eight 4 times the levels of the control animals.

5 Concentrations of Radium 226 in the femur 6 bones, of exposed cattle, were almost 50 times the 7level of the control animals. And this is from the 8 New Mexico Environment and Improvement Division.

9 Rabbits captured near tailings piles near 10Grants were found to have radium concentration in 11 muscle that was about four to 40 times the background 12 levels.13 Strontium 90 can enter the food chain when 14 it falls from the air as fallout, onto grasses or 15 forages that are then eaten by a cow. Later it can 16 appear in the cow's milk. Eventually it may deposit 17in the bones of a milk drinker. Strontium 90 from 18 fallout has also been detected in deer bone, antlers 19 and teeth.

20 Isotopes of iodine can also be taken in 21 with forages and they can appear in milk and it can 22 potentially cause thyroid cancers in the consumer.

23 Cesium 137 is another one that can appear in meat and 24 milk.25 124 After the Chernobyl incident, there were 1 reports of wild boar, who had eaten mushrooms, which 2bioaccumulate radionuclides. And these wild boar, 3 which are considered a delicacy in that area, were 4declared unfit for human consumption because of the 5 radionuclide contamination.

6 So, after many years, contaminated regions 7 are still dangerous, potentially, because wildfires 8 can release the stored radioactive elements that the 9plants have absorbed. So during a smoke incident, 10 animals and plants downwind of the burn can actually 11 become contaminated by virtue of the smoke.

12 Fifty years after two plutonium fires that 13 have occurred at the Rocky Flats facility north of 14 Denver, they did some studies on deer carcasses and 15 they still found that two of the analyses for the 16 various isotopes still exceeded the thresholds for 17"acceptable risk range associated with ingestion of 18 those tissues." 19 The Hanford site in Washington, the Idaho 20 National Laboratories, Fernald in Ohio, Oak Ridge in 21 Tennessee and Pantex in Texas, and the Savannah River 22 site are all just a few of the glaring examples of 23 what can go wrong when government fails to provide 24 reasonable planning, oversight and management of 25 125 dangerous facilities and then chooses to ignore and 1 minimize the damage.

2MR. CAMERON: And, Linda, can I ask you to 3 sum up?4 MS. SQUIRE: Sure.

5 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

6MS. SQUIRE: For the past five years I've 7 been doing an independent study of geographical areas 8 that have been recognized as places where human or 9 animal prion diseases have occurred.

10 I've looked at clusters of chronic wasting 11disease in deer and elk. I've examined the sparse 12 information out there about BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jakob 13 disease, which is the human form of BSE.

14 I've identified four factors that seem to 15 be present in almost every location that I study.

16 Radionuclide contamination, the presence of various 17 heavy metals, including manganese and lead in many of 18 the sites.

19 Fluorides is another thing that's in these 20sites. And aluminum. Usually in the form of 21 bentonite or montmorillonite.

22 So I am urging you to study these clusters 23 of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and BSE and chronic 24wasting disease. If you map up a line, a map of 25 126 Colorado where these diseases occur in deer and elk 1 and you superimpose abandon mine tailings and uranium 2 deposits and the fluoride sites where they have high 3 fluoride in wells and the clays in those formations, 4 you will find that they are almost the identical maps.

5 And I hope that you'll study this because 6it really needs to be studied. If not by your Agency 7 then by possibly the Department of Defense, who are 8 doing active research on prions right now. They are 9 funding prion research.

10 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

11MS. SQUIRE: They must know something that 12 we don't know.

13 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.

14 MS. SQUIRE: Thank you.

15MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Linda. And I 16 would just say that, you know, you have an opportunity 17 to also amplify on your comments by submitting written 18comments. And scientific information, like that, 19 would be appreciated by the NRC.

20 Now we're going to Allen Squire.

21 MR. SQUIRE: My name is Al Squire. It's 22 kind of hard to follow my wife. She does a pretty 23good job. And I think most of the other speakers 24 tonight have already covered most of the points I have 25 127 to say, but I'm going to try to do a few of them again 1 anyway just to kind of refresh your memory.

2 My wife and I moved here 25 years ago, and 3 we built, started building a dairy and we wound up 4currently to where we have 50-some employees. I like 5 to tell you a little bit about the Mexico dairy 6industry. We currently, and somebody else has already 7 used my fire here but I'm going to repeat it anyhow, 8 we currently have a total economic impact in the state 9exceeding $5 billion a year. And that is second only, 10 I guess a pretty small second, to the gas and oil 11 industry as far as contributions to the state and the 12state economy. We're still proud of our industry 13 anyway.14 The dairy industry currently provides 15 employment for nearly 6,000 people directly and over 16 17,000 people indirectly with the various businesses 17that we do business with.

Part of that is the fact 18 that we ship our milk to two of the largest cheese 19 plants in the world, the Leprino plant in Roswell and 20Southwest Cheese in Clovis. So if you compare that to 21 the number of jobs that Holtec is planning on having, 22 I think 50 or 60 jobs there, I think we have a fairly 23 major contribution to the state.

24 A large majority of our feeds that we do 25 128 not raise come in on railcars, and so they'll be using 1the same transportation routes that these fuel rods 2 would be using. A lot of the feeds that we raise we 3 have to have irrigation, so we depend on clean water 4 not only for our cows to drink but also for raising 5the crops. Basically, everything we do has to be 6 really, really clean, and we depend on a really clean 7water supply with no contaminants in it to feed our 8 dairies and our cows and calves.

9 Our dairy industry depends upon being able 10 to deliver a very safe and wholesome nutritious dairy 11product, milk. Any hint of radioactive contamination 12 of any of our feed, any of our milk supply, would 13cause an immediate loss of our markets for milk and 14beef. That actually happened after the Three Mile 15Island accident in Pennsylvania. They told people put 16 your cows in the barn and just feed them stored feed, 17we don't know what's going to happen. Well, we can't 18 really do that out here.

19 I guess one of the biggest concerns we 20have is then what do we do? If we have a 21 contamination, if we have something that was as 22 substantial as what happened in Colorado or any of the 23 other nuclear accidents, you know, these are the rods 24 that cause things like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island 25 129 and Fukushima.

1 So what happens if we contaminated our 2feed and our cows and we can't sell the milk? What do 3we do? What do we do? We've got 4,000 cows. We 4 can't sell the milk, we can't afford to keep them, and 5we can't sell the beef. Now, who in the hell is going 6 to be responsible to indemnify the dairy producers for 7something that's happened like that? Who is 8responsible? I want to know who is responsible for 9the liability that is created by this situation? And 10 those of us in the southern part of the state know 11 this well: we feed the rest of the state, not only the 12 dairy industry, the ranching industry, the gas and oil 13industry. The rest of the state lives off of us. So 14 whatever happens down here, negative or positive, 15 affects the rest of our state.

16 And I guess I'm going to close with the 17 age old comment, don't poop where you eat.

18MR. CAMERON: Okay, Al. Thank you. We're 19going to go to Melanie Deason. Then we're going to 20 get Kevin Kampus up here, and then we're going to go 21 to Ramda Galo, James Pike, Deiter Hanbicki, and Jemma 22 Strong. But this is Melanie and next Kevin.

23MS. DEASON: Thank you for hosting us. I 24 know it was a bit of journey, but thank you for being 25 130here. My name is Melanie Deason. I've lived a decade 1in Roswell. Shortly before retiring, I spent eight 2 years as wetlands coordinator with the New Mexico 3 Environment Department and wrote the state's EPA-4 funded wetlands conservation plan.

5 I seriously question the science of 6 Holtec's environmental assessment and section on water 7 resources because Holtec violates two siting premises:

8 isolated from populated areas -- pay attention on this 9one -- and away from water sources. Their proposed 10 site puts both at risk.

11 Point one: I disagree that there are no 12 sensitive or unique aquatic or riparian habitats or 13wetlands at their site. Holtec uses a federal 14 jurisdictional wetland definition and fails to mention 15the 1997 NMED included plio lakes as wetlands. Truth:

16 plio lakes at Holtec's site do meet criteria for New 17Mexico's wetlands. Only one of three defining wetland 18 characteristics must be met: wet soils, wet living 19 plants, or wet conditions.

20 Point two: I take exception to Holtec's 21 misleading surface water statements that there is no 22 external drainage within two plios on site, that 23 losses are only by evaporation including four off-site 24 ephemeral plios, and that runoff does not drain to the 25 131river 26 miles to the west. Because they portray plio 1 lakes as self-contained holding ponds, like stock 2 tanks, that catch and contain but do not drain.

3 Truth: plio hydrology is unique and external drainage 4 does exist by draining down to unseen water tables and 5 aquifers below and substantiated by Holtec's own 6 report, my next point.

7 Point three: I commend Holtec's report for 8 stating the site's near surface water table appears to 9 be 35 to 50 feet deep, likely controlled by water 10levels in plio lakes, highly saline from industry 11 abuse, but Holtec ignores the obvious. They propose 12 digging approximately 20 feet below grade, which is 13 dangerously near their admitted fluctuating water 14 table. Past dumping of brine into plios has reached 15 the Pecos River in this region, proof that should 16 radiation escape Holtec's storage it could reach the 17 aquifers not just in New Mexico but Texas and possibly 18Ogallala of eight states. Truth: Holtec's storage 19 caster design is for breathing air, not drowning from 20 ground water below or rain above. Any breach, in or 21 out, intensifies and releases radiation to water, 22ground, and air. Regional heating and ground 23subsidence, common in New Mexico and nearby Texas, 24 could flood Holtec's below-ground storage and drop it 25 132 into the water table below, poisoning the Trans-Pecos 1 area. 2 Point four: per Holtec's report, April to 3 September thunderstorms provide 60 percent of the 4annual flow in the Pecos basin. But has Holtec 5 forgotten New Mexico's 1938 Pecos River Compact with 6 Texas and the 2009 settlement for sharing the river's 7 irrigation waters equally as beneficial use of any 8unappropriated flood waters? Truth: the region's plio 9 lakes hydrology ensures these important seasonal rains 10 reach the Pecos River and, because Holtec's own report 11 acknowledges impoundment of all surface water into 12 plios, we've now come full circle. Water does leave 13 Holtec's site, impounded or not, due to plio basin's 14unique hydrology. Holtec's proposal violates the 15 Pecos River Compact, radiation cannot benefit the food 16chain. It causes irreversible harm to plants, 17animals, and humans. That is genocide. I, Melanie 18 Deason, do not consent.

19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Melanie. Next, 20 we're going to hear from Kevin Kampus, and then we're 21 going to hear from Ramda and James Pike. Kevin?

22MR. KAMPUS: Thanks, Chip. Good evening, 23everyone. Thank you, NRC, for hosting this town hall 24style public comment session. I have prepared several 25 133 sets of comments on different subject matter, 1 different aspects of the high risks of the Holtec 2proposal. And if they're of use to anyone in 3 preparing their own comments, please feel free to use 4 them in any way that's helpful.

5 So tonight I'll start with transportation 6 risks. The risks of transporting highly radioactive 7 irradiated nuclear fuel, whether by train, truck, or 8 barge, on rails, roads, or waterways, is a high risk.

9 The risks include the release of disastrous amounts of 10 hazardous radioactivity, whether due to severe 11accidents or intentional attacks. Severe accidents 12 could include high-speed crashes into immovable 13 objects, like bridge abutments, or high-temperature 14 long-duration fires, or long-duration underwater 15submergence. This is not a complete list.

16 Intentional attacks, such as by anti-tank missiles or 17 shaped charges, could also breach shipping containers 18 and release their contents into the environment.

19 For these reasons, critics have long 20 called such shipments potential mobile Chernobyls, 21dirty bombs on wheels, and floating Fukushimas. As 22 Holtec has claimed in its license application that any 23 and all NRC certified canisters can be accommodated at 24 this facility, not only rail-sized shipping containers 25 134must be worried about, but so too must legal weight 1 truck casks which would travel on interstate highways.

2 Thus, whether by truck, train, or barge, on roads, 3 rails, or waterways, the mobile Chernobyl risks of 4 this scheme must be addressed.

5 But another aspect of shipping risks is 6 the risk of so-called routine or incident free 7 shipments, nonetheless, being like mobile x-ray 8machines that can't be turned off. This phrase was 9 coined by Lauren Olson more than 20 years ago. This 10 is due to gamma and neutron radiation being emitted 11 from the highly radioactive wastes aboard.

12 To shield it all would require radiation 13 shielding so thick that containers would be 14 extraordinarily expensive to construct but also so 15heavy as to be difficult or impossible to move. So 16 NRC allows a certain amount of gamma and neutron 17radiation to be emitted. Granted, this radioactivity 18 dissipates quickly with distance, but, at six feet 19 away from the container's exterior surface, a dose 20rate of 10 millirem per hour is allowed. That's about 21 one to two chest x-rays' worth per hour.

22 At the exterior surface of the container, 23 the allowable dose rate increases dramatically to 200 24millirem per hour. That's 20 to 40 chest x-rays' 25 135worth. Workers, such as truck drivers, locomotive 1 engineers, inspectors, security guards, etcetera, who 2 come in very close physical proximity into the 3 shipping container would be exposed to the highest 4radiation dose rates. But even innocent passersby and 5 bystanders in the general public would also be 6exposed. This includes those who live close to 7 transport routes exposed to large numbers of shipments 8going by over time. Some people, such as pregnant 9 women, should not be exposed to any radiation dose 10 that can be avoided due to the high risk of harm 11 caused to the fetus in the womb.

12 Of course, shipments externally 13 contaminated with radioactivity would emit even worse 14 radiation dose rates. The state of Nevada, based on 15 federal government data, has documented 49 incidents 16 of accidental surface contamination on these highly 17 radioactive waste shipments between the years of 1949 18 and 1996. And in France, Areva Corporation had many 19 hundreds of externally contaminated shipments, a full 20 one-quarter to one-third of all shipments bound for 21the La Hague reprocessing facility. On average, these 22 French contamination incidents emitted 500 times the 23allowable radiation dose rates. One even emitted 24 3,300 times the allowable dose rate. Allowable does 25 136not mean safe. Any exposure to ionizing radioactivity 1 carries a health risk, and these risks accumulate over 2 a lifetime. Thank you.

3MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Kevin.

4This is Ramda. Okay. And if you could just introduce 5 yourself to us.

6MS. GARDENER: Okay. Hi, my name is 7Ramda. I'm a student at the University of New Mexico 8and I'm studying nuclear engineering. I would like to 9start by saying that radiation is natural. We're all 10radioactive. We produce radioactivity naturally. But 11 I understand the concern of high-level radioactive 12material, and that's okay. But the only way to 13 overcome that fear is through true understanding and 14 knowledge without bias.

15 One of the main concerns is the 16 transportation of the spent fuel. Transportation of 17 spent fuel or radioactive material is not new and it 18 has already been done. URENCO stores and ships tons 19 of radioactive material by rail and truck without any 20incident. And I can be more than certain that this 21 project wouldn't take off without first thoroughly 22 testing and assuring safe transportation.

23 In one of the posters outside today, we 24 can see the different environmental and hypothetical 25 137accidents the canisters can endure. Some of these are 1 heat, cold, pressure fluctuation, vibration, water 2 spray, free drop, compression, penetration, 30 feet 3 free fall, crash emersion, puncture, and 800-degree 4Celsius fires. And so I would highly doubt that, you 5 know, they would put people in danger without testing 6 these things.

7 I would also like to mention that Holtec 8 has already been transporting spent nuclear fuel for 9decades here in the U.S. and around the world. So it 10 is not new and it's not a mere luck that this has been 11done with excellence. It is not luck. We have tested 12 and taken and are still taking the necessary 13 precautions to get these materials to their 14 destination safe.

15 So there's the question of the rails and 16how they are going to withstand the weight. And, yes, 17 these things will get tested, and if they need repair 18there will be repair. And I understand our industry, 19 the nuclear industry, is so fragile because we are 20 constantly being watched by people, so we want no 21mistakes. So I believe that the NRC, along with 22 Holtec, will do everything in their power to make this 23 project safe for our environment, our community, and 24 our next generation. Thank you for listening.

25 138MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 1 Ramda. We have -- this is James? Okay. And Jemma?

2 Okay. James, James Pike.

3MR. PIKE: Hello, everyone. My name is 4 James Pike. I'm also a student at the University of 5 New Mexico studying nuclear engineering. I'm a 6graduate student looking into material science so a 7 lot of applications of radiation and how to store 8 stuff, too.

9 I just want to point out I grew up in Los 10 Lunas, New Mexico. I know what a small town culture 11feels like. I understand you guys' safety and 12 concerns. But I want to let you guys know that what 13 the NRC is doing is they are trying to keep you guys 14 safe. They are the guidelines for the world for any 15 type of radioactive material handling or any type of 16 nuclear power plants.

17 I just went to a talk recently, and they 18 talked about how countries around the world look to 19 the NRC for safety and for health and for everything.

20 They model what they look at after the NRC, and I know 21 the NRC takes pride in that. So I don't think they 22 would lie to you guys because they are setting a world 23 example for you guys.

24 One thing I'd also like to mention, and my 25 139colleague touched on it, radiation is everywhere. Who 1had a banana this morning? That had radiation in it.

2 Also, one thing you guys might not know is 3 radioactivity is used in the oil business, and you 4guys are not protesting that. They use radioactive 5 tracers to put into the ground and they track oil.

6 They use radioactivity to find the formation of where 7 oil is. 8 So radioactivity, it is kind of scary, but 9 we have knowledge of it and we know how to keep it 10 safe and keep it away from dairy farms and from places 11 like that. And as future nuclear engineers, we want 12to ensure that safety. That's why we're down here, 13 too. We are listening to you guys' concerns and, in 14 the future, we want to make sure you guys' concerns 15 are in our design. Thank you guys for listening.

16MR. CAMERON: Thank you, James. Thank 17you, James. And is it Jemma? So in other words, when 18 I called Bobbi Reydel, you guys are changing 19identities. But do you want to talk? Well, go ahead.

20MS. REYDEL: Hello, my name is Bobbi 21 Reydel. I'm sorry for any confusion. Today, I want 22to say I'm a nuclear engineer. I'm a graduate student 23 and Ph.D. candidate of the University of New Mexico, 24 and I want to say I ardently believe in this project.

25 140 Nuclear spent fuel casks are designed in 1 such a way that they are designed to be with -- the 2 fuel, the dry fuel is in a leak-proof container that 3is sealed. And that is within a larger container that 4 is filled with an inert gas that allows cooling of 5 that spent fuel.

6 I've heard a lot of really important 7 concerns tonight about radiation leakage, about the 8fuel leaking out of these containers. And if you look 9 at the actual designs of these spent fuel casks, 10you'll see that this isn't a problem. We are here 11 today as experts in this field to talk to you about 12 your concerns, to speak with you, and I'm so glad that 13 I spoke to so many of you today.

14 I would also like to say that the fear 15 that people have around radiation, it is a concern.

16 But if you actually look at the design of this place, 17 if you are at the edge of this facility, let's say 18 you're at the fence of this proposed Holtec facility, 19 you will receive 25 millirems per year if you stood at 20 the edge of this Holtec facility for an entire year.

21Now, what is 25 millirems? Well, if you took a plane 22flight from New York to L.A., it's about that much.

23 So if you stood there an entire year, day and night, 24 that's what you would get.

25 141 How many of you like to take vacations?

1 I would assume that many of you like to take 2vacations. Many of you have flown in planes. Many of 3 you have gone to the dentist. Many of you, I see we 4 have an older population, maybe many of you have 5suffered from cancer. Did you know that all of the 6 diagnostics for cancer treatment, that's radioactive 7 material.8 The nuclear industry, if you actually look 9 at CANDU reactors up in Canada, they produce all of 10the medical isotopes for the U.S. Things that you use 11 everyday, things that help you survive are 12 radioactive.

13 And so what I'm here saying is is that you 14don't need to fear this. You don't need to fear, 15 like, oh, my gosh, there's going to be some radiation 16that leaks. Like, okay.

If you ate a banana this 17 morning, you also got potassium-44 in your system, as 18 well. That's a radioactive isotope.

19 I heard that people have said nuclear 20power hasn't done anything for me. The Palo Verde 21 reactor in Arizona supports 35 percent of the carbon-22neutral energy for New Mexico. Twenty percent of all 23power in the U.S. is from nuclear power plants, and 24all of that, zero carbon emissions. If we get rid of 25 142 our power plants, if we decide we don't want to find 1 a place to store this nuclear waste, it would be like 2getting rid of every single windmill in the U.S. You 3 would be destroying the environment.

4 I am here because I believe in supporting 5 the environment and mitigating climate change. I am 6 here because I believe that this is a safe facility, 7 and I believe that we, as a community, with knowledge 8 and understanding and talking to these people and 9 reading the reports and learning about, okay, what is 10ALARA, what is a millirem? How many of you know what 11a millirem is? Learning those things are so 12 important.

13I want to answer your questions. We'll be 14here. You have questions for me? You have concerns?

15 You're a skeptic? Please ask me. Thank you.

16MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 17Bobbi. And Deiter. This is Deiter, and then we're 18 going to go to Karen Bonime, Ira Strong, Charlene 19 Hernandez, and Jimi Gadzia. Deiter.

20MR. HANBICKI: Hello. I am Deiter 21 Hanbicki. I'm a current junior at the University of 22New Mexico where I study nuclear engineering. Before 23 I get into my speech that I've prepared, one of my 24classmates wanted to show this. It is a letter of 25 143 recommendation that we go along with the Holtec plan.

1 We have 31 signatures on this petition along with it, 2 including one of the distinguished faculty members at 3 UNM, Dr. Robert Bush, and the incoming American 4 Nuclear Society president.

5 So three years ago, I decided to move from 6 my sleepy little town in Southeastern Pennsylvania to 7New Mexico for my degree. I had never visited the 8 state before, and my first thought when getting off 9 this plane was, wow, it's hot. Later, I would go to 10 see the state and see everywhere and see how beautiful 11it is. I started my New Mexico journey because I saw 12 online that the Bureau of Labor Statistics website say 13that nuclear engineers make a starting salary of 14$80,000 a year, and I came to UNM because they 15 accepted me.

16 Holtec states that they will have about a 17 hundred operators, a hundred construction jobs, and 18 perhaps 50 manufacturing jobs if they get to stage 19three just in this area.

That may not seem like a 20 lot, but that would be 250 well-paying secure jobs for 21a minimum of up to 40 years. The little town in 22 Pennsylvania that I hail from has a population of only 23 3,000 people with a median income of $56,000 per 24household. So while it doesn't seem like a lot, to 25 144 me, that seems like a lot of jobs and a lot of money.

1 In addition, my little town of New 2 Britain, Pennsylvania recently vetoed, we had a town 3 hall meeting like this where a gas plant wanted to be 4built in the town and we vetoed it. So I know, I 5 sympathize with you guys of not knowing something that 6 we don't want in our town because we think it might be 7 dangerous.

8 Additionally, I agree with all of you we 9 should have a permanent waste solution site here in 10the United States. However, we don't, so this is the 11 next best thing that we can have.

12 New Mexico was here in the beginning of 13 the nuclear industry, and it should continue to be 14there in the future of the industry. Even if it's for 15 selfish reasons, I want the Holtec plant to be here so 16 that I may be able to live here for the foreseeable 17 future. Thank you.

18MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Deiter.

19 And, Karen, are you going to come up and talk to us?

20 Okay. And then we're going to Ira Strong, if Ira is 21 still here, and then to Charlene.

22 MS. BONIME: According to these -- can I 23just hold it? Okay. According to this guideline for 24 commenting on the scope of the EIS, some examples of 25 145 information NRC is requesting are, I'm going to skip 1 to the second one, what reasonable alternatives to the 2 proposed action should be analyzed and why? I think 3 the reasonable alternative that should be examined is, 4 sure, if these casks are so safe, great. Let's 5 distribute them to the places where the nuclear power 6plants are, and I think this would be safer because 7 having a centralized target for terrorism is a dumb 8idea. I know that they're vulnerable just being in 9pools with a roof over them or whatever. I don't know 10enough about that. I'd like to know more. But if 11 these dry casks are really so great -- and I want to 12 thank John McKirgan for explaining to me how they 13 actually go about putting the fuel rods into these 14casks. It's done underwater, and then there's a 15 drying-out process where helium, an inert gas, 16replaces the water vapor that's left. And I like 17 that, and I think it's a great idea, and I think they 18 should stay right there where they've lived their 19 whole active lives.

20 Also, he did mention that a tiny bit of 21 water vapor -- can you all hear me -- would probably 22 remain inside the cask but only a tiny amount but that 23 radiation escaping the inner container, the stainless 24 steel cask, which someone mentioned is only a half-25 146inch thick and in Europe they're much bigger. I 1 wonder why NRC is considered model if Europe has 2 something better. Something is funny?

3 So, anyway, the little bit of radiation 4 that can exist inside the larger cask could cause that 5 water vapor to separate into hydrogen and oxygen and 6 hydrogen, of course, is explosive in the presence of 7oxygen. So that sounded to me like a concern. I hope 8 that that can be controlled somehow. Maybe it's not 9enough. Maybe I didn't understand you completely, but 10 maybe it's not enough to cause harm.

11 But I also learned from talking with you, 12 John, about the fact that when the fuel rods are first 13 transported to the nuclear power plants they're not as 14 hot as they are later because, as uranium breaks down, 15 giving off this tremendous energy that's used to boil 16 water to drive turbines to make electricity, they 17break down into other radioactive elements. And so 18 some of those have longer half lives or, instead of 19 alpha, maybe they've got beta or gamma radiation so 20 the things actually get hotter, and this is a concern 21 to me.22 But what I'd like to move to is what local 23sources of information should the NRC consider? I 24 think you've already heard eloquent testimony from the 25 147 dairy industry, and I know you're going to hear about 1the pecans that we grow here, which are yummy. And 2 then you've heard about the immense amount of oil that 3 we're sitting on that could be at risk.

4 What I'd like to look at in terms of local 5 information, and I don't mean just local to Southeast 6New Mexico, I'm talking about the state as a whole.

7 We have paid our nuclear dues starting at the Trinity 8site where the first bomb was exploded. The people of 9 the Tularosa Basin who lived, I forget, 16 - 18 miles 10away were never warned, were never acknowledged. They 11suffer still. Even the ones who've moved away from 12 that poisoned community have children who develop 13 cancers that are thyroid cancers especially that are 14 associated with exposure to radiation.

15MR. CAMERON: Karen, I'm going to have to 16 ask you sum up, please.

17MS. BONIME: All right. I will. Other 18 people have mentioned the Navajo miners, and it wasn't 19 just Navajos it was also Laguna Pueblo people, a woman 20 named Dorothy Perly testified in the 90s at an event 21 that was sponsored by CARD -- oh, and I forgot to say 22I'm a member of CARD and a retired teacher. She 23 testified about how she was given no warning and no 24 protection as she drove trucks full of mining, the 25 148 uranium ore to the milling sites and all the dust that 1she was inhaling and so forth. She was already dying 2of cancer at that time. It's environmental racism all 3 over the state.

4 The first nuclear victims to be 5compensated were white. They were the Utah Mormon 6Downwinders. One of them was also at this dinner 7 honoring atomic veterans, and she said, "We are the 8 most patriotic people in the United States, Mormons.

9 We could not believe our government did this to us." 10 Then, finally, after a while, after a lot 11 of legal work --

12MR. CAMERON: Karen, I'm going to have to 13 ask you to wrap up, please.

14MS. BONIME: Yes. Navajos began to be 15 compensated but not the ones in New Mexico and not the 16ones who worked in mines and mills after 1970. There 17are so many gaps. We have paid our dues, and we have 18 not, some of us, the most vulnerable, not been 19 compensated or acknowledged. That's it.

20MR. CAMERON: And, Karen, just for the 21 record, could you tell people what CARD stands for?

22 I don't know if people know.

23MS. BONIME: Oh, yes, yes. CARD, and I've 24 only been a member for a few short years, although I 25 149 attended many of the hearings that they invited me to, 1 it stands for Citizens for Alternatives to Radioactive 2 Dumping. We don't want our state to be a dump.

3MR. CAMERON: Thank you. And that's a New 4 Mexico group?

5 MS. BONIME: Yes.

6 MR. CAMERON: Okay.

7MS. BONIME: It formed when WIPP was first 8 being discussed.

9MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 10 you, Karen.

11 MS. BONIME: Thank you.

12MR. CAMERON: All right. And is Ira, Ira 13Strong here? How about Jimi, J-I-M-I? Oh, here comes 14 Jimi. And then we're going to go to Charlene. Hey, 15 thank you, everybody, for your patience tonight, but 16 I think we're in the homestretch or at least at the 17 far turn.

18 MS. GADZIA: I'm the one that's going to 19talk about pecans. A lot of my concern -- sorry. My 20name is Jimi Gadzia. My family and I came here in 21 1906, so we've been here a long time, love New Mexico 22 and really care about it.

23 I could talk about a lot of issues, but 24 they've really been covered here tonight. Health is 25 150a concern for me. Water is a concern, been discussed, 1and the oil and gas industry which has also been 2 discussed.

3 Our family has three properties, oil and 4gas interest, that's within ten miles of the site. So 5 it is a deep concern that we depend on, as our family.

6 But tonight I'm going to focus on 7 agriculture because my family is also pecan farmers.

8 Just after oil and gas, agriculture, and I'm going to 9 talk about agriculture in general, is the second 10largest industry in New Mexico. This region, Chaves, 11 Eddy, and Lea Counties, are the largest agricultural 12 region in the state. We have over 145,000 irrigated 13 acres just in the Pecos Valley Conservancy Districts 14 alone.15 Pecans specifically are New Mexico's 16number one food crop. In 2016, which is our latest 17 numbers because we've just finished harvesting the 18 2017 crop, New Mexico producers produced 72 millions 19 pounds of pecans worth over $213 million in sales.

20 Now, New Mexico is only second in the 21 nation in producing pecans, second only to Georgia, 22but we lead in cash receipts due to our improved 23varieties and our superior quality. So New Mexico 24 also has the highest concentration of pecan production 25 151 in the nation, and this production is from Roswell 1 south, also west but all in the southern part of the 2 state. 3 There's a lot of front-end costs to 4 starting a pecan field, so it's really a multi-5 generational kind of crop because the trees last a 6 hundred years and it takes about seven to ten years 7 before you even get a first crop. So there is a lot 8 of front-end investment.

9 So we started our farm in 1965. It took 10us five years to get our trees in. So seven to ten 11 years from then is when we first started seeing a 12little bit of crop. So we have had invested a lot of 13 time and money into our pecan orchard.

14 My concern has been mentioned before when 15talking about the dairy industry. Consumers are 16really looking for cleaner foods. They're looking for 17 higher-quality foods. They're buying organic foods.

18They want less contamination. People eat pecans 19 because they taste great but also they're very 20 nutritious, high in vitamins, fiber, and protein, high 21 in good cholesterol-lowering fats. Pecans are heart 22healthy. The American Heart Association suggests that 23it reduces the risk of heart disease. So that's kind 24 of our market and, as consumers demand better, higher-25 152 quality products, our agriculture is moving in that 1direction, as well. So just the siting of this 2 facility could seriously impact our product, as well 3as all agriculture in the state. And there's never 4 been accumulation of this magnitude before, and so I 5 truly believe that, once the association is made, I 6 think it could be an insurmountable reputation to 7 overcome and could seriously devalue our product or 8eliminate it altogether. Any accidents will just 9 exacerbate that problem and really could gut the food 10 industry in New Mexico.

11 And there's just an example of the E. coli 12 contamination that's going on with romaine lettuce.

13 It was discovered on one farm, and the message to 14 consumers or consumers are deciding, you know, I'm not 15eating any romaine, I don't care where it's from. And 16that's the way it happens. Even the CDC is supporting 17 that, even though they've already identified where 18it's happening. You can clean E. coli up but I don't 19 know that you can even clean up contamination from 20 radioactivity.

21 So I think, at that point, it's all over 22 for us here and there's no coming back from it. 23 That's my concern.

24MR. CAMERON: And could you sum up for us?

25 153 MS. GADZIA: Really? I have five pages.

1Just kidding. So I want to restate that this isn't 2 really our waste. I mean, the gal said that we have 3 30 percent in New Mexico, but really most of this has 4been produced in other areas. So I have a really hard 5time agreeing to house all this waste that was not 6 produced here.

7So let me get to my last page. And I 8 think with so much that New Mexicans have to risk, I 9 have to ask myself what are the benefits to us, to us 10New Mexicans? And I can't come up with any. So, I 11mean, a few jobs maybe, but I think that's it. So all 12 we're asking for is to keep our clean environment so 13 we can continue to make our living, and that's really 14 all I have to say.

15 So I don't consent to bringing material 16here. I think it will impact my livelihood and my 17life. So thanks. Thanks for being here and thanks 18 for letting us speak.

19MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you.

20 We're going to go to Charlene Hernandez, and then 21we're going to go to Janet Greenwald. And then we're 22 going to go to Pakeia.

23 MS. HERNANDEZ: Good evening, everybody.

24 My name is Charlene Hernandez, and I was born in 25 154Capitan, New Mexico in 1945. No, actually, it was 11946. My mom was pregnant with me when the atomic 2bomb at Trinity site was exploded, okay? So that 3said, I want to say that I agree with most of the 4 speakers that spoke tonight and I hope you listen well 5because this is my state where I was born. We were 6 already blasted once, and we're still suffering the 7 effects from that atomic bomb blast.

8 Now, if this is so safe, like these people 9 have said here, why does it cost so much for clean-up?

10 I have read that it costs not just hundreds, not just 11 thousands, but billions of dollars to clean up after 12 a problem with these waste containers, like we had at 13Carlsbad, okay? That was shut down for two years, and 14 the clean-up, all that other stuff, and little brief 15 places, I read it in the paper over the last few 16years, I've been keeping track of what's happened 17 there. But I also have been in contact with people, 18 like the Downwinders, who have families, who have lost 19 entire families because of Trinity site.

20 Now there is, I've been telling people 21about the RECA Act. When I looked in the computer, 22 the RECA Act is radiation compensation, Radiation 23Exposure Compensation Act. It was passed in Colorado, 24Utah, parts of Arizona, but not New Mexico. I've been 25 155 keeping track with Senator Udall who says that they're 1 trying to expand the law to cover New Mexico and that 2 means they will compensate people who have relatives 3 who have certain cancers, and they will pay people up 4to $50,000 for each loss for certain cancers. They 5will also pay your medical costs. If you're found to 6 have those certain cancers, they'll pay your medical 7bills until you die. Now, not too many people know 8about that. I'm making that discovery, and it's a sad 9 thing. 10 Why are New Mexico people always the last 11to know, and why did they pick New Mexico? They 12 picked New Mexico to test the atomic bomb, and they 13didn't ask anybody. I mean, scientists that didn't 14 know what was going to happen did it to us.

15 Now, Lincoln County used to be where they 16had the very best apples. You go over there now, you 17 can't find a single good apple bigger than that. We 18 had big, huge apples, wonderful apples, different 19kinds of apples, not just one little kind. You know, 20we had several different kinds of apples. Now 21nothing, nothing grows that's bigger than that. A lot 22 of contamination has happened.

23 I agree very much with the scientist who 24 spoke earlier, Mr. Steve Shuffleman, Schafersman?

25 156Okay. He was from Texas. I totally agree with him 1200 percent. The stability of this place is not good.

2 I was in my house one day when my house shook like in 3California when I was out there. So what's up with 4that? My house shook. The ground is not stable here, 5 and that man was absolutely correct.

6 Now, did you hear about the new caves that 7 they found in Fort Stanton? The longest cave in the 8 nation vertically, like this, or horizontally, 9whatever. But it's the longest one, more than 30 10 miles. The end of that cave is at the bottom of the 11Ruidoso Airport. It ends there. It's a beautiful 12cave. And then my cousin said to me, my cousins live 13 there, they said, "Charlene, that cave connects up to 14 the other caves that are there and probably the 15Carlsbad cave." So I think that you pay attention to 16that gentleman. I think he had it all exactly 17 correct, and that's all I have to say.

18Thank you very much. And thank you for 19 being here and for looking into this situation. I 20 hope you can come to a good conclusion that this is 21not a safe state. My suggestion is to let the people 22 who have those things where the radioactive waste is 23 made, the nuclear reactor people who have those, they 24 can keep it in their own place where they have their 25 157 reactors, not send it somewhere else.

1MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you, 2 Charlene. And we're going to go to Janet Greenwald, 3 and then we're going to have Pakeia Marquez come up, 4 and then Susybelle Gosslee, Soya Stevens, Alfredo 5Dominguez, and Stephen Picha I think. And this is 6 Janet.7 MS. GREENWALD: Hi, I'm Janet Greenwald.

8I'm a coordinator of Citizens for Alternatives to 9 Radioactive Dumping, and that was an organization 10 formed 39 years ago by people in this part of the 11 state.12 I'd like to report to you from a community 13that's close to a nuclear facility. It's the 14 community where I raised my children, a beautiful 15 little place in the Embudo Valley which some people 16consider the organic bread basket of New Mexico. It's 17 in northern New Mexico. This community is a bedroom 18 community from Los Alamos and it's also directly 19 downwind from Los Alamos.

20 Over a decade ago, there was a fire there 21that Cerro Grande fire. And after that, the New 22 Mexico Environment Department visited the valley and 23 they said there's cobalt in your plums and there's 24 cesium in your broccoli, but don't worry about it, 25 158it's below regulatory concern. And then several 1 months later, my daughter-in-law became pregnant and 2 a few months later she lost one of her twins, and that 3 was the first time in our memory, and we have twins on 4 both sides of the family, first time anyone lost a 5twin. And then they found out that the remaining 6twin's fallopian tube was malformed. So then she had 7a double-risk pregnancy. So in order to have her baby 8 in the Espanola hospital, my son and she had to look 9 through this book of the deformed babies from Espanola 10Hospital. We're talking about badly deformed babies, 11no arms, etcetera. And they had to look through this 12 book because they had to decide if their baby was born 13 deformed, would they want to hold it after it was born 14 or did they just want someone to take it away?

15 So we were very lucky because Olivia was 16born whole. But Espanola is also downwind and a 17 bedroom community for Los Alamos.

18 Not long after that, we found out that one 19 of the mountain lakes that feeds the river that goes 20 through the Embudo Valley had so much cesium around 21 its shore that it was close to being a super fund 22site. This is the head waters in the Embudo River and 23 also the Rio Grande.

24 Then the other day, Olivia and her 25 159brother, Ezra, and I went to the library in this 1 little community, and on the door there was a sign and 2 it said, "Support Group for Contaminated Los Alamos 3 Workers 9 a.m. on Saturday Morning." So what do you 4think? Are nuclear facilities a benefit to the 5 communities around them?

Perhaps you've had a 6different experience than I've had. You can judge 7 from what I've said.

8 Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

9 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 10 much. Pakeia, could I ask you to come up? And this 11 is Pakeia Marquez, and I can hold this for you or do 12 you want to hold it?

13MS. MARQUEZ: I can hold it myself. Thank 14you. My name is Pakeia Marquez and I am 11 years old.

15 I'm here on behalf of unborn kids and born kids like 16me. I think this whole situation is very important 17because it affects everything and everybody. It 18 affects the plants and wildlife around here.

19 I have recently been writing an essay 20 about ecosystems and how it can be changed and 21 affected and damaged and, you know, but I read that 22 ecosystems can be very easily poisoned through water, 23air, and soil. Water, if all this radiation leaks 24 into the water, everything needs water, everything 25 160that's living needs water. It's going to suck up all 1 of that, and it's going to get poisoned.

2My house, it has a pump. We pump 3 underground water to our house, and we use it for 4everyday necessities. What if that gets poisoned? We 5 will get poisoned and all of our produce, our garden.

6My dad planted a bunch of trees. Is that going to get 7 poisoned, too?

8 We also are pecan farmers, too, and we get 9 a living off that, too. And we use it for our food.

10 We also grow chili, tomatoes, and a lot of other 11stuff. Is that going to be affected, too? Who is 12 going to be, you know, who is going to give us back 13 all that produce that we just probably lost? Who is 14going to be, you know, who is going to pay for it?

15 Who is going to, like, you know, reimburse us for it?

16 I've been reading this book on climate 17change. It says radioactivity does contribute to 18 climate change. It doesn't really produce that much 19 carbon dioxide, but, at the same time, it still does 20affect. And if you've seen a microwave, that's 21radiation. Imagine a microwave in the world. The 22whole world is a microwave. Microwaves make heat.

23 That's going to be contributing to climate change.

24 It's going to be contributing to a whole lot of 25 161problems. You may think you might be solving a 1 problem but really you're just creating more problems 2 to solve, and they might just be forever and you might 3 just not be able to solve them.

4 So please do remember that I cannot vote, 5 so you need to vote for this because I don't really 6have a vote for this. So please do vote against this 7 horrible mistake. Thank you.

8MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you. Thank 9 you, Pakeia. And that will be a hard act to follow, 10 but Susybelle? Yes, I know. It's been one of those 11nights. Do you want to sit down and have me hold this 12 for you?13MS. GOSSLEE: No, no, I do not. I'm 14 perfectly capable.

15 MR. CAMERON: All right.

16MS. GOSSLEE: Sorry. I'm Susybelle 17Gosslee. I'm testifying as a member and on behalf of 18 the League of Women Voters of Texas regarding the 19 license application for the consolidated interim 20 storage facility that has been described today.

21 We appreciate the opportunity to appear 22 before you today and thank you for allowing us to 23 share the League of Women Voters of Texas position on 24this issue. We are very concerned about many aspects 25 162 of the high-level radioactive waste disposal, the 1 storage proposal, most importantly the health, safety 2 of people and the environment and the transportation 3 risks. 4 Our position on hazardous materials and 5 high-level radioactive materials, like other League 6 positions, is derived through a lengthy and thoughtful 7 process involving the participation of 25 city leagues 8 representing our members and supporters throughout the 9state of Texas. We support the League of Women Voters 10 of New Mexico.

11 Neither Holtec International, WCS, or any 12 other company should be allowed to develop an interim 13 storage location without a plan for a permanent 14disposal site and a robust system for storage. Doing 15 other site-wise would not protect local residents, 16 their health, or the environment from having this 17 temporary site become a permanent site. What is the 18 plan for locating a permanent repository for this 19 hazardous material?

20 More specific information is needed by a 21 verifiable independent third party to authenticate the 22 suitability of the proposed New Mexico and Texas sites 23by using data accumulated with the most up-to-date 24 research, in addition to the past data that's been 25 163accumulated. A conflict of interest and the 1 appearance of a conflict of interest should be 2 avoided.3 Transportation issues are a great concern.

4 We have a number of questions concerning those, in 5addition to the ones that have been presented.

6 Accidents do happen. They said that there would be, 7 you know, the Titanic would not sink and it did. I 8 can go on with numerous examples. What would be the 9 standards and guarantees for the railroad routes for 10this highly-irradiated material? What would be the 11 financial assurances provided by the railroad 12companies, the states, and Holtec International? How 13would the financial assurances be monitored? Who 14 would inspect and monitor these systems? What would 15 be the penalties if the safety and financial 16assurances are not adequate? There are many questions 17 that are posed in the paper that I will submit online.

18 I would also like to say, since the time 19 is so limited, the same questions for the railroads 20 apply for the roads and the highways that would be 21carrying the heavy high-level radioactive waste. How 22 much transport of high-level radioactive waste would 23be on the highways exactly, really? Heavy loads do 24 more damage to highways than the lighter traffic.

25 164We can learn from past accidents. In 1 fact, there was the comment about the incidents in 2 Sweden, and 80 percent of the reindeer had to be 3 killed after the Chernobyl site and every year 4 reindeer have to be killed in Sweden because of 5 continued contamination, even though that was over 30 6years ago. The wind carried the radiation across 7Sweden, Europe, and the Northern Hemisphere. That can 8 happen also in Texas and in this country.

9 Thank you for having the public comment 10meeting in Roswell in Carlsbad, New Mexico. However, 11 none of these cities has easy access by airlines and 12are accessible to most people. Meetings should be 13 held in Dallas and Fort Worth, a major hub of 14transportation by rail. San Antonio, El Paso, 15Albuquerque, Santa Fe. In addition, major cities 16 across the U.S. that would be highly likely radiation 17transport routes. Thank you for considering the 18 League of Women Voters' comments.

19MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Is Soya, Soya 20Stevens? How about Alfredo Dominguez? Alfredo? And 21then we're going to try Stephen P-I-C-H-A. I'm not 22 sure how you pronounce that. But, Alfredo, welcome.

23MR. DOMINGUEZ: My name is Alfredo 24 Dominguez. I live in Roswell since 1980. I thought 25 165 a lot about what I was going to say here tonight, and 1 then when I get here and look at the slide show and it 2 says this purpose is to determine if it's safe to 3 build and operate a consolidated interim storage 4facility at the proposed site. And I cannot conceive 5 any stretch of the imagination how transporting this 6 nuclear waste across Texas and the nation is ever 7going to be safe. Each cannister is a target for 8 terrorists that want to do us harm. Terrorists have 9already used our airlines against us, our postal 10system. They're trying to hack our internet to 11 control the nuclear reactors. This is giving them a 12giant bomb. All they have to do is formulate a shape 13 charge, and they won't set it off at the Holtec site, 14 they'll set it off at a major metropolitan center.

15 There is nothing that can stop, if that happens, 16 there's nothing that will clean that up ever.

17 Licensing this site for 40 years for 500 18 canisters will not help alleviate the problem of 19 permanent solution there. We'll just create another 20 site that's going to be contaminated. Thank you.

21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 22much. And is Stephen Picha here? Tom Gorman?

23Abraham, Abraham Guevara? Cole Ford? Okay. How 24about Morton, Morton Kral, K-R-A-L? Okay. Larry 25 166 Martin? Larry.

1 MR. MARTIN: Am I the last one?

2MR. CAMERON: No, that honor goes to Bill 3Madison if Bill is here. Is Bill here? Yes, Bill 4 will be our last speaker.

5 MR. MARTIN: I didn't see anyone come in 6after me. That's why I said that. I'm sort of 7neutral on this. I didn't hear about it until 8 yesterday, so I think the publicity was lacking, 9although I was obviously out of the loop. I suggest, 10 just like Mr. Jimi said, that you get a bigger room.

11 I mean, there's a theater down here with 406 seats in 12it. Instead, we're in this dinky little room here 13 where not enough to argue with you.

14I realize you have a problem. You've got 15 all this waste sitting around on the East Coast, West 16Coast, that somebody wants to put somewhere else. And 17 that's usually the politicians in those states, not 18here. On the other hand, I don't want the politicians 19 in Austin and Santa Fe determining whether or not 20Roswell gets them, okay? That may be against a lot of 21 the people who have come in from Santa Fe and have an 22 argument, but southeast and southern New Mexico always 23 seem to get on the short end of the stick in the 24 politics in this state.

25 167In Roswell, we have an aquifer. We don't 1share it with Clovis or Midland. I don't think we 2share it with Artesia. It's our own little lake down 3there, and it's very valuable. If it should be 4 polluted, Roswell will dry up and blow away because 5industry will leave. I mean, the agriculture will 6 leave and we're gone. The importance of maintaining 7 a clean aquifer, and that would be a problem if 8 something happened, would be catastrophic for Roswell.

9The question I have is is the location 10 near an aquifer, which I might have missed. You may 11have said it. I came in late. And also does this 12place have to be cooled? I would imagine so. And the 13 problems with Fukushima, Chernobyl were cooling 14 problems, and Fukushima is still a spot where no human 15can endure it's so hot and so polluted. And they 16 don't know what to do.

17 So if you have a nuclear problem where you 18 can no longer cool your trash, you are in serious 19 trouble and it will eventually, like the old movie.

20 I don't have much more to say other than that, but if 21 something happened where the cooling system fails, 22 such as a massive grid failure in this country, you 23 would have approximately 99 uncooled nuclear bombs.

24 You're talking about half the country totally out of 25 168it forever. That's what they're trying to prevent, I 1 think. 2 But I don't see anyone arguing the case 3that you have to maintain these places to be cool. No 4 one talks about it, but that's a major, major factor.

5 Thanks.6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you for those 7 comments. Bill?

8 MR. MADISON: My name is Bill Madison.

9 MR. CAMERON: Let me get you in there.

10MR. MADISON: My name is Bill Madison.

11I'm from Roswell. I live in Northern New Mexico also.

12I have property in Roswell that I take care of. I was 13 at the WIPP hearings when the WIPP hearings came, and 14 I don't know, none of you obviously were there, you're 15 too young. We were told that that would be all that 16 would be in New Mexico and there would be no high-17 level radiation in New Mexico, that there would be no 18 accidents at WIPP, it was failsafe, 100-percent 19failsafe. So it's hard for me to kind of embrace 20 what's going on here because the government has lied 21 to us, blatant lie.

22 So I think that you should look at that 23 and understand that we've been told one thing and now 24 all of a sudden there's this new thing that's coming 25 169 at us. 1A lot of eloquent speakers today. There's 2 a lot of information that you folks -- this thing at 3SMU. I'm not aware of it. It sounds kind of 4interesting. The fracking going on in the area and on 5 the introduction of the liquids causing these tremors 6 in Oklahoma, will that happen in the basin? It well 7 could. Obviously, there's holes there, and I'm sure 8 you folks are out looking at that.

9 But the really main thing is that we've 10been lied to. So that's my spiel. Thank you for your 11time and thank you for being here and listening to 12 this, and I agree that -- I just found out about this 13 today, but I'm not really in the loop very much. So 14 thank you.

15MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Mr. Madison. In 16 about a minute, I'm going to turn it over to the 17 senior NRC official here, Brian Smith, who is just 18going to say a few final words. But I think that I 19 mentioned earlier in the evening that the NRC would 20not be responding to any comments. Well, there's only 21one time when they do do that when there were 22 statements or implications about NRC's statutory 23 authority or responsibility, and we don't want people 24 to leave thinking that the NRC regulates something 25 170that it doesn't. I think he's going to talk about 1 something like that.

2 But before Brian goes on, I just want to 3 thank all of you for your patience and for your 4comments tonight. And I have to thank Chief Newberry 5and his officers again for helping us. And I have to 6 thank Porter's father for bringing Porter in here.

7Maybe the most sensible sentient being that's here, 8but I'm not going to go further into that. But, 9 Brian, go ahead.

10 MR. SMITH: All right. Thanks, Chip. I 11 guess the clarification, the one thing there, is the 12 WIPP site has been mentioned several times and has 13 been correlated that the NRC has been involved with 14 that. There's been no NRC involvement with the WIPP 15site. That's totally under the Department of Energy.

16 So we are not a regulator of that site.

17And just one other clarification. Earlier 18 on in the session there was a question about has the 19NRC ever denied an application? The context of that, 20 the way I took it was an application like the one that 21 we're talking about here, a consolidated interim 22storage facility application. So that's how I 23answered the question. There's been three of those 24that have been submitted. One has been approved, one 25 171 is on hold, and we're reviewing the Holtec one now.

1 But when you look at the NRC as a whole, 2 and we do lots of licensing for lots of different 3 types of uses of material, and we have denied 4licenses, applications in the past. But what 5 typically happens is we ask so many questions, raise 6 so many issues with certain applications that they end 7 up being withdrawn and not pursued any further. And 8 it gets to the point or we don't get to the point 9where we terminate or deny those applications. So 10 those two clarifications there.

11 So I just want to thank everyone again for 12attending the meeting tonight. We appreciate you 13 coming out and staying this late, as well. We value 14 all of your comments, and we'll consider those as we 15prepare our draft EIS. Once the draft EIS is 16 published, I want to encourage you to review the 17 document and again provide us any comments you think 18 that we need to complete the document itself.

19 So thank you again and have a good 20 evening. 21MR. CAMERON: Thank you. We're adjourned.

22 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter went off 23 the record at 10:42 p.m.)

24 25