ML19056A477
| ML19056A477 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Seabrook  |
| Issue date: | 02/13/2019 |
| From: | Plant Licensing Branch 1 |
| To: | |
| Poole J, NRR/DORL/LPLI, 415-2048 | |
| References | |
| NRC-0142 | |
| Download: ML19056A477 (169) | |
Text
1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + +
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
+ + + + +
PUBLIC MEETING ON THE SEABROOK ALKALI-SILICA REACTION (ASR) LICENSE AMENDMENT REQUEST AND LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION + + + + +
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2019
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The meeting was convened at Best Western Plus: The Inn at Hampton, 815 Lafayette Road, Hampton, New Hampshire, at 6:00 p.m., Brett Klukan, Facilitator, presiding.
PRESENT: BRETT KLUKAN, Facilitator
JOSEPH DONOGHUE, Acting Director, Division of
Materials and License Renewal, NRR
JUSTIN POOLE, Project Manager, Division of Operating
Reactor Licensing
ANGIE BUFORD, Division of Engineering
ERIC OESTERLE, Branch Chief, Division of Materials 2 and License Renewal, NRR 3 T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S Welcome and opening remarks........................3
NRC Staff presentations............................7
Public comments...................................25
4 P R O C E E D I N G S 1 6:01 p.m.
2 MR. KLUKAN: All right, everyone, we're 3 going to get started. Thank you all for coming this 4 evening. And welcome to the meeting hosted by the 5 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
6 The purpose of this meeting tonight is to 7 discuss the NRC's plans related to the schedule for 8 issuing the license amendment associated with ASR, 9 and the renewal of the Seabrook license.
10 My name again is Brett Klukan. I'm, 11 normally by day I'm the regional counsel for Region 12 I. However, tonight I'll be serving as a facilitator 13 for this meeting.
14 The meeting tonight is divided into two 15 parts. During the first half, or for the first part 16 of the meeting, which shouldn't last more than roughly 17 30 minutes, the NRC staff will provide a short 18 overview of the NRC's actions related to the two 19 applications I just mentioned.
20 After that, members of the audience will 21 be invited to provide comments and ask questions to 22 the NRC staff.
23 The order of public speakers will be 24 5 determined in the order in which the yellow comment 1 cards are received. So, if you'd like to speak 2 tonight, please complete and return one of those 3 yellow cards, which you can find at the table outside 4 of the meeting room, to the table.
5 And again, first come first serve. The 6 order in which I receive them is the order in which 7 I will call people to speak tonight. In order to 8 encourage a broad array of speakers tonight, 9 individuals will be limited to a three minute speaking 10 period. 11 If we exhaust the list of people who would 12 like to speak tonight, then we'll allow people to 13 speak for a second time. I don't have the final 14 number of people that are signed up to speak. So, I 15 don't have a great sense. But I'm going to stick 16 with three minutes, which is the usual time I give 17 for people to speak at such a meeting. And again, 18 if we have extra time at the end, then people can go 19 round through a second time.
20 I recognize, I would like to ask that we 21 keep the area in this front row clear. If you have 22 something that you would like to give to the NRC 23 staff, please hand it to me, and I will bring it up 24 6 to them. We'd like to keep, again, this space open.
1 Okay. 2 I recognize that many of you here tonight 3 likely have strongly held views concerning the 4 matters to be discussed. As well we stated in the 5 opening NRC presentation, the NRC concedes that it 6 could have done a better job communicating about these 7 matters to the public.
8 Nonetheless, my duty is to ask you to 9 adhere to basic standards of civil decorum, if only 10 out of respect for everyone else in the audience 11 tonight. Please respect each other. Please don't 12 disrupt each other. And just as you wouldn't want 13 to be interrupted during your time at the microphone, 14 please respect the speaking time of others.
15 Let me make this patently clear.
16 Threatening gestures or statements under no 17 circumstances will be tolerated, and will be cause 18 for immediate ejection from the meeting tonight. If 19 you feel that you've been threatened in any way, 20 please let me know so that I can take appropriate 21 action. 22 A few minor housekeeping matters. The 23 bathrooms are just around the corner. The exits are 24 7 just through the doors in the back. While cameras 1 are permitted, please try not to obstruct the view of 2 other audience members. Be judicious with flash.
3 And if you'd be so kind at this time to silence all 4 of your cell phones or other mobile devices.
5 At this point I would like to announce 6 that we have representatives from several elected, of 7 from several offices tonight. We have 8 representatives from Senator Jeanne Shaheen's office, 9 Senator Maggie Hassan's office, Congressman Chris 10 Pappas' office, Senator Ed Markey's office, Senator 11 Elizabeth Warren's officer, and Congressman Seth 12 Moulton. 13 Are there any other elected officials or 14 representatives of elected officials, or other 15 elected offices who would like to stand and be 16 recognized at this time? Know that after the NRC's 17 presentation there will be an opportunity to give 18 prepared remarks. If you would like to stand and be 19 rec -- Oh, excuse me. Yes. Let me bring you the 20 microphone.
21 MR. ELLMS: Oh, it's just I represent 22 Governor Chris Sununu's office.
23 MR. KLUKAN: This is Chris Ellms of 24 8 Governor Sununu's office. I apologize. I added your 1 name to the lower part of my list, but not the upper 2 part. Any other elected officials? Speaking into 3 two microphones right now. Any -- Oh, one sec.
4 MR. JANVRIN: Jason Janvrin, 5 Representative of Rockingham District 37, almost said 6 20. Seabrook, Hampton Falls, Hampton, to the New 7 Hampshire House of Representatives.
8 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
9 MR. KHAN: Aboul Khan, Member, Seabrook 10 Board of Selectmen. And I also represent Seabrook 11 and Hampton 12th District.
12 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. Any 13 other elected officials or representative of elected 14 officials? Going once, going twice. All right.
15 Thank you. All right. With that said I will now 16 turn it over to Joe Donoghue for the NRC's 17 presentation. Thank you.
18 MR. DONOGHUE: Thanks, Brett. Good 19 evening and welcome. I'm glad to see all of you here 20 tonight. I'll get out of the way. Sorry. Glad to 21 see you all here tonight. And I hope that we can 22 have an informative and productive discussion.
23 As Brett said we have a short 24 9 presentation. I'll kick off here in a second. But 1 the reason we're here is to communicate with you, and 2 then to listen to you. Hopefully we'll have a good 3 dialogue, as much as time we have to do that.
4 All right. Again, my name's Joe 5 Donoghue. My job is the, right now the Acting 6 Director of the Division of Materials and License 7 Renewal at the NRC. So, my division is lead for the 8 license renewal review that's been going on at the 9 NRC for Seabrook.
10 Another group in our office, which is the 11 Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, and we have 12 representatives from that office here too. They had 13 the leave for reviewing the license amendment related 14 to ASR that you've all heard about.
15 We also have people from the Division of 16 Engineering to help with the review. And we also 17 have people here from the Region I office, including 18 the Resident Inspectors from the plant.
19 So, the reason for tonight's meeting is 20 to make sure that we discuss the plan for our actions, 21 these licensing actions. Those being the license 22 amendment and the license renewal.
23 And as Brett said, you know, the reason 24 10 we're having this meeting is to communicate. Because 1 we realized that we had not adequately communicated 2 our plans to issue these things in January, which is 3 well ahead of the contemplated hearing on ASR later 4 this year.
5 So, we made a decision to do that. And 6 we were moving forward. And we had correspondence 7 from your Congressional representatives that 8 convinced us that we needed to do a better job of 9 communicating. Again, that's why we're here.
10 All right. So, the NRC staff completed 11 its safety review of both of these actions at the end 12 of last year. Now, originally, as I said, we had 13 planned to issue these after the hearing. That's 14 what we expected to do.
15 The ASR review was a long, complicated 16 review. Compared to other reviews, and I've been at 17 the Agency more than 20 years. And this is definitely 18 one of the more complicated reviews you'd find. And 19 we expected that this review would take us past the 20 hearing. But that didn't happen.
21 We were able to get answers to the staff's 22 questions. And we were able to wrap up the review 23 at the end of the year.
And we made our safety 24 11 conclusions, and don't see any safety concerns with 1 issuing the amendment and the renewed license.
2 Now, by promptly issuing these actions 3 we're going to be able to establish requirements in 4 Seabrook's license for ASR. They have programs in 5 place. They've been implementing programs to monitor 6 and to manage ASR at the plant.
7 Our inspectors have been inspecting those 8 programs. So, the plant's been operated safely. But 9 by taking the step of issuing the amendment, and then 10 the renewed license, it puts requirements in their 11 license related to those ASR monitoring programs.
12 All right. So during this, our meeting, 13 during our discussion tonight keep in mind that 14 issuing these actions won't prevent the NRC from 15 making any changes to the license that the hearing 16 outcome may require, you know.
17 So, the hearing is not undermined by our 18 actions issuing the amendment and the renewed 19 license. The hearing is independent. The ASLB, the 20 Board that reviews the contention is independent of 21 the staff. They do their job after, and we can, you 22 know, they'll do their job after we have done our 23 job. 24 12 And if there's new information that needs 1 to be considered, anything out, you know, an outcome 2 from that hearing that we need to consider, we shall.
3 And if there's action that needs to be taken on the 4 license, that action will be taken.
5 All right. So, the staff throughout this 6 process has continued to have reasonable assurance 7 that the plant can be operated safely. I alluded to 8 that a second ago. So, the staff at the moment, you 9 know, before this meeting, and unless we hear new 10 information still plans to issue the renewed license, 11 the license amendment and the renewed license after 12 the hearing.
13 So again, I just want to repeat that, you 14 know, we recognize that this change in the plan caught 15 many people by surprise. And we should have done a 16 better job communicating this to you. And that's why 17 we're here tonight. Next slide, please. Can you get 18 to the next slide? Okay.
19 So, here's the agenda for tonight's 20 meeting. So, first we're going to talk about the 21 license amendment and the license renewal application 22 at a high level. Okay. We'll give you an overview 23 of those things.
24 13 We'll talk about the highlights of the 1 conclusions for the staff's technical review and the 2 safety findings that are in the safety evaluations 3 related to the license amendment and the renewed 4 license, the license renewal that we plan to issue.
5 Then we'll turn the floor over to you for 6 your questions and concerns, and your comments on 7 what we're talking about tonight.
8 Now, I want to point out that due to the 9 pending hearing, so, the contention is on some 10 specific aspects, technical aspects related to ASR.
11 So, that's an adjudicatory hearing. And we have 12 rules that we have to follow to maintain separation.
13 We can talk about the safety evaluation, 14 and our conclusions in the safety evaluations. But 15 any new information that one might want to present 16 tonight really has to be done in the context of that 17 hearing. So, we won't be able to discuss it 18 ourselves. We can't discuss that here.
19 We can, again, we'll talk about the 20 safety evaluation, but not any new information. And 21 we're not going to be able to speculate on what the 22 Board may or may not conclude, based on any 23 information that has been or will be presented to the 24 14 Board. That's a separate activity from our safety 1 review. 2 All right. So, unless you have any 3 questions for me I'm going to turn the mic over to 4 Eric Oesterle, our Branch Chief for License Renewal 5 Projects.
6 MR. OESTERLE: Thank you, Joe. And as 7 Joe mentioned, my name is Eric. I'm the Chief of the 8 License Renewal Projects Branch. And I want to 9 welcome you all for coming out to the meeting tonight.
10 I'm sure you'll agree that tonight is a much better 11 night than it was last night for such a meeting. We 12 certainly had our fun out on the roads last night.
13 So, what I'm going to do is provide a 14 brief overview of the NRC staff's completed and 15 planned actions with respect to the ASR license 16 amendment, as well as the license renewal 17 application.
18 And as you'll see on the slide we have a 19 timeline that illustrates milestones related to the 20 license renewal application. And those are shown 21 along the top of the arrow. And milestones related 22 to the ASR license amendment, which are shown along 23 the bottom of the arrow.
24 15 As you can see, in 2010 NextEra submitted 1 the license renewal application to the NRC for review.
2 But at that time ASR had not yet been identified at 3 Seabrook.
4 In June 2012, when the NRC completed its 5 initial safety review for the license renewal 6 application there was an open item that remained in 7 that safety evaluation report, that still needed to 8 be resolved. And that was associated with the 9 Alkali-Silica Reaction.
10 In August 2016 NextEra decided to address 11 the ASR issue by submitting a license amendment 12 request to include ASR into its licensing basis. And 13 also by updating the license renewal application to 14 account for the information that it included in its 15 license amendment request.
16 In September 2018 the NRC staff completed 17 its draft safety evaluation of the license amendment 18 request, which found that the amendment would meet 19 the NRC's safety requirements for the current 20 license. 21 Also in September 2018 the NRC staff 22 completed its safety evaluation report for the 23 license renewal application, which found that with 24 16 the information from the ASR license amendment 1 request, the license renewal application will now 2 meet all of the NRC safety requirements for the 3 proposed renewed license.
4 The NRC staff submitted the safety 5 evaluations to our independent Advisory Committee on 6 Reactor Safeguards, which held three public meetings 7 on these safety evaluations.
8 In December 2018 the Committee agreed 9 with the NRC staff that the ASR license amendment 10 request and the license renewal application satisfied 11 the NRC's safety requirement.
12 Throughout its reviews of the license 13 amendment request and the license renewal application 14 the NRC staff held numerous public meetings. Now, 15 because the NRC staff has completed its safety reviews 16 for these licensing actions, and has not identified 17 any safety concerns with issuing the amendment and 18 the renewed license prior to the completion of the 19 hearing, the NRC staff announced plans to issue these 20 two licensing actions in early 2019.
21 This will not impact the upcoming hearing 22 on the license amendment request. We anticipate that 23 the hearing on the ASR license amendment will occur 24 17 in mid to late 2019, several months after the final 1 safety evaluation for the ASR license amendment is 2 issued. 3 The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 4 will issue its decision following the hearing. And 5 the NRC staff will adopt any required changes that 6 result from that hearing process.
7 So now I will turn over the presentation 8 to Angie Buford, the NRC's lead structural engineer 9 for these reviews, to provide a short presentation on 10 ASR and the NRC staff's findings on these 11 applications. Angie.
12 MS. BUFORD: Thanks, Eric. My name is 13 Angie Buford. If you will just bear with me, I'm 14 getting over a cold. So, I'm a little bit hoarse.
15 So, just bear with me there.
16 Alkali-Silica Reaction, or ASR, is a slow 17 chemical reaction that can occur in some forms of 18 concrete that have been exposed to water for long 19 periods of time. ASR can cause expansion and 20 cracking in concrete structures. Next slide, please.
21 Since 2010 micro-cracking due to ASR has 22 been identified in multiple Seabrook concrete 23 structures. Additionally, the cumulative impact of 24 18 ASR expansion has led to instances of deformation of 1 some Seabrook structures.
2 Since that time the NRC has continued to 3 verify that Seabrook is operating safely through ASR 4 specific inspections every six months, as well as 5 through our normal reactor oversight process.
6 Because the original Seabrook licensing 7 and design bases did not include the effect of ASR, 8 and ASR could not be eliminated from the site, NextEra 9 submitted a license amendment request to address ASR 10 for the current license period, and also submitted a 11 supplement to its license renewal application to 12 address ASR for the renewed license period. Next 13 slide, please.
14 The license request would update the 15 Seabrook license to require NextEra to regularly 16 monitor ASR affected concrete structures against 17 specific acceptance criteria. The acceptance 18 criteria are based in part on a large scale testing 19 program that NextEra conduced at the University of 20 Texas. 21 Generally speaking, the acceptance 22 criteria represent a level of expansion in Seabrook 23 concrete structures that would not negatively affect 24 19 the intended function of the structures. NextEra 1 would compare the condition of Seabrook's concrete 2 structures to these acceptance criteria every six 3 months to three years, with the exact time period 4 dependent on the severity of the ASR.
5 The NRC staff determined that this 6 process would identify any condition that may 7 negatively affect the intended function of Seabrook 8 structures before there would be any actual negative 9 effects. The NRC staff also determined that ASR at 10 Seabrook had continued to progress slowly.
11 Finally, NextEra will be required to 12 verify the effectiveness of the monitoring program in 13 the future as a condition of the license amendment.
14 Based on these considerations the NRC staff 15 determined that the license amendment was protective 16 of the public health and safety. Next slide, please.
17 In reviewing the license renewal 18 application the NRC staff found that NextEra would 19 adequately and appropriately address ASR for the 20 period of extended operation from 40 to 60 years of 21 plant life.
22 NextEra developed two plant specific 23 aging management programs, or AMPS, for one, 24 20 monitoring ASR, and two, monitoring ASR effects on 1 site structures. These are called the ASR monitoring 2 AMP, and the Building Deformation AMP. And they're 3 sufficient to manage ASR degradation for the period 4 of extended operation.
5 The NRC staff's findings, including the 6 basis for those findings, are articulated in the 7 license renewal safety evaluation report, which 8 discusses the monitoring parameters, the inspection 9 methods and intervals, acceptance criteria, and 10 evaluation of future operating experience.
11 Based on this comprehensive technical 12 review the NRC staff finds that NextEra will 13 effectively manage ASR degradation effects, and 14 maintain intended structural functions through the 15 period of extended operation.
16 Because of its positive safety findings 17 on both the ASR license amendment request and the 18 license renewal application, the NRC staff has 19 announced its intent to issue the amendment and the 20 renewed license.
21 I'm now going to turn the presentation 22 over the Justin Poole, the project manager for the 23 Seabrook ASR review, who will discuss the timing of 24 21 these issuances. Justin.
1 MR. POOLE: Thanks, Angie. As Joe 2 mentioned, and Eric as well in his opening remarks, 3 there's a hearing scheduled before the Atomic Safety 4 and Licensing Board on the ASR license amendment.
5 When the hearing on the license amendment 6 was granted the NRC staff initially planned to issue 7 the license amendment and the renewed license after 8 the completion of the hearing on the license 9 amendment. And this decision had been communicated 10 to the public.
11 As Andy discussed, the NRC staff safety 12 reviews ultimately found that both the ASR license 13 amendment and the license renewal application 14 satisfied the NRC safety requirements, or 15 regulations.
16 When the NRC staff presented these 17 findings to the independent Advisory Committee on 18 Reactor Safeguards in late 2018 the Committee agreed 19 with the staff's findings.
20 After receiving the Committee's 21 conclusion the NRC staff reevaluated the question of 22 when to issue the license amendment and the renewed 23 license. The NRC staff determined that issuance 24 22 before the hearing was appropriate because, one, the 1 NRC staff had completed its safety review for the 2 amendment and the license renewal, and had not 3 identified any concerns or safety concerns with 4 issuing the amendment and the renewed license prior 5 to the completion of the hearing.
6 Two, prompt issuance of the amendment and 7 the renewed license would establish requirements in 8 the Seabrook license for monitoring and managing ASR.
9 And three, the issuance of the amendment and the 10 renewed license would not prevent the NRC staff from 11 making any changes to the Seabrook license that may 12 be required as a result of the hearing process.
13 For these reasons the NRC staff's current 14 plan is to issue the ASR license amendment and the 15 renewed license in early 2019. And then have the 16 hearing on the ASR license amendment in mid to late 17 2019, several months after the safety evaluation is 18 issued. 19 If changes to the Seabrook license are 20 required as a result of the hearing process then the 21 NRC staff will implement those changes at the 22 conclusion of the hearing process. I'll now turn the 23 presentation back over to Joe Donoghue.
24 23 MR. DONOGHUE: Thanks, Justin. Getting 1 me again, and I'll be brief. Thanks again for all 2 of you being here. As Justin said, you know, the 3 outcome of the hearing was not affected by our 4 decision to go forward with the licensing actions.
5 What we're going to do now is I'm going 6 to turn the microphone over to Brett. And he's going 7 to run the rest of the meeting. And I'm looking 8 forward to -- Oops. Yes, I forgot about the slide.
9 Before I turn it over to Brett I'll 10 remind you that on this slide are links to the 11 information related to the reviews that we've 12 conducted, the license renewal and the amendment 13 request itself, and other information on concreted 14 degradation.
15 And I'll tell you, that concrete 16 degradation site, people put a lot of good work into 17 that, and it's very informative. Okay. Thank you.
18 So, I'm going to turn the meeting over to Brett for 19 the discussion part of our meeting. Thanks for your 20 attention. Brett.
21 MR. KLUKAN: Thanks, Joe. Joe, thank 22 you. So, just want to remind people before we get 23 started again. I'm going to move this closer to 24 24 myself here. That there are still a couple of seats 1 in the front.
2 If you would like to sit we have a couple 3 right here, and a couple there. I feel bad that 4 people are standing for the entire duration of the 5 meeting. Though you did help me win a bet. I thought 6 we were going to sell out the venue tonight, and we 7 have. So, there we go.
8 So, you see me holding these yellow 9 cards. Again, I brought this up at the beginning of 10 the meeting. This is how you let me know that you 11 would like to speak. I have 20 of these so far.
12 If you have not already registered to 13 speak, please go outside and do so now. That's the 14 only way I know of your interest in speaking this 15 evening. And also, so I can gauge how much time I 16 have left, or should allot for the meeting. All 17 right. 18 Now, again, as I noted we're going to 19 have each person go -- I'm going to try to attach 20 this to myself again. All right. Can everyone hear 21 me okay? We're still good? Okay. All right.
22 We are going to have a three minute time 23 limit on speakers. The reason I do that is to make 24 25 sure we accommodate everyone who expressed a desire 1 to speak tonight.
2 You see before you a countdown clock. We 3 will have public speakers come to this microphone 4 when called. Once they start speaking I will start 5 the clock. Let me make this very clear. The clock 6 does not stop until those three minutes are up. So, 7 we're not going to do back and forth.
8 The problem with that is, and I recognize 9 that a lot of you would like to have that kind of 10 dialogue with the NRC staff here. However, time at 11 this meeting does not permit that. So, ask all your 12 questions at once. And then, the NRC staff will 13 respond as appropriate. And we'll move on to the 14 next speaker. Okay.
15 Again, I'm not trying to squelch dialogue 16 here. It's just if we do a lot of that back and 17 forth it cuts down on the amount of time we have for 18 other people to speak this evening. So, out of 19 fairness, everybody gets three minutes. You're 20 motioning towards me.
21 PARTICIPANT: Is there a possibility of 22 having speakers speak there for purpose of the video?
23 MR. KLUKAN: No. I'm sorry. But you're 24 26 going to, members of the public and elected officials 1 will be speaking from that microphone right there.
2 Okay. 3 PARTICIPANT: Why is that? Why is that?
4 Why can't we, we can't, we want to see. We can't see 5 our audience. I mean, if we speak from here --
6 MR. KLUKAN: Because, let me make this 7 clear. The purpose of this meeting tonight is for 8 you to have a dialogue with the NRC staff. If you 9 would like to host a meeting with the public, you're 10 free to do so.
11 (Off-microphone comment.)
12 MR. KLUKAN: And I'm not trying to be 13 curt with you. I'm just saying here is that this, 14 the purpose of this meeting is for you to ask 15 questions of these individuals.
16 If you want to have a conversation with 17 the public, you're welcome to do so. But tonight the 18 time I have allotted, or devoted to, the next two and 19 a half hours is for members of the public to speak 20 with them. Thank you.
21 Okay. For, one last thing before we 22 start. For your awareness, the meeting tonight is 23 being transcribed. Because of that, I would ask two 24 27 things. One, again, not to speak over each other.
1 And then two, that you please announce 2 your name at the beginning of your speaking session, 3 for the benefit of our court reporter, so that the 4 court reporter has a sense of your name. Okay. So 5 that way you can be, your name can be captured as 6 part of the transcript for the meeting. Okay.
7 Now, before we begin with public 8 speakers, we have a number of representatives from 9 elected office who would like to give prepared remarks 10 this evening. First up is Peter Clark, on behalf of 11 Senator Shaheen's office.
12 MR. CLARK: Good evening. My name's 13 Peter Clark, from Senator Jeanne Shaheen's office.
14 The Senator is in D.C. tonight, but she asked that I 15 read this statement.
16
Dear friends,
I appreciate the Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission's response to the New Hampshire 18 Congressional Delegation's concerns about how this 19 important decision could affect New Hampshire's 20 seacoast community.
21 And I thank the NRC for agreeing to 22 tonight's public forum. This public hearing will 23 provide residents with the important opportunity to 24 28 make their voices heard publicly.
1 The safe operation of Seabrook is in the 2 interest of the public and the skilled workforce who 3 work tirelessly to maintain the safety of the plant.
4 I also appreciate the willingness of 5 NextEra Energy to attend today's meeting to address 6 any concerns the public may have regarding the safe 7 operation of Seabrook Station. Sincerely, Jeanne 8 Shaheen, United States Senator. Thank you.
9 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. Next 10 up we have Kerry Holmes on behalf of Senator Hassan's 11 office. 12 MS. HOLMES: Hello. I have a message to 13 read from Senator Hassan. I thank the Nuclear 14 Regulatory Commission for convening today's public 15 meeting to discuss the Seabrook ASR license amendment 16 request, and the license renewal application, and 17 offering members of the public and other stakeholders 18 the opportunity to voice their concerns related to 19 Seabrook's license amendment request and license 20 renewal application.
21 I also express my appreciation to the 22 employees at Seabrook who live in our seacoast 23 communities, and work tirelessly to ensure its safe 24 29 operations.
1 A robust and transparent public process 2 is critical to ensuring that community members and 3 stakeholders are able to understand the NRC's review 4 process for Seabrook, and share their concerns 5 directly with NRC staff.
6 I would encourage NRC staff to listen 7 closely to the concerns that are raised today, and 8 work to address them prior to issuing a decision on 9 Seabrook's license amendment request and license 10 renewal. Thank you.
11 PARTICIPANT: Did you say your name?
12 MS. HOLMES: I'm Kerry Holmes with 13 Senator Hassan's office.
14 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. Next 15 we have Mr. Patrick Carroll, on behalf of Congressman 16 Pappas. 17 MR. CARROLL: Good evening, everybody.
18 Thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of the 19 Congressman, who is also in D.C. NRC, welcome to the 20 1st District. We're happy to have you. And to the 21 public, thank you for coming out.
22 From the Congressman. I want to thank 23 NRC for hosting this public meeting. Opportunities 24 30 for the public to contribute comments to the 1 Commission before a final determination is made are 2 important.
3 The safety and continued operation of 4 Seabrook Station is a mutual goal of ours, from the 5 skilled workforce responsible for maintaining 6 functional plant, and ensuring secure operations.
7 To the members of the community here 8 offering their comment, I know we all share the 9 opinion that an open and transparent process is a 10 critical step in moving us forward. Thank you again 11 for holding this meeting. Best wishes, Chris Pappas, 12 Member of Congress. Thank you.
13 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. And 14 again, that was Patrick Carroll. Next we have Claire 15 Taylooney, on behalf of Senator Markey.
16 MS. TAYLOONEY: Thank you. My name's 17 Claire Taylooney, from Senator Markey's office. This 18 public meeting on the Seabrook Nuclear Plant provides 19 an invaluable and necessary chance for local 20 stakeholders to weigh in on issues related to the 21 safety of the plant.
22 Yet, another opportunity will also occur 23 when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Atomic 24 31 Safety and Licensing Board holds an evidentiary 1 hearing on concerns over whether NextEra is using 2 adequate testing to determine their monitoring, 3 acceptance criteria, inspections intervals at 4 Seabrook.
5 These questions are important because 6 both Seabrook's license renewal and amendment should 7 be evaluated using the highest scientific standards, 8 and with vital input from local communities.
9 Only after a fully transparent process 10 will communities be able to trust they will not be 11 exposed to danger from a fracturing, unsafe facility 12 over the next few decades.
13 I'm still concerned about the possibility 14 that the NRC will approve Seabrook's license 15 amendment before the hearing takes place this summer.
16 This would prevent a subversion, excuse me, this would 17 present a subversion of the public input process, and 18 would be unnecessarily premature.
19 This license will not expire for another 20 11 years, and the hearing is set for this summer.
21 All the parties involved can afford to wait, to hear 22 out the concerns raised by local residents.
23 I strongly urge the Atomic Safety and 24 32 Licensing Board to hold the evidentiary hearing 1 before moving forward on the license amendment.
2 Thank you.
3 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. Next we have 4 Chris Ellms, of Governor Sununu's office.
5 MR. ELLMS: Hello. I'm Chris Ellms, 6 reading a letter from Governor Sununu. I am writing 7 in support of the re-licensing of Seabrook Station.
8 This matter has undergone extensive deliberation for 9 more than 15 public hearings related to Seabrook's 10 license renewal and the Alkali-Silica Reaction in 11 sections of the plant's concrete, commonly referred 12 to as ASR.
13 In December 2018 the ACRS, which advises 14 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, endorsed NextEra's 15 ASR monitoring programs on a scientific basis, and 16 recommended that Seabrook be issued a renewed 17 operating license.
18 The concerns cited by the federal 19 delegation neglect to note that this process began in 20 2010, and has provided open stakeholder engagement 21 throughout, as required by NRC's guidelines.
22 As determined by the Reactor Safeguard 23 Advisory Committee, Seabrook Station remains in good 24 33 operating condition.
1 Seabrook, one of only two nuclear 2 stations without plans to retire in New England, is 3 capable of delivering more than a gigawatt of clean 4 emission free energy. This carbon free electricity 5 offsets approximately four million tons of carbon 6 dioxide emissions each year.
7 Seabrook Station is an important source 8 of economic activity for New Hampshire, stimulating 9 more than $535 million dollars in economic growth.
10 Seabrook Station creates more than 650 direct jobs, 11 while supporting more than 2,600 jobs across all 12 sectors of the state and regional economy. This is 13 in addition to tax revenues paid by the plant, further 14 benefitting all Granite Staters.
15 To the extent that Seabrook is able to 16 remain competitive in wholesale markets, without 17 RAPAR (phonetic) funded subsidies that would increase 18 the cost of electricity, New Hampshire stands to 19 continue to benefit from an extension to Seabrook's 20 operating license.
21 Any additional requests for delay in this 22 already lengthy and extensive public review process 23 is without merit, and put the future of this critical 24 34 resource in jeopardy. Sincerely, Christopher T.
1 Sununu, Governor.
2 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. Next 3 we have Jeb Bradley of the New Hampshire State Senate, 4 District 3.
5 MR. BRADLEY: Good evening, everyone.
6 Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here and 7 speak in support of the extension of the license.
8 To those of you who don't know me, I have 9 served as a Member of Congress from 2002 to 2004, and 10 currently serve in the New Hampshire Senate, where I 11 have led efforts on electric utility restructuring, 12 divestiture, and decommissioning. So, I have some 13 background into energy in New England, and in New 14 Hampshire.
15 I think first and foremost what needs to 16 be thought about is the capacity situation in New 17 England right now. Over 1,000 megawatts are 18 represented by Seabrook at a time that it's vitally 19 important in order to maintain a reliable electric 20 grid that this power, especially as it is safely 21 generated, remains on line.
22 I have fought for other sources of power.
23 But, in order to have a wise energy plan for not only 24 35 New Hampshire, but New England, we need to maintain 1 existing sources of power.
2 The independent system grid operator is 3 warning of potential shortages of power at peak demand 4 times in the 2024 timeframe. Maintaining the 5 certainty of Seabrook I think is vitally important 6 for New England's future.
7 Obviously I think the fact that this room 8 is full of so many people talks to the economic 9 importance of Seabrook. There are over 500 direct 10 jobs, and a couple of thousand more jobs that Seabrook 11 represents. This is a very important component for 12 the seacoast area of New Hampshire. And I think that 13 is a consideration, hopefully you will take into 14 account. 15 As I indicated before, Seabrook's safety 16 record has been good. Clearly there are concrete 17 type issues. But certainly, to the best of my 18 knowledge is the Advisory Committee on Reactor 19 Safeguards has recommended that the plan that NextEra 20 has put forward is sufficient to assure the safety of 21 the unit if it is re-authorized in the future.
22 There's been an 18 month period with no 23 outages recently. Seabrook has a good safety record.
24 36 And certainly they have, under both the prior 1 ownership, and now NextEra, been a good corporate 2 citizen, and a good environmental citizen here on the 3 seacoast.
4 And lastly, I just want to thank you for 5 holding this meeting. I'm told that this is the 15th 6 meeting like this, where you've taken input from the 7 public. It's a very transparent process. And you're 8 to be commended for that. So, thank you very much.
9 A pleasure to be here.
10 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. Next 11 we have Representative Peter Schmidt of the New 12 Hampshire House.
13 MR. SCHMIDT: Good evening. My name is 14 Peter Schmidt. I represent over Wards 1 and 2 for 15 the past 16 years. I speak to you this evening in 16 general opposition to the extension of the license at 17 this particular time, since I regard it as premature.
18 But I am concerned about the ASR issue.
19 I understand that you have a belief that it can be 20 safely managed. But I wish to express my concern.
21 However, my major point of contention at 22 this time is a concern with the regard to the 23 possibility of safely and timely evacuating the 24 37 seacoast, this area, in case of any kind of an 1 emergency at Seabrook.
2 While I realize that that is not your 3 primary concern, and I have addressed letters to 4 Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on 5 several occasions expressing my concern.
6 And believing that it is very important 7 for the first responders in this area to have an 8 opportunity for a public hearing to address the issue 9 of whether it's possible for the Seabrook region to 10 be safely evacuated in the event of a nuclear 11 emergency. Thank you very much.
12 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. Next 13 we have Aboul Khan, a Selectman from the town of 14 Seabrook.
15 MR. KHAN: Good evening. My name is 16 Aboul Khan. I represent Seabrook Board of Selectmen 17 in my capacity as a Selectman, as well as a 18 Representative of Seabrook and Hampton Falls at the 19 New Hampshire State House.
20 Selectwoman Theresa Kyle is in the 21 audience. And our Board Chairman is out of town.
22 So, she could not make it.
23 I come before you today to speak in favor 24 38 of the NRC granting a license amendment to Seabrook 1 Station, as well as asking favorable consideration of 2 the 20 year license extension sought by Seabrook 3 Station. 4 As a representative of the host community 5 I can assure you that we strongly support the safe 6 operation of Seabrook Station. Like many people we 7 were concerned about the issue of concrete 8 degradation, as also called ASR. And eager to 9 understand how that issue would be, impact the safe 10 operation of Seabrook Station.
11 We very much appreciate the comprehensive 12 approach to this issue taken by NRC and NextEra, who 13 have worked jointly since 2010 to study the 14 ramification of ASR on the plant.
15 The work done on this issue has been 16 extensive, with the results showing that Seabrook 17 Station can be operated safely, as it has been for 18 many years.
19 I am not a scientist, but I can satisfy, 20 I am satisfied that the long years of work on ASR, 21 and the letter issued by the Advisory Committee on 22 Reactor Safeguard should lead to the license 23 amendment sought by NextEra.
24 39 I would also like to express our strong 1 support for the license extension of 20 years sought 2 by NextEra. This process began with the presentation 3 to the Seabrook Board of Selectmen back in 2010 4 timeframe, with consistent communication between 5 NextEra and the Town of Seabrook, and the Town 6 Manager's Office since then.
7 Our support for this extension comes 8 principally not, but not exclusively for the same 9 reason we support the license amendment. We believe 10 Seabrook Station can be operated safely for entirety 11 of the extension period.
12 It is our strong belief that nuclear 13 power has a vital role to play in U.S. energy market, 14 with carbon free generation helping us to meet 15 important element goals. Seabrook Station has 16 achieved a great safety record due to superior 17 management, as well as willingness to make necessary 18 investment to the operate the plant safety and 19 profitability.
20 They have also been terrific corporate 21 citizen, partnering with the Town of Seabrook on the 22 host of issues that Town considers to be important.
23 In light of our understanding of our 24 40 citizens' record complied by the Seabrook Station 1 over the years, we, the Seabrook Board of Selectmen, 2 fully endorse to support the 20 year license extension 3 sought by NextEra. And I think you for hearing me 4 today. And I'd like to present this letter to the 5 NRC, please.
6 MR. KLUKAN: You can just --
7 MR. KHAN: Where I --
8 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. Okay.
9 Next up we have Michael Ossing, the Marlborough City 10 Councilor at Large.
11 MR. OSSING: Again, Michael Ossing, O-S-12 S-I-N-G. Hello and good evening to the Members of 13 the NRC. And thank you for allowing me to express 14 my views on the license amendment associated with 15 ASR, and the renewed Seabrook license.
16 Again, my name is Mike Ossing. I reside 17 in Marlborough, Massachusetts. I have worked in 18 nuclear power industry for over 35 years. I'm 19 currently in my 20th year as a public servant, as an 20 elected official, as a Councilor at Large for the 21 City of Marlborough.
22 I have three points I would like to make 23 to reinforce why the license amendment for ASR and 24 41 license renewal should be issued now.
1 First, technical competence of the 2 individuals involved in this complex issue. From the 3 utility side the industry's brightest and most 4 technically competent in the nuclear industry, as 5 well as academia, have reviewed the ASR issue, and 6 all have concluded that the issue is not a safety 7 threat, and can be managed.
8 Additionally, the NRC Region I staff, NRR 9 staff engineers, and the ACRS, an independent Board 10 made up of some of the most competent minds in various 11 technical industries and academia, have all reached 12 similar conclusions.
13 Second, nine years of review. The issue 14 has been studied since 2010, nine years. There have 15 been tens of millions of dollars spent on testing, 16 studies, and evaluations. The NRC has conducted 17 numerous technical reviews, audits, and inspections.
18 And all have indicated that this is not a safety 19 issue, and can be managed.
20 Third, monitoring program. The strength 21 and backbone of the nuclear industry is defense in 22 depth. The ASR monitoring program is another example 23 of defense in depth. The ASR monitoring programs 24 42 that are part of the license renewal all have 1 acceptance criteria that, should movement in concrete 2 be observed, there are actions to take.
3 And I remind everyone, for nine years 4 there's been monitoring of concrete issues. Concrete 5 does not move fast. And should it move, it moves 6 very slow. The monitoring and walk down programs in 7 place now have shown that there's been no appreciable 8 movement over the time period.
9 One could conclude that this issue has 10 plateaued. The proof will be in the monitoring 11 program that will be reported to, and evaluated by 12 the NRC. The monitoring program is part of the 13 renewed Seabrook license.
14 So, to conclude, I urge the NRC to follow 15 its process, and not succumb to political pressures 16 by individuals that are trying to further their 17 political careers or agendas. The NRC should issue 18 the license amendment, and issue the Seabrook license 19 renewal application now. Thank you for listening.
20 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. All 21 right. At this time that exhausts the list of 22 individuals, or elected officials or their 23 representatives, who notified me prior to the meeting 24 43 that they would like to speak. However, are there 1 any other elected officials or representatives 2 thereof who would like to give a prepared statement 3 at this time? Going once, twice, okay.
4 Just for the record, again, there are 5 one, two, three, four, five, there are five seats, 6 five seats up here. This is not a bad area. It's 7 pretty good real estate. I'm nice. I just, I feel 8 bad that so many of you are standing when there are 9 perfectly good chairs. Just saying.
10 Okay. Just to remind you, we're now 11 going to move into the public comment portion. I'm 12 going to go through the comment cards in the order in 13 which I received them. That's going to determine our 14 order of speakers.
15 You will see here, vision. So, hopefully 16 you can see it from where you are standing, a comment 17 clock, or a countdown clock. This starts at three 18 minutes. Going to make a noise once it starts.
19 Don't be alarmed. It's going to make another noise 20 when you have ten second left. Again, don't be 21 alarmed. 22 And then, at that final time, when your 23 time is up, it will click again. Don't be alarmed.
24 44 However, I would ask that you please politely conclude 1 your remarks, so that we can move on to the NRC's 2 response, and then to the next speaker.
3 Okay. We now have by my count 26. So, 4 if everyone gets three minutes, that's -- I shouldn't 5 have said that before I did the math in my head. All 6 right. Time, it's time. I'm an attorney, not an 7 engineer, for the record.
8 So, we're going to get started with our 9 first speaker, who is Mr. Comley of We The People.
10 I'm going to ask him to approach the microphone. And 11 then once you're, again, once you get to the 12 microphone, please state your name for the record.
13 And then once you begin your remarks I'll start the 14 clock. Thank you very much. Thank you.
15 MR. COMLEY: Well, I appreciate -- My 16 name is Steven Comley. I'm the founder of We The 17 People. It's a national whistleblower protection 18 organization I founded in 1987.
19 And I founded it because my family's in 20 the nursing home profession. And I was told by the 21 former Executive Director of the Nuclear Regulatory 22 Commission to leave a paralyzed resident behind in 23 our nursing home, and give her a bottle of potassium 24 45 iodide to drink if we couldn't move her. So, that 1 meant special needs people are expandable. And that 2 came from the Executive Director of the NRC.
3 And I have tapes here. I hired a 4 licensed drone operator to fly his plane over the 5 beaches July 4th of 2017 and '18. And you couldn't 6 get a crab out of there that day. So, the cart's 7 before the horse. I have, I'm a farmer too.
8 And I'll tell you, I'm concerned about 9 everyone on the panel, and all the NRC people.
10 Because, you know, tomorrow's Valentine's Day. How 11 can you take the chance of not being home? You're 12 going to be in big trouble. Anyway, you know, I got 13 a sense of humor.
14 Let's see. I'm also the person that the 15 Nuclear Regulatory Commission hired the Department of 16 Justice, and had me in Court, Massachusetts Federal 17 Court for six years with a charge of conspiracy to 18 topple their agency. One of their top investigators, 19 Roger Fortuna, who is a deputy director of the NRC's 20 Office of Investigations.
21 And they charged us with conspiracy. And 22 they're after tape recordings that they say I made 23 then. And I never confirmed or denied ever doing a 24 46 tape recording. But if you're in Washington, or in 1 New York, ask Giuliani. It's legal. That's what 2 come out of Watergate.
3 Now I'm releasing, and the panel has it, 4 I'm releasing one of the tape recordings, well, a 5 tape recording of an NRC informant. The name's 6 redacted, because they don't give up names without 7 permission. And I'm going to read you some of it.
8 And if anyone wants a copy of the 9 transcript they can. And I have 100 of the tape, of 10 the audio, DVD tape of what you see when you're on 11 the beaches in July 4th.
12 And I want to say this. And I've met 13 Joe. And I've met the other panel members here 14 before, because I testified last year. And I have 15 to tell you that I really appreciate you transcribing 16 this meeting. Because last time you didn't do it.
17 And I think that doing this has respect for the public 18 comment. 19 Now, this transcript says this. And I 20 don't know if Mr. Markey did this or not. But this 21 is part of it. But you say you amass because they 22 are a bunch of fence sitters. So, you came to D.C.
23 The next step is to try and get some D.C. politicians 24 47 that are interested.
1 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much, Mr.
2 Comley. I'm sorry, but your time has expired.
3 MR. COMLEY: I'm done?
4 MR. KLUKAN: You're done.
5 MR. COMLEY: Okay. Well, anyone who 6 wants a copy of the packets that the panel has, 7 they're out here. And Joe told me that it's okay to 8 give it to the staff. So, anyone who wants the video, 9 in all due respect, I think you ought to do it for 10 your kids' future. And I --
11 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much, Mr.
12 Comley. Thank you.
13 MR. COMLEY: Okay. Thank you.
14 MR. KLUKAN: Next up we have Mr. Brian 15 Campbell.
16 MR. CAMPBELL: Thank you. My name is 17 Brian Campbell. I am a U.S. Navy vet who studied 18 utility and renewable energy at UMass Lowell.
19 In 1991, as an engineering student I 20 toured Seabrook Nuclear on a UML bus trip, before 21 working for a utility lithium battery storage 22 manufacturer, A123 Systems.
23 I did not fully appreciate the benefits 24 48 of nuclear power compared to renewables with battery 1 storage. At A123 Systems we built and tested 53 foot 2 trailers filled with 900,000 battery cells, with a 3 capacity of one half megawatt hour.
4 This means it would take 2,500 trailers, 5 at $1.5 million dollars each, to store one half hour 6 of Seabrook's reliable 24/7 power. Grid reliability 7 is important in my current position at Hitachi Cable 8 Manchester, as our cable business runs 24/7.
9 The Boston Globe recently published an 10 editorial, Retiring More Nuclear Plants Could Hurt 11 Mass Climate Goals. This newspaper is known for many 12 anti-nuclear power editorials.
13 The editor, Ryan, suggests Massachusetts' 14 new clean energy standard, which currently applies to 15 operating electrical generators built after 2010, be 16 backdated to 1990, the year that Seabrook opened.
17 That would allow the plant to make money 18 by selling those credits. It would also allow the 19 plant to be fairly compensated for its zero emission 20 energy, like other low carbon technologies in the 21 region. 22 The proposed energy, Clear River Energy 23 Center in northern Rhode Island, is the replacement 24 49 for Pilgrim Nuclear Plant, which provides reliable 1 power, but is being prematurely closed in 2019. To 2 be clear, this is a natural gas plant.
3 Massachusetts taxpayer funded C-10, who 4 advocates for the closure of Seabrook Station, 5 ignores that gas, not renewables, would be Seabrook's 6 replacement.
7 Remember the 2018 Merrimack Valley gas 8 explosions? More gas powered plants, pipelines, and 9 emissions. The safest way to power New England?
10 This is what C-10 and similar groups are really 11 advocating.
12 If reducing emissions with the safest and 13 most cost effective technology is important, then New 14 England needs to extend Seabrook's NRC license, in 15 order to keep 57 percent of New Hampshire's electrical 16 power reliably flowing, and develop plans to build 17 more nuclear generation. thank you.
18 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.
19 (Applause.)
20 MR. KLUKAN: That was impressive.
21 Rarely do people hit it right on the mark. So, and 22 again, all joking aside, I don't want to cut off 23 anyone tonight. That's not my ambition here. It's 24 50 really, I have one primary duty. And that's to make 1 sure whoever came here with a desire to speak tonight 2 gets an opportunity to do so.
3 So, to the extent we have extra time left 4 over at the end of the night, again, we'll cycle back 5 through people who have more to say. Okay. All 6 right. Next up we have Mr. Herman Bautzmann.
7 Please. 8 MR. BAUTZMANN: Good evening. My name 9 is Herman Bautzmann. I served on two nuclear powered 10 submarines in the U.S. Navy, have a bachelor's degree 11 in electrical engineering, and I'm a retired Chief 12 Engineer from Raytheon, currently residing in 13 Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
14 As a citizen of the planet earth I am 15 very concerned about the threat of climate change 16 poses to our children and grandchildren. If we New 17 Englanders are serious about addressing this issue we 18 would be extremely foolish to close one of New 19 England's largest suppliers of clean energy, and 80 20 percent of New Hampshire's clean energy.
21 We cannot afford to throw this 80 percent 22 of clean energy away. We need to reduce emissions 23 and continue to provide the safest, most cost 24 51 effective clean technology by extending Seabrook's 1 NRC license.
2 We need to avoid a repeat of 2015, when 3 New England emissions rose by three percent, due to 4 the premature closure of Vermont Yankee Nuclear 5 Plant, whose electrical capacity was replaced with 6 natural gas.
7 This is exactly what will happen to an 8 even greater extent if Seabrook is closed. Fossil 9 fuel plants, not renewables, will be Seabrook's 10 replacement. I cannot ignore this fact, which has 11 repeated globally in every instance of a nuclear plant 12 shutdown.
13 We do not have the luxury of cherry 14 picking which clean energy solution we want to employ.
15 We need to use all available technologies to avoid 16 this disaster. Let us agree that the enemy is fossil 17 fuel usage.
18 I hope to see New England use clean, 19 proven nuclear energy from Seabrook Station. Let's 20 continue its safe operation to 2050 and beyond.
21 Let's not make the same mistake of shutting down 22 nuclear in favor of fossil fuels, which caused climate 23 change in the first place. I have a copy of this if 24 52 -- 1 MR. KLUKAN: Yes, I'll take it from you.
2 Thank you. Next up we have Mr. Dennis Beaudoin.
3 MR. BEAUDOIN: Thank you. Good evening, 4 NRC Staff. Thank you for the opportunity to speak 5 tonight. My name is Dennis Beaudoin. I'm a lifelong 6 resident of New Hampshire. I'm also the proud 7 business manager of IBEW Local 490.
8 I'm here to speak in favor of renewing 9 Seabrook Station license. I feel very strongly about 10 this topic, because it's been a major part of my 11 career. 12 I started at Seabrook Station 35 years 13 ago as an apprentice. And it has given me an 14 opportunity to feed my family, and give help, support 15 to my community financially through a decent living 16 wage and benefits.
17 The IBEW have members doing maintenance 18 work there year round. Every 18 months we send close 19 to 100 IBEW members to the site for a planned 20 shutdown, refueling. I brought some of them here 21 tonight with me.
22 That's just the electrical workers. I 23 don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but 24 53 every 18 months the maintenance of the plant generates 1 millions upon millions of dollars for the local 2 economy through New Hampshire construction workers.
3 It's my understanding that there have 4 been several meetings on this topic already, with no 5 pertinent information that would constitute renewal 6 being denied. I hope tonight's meeting is just to 7 cross the Ts and dot the Is. Thank you all for your 8 due diligence.
9 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. All right.
10 Next we have Philip, and again I apologize if I 11 mispronounce names, Woyenberg. Please.
12 MR. WOYENBERG: Hello. My name is Phil 13 Woyenberg. And I'm a retired painting contractor 14 from South Portland, Maine. I used to be anti-15 nuclear, and was an active member of the Green Party.
16 I was very concerned about climate 17 change, and did a deep study into the alternatives to 18 fossil fuels. What I found was that nuclear has zero 19 carbon emissions.
20 But what was really surprising was that 21 statistics show that worldwide, nuclear is one of the 22 safest forms of energy. And it's dependable. It 23 runs all day, every day. And needs only a small 24 54 amount of fuel every year and a half. Nuclear should 1 be a big part of the world getting to zero carbon 2 emissions.
3 Seabrook Power Plant is an incredible 4 machine, and the single largest source of energy in 5 New England. On a small footprint it provides 650 6 high paying jobs, and a half a billion dollars to the 7 local economy.
8 For New England it is a huge source of 9 clean electricity. History shows that if a nuclear 10 plant closes, like Vermont Yankee, it is replaced 11 with dirty natural gas.
12 I support the license extension for 13 Seabrook, in order to maintain this clean electricity 14 source working for the local community, and all of 15 New England. Thank you.
16 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. Next 17 we have Meredith Angwin, A-N-G-W-I-N.
18 MS. ANGWIN: Okay. I have a copy of this 19 afterwards for you.
20 MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Thank you.
21 MS. ANGWIN: Okay. My name is Meredith 22 Angwin. I'm a chemist who has worked in many aspects 23 of the power industry. I performed and supervised 24 55 research on reducing pollution from gas turbines, 1 from coal power plants, and from geothermal plants, 2 as well as research on reducing corrosion in gas 3 pipelines, hydropower penstocks, and nuclear plants.
4 I was one of the first women project 5 managers hired at the Electric Power Research 6 Institute. And I'm the inventor on several patents.
7 I urge you to keep our air clear, clean 8 by extending the licenses to Seabrook Station. It 9 produces clean power. And if it were to close it 10 would be replaced by gas fired plants. That is what 11 happened in Vermont where I live.
12 Some renewables were built. But Vermont 13 Yankee's output kilowatt hour for kilowatt hour was 14 mainly replaced by gas fired generation. The amount 15 of carbon dioxide emitted by the New England grid 16 went up three percent. Seabrook is twice as large 17 as Vermont Yankee.
18 There are two problems with gas fired 19 power. One problem is carbon dioxide formation. The 20 other major problem is the formation of an acid gas 21 NOX. That's a mixture of NO2 and NO3.
22 And it's usually described as NOX, N-O-23 X, which is the precursor to photochemical smog, and 24 56 directly forms acid rain. It is impossible to 1 prevent NOX formation in a high temperature combustor 2 such as a gas turbine. And it cannot be entirely 3 cleaned up.
4 I have two patents in NOX prevention.
5 But they are only partially successful. NOX is an 6 intractable problem. Please keep Seabrook operating, 7 and keep the air clean of NOX.
8 Nuclear opponents are fond of saying what 9 might happen. We might build lots of renewables. We 10 might have some kind of problem at Seabrook. I'm 11 here to say what will happen if the plant closes.
12 We will have more gas fired systems 13 operating. We will have an increase of five to six 14 percent in the amount of carbon dioxide released by 15 our electric grid. We will have a similar increase 16 in NOX pollution, though the number is harder to 17 quantify.
18 Without Seabrook we will have dirtier 19 air, which leads to more acid rain, and more cases of 20 asthma. Please keep New Hampshire air clean by 21 extending Seabrook's operating license. Thank you.
22 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. Next 23 we will have Christopher Nord. Christopher Nord.
24 57 MR. NORD: I'm Chris Nord. I'm a Board 1 Member of the C-10 Research and Education Foundation, 2 and the Chair of the Committee that's working on the 3 opposition to the license amendment request that 4 Seabrook has filed.
5 We could debate the merits of nuclear 6 here tonight. And by the way, nuclear is not zero 7 carbon. But I don't have time for that, because I 8 only have two minutes and 40 seconds left.
9 So, let me say that the issue, the primary 10 issue here is no significant hazards. The 11 determination of no significant hazards is key as an 12 issue of small D democracy and fairness.
13 Way back in 2016 the NRC Regional Office 14 sent assurances to municipalities in the State of 15 Massachusetts concerning the ASR problem, Alkali-16 Silica Reaction problem at Seabrook.
17 And to quote, NRC will ensure that 18 Seabrook structure's monitoring program properly 19 assesses the condition of the structures affected by 20 ASR, and ensure they will continue to perform as 21 intended.
22 NRC Commission upheld the admissibility 23 of C-10's five contentions refigured to one in 2018.
24 58 In this ruling NRC staff argued in support of the 1 admissibility of C-10 contentions.
2 NRC regulations require that the 3 adjudicatory hearings must be completed before 4 licensing action is taken. However, staff can move 5 to issue a license amendment before completion of an 6 adjudicatory hearing if it would pose no significant 7 hazards. 8 This determination is made by NRC staff, 9 and is not reviewable by the Atomic Safety and 10 Licensing Board, who we are going in front of sometime 11 in the next six months.
12 Now NRC staff has moved to pass the 13 license amendment request in order to pass on license 14 renewal, which is inappropriate, since C-10's case 15 calls into question the legitimacy of the license 16 amendment request from top to bottom. And because 17 of that fact calls into question the legitimacy of 18 the license renewal application.
19 Because of all of this, as of tonight we 20 have filed an emergency petition with the Nuclear 21 Regulatory Commissioners to hold the license 22 amendment request in abeyance, and by extension the 23 license renewal application, until there is a proper 24 59 review of NRC's determination of no significant 1 hazards to ensure that licensing actions do not take 2 place while reviewing the no significant hazards, 3 give due recognition to the significance, complexity, 4 and lack of adequately rigorous study of ASR, which 5 is reflected in the license amendment request from 6 NextEra, and provide guidance and instruction to 7 staff for establishment of significantly more 8 rigorous and sophisticated state of the art methods.
9 I will only say that one of the two papers 10 I gave to the panel here tonight is from our expert 11 witness, Victor Saouma, who is one of the world's 12 leading experts on ASR, and has called into question 13 the entire legitimacy of the license amendment 14 request. We are only seeking our chance to have our 15 day in court. And for NRC to move to do anything --
16 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you, Mr. Nord.
17 MR. NORD: -- on license renewal before 18 that is done is grossly unfair and undemocratic.
19 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
20 MR. NORD: Thank you.
21 (Applause.)
22 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. Okay. Next we 23 have Darrin -- and if I'm mispronouncing your name, 24 60 I apologize -- Degon.
1 MR. DEGON: Degon.
2 MR. KLUKAN: Degon. Please.
3 MR. DEGON: Good evening. My name is 4 Darrin Degon. I'm also a Navy veteran. I served as 5 a reactor operator on submarines, and from '85 to 6 '91. When I got out of the Navy I got to work for a 7 company called Kent (phonetic) Nuclear, down south in 8 South Carolina, which was a nuclear waste depository, 9 where all the nuclear waste from the United States 10 went to. 11 Qualified as a reactor, as radcon tech, 12 and then a senior health physics tech while I was 13 there. I also got the opportunity to work at many 14 Department of Energy sites. I got to work at many 15 superfund sites as a health physics technician, 16 senior health physics technician.
17 I currently work right now at the 18 Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, in the Radiological 19 Control Division. I'm here to tell folks that I've 20 worked from the operations side, all the way through 21 the deposition side, decontamination, decommission.
22 Nothing in nuclear power is taken 23 lightly. Everything is taken very, very seriously.
24 61 I appreciate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 1 because they keep us in check. Department of Energy 2 keeps their people in check. There's always checks 3 and balances. The ASR issue, nine years' worth of 4 study, I think it's fair to say that that's a pretty 5 good study.
6 I'm not here to go over, I originally 7 wanted to go over the ten year energy study, and talk 8 about renewables, and how inefficient they are at 9 this point, compared to nuclear power, and how 10 efficient nuclear power is. But I think that was a 11 waste of time. It's already been talked about.
12 We've already gone over that.
13 But just going from my experience from, 14 like I said, operations, all the way through the 15 deposition, nothing here is taken lightly. And I 16 appreciate the studies that have been put forth. I 17 am 100 percent for the license renewal for Seabrook.
18 Thank you.
19 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
20 (Applause.)
21 MR. KLUKAN: All right. Just to give 22 you a status update, I have 16 people who would still 23 like to speak this evening. Assuming we go through 24 62 them at the pace we are, there will be some time at 1 the end. 2 So again, people who would like to say 3 more may well have an opportunity to do so. Again, 4 my goal here is not to cut people off. I want people 5 to have an opportunity to have their say.
6 But again, I need to make sure first that 7 everyone has, once they have an opportunity to speak, 8 took their time out of their normal routine to come 9 here to this meeting tonight, has an opportunity to 10 do so. 11 So next up we have Grace Pearson. Grace 12 Pearson? 13 MS. PEARSON: My name is, I have it as 14 Gay Pearson, but Grace is my official name in New 15 Hampshire, my legal name. I live on farmland in 16 Seabrook.
17 Before and when I moved the end of May 18 2018 into just the house I was looking for, thanks to 19 my realtors, I did not concern myself with living so 20 close to the plant, given that my top priority was 21 being within walking distance to water for swimming 22 and boating.
23 But soon after I settled in, I walked to 24 63 the launch at least one a day, paying attention to 1 the plant, listening, and looking for venting, 2 wondering what was being emitted and how often, and 3 if there were any adverse impacts to the water at the 4 launch area.
5 But most importantly, I am very concerned 6 about the concrete cracking due to the ASR. And I=ve 7 read enough of C-10.org=s contentions to realize the 8 need for in situ testing of concrete as being the 9 only way to completely learn of its integrity.
10 In addition to the C-10's continuous 11 radiation monitoring system, and because of my 12 12 years air quality dispersion modeling experience at 13 New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, I 14 am particularly interested in and concerned about the 15 possible use of radiation models for predicting 16 maximum ground level impacts for the beta and gamma 17 radiation under the different atmospheric condition=s 18 relapse rate, each of which is associated with a 19 different plume behavior.
20 I found five of these models online, each 21 have their own advantages and limitations. And if 22 EPA Region I has access to any of them, I would think 23 New Hampshire DEP should as well.
24 64 I=m particularly concerned about any 1 predicted ground level impacts during inversion 2 conditions and calms, both of which reflect poor 3 dispersion.
4 Also having read, on C-10.org, about fish 5 kills from the resulting heated ocean water used to 6 cool the reactor core, I would like to know why there 7 is no cooling tower.
8 During my 12 years employment at New 9 Jersey DEP in the Bureau of Air Quality Evaluation, 10 we occasionally reviewed computer modeling results 11 for cooling towers. The one for which I still have 12 the impact analysis is Oyster Creek in Forked River, 13 New Jersey, which was retired September 18th, 2018, 14 almost ten years ahead of schedule due to New Jersey=s 15 revised water rules that required new cooling towers 16 at a prohibitive cost. The plant had been operating 17 commercially since December 1st, >69.
18 The atmospheric cooling of water can be 19 achieved either with wet or dry cooling methods, each 20 with its pros and cons for plume visibility and ice 21 formation from droplet deposition.
22 Plume abatement was the most effective 23 using a hybrid, wet/dry cooling system such that when 24 65 the resultant mixture left the tower, it was not 1 saturated with water vapor as would be the case with 2 wet cooling only.
3 Finally, permitting renewal for the 4 Seabrook Plant, I feel, should not be considered until 5 the full range of petrographic testing for concrete 6 is completed. Thank you very much.
7 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. Okay, next up 8 we have Mr. Ron Thurlow, Ron Thurlow.
9 Could someone shut just those two door 10 right there? We=re getting a lot of noise from 11 outside. Thank you. I apologize.
12 MR. THURLOW: Sure. Good evening, my 13 name is Ron Thurlow, and I=m a resident of 14 Newburyport, Massachusetts, just south of the plant.
15 Except for a few years that I was a captain in the US 16 Air Force, I have lived my whole life in Newburyport 17 which included raising our children in this beautiful 18 area. 19 I think I have a unique perspective on 20 Seabrook Station. I have a bachelor=s degree in 21 health physics and a master=s in radiological 22 sciences. I became a certified health physicist back 23 in 1992. 24 66 I also worked at the Seabrook Plant for 1 more than 30 years. I know the people there, the 2 processes, the programs, and the culture at the 3 station. Since last May, I have retired, and I=m no 4 longer at the plant, no longer working for Seabrook 5 Station. 6 I strongly believe in the value the 7 station has for the local community, the region, and 8 our nation. It safely produces a great benefit for 9 all of us. I also believe in the commitment to 10 excellence the station has and the independent and 11 effective oversight the NRC provides for the safe use 12 of this technology.
13 Some technical concepts of license 14 renewal can be challenging and significant to go 15 through. I would like to thank though for the 16 significant time the station and the regulator have 17 invested into the research to understand and address 18 the issues. This effort is noteworthy and very much 19 appreciated.
20 As a resident of Newburyport, I hope the 21 Seabrook Station can continue to operate for many 22 more years, and I support prompt license renewal.
23 Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.
24 67 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
1 (Applause.)
2 MR. KLUKAN: Okay, next we have Colby 3 McNeil. Colby McNeil?
4 MR. MCNEIL: Hello. My name is Colby 5 Kurk McNeil, and I=m speaking on behalf of the other 6 supportive members of my community to relicense 7 Seabrook.
8 The future of our civilization is at 9 stake when it comes to climate change, air pollution 10 and energy security. My field of study covers these 11 subjects, as I model decarbonization strategies for 12 energy grids using real world data.
13 The scientific consensus for climate 14 change is overwhelming and so is our need to support 15 nuclear energy. There is not a single hopeful 16 scenario by the IPCC that does not include a major 17 share of nuclear energy.
18 NASA published a study pleading with the 19 public to understand this necessity stating, AWe 20 conclude that nuclear energy needs to be retained and 21 significantly expanded in order to avoid or minimize 22 the devastating impacts of unabated climate change.@
23 After reviewing the data myself, and 24 68 modeling dozens of grid scenarios, I can confirm these 1 statements are accurate, especially when it comes to 2 our local grid here in New England.
3 There is no feasible decarbonization 4 pathway that does not include a major role for nuclear 5 energy. The environmental and human risk of nuclear 6 are magnitudes lower than the risks of fossil fuels 7 that would replace Seabrook.
8 On average, Seabrook Station produces 9 roughly ten terawatt hours of clean electricity every 10 year which is roughly the electrical consumption of 11 the entire state of New Hampshire. Losing Seabrook 12 would be losing an entire states-worth of clean 13 electricity which would worsen air pollution, climate 14 change, and devastate local communities.
15 A study by WPI examining the closure of 16 Maine Yankee found that 85 percent of town revenue 17 was gone after four years. These losses hit school 18 budgets, infrastructure, and social services with 19 similar severity. For local residents, property 20 values dropped while property taxes increased 21 tenfold. 22 An article in the Boston Globe 17 years 23 later quoted Lori Smith, the town manager, saying, AI 24 69 have yet to meet anyone happy that Maine Yankee is 1 gone.@ All these years later, we=re still feeling 2 the loss of jobs, the economic downturn, and the huge 3 tax increases.
4 For clean air, a stable climate, and safe 5 jobs in our community, please relicense Seabrook 6 Station. Thank you.
7 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.
8 (Applause.)
9 MR. KLUKAN: Next we have Daniel Duarte.
10 MR. DUARTE: Thank you very much. My 11 name is Daniel Duarte. I just came over here tonight 12 to show my concern about the power plant. My major 13 concern is about the location. And I have a question.
14 I wanted to know if the location is in 15 danger for a flood in the next 10, 20 years, and also 16 if there=s a flood in the location, if we have waste, 17 nuclear waste storage, and if it will be a problem 18 for the environment.
19 And my other concern is if there=s and 20 EMP 21 attack or a power grid loss, if the nuclear reactor 22 will be in danger.
23 I have a few questions, yes or no. I=d 24 70 like to give one of you each. If you possible can 1 answer and give it back to me, I appreciate it.
2 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay, sir. I think we have 3 time for a few more questions. Let me try to answer 4 the first couple of questions I heard.
5 MR. DUARTE: Thank you very much.
6 MR. DONOGHUE: We didn=t bring the 7 experts here related to flooding hazards or EMP, but 8 I do know that that=s considered as part of the review 9 of the safe operation of the plant. And this had to 10 be evaluated and is part of the license now.
11 So I=m not sure if we have anybody in the 12 audience that could talk, you know, in any detail about 13 those issues. But flooding hazards are evaluated for 14 plants. 15 What were your other yes or no questions?
16 MR. DUARTE: I have just a few questions, 17 just concerns about is it true that the nuclear 18 reactor will likely to melt down without electricity 19 to cool them? Yes, or no, sir, please.
20 MR. DONOGHUE: The plants are designed 21 with safety systems to address a loss of electricity 22 to cool them down.
23 MR. DUARTE: Thank you. If we have a EMP 24 71 attack, how long can we cool down the facility?
1 MR. DONOGHUE: I don=t think we -- I 2 don=t have expertise in there. I don=t have an expert 3 here on that. But I think that anything that causes 4 a loss of electrical supply to the plant has systems 5 to provide electricity to replace any lost sources 6 that allow cool down.
7 MR. DUARTE: Do you know for how long?
8 MR. DONOGHUE: Off hand, I don=t know.
9 MR. DUARTE: Thank you. Have the nuclear 10 power plants been working together with the people to 11 inform the danger and to support the community about 12 the flood and about EMP attack?
13 MR. DONOGHUE: I don=t know if this has 14 come up in other meetings that I haven=t been a party 15 to. So I, myself, can=t answer that question. I 16 wonder if this came up in any of the annual assessment 17 meetings maybe. No.
18 MR. DUARTE: Thank you.
19 MR. DONOGHUE: I don=t think so.
20 MR. DUARTE: Has anybody provided a 21 readiness and awareness plan to the seacoasts that 22 surround the community for a nuclear disaster?
23 MR. DONOGHUE: I believe the evacuation 24 72 plan is provided. But --
1 MR. DUARTE: Thank you, sir.
2 MR. DONOGHUE: -- I=m not sure of 3 anything more than that.
4 MR. DUARTE: I appreciate it. Is the 5 facility responsible to support the affected area 6 zone by having ready food, water, transportation, and 7 shelter in place for everyone that might be or will 8 be affected if anything happened?
9 MR. DONOGHUE: Again, this is part of the 10 emergency plan. I don=t know the details of that 11 myself. And that subject is, you know, outside the 12 scope of what we want to talk about tonight.
13 MR. DUARTE: Thank you. And I=m just 14 going to ask again, one more time, if the facilities 15 are located in a high risk of flood, yes or no?
16 MR. DONOGHUE: I don=t know the risk 17 level, but all plants are evaluated for flood hazards 18 wherever they happen to be located.
19 MR. DUARTE: Thank you, sir, very much.
20 I appreciate your time.
21 MR. DONOGHUE: Thank you.
22 MR. KLUKAN: So just to clarify, you 23 heard Joe talk about this. I=ll echo Joe. The 24 73 purpose of the meeting tonight is to discuss 1 specifically ASR in the license amendment process.
2 So the experts we have here, particularly 3 Angie, not that I=m discounting anyone else in the 4 room, is to discuss ASR, okay. Because that=s what 5 we thought the bulk of our questions would be on.
6 We are having a meeting in April, our 7 Annual Assessment Meeting. What we=ll do is take 8 this back to the region, the preparers. We do want 9 the preparers for those annual assessment meetings to 10 make sure that we address these issues that you just 11 raised at that meeting which is generally the more 12 broad, overall plant performance for the year.
13 Again, the purpose of the meeting 14 tonight, and I bring that up just because it=s who we 15 have in the room with us, we thought the questions 16 would be primarily focused on the licensing process 17 and questions specifically on ASR. So that=s who we 18 have experts on in the room, so hence, our answers to 19 those questions.
20 So again, we will write those down, 21 Justin is writing those down right now. We=re going 22 to take those back, give those to the region, and 23 we=ll make sure that they=re addressed preemptively, 24 74 if you will, at the annual Assessment Meeting which 1 will be scheduled late in April.
2 Okay, next. We have Doug Bogen. Doug 3 Bogen or Bogen? I apologize again for name 4 pronunciation.
5 MR. BOGEN: Good evening. My name is 6 Doug Bogen. I=m the executive director of the 7 Seacoast Anti-pollution League based in Exeter. I 8 have attended many of these meetings. We=ve heard 9 all about how many public meetings we=ve had, a dozen 10 or more. I think one count it was 23 of them. I=ve 11 attended a lot of them, not all.
12 But I would submit that, while we=ve had 13 many public meetings, we have had zero formal public 14 hearings. And I say this as one of the former 15 interveners. To this time, in over the last eight, 16 nine years, there have been three different 17 petitions, five different organizations that have 18 attempted to intervene.
19 We were originally given approval, 20 standing by the ASLB. But the Nuclear Regulatory 21 Commission overruled that and denied us a hearing.
22 And so you can imagine we=re dismayed to hear that 23 now you want to issue the new license before we have 24 75 a hearing with the remaining intervenors that are 1 still looking to represent the public interest in a 2 formal hearing.
3 So I submit that that doesn=t make sense.
4 I understand you can do that under your rules. But 5 it just doesn=t make sense, it doesn=t pass the smell 6 test from a public interest point of view, from common 7 sense. 8 And it=s not surprising that our 9 Congressional delegation wound intervene in this 10 process to say the public deserves more input. But 11 I would also submit that this meeting here tonight 12 does not represent, does not take the place of a 13 formal public hearing.
14 And so I would think that we should listen 15 to what all they are saying and move forward with a 16 formal hearing before you issue the license.
17 Now, there=s been a lot of talk about 18 nuclear being carbon-free, a lot about climate 19 action, it=s great to hear there are so many climate 20 activists in this group. I would hope we could make 21 much better progress on climate with so much interest.
22 But I would mention that nuclear is not 23 carbon-free. There have been studies shown, when you 24 76 look at the total life cycle of nuclear, particularly 1 the fuel fabrication, the fuel production, it does 2 require a lot of energy to produce that. And most 3 of that comes from fossil fuels.
4 There=s one study, a study of studies, 5 found that renewable energy, wind and solar, is many 6 times less carbon-intensive than nuclear, five to 7 seven times less in the case of wind power.
8 And we intervened on this issue of 9 whether we could replace nuclear with wind. And sure 10 enough, we are finding that is the case. There are 11 thousands of megawatts of offshore wind power being 12 contracted for south of the cape right now, in the 13 next few months, the next few years. And we should 14 be looking at that rather than debating about other 15 issues that aren=t relevant.
16 I just want to ask what is the hurry, why 17 does this B- what makes a difference whether this is 18 issued next week versus nine months from now? Why 19 can=t you wait until the hearing? And I=m not just 20 saying that rhetorically. I would like an answer on 21 that. Because we=ve gotten very precious few answers 22 from this body here. Thank you.
23 (Applause.)
24 77 MR. DONOGHUE: Doug, right?
1 MR. BOGEN: Yeah.
2 MR. DONOGHUE: So it=s a good question.
3 Because, as I said in my opening remarks, originally 4 we planned to issue it after the hearing. Besides, 5 you know the regulations allow it.
6 The staff=s work=s done in the safety 7 review. So we have letters from the ACRS that 8 independently reviewed the safety evaluations and 9 agreed with the conclusions. They didn=t have any 10 other additional technical questions for us to 11 pursue. 12 By issuing the amendment in the renewal, 13 we are able to put any of the requirements related to 14 the ASR Monitoring and Management Program into the 15 license. So that makes it solid in their license 16 now. And it does not undermine the hearing.
17 The hearing will B- that process is 18 independent of our work. The Board has documents to 19 review. They=ll get more information from the 20 hearing process that they evaluate.
21 As I said earlier, the outcome of the 22 hearing could result in the staff having to go back 23 and take action to change the license further. If 24 78 there=s information that=s presented to the Board, 1 and the Board makes a finding, and we have to 2 implement something, we=ll do that. We can go as far 3 as issuing an order to the plant to do that.
4 So back to, you know, back to it being a 5 rush, our perspective is that it=s not been a rush to 6 review. It=s been many years since the staff had an 7 initial draft safety evaluation, a license renewal.
8 And one of the open items, the major open 9 items, we related to ASR. And our position was that 10 we were not going to renew the license until we got 11 satisfactory answers to questions that are now 12 answered by the license amendment and our review of 13 that. 14 So we don=t feel like we=ve rushed that.
15 The amendment review took more than two years. And 16 we think with our work done we can promptly issue the 17 license, we=re not undermining the hearing, and by 18 issuing these actions, we get those requirements into 19 the license.
20 MR. BOGEN: It still doesn=t answer my 21 question of what difference it would make whether you 22 waited six months. After nine years, you=d think you 23 could wait another six months.
24 79 Again, it=s 11 years before the license 1 renewal runs out, the existing license runs out. We 2 are not going to freeze in the dark, the lights aren=t 3 going to go out, you aren=t going to lose your jobs 4 any time soon. We have another decade of plant 5 operations.
6 I understand you want to get it done ahead 7 of time, and you evidently have nothing better to do 8 than issue the license. But we demand a better say 9 in what is going into that license renewal. Thank 10 you. 11 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
12 MR. DONOGHUE: I=m going to respond to 13 you then. Because I think that, again, we=re not 14 rushing to judgement at all. I want to tell you that 15 we have other work for our staff to do. We have to 16 -B one of our key principles is to be as efficient as 17 we can. So we have people who worked on this. And 18 we continue to track and report on it. And so by 19 issuing it, we can complete that work, move on to 20 other work.
21 If required, you know, as an outcome of 22 this hearing, if need be, we have to assign people 23 back to redo the safety evaluation and put other 24 80 requirements into place, we=ll do that. But we=re 1 trying to be as efficient as we can.
2 I=m not going to stand here and tell you 3 that there=s an urgency to it. No, we don=t have an 4 urgency except to be as efficient as we can. And if 5 it appears urgent, I just point to the perspective 6 that we have of doing a long and complex review on 7 the renewal itself and on this amendment.
8 MR. BOGEN: Well, again, it wouldn=t have 9 -- it would have been done already if you B-10 MR. KLUKAN: There will be B- I 11 appreciate you have ongoing questions and comments 12 you=d like to raise. But out of fairness to everyone 13 else in the room who would like to speak, there will 14 probably be an opportunity for you to speak later on.
15 MR. BOGEN: Okay. Thank you.
16 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. All right, next 17 up we have John Nyhan. John Nyhan?
18 MR. NYHAN: Good evening, John Nyhan, and 19 I=m president of the Hampton Area Chamber of Commerce.
20 And just for the record, the Hampton Area Chamber of 21 Commerce includes the communities of Seabrook, 22 Hampton Falls, Hampton, Northampton, and Rye.
23 I speak here tonight representing the 24 81 Chamber in support of the renewal of the license. My 1 experience with Seabrook Station, believe it or not, 2 goes back over 35 years. I was actually the 3 employment manager from 1982 to 1988. So I saw it 4 through construction into the operations of the 5 plant. 6 I also served in one of the first 7 evacuation plans that the old plant back in the >80s.
8 So I=m somewhat aware of not only the power plant 9 itself but the many, many hard and dedicated workers, 10 and talented workers, at the power plant.
11 Seabrook Station belongs to the Chamber.
12 We have over 450 members of our Chamber of Commerce.
13 Seabrook Station represents one of our largest 14 members. And therefore, it represents over 500 of 15 their employees that we consider members of our 16 Chamber of Commerce.
17 I think one of the two things that I=d 18 like to speak on very quickly, first is economic 19 development. One of the commitments that the Chamber 20 has here in the seacoast area is to continue economic 21 development, to grow businesses.
22 It would be very difficult for us to lose 23 Seabrook Station and continue to convince businesses 24 82 and companies all around the country why it would be 1 a good reason to move to the seacoast. So we need 2 not only Seabrook Station, but we need electricity 3 behind Seabrook Station.
4 The other thing that I think is critical, 5 and I=ve been working at both the federal, state, and 6 local level, is workforce development. When we talk 7 about a possibility of employment going into 2050, we 8 are now, in fact, looking at our young children who 9 will be looking for positions in the trades, the 10 mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, et 11 cetera. 12 I think this is a critical, critical 13 turning point of having our employees of the future 14 be considered as possible candidates for employment 15 at the power plant.
16 So I=m not an engineer, I can=t speak to 17 the technical part of this hearing, but I can tell 18 you that the power plant has been a very effective 19 member of our community and one that we=re proud of.
20 Thank you.
21 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
22 (Applause.)
23 MR. KLUKAN: Next we have Patricia 24 83 Torkildson. Torkildson. Sorry, again I apologize.
1 MS. TORKILDSON: I=m Patricia 2 Torkildson, and I=m a resident of Newburyport.
3 NextEra=s nuclear power plant in Seabrook is an 4 important source of energy for our area, and I 5 appreciate that it=s a cleaner source of energy than 6 coal. But the plant also needs to be a source of 7 energy that is safe for the surrounding communities.
8 I came here tonight not to oppose the 9 license extension for Seabrook but to ask that the 10 license extension not be granted at this time.
11 Wait until after the issues with the 12 concrete are fully vetted with the public. Hold the 13 public hearing with the Atomic Safety and Licensing 14 Board that was promised for this coming summer.
15 Allow the issue of the degraded concrete to be fully 16 discussed with the public at that meeting and allow 17 time for the public to digest and respond to what we 18 learn. 19 When it comes to nuclear power, safety 20 needs to be a major concern for the government. When 21 a nuclear power plant is deteriorating due to ASR, 22 the government=s concern should be even greater.
23 This concern is not shown when the government appears 24 84 to be rushing to extend the license of a plant that 1 is already degraded. With 11 years left on the 2 license, on the plant=s license, what=s the rush?
3 I know that some scientists agree with 4 the company that the degrading concrete is being 5 properly monitored and controlled, but others have 6 raised concerns that will be brought forth at the 7 summer hearing. Let them be heard before a license 8 extension is granted.
9 It is important for the residents of this 10 area that we feel our safety is a primary concern 11 that has been fully addressed. Remember, Seabrook 12 is not just a nuclear power plant. It=s a nuclear 13 power plant with ASR.
14 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
15 (Applause.)
16 MR. KLUKAN: Next we have Kinsey Boehl.
17 Kinsey Boehl?
18 MR. BOEHL: Good evening, and thank you 19 for the opportunity to speak tonight. Nuclear power 20 is an important part of environment, excuse me, 21 environmental stewardship in the nation. Carbon 22 emissions are a global problem. Seabrook Station 23 powers more than 1.4 million homes and businesses and 24 85 reduces carbon emissions by four million tons a year.
1 Seabrook also provides a large economic 2 incentive to the region. It provides good jobs and 3 highly trained and well educated employees that live 4 in and around the seacoast.
5 All the employees at Seabrook Station 6 have a responsibility to our communities and provide 7 safe, carbon-free electricity. Our livelihood and 8 the safety of our families and communities relies on 9 it. Safety is Seabrook=s highest priority.
10 Seabrook Station has a long history of 11 safe operations. Since the Alkali-Silica Reaction 12 affecting the concrete at Seabrook was discovered, 13 Seabrook has answered regulatory concerns with robust 14 analytical methods, testing, and monitoring programs 15 to ensure that safety related equipment remains 16 protected and we continue to operate it safely.
17 For these reasons, I recommend that the 18 Commission approve Seabrook Station, Unit 1 operating 19 license renewal and amendment.
20 Again, Kinsey Boehl, and I live in 21 Amesbury, Massachusetts. Thank you.
22 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.
23 (Applause.)
24 86 MR. KLUKAN: Next we have Herb Moyer.
1 Herb Moyer, M-O-Y-E-R. That=s you? Okay. Do you 2 need someone to operate your camera for you? Okay.
3 MR. DONOGHUE: While Mr. Moyer comes up, 4 I=ll just let you know there=s seats opening up within 5 the audience here for any of those people standing in 6 the back. I=m sure you=re legs are getting tired.
7 MR. MOYER: My name is Herb Moyer. I=m 8 a 47-year resident of Exeter, New Hampshire. I 9 taught at Winnacunnet High School, biology, ecology, 10 and botany, from 1969 to 1990, worked for IBM for 11 four years, et cetera. So I=ve been around.
12 And I=ve been involved in the Seabrook 13 nuclear plant issues since 1972. I=m the president 14 of the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, one of two 15 citizen organizations that have been following this 16 issue since the very beginning.
17 Not only does the Seabrook nuclear plant 18 have concrete credibility, the NRC has lack of 19 credibility on its own merits, because they have taken 20 positions that are anathema to safety of the public.
21 I cite an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, Helen 22 Hoyt comment in response to the failure of the then 23 utility to implement a security measure, a safety 24 87 measure on backup security systems.
1 Her comment was, AThe utility=s 2 commitment to comply is evidence of compliance.@ And 3 I don=t know if you view that as a legitimate 4 scientific statement, but it=s certainly bogus. A 5 commitment to comply to something does not prove that 6 you=ve done the compliance. And that=s the way this 7 issue has been slanted by the NRC against public 8 safety and public interest.
9 Long history. I had probably 15 or 20 10 students of mine who worked at the plant, came back 11 to me, teaching at Winnacunnet, telling me stories.
12 Now, these are anecdotal, but these are students who 13 worked at the plant, took their time to come back to 14 me, because they knew I was working with the Seacoast 15 Anti-Pollution League back in the >70s, >80s.
16 And they indicated that there are people 17 that are throwing beer bottles and pouring baby lotion 18 into the concrete pores. So there are voids in the 19 concrete. And I know that from the veracity of the 20 students who told me these things.
21 If you will check the Hampton Falls 22 Police Records, you will find some 300 DWI arrests 23 for plant workers going to the plant and coming from 24 88 the plant. So there was a lot of drinking onsite at 1 the plant. That=s a matter of public record.
2 So, you know, those of you have a role in 3 nuclear power today, I=m not casting aspersions on 4 you, but there are clearly some issues that haven=t 5 been addressed.
6 So we have fought long and hard. I=ll 7 bet SAPL, over the years, has spent nearly a million 8 dollars in legal fees to oppose the licensing. And 9 it=s terrible that the NRC, who studied the Fukishima 10 accidents, listed a whole bunch of quick fixes, none 11 of which, virtually none of which they=ve implemented 12 in anything but a voluntary way through plants 13 throughout the US.
14 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.
15 MR. MOYER: Thank you.
16 (Applause.)
17 MR. KLUKAN: Next we have Cathryn Capra.
18 Cathryn Capra?
19 MS. CAPRA: Hi, I=m Cathryn Capra. I=m 20 from Georgetown, Massachusetts. And I=m very 21 concerned about the safety of the plant. I heard 22 many words that were alarming to me and saw some on 23 the slide and from the engineer, progressive, it=s 24 89 causing cracking, it cannot be reversed, causing 1 degradation.
2 And then I read that it can be managed or 3 corrected. And I don=t know how you can do that with 4 something that is irreversible and progressive, what 5 you mean by that and what you would do.
6 MR. DONOGHUE: So I=ll take that as a 7 question.
8 MS. CAPRA: Yeah.
9 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay. So I=m not the 10 expert on the concrete, so I=m going to ask Angie to 11 be ready here in a second. But the ASR degradation 12 is slow. So it=s possible to monitor it and see how 13 far it does progress. It is progressive, so you can 14 see how far it progresses in other places in the plant 15 where it may present itself, right.
16 I know that the plant has conducted some 17 repairs where necessary on structures that are 18 affected by ASR. So there=s a monitoring program, 19 and there=s the ability to make repairs as needed to 20 maintain the structural capability of the safety 21 related structures.
22 Correcting or reversing is not B- it=s 23 the kind of phenomena you can=t do that. So this 24 90 monitoring has to stay in place. And as I said 1 earlier, that=s why this monitoring program is so 2 important and why it should be part -- and we think 3 it will be put into the license, okay.
4 Is there anything you can add to that, 5 Angie? 6 MS. BUFORD: Sorry, I haven=t talked in 7 a while, so my throat=s hoarse again. But I just 8 wanted to say that ASR is indeed a degradation 9 mechanism. It=s an aging effect along with concrete.
10 I would say there are a multitude of aging 11 effects that affect concrete that are factored into 12 the concrete design codes when concrete=s designed.
13 The American Concrete Institute applied for safety 14 factors that account for all types of degradation.
15 Cracking occurs in all concrete over time as it ages.
16 ASR, the whole reason that the plant 17 pursued a license amendment was to look at the effect 18 of ASR as another aging effect and to incorporate it 19 into structural analyses that can show that, even 20 with ASR, that the structures are able to perform 21 their function, their structural functions, and that 22 there is enough margin in those calculations so that 23 ASR can be considered under the licensing basis for 24 91 the plant.
1 MS. CAPRA: I=m sorry. I have limited 2 time, right. I wanted to --
3 MR. KLUKAN: I stopped the clock.
4 Normally I --
5 MS. CAPRA: Oh, okay.
6 MR. KLUKAN: -- don=t do this, but --
7 MS. CAPRA: Okay.
8 MR. KLUKAN: Your question, I thought, 9 was likely one other people -- anyway, go on. Go, 10 go. 11 MS. CAPRA: Okay, thank you. Did you 12 have something else to --
13 MS. BUFORD: No. I just wanted to say 14 that that=s the whole basis of the license amendment, 15 was to incorporate the effects of ASR into the 16 structural calculations that already exist for the 17 plant. 18 MS. CAPRA: Okay. So if it were to 19 progress to the point where it affected the 20 functioning of the structures, what would you do?
21 MS. BUFORD: So part of our safety 22 evaluation in the license amendment request was to 23 look at their monitoring program to determine, for 24 92 each structure, what are they monitoring, and what 1 are the acceptance criteria, and how did they come to 2 those? 3 So their monitor B-4 MS. CAPRA: I=m sorry, could you stop the 5 clock while she=s answering?
6 MR. KLUKAN: Sure.
7 MS. CAPRA: Thank you.
8 MS. BUFORD: So they did an analysis for 9 every structure and determined, by mathematical 10 analysis, how much ASR. And they measure, microcrack 11 measurements and actual physical measurements are 12 taken at the plant.
13 And each structure, each area has what 14 they call a threshold for ASR expansion. And this 15 license amendment puts in a requirement that ASR 16 cannot progress past the established acceptance 17 limit. 18 So as the staff, we looked at those limits 19 specifically, and also cross-referenced that with 20 calculations to determine whether we felt that they 21 could safely get to those limits.
22 If they got to those limits, they would 23 need to, just like any other issue that would come 24 93 up, they would need to assess the issue and determine 1 -B and the NRC would concurrently, through our 2 oversight process, determine whether they could 3 continue to be safely operated.
4 So we would, you know, if they got to those 5 limits, then they would need to do further 6 assessments. And the NRC would intervene under our 7 oversight.
8 MS. CAPRA: So would they take it offline 9 if they found it reached the threshold, like, to do 10 the assessments?
You know, I=m concerned that they 11 would continue to operate when it might be B-12 MS. BUFORD: The NRC has the authority 13 to do that if necessary.
14 MS. CAPRA: Okay, because I=m concerned 15 about that. And then somebody already addressed 16 about the license, why you=re wanting to extend the 17 license before the current one expires. And I=m 18 really -B you=ve already answered this, but I just 19 have to say I=m really anxious about that. I wish 20 that, you know, it could just -B that could be delayed 21 so that more monitoring could be done.
22 And also, was the testing that was done, 23 was it done on actual pieces of concrete from the 24 94 plant when it was evaluated for ASR?
1 MS. BUFORD: In the testing program, the 2 specimens that were used were constructed from 3 different constituents that were similar and 4 representative of the concrete at the plant, 5 including aggregate partially taken from a quarry 6 here in New England. Some of the constituents were 7 a little bit different, because they needed to 8 accelerate ASR.
9 ASR at Seabrook is a very slow 10 progressing B-11 MS. CAPRA: Right, right.
12 MS. BUFORD: -- reaction. It=s come to 13 this point over, you know, 40 years or however long 14 the concrete=s been in place. So the testing program 15 needed to come to accelerated levels of ASR 16 degradation in a short time.
17 So the only real differences between that 18 concrete was really the constituents that were used 19 to accelerate the ASR so that you could test to limits 20 that would bound the plant.
21 MS. CAPRA: Okay, thank you.
22 So basically, the bottom line though is 23 it was not actual concrete taken from the actual 24 95 plant. It used accelerants, and it was from a similar 1 area. Is that correct?
2 MS. BUFORD: That=s correct.
3 MS. CAPRA: Okay, thank you so much.
4 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
5 Okay, next up we have Meo Young. Meo 6 Young? 7 MS. YOUNG: Hi, I=m Meo Young. I=m from 8 Newburyport, Mass. I=m a concerned citizen. I=m 9 very concerned about the safety of the plant. I=m 10 also concerned about the public input tonight. And 11 I just came here to hear everything you have to say.
12 But I=m afraid that it might be skewed by 13 either NextEra or the Seabrook town coordinating 14 plant speak, you know, people that are in favor of 15 the plant speaking here. And many of them don=t even 16 live in the area. But that was a trigger for me when 17 I heard people from way outside the area here 18 speaking.
19 I have several questions. One is are you 20 saying that NextEra will be monitoring the ASR itself?
21 If so, this is of great concern. I think there should 22 be independent monitoring of the ASR. It=s kind of 23 like the fox guarding the hen house.
24 96 It also sounds like you=ve already made 1 a decision, so I=m wondering whether our input tonight 2 will have any effect on the licensing. And can you 3 better explain who actually makes the final decision 4 on the license? Is it the results of the hearing, 5 or your conclusion. I was a little confused about 6 that tonight.
7 And then why does the license extension 8 have to be so long for an old plant? So many things 9 can change in 20 years. It seems that the management 10 can become lax over such a long period. The fear of 11 renewal would keep the plants on their toes.
12 And I=m also concerned about what the 13 gentleman raised earlier, flooding, and global 14 warming, and the plan for that, and how that would 15 impact the plant over a 20-year period. Those are 16 my questions.
17 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
18 MR. DONOGHUE: All right, thanks. I=ll 19 try to get to all of them. The program in place, 20 that=s already in place to monitor ASR is inspected 21 by the NRC. So we=re watching, we have been, and we 22 continue to do inspections. We have residents on 23 site who watch and inspect all of the activities of 24 97 the plant. And this will be another inspection 1 activity that will be included.
2 MS. YOUNG: And they=ll be there going 3 forward as well?
4 MR. DONOGHUE: Yes, yes. So, you know, 5 I=m trying to alleviate your concern there, is that 6 it=s not NextEra on their own. It=s NextEra, like 7 anything else, all their other programs are inspected 8 by the NRC. And they have to do, especially once 9 it=s in their license, but even now they=re putting 10 programs in place, and we=re inspecting them, okay.
11 I think the final decision, the 12 Commission delegated the license renewal to the 13 Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, so it=s 14 management at the office level, not the Commission 15 itself. 16 Now, we inform the Commission of our 17 intent to issue the license and, in this case, also 18 there=ll be notification of the license amendment.
19 Because it=s subject to a hearing. But the decision 20 to do those things is at the office level.
21 MS. YOUNG: Well, that=s meaning you guys 22 or somebody else?
23 MR. DONOGHUE: Actually, my boss. But -
24 98 B 1 MS. YOUNG: Your boss?
2 MR. DONOGHUE: Yeah, yeah.
3 MS. YOUNG: And is that part of the 4 hearing? Is the hearing totally separate then?
5 MR. DONOGHUE: Right, right, right. The 6 hearing, yeah, the hearing process is separate from 7 the licensing process. And as I said before, there 8 could be an outcome from the hearing that requires us 9 to go back into licensing to do something. But those 10 are intentionally kept separate, okay.
11 Input tonight, so I think Brett said 12 there=s a transcript being kept. There=s material 13 that=s been handed to us so there=ll be a meeting 14 summary that will include reference to the 15 transcript. It will include all the information 16 that=s been submitted to us tonight. We=re going to 17 review that and see if there=s anything new that would 18 affect our decision.
19 Link to the B- of the extension. So in 20 the regulations, the NRC regulations for renewed 21 licenses were put in place. And there=s a lot of 22 background to those where the Commission considered 23 what made sense. And what made sense was an extension 24 99 no longer than 20 years. That seemed reasonable.
1 I think it touches on the things you 2 talked about. Things could change over some time.
3 So some practical things, without getting into a lot 4 of technical detail are that, you know, the original 5 license made some assumptions that went out to 40 6 years. 7 To go beyond those 40 years, there=s new 8 information that=s needed. There=s aging mechanisms, 9 besides concrete, that affect other things besides 10 concrete that have to be accounted for. And the 11 plant has to demonstrate that they can put programs 12 in place to support that 20-year interval. And we 13 won=t re-license beyond that interval.
14 So, you know, and there are some plants 15 now that are coming in for a subsequent license 16 renewal. But we won=t go, you know, that 20 years is 17 the most we=ll extend at any one time, all right.
18 So all those things that a plant has to 19 do to be able to B- besides concrete, there=s other 20 things that a plant has to do to be able to prove to 21 us that they can operate safely when they get their 22 license extension.
23 Those are all subject to inspection, 24 100 they=re all part of their license.
If they don=t do 1 them, Angie already said, for concrete or other 2 things, we could issue orders. Those orders could be 3 to the extent of shutting down until they can correct 4 the problem, okay.
5 Did I touch on B- I think -- I tried to 6 keep notes on what you=re asking. I think I got them 7 all. 8 MS. YOUNG: You got everything, yes.
9 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay.
10 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.
11 Okay, next we have Linda Cooper. Linda 12 Cooper? 13 MS. COOPER: My name=s Linda Cooper. I 14 live in Newburyport. I=m an engineer. Now, you 15 mentioned earlier in the meeting that the ASR only 16 occurs in certain types of concrete. So how can you 17 guarantee that the concrete used in testing in Texas 18 is the same as what was used to build Seabrook, thus 19 coming to the conclusion that it=s safe?
20 And secondly, is there a chance of the 21 rebar breaking down because of the ASR, and is that 22 part of the monitoring?
23 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay, so thanks for your 24 101 questions. Just to make sure I got them, the 1 similarity of the test specimens that are concrete, 2 I think Angie addressed that, but she can give you a 3 little bit more detail. But the other new question, 4 I think, for tonight --
5 MS. COOPER: The rebar?
6 MR. DONOGHUE: -- yeah, yeah. There=s 7 ASR -- 8 MS. COOPER: Yeah B-9 MR. DONOGHUE: Does ASR affect the 10 rebar? 11 MS. COOPER:
It=s going to affect the 12 rebar. And is that part of the monitoring?
13 MR. DONOGHUE: Right. And I don=t know 14 the answer to that. And I=m wondering if Angie can 15 shed light on it.
16 MS. BUFORD: Okay, so I wanted to speak 17 high level to the representativeness that the staff 18 found between the test specimens and Seabrook.
19 Because that=s a key component of the hearing that=s 20 going to be taking place. And so what we can say is, 21 it really needs to be limited to what=s available in 22 the safety evaluation.
23 But I will just say that the staff found 24 102 that the concrete was built to the same specs as 1 Seabrook in terms of reinforcement and size. And it 2 was tested to loadings that are part of the Seabrook 3 design. 4 You know, we independently audited, and 5 inspected, and determined that the testing was 6 consistent with testing that was used to develop ACI 7 318 code. So it was in line with sound engineering 8 science. And we determined that the testing was 9 applicable to be used as a basis for the Seabrook 10 monitoring.
11 And that=s actually really well detailed 12 in the safety evaluation for the license amendment 13 request if you=re interested in getting more detail.
14 (Off-microphone comments.)
15 MS. BUFORD: Yeah, actually it=s in 16 Section 3.2.1 of the license amendment, safety 17 evaluation. And the link to that is in the slides.
18 The second question about rebar breaking 19 down, so there=s two issues. And I=ll be brief. But 20 the one issue could, you know, would be the concern 21 maybe that there would be corrosion of rebar.
22 There were multiple cores taken at 23 Seabrook that showed that there was no corrosion issue 24 103 for rebar in multiple cores, on the order of dozens, 1 on different areas of the site. And that makes sense, 2 because of the alkaline nature of the reaction would 3 actually cause it to be a higher pH area which would 4 be less likely to have corrosion.
5 MS. COOPER: But that=s right now though.
6 What about in the future?
7 MS. BUFORD: So in the future, if there 8 was ever to be rebar corrosion because of water 9 infiltration caused by any aging effect, that would 10 come to the surface of the concrete. And the 11 concrete=s inspected, like I think I mentioned, every 12 six months to three years, depending on the area.
13 And so that would be identified and addressed prior 14 to any sort of structural issue.
15 And as far as ASR breaking down rebar, 16 that=s not known to occur.
17 MS. COOPER: But how would you address if 18 something did happen to rebar?
19 MS. BUFORD: So if something -B I=m 20 trying to think of what something might happen with 21 rebar. So what I can say is that what -- part of the 22 testing was to look at was rebar anchorage to make 23 sure that the specimens in the testing program were 24 104 able to maintain the reinforcement length between the 1 rebar. And so when they tested the 2 specimens, they found that the rebar didn=t, so to 3 speak, break apart which is something that you would 4 look at in the testing.
5 So when they tested the rebar to the 6 tested limits, which were beyond what the design basis 7 for Seabrook were, the reinforcing bars for all of 8 the specimens held intact with the required anchorage 9 length. So they found that there wasn=t a rebar 10 slippage issue. That is not projected to occur.
11 MS. COOPER: But that testing was only 12 done on, like, a certain amount of time. We don=t 13 know what 20 years from now would be.
14 MS. BUFORD: The testing, well, the 15 testing was to limits of ASR expansion that are well 16 beyond anticipated at the site. And so those limits 17 were are used. Then those feed into the monitoring 18 with a large cushion of margin that the site monitors 19 to. So actually, those levels of ASR were well beyond 20 what is expected through the life of the plant, even 21 the expended life.
22 MS. COOPER: Okay. All right, thank you 23 very much.
24 105 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
1 Next up we have Jay Gustaferro, 2 Gustaferro, from the Massachusetts Lobstermen=s 3 Association.
4 MR. GUSTAFERRO: Thanks, Jay Gustaferro.
5 I want to use this moment here, I=m going to beg your 6 forgiveness to move off from ASR for a quick moment 7 and make this kind of a teaching moment from my 8 friends and neighbors in the seacoast here.
9 And have you all asked yourself, those of 10 you who=ve been lobbied to come down here and speak, 11 you know, in favor of relicensing this thing, why 12 they=re in such a rush to do it? Why is that?
13 Because, you know, there=s not going to be 14 a problem getting it through the NRC. They=re not 15 really a nuclear regulatory agency, they=re more of 16 a lobbying agency.
17 So why has, you know, the industry put out 18 so much pressure to bring so many of us down here to 19 speak in favor of this thing with ten years out before 20 it=s even up.
21 It=s so that they can borrow more money 22 on that decrepit electric tea kettle out here. They 23 want to borrow as much money as they can as quickly 24 106 as they can, because they know, the people with the 1 money, what a piece of crap it is. And I=m sure that 2 all the regulators know that also. But that=s for 3 another thing.
4 So I just wanted to, you know, those of 5 you who live in this community, don=t be too quick to 6 be supporting this industry and these guys. And ask 7 yourself why, why has there been such a push to 8 support it? What=s the rush? That=s the rush, so 9 they can get as much out of that thing as they can, 10 and then get the hell out of Dodge with their money.
11 So the ASR question. You know, I think 12 Mark Twain may have said it best, that there=s three 13 kinds of lies. There=s lies, there=s damn lies, and 14 then there=s where you=re all at, which is statics.
15 It=s turned into sand, guys, yo, sand. It=s breaking 16 down. It should have never been licensed to begin 17 with. 18 And maybe just a little plea of humanity 19 for you guys, since I=ve spent the last two minutes 20 yelling at you or around you, there was a gentleman 21 from my community. I think his name was McLinnan 22 (phonetic), he was the only NRC commissioner up to 23 that point who ever voted against a power plant.
24 107 And go back and read some of his testimony 1 for why he objected to Seabrook. It was kind of a 2 land mark thing that he actually objected. And of 3 course, you know what happened to him. They ran him 4 out of town on a rail. But I got to know him many 5 decades ago. And he always told me slept better.
6 I guess that=s all for this evening.
7 Thank you all, and don=t be so quick to believe it.
8 You know, common sense is uncommon. Think about the 9 why. 10 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
11 (Applause.)
12 MR. KLUKAN: Next up we have William 13 Woodward.
14 MR. WOODWARD: Woodward.
15 MR. KLUKAN: Woodward, Woodward.
16 MR. WOODWARD: I am William Woodward. I 17 teach psychology at the University of New Hampshire.
18 I=m a professor, I=m a historian of science, in terms 19 of my PhD. I=d like to just interject the long view 20 here. 21 The long view takes us back to the 22 resistance to situating a nuclear power plant right 23 here. One of the object ions was you don=t have an 24 108 answer to what you=re going to do with the spent fuel.
1 I still haven=t heard the answer.
2 Why aren=t we talking about that tonight.
3 There=s a national program to ship it to Native 4 American lands in New Mexico and Texas. But that=s 5 very, very dangerous. So that would be something to 6 look into with NISC, which is an organization pointing 7 out the flaws in getting rid of nuclear waste.
8 Another long view perspective would be to 9 look at Germany. Germany, after they watched 10 Fukushima, said we=re going off of nuclear for public 11 safety reasons. It=s not a safe energy.
12 Another thing we could look at in the big 13 picture would be the state of Maine. Until Governor 14 LePage came along, there was a pilot program to have 15 offshore wind replace all of the nuclears on the east 16 coast. It=s actually doable. They were set back by 17 LePage. And now Massachusetts has caught up, and I 18 understand they have several plants going now.
19 Investors believe that this is the future.
20 My university is going to 50 percent 21 renewables by 2030 and 100 percent renewables by 2050.
22 Why don=t we have scientists here talking about, 23 climate scientists, talking about what we need to do 24 109 over the next 30 to 50 years.
1 I=m disappointed by the quality of the 2 panel here, frankly, you know. I mean, where are the 3 scientists? This is not very persuasive. Why are 4 we going to rush ahead without having a hearing from 5 not only the public but from the scientists? What is 6 the rush?
7 And unfortunately, this is what I=ve been 8 hearing for 44 years. I=ve been living in Durham.
9 I get the NRC doing a whitewash instead of answering 10 our questions. And I think they must be staffed by 11 insiders.
12 Because it=s not -- and right now we=re 13 trying to get monitors in the state of New Hampshire, 14 independent monitors, and they=re telling us we don=t 15 need them. Well, what do you think? Massachusetts 16 thinks we need them. They have state funded 17 monitors. But I heard a hearing Concord last week.
18 The industry was saying, no, we don=t need them. It=s 19 all taken care of right here. At Seabrook, they=re 20 doing all the monitoring that=s needed.
21 We=ve got pediatric canc er, not only here 22 on the seacoast but around every reactor in the 23 country. There=s data on that. Why don=t we have 24 110 that data? Why don=t we discuss how many kids have 1 to get cancer to support this industry?
2 Thank you for your time.
3 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
4 (Applause.)
5 MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Next we have Joe 6 Casey, Joe Casey.
7 (Off-microphone comments) 8 MR. KLUKAN: Okay, we will move on then 9 to Mindi Messmer. Mindi Messmer?
10 MS. MESSMER: Hello, I am Mindi Messmer, 11 a representative, former represe ntative for the State 12 House for Rye, Environmental Scientist with a 13 master=s degree in public health.
14 I have a few questions, actually a lot of 15 questions, so I=m not sure if you want me to go 16 through them first and then B-17 MR. KLUKAN: Go through them and then -B 18 MS. MESSMER: Why can you not decouple 19 the license amendment from the license extension?
20 Why is the rush? I echo Senator Markey=s 21 concerns about that and some of the other people that 22 have spoken tonight.
23 I would like to know if you say, Angie, 24 111 that there were cores taken from the concrete, dozens 1 of them, why were not those cores or some similar 2 cores used to do the ASR evaluation?
3 I=d like to know what the stage of 4 degradation of all the concrete structures are at the 5 plant. And how was that modeled if you didn=t take 6 concrete from the plant itself to do that?
7 I=d like to know why the second structure 8 that was never turned into a reactor -- we only have.
9 There are two structures there, one was used, why you 10 weren=t testing that structure instead, because it 11 has the same kind of concrete.
12 When you say slowly, I keep hearing 13 slowly, what does that mean? What is slowly? I want 14 to know the B- did you use that -B what kind of 15 calculations were made to assess whether or not the 16 concrete would be stable enough to be safe over the 17 license extension period?
18 We also talked a little bit, some people 19 here, about sea water intrusion. I=m concerned about 20 that, whether calculations of sea water intrusion, 21 that we know provides additional alkali for the ASR 22 reaction, was taken into account. Because we know 23 that there will be chronic inundation of the seacoast 24 112 over time due to sea level rise.
1 I also want to know if -B somebody 2 mentioned the dry cask storage area. We do have 3 spent nuclear fuel rods being stored on the facility.
4 I want to know if that h as been taken into account 5 when we talk about sea level rise, whether our first 6 responders and fire fighters are being specially 7 trained to respond to an emergency situation at the 8 plant, assuming they=ll be exposed to some sort of 9 radiation.
10 And after serving on Governor Hassan=s 11 task force to investigate the pediatric cancer 12 cluster, Mr. Woodward=s correct, we have a pediatric 13 cancer cluster on the seacoast, we also were told by 14 the CDC that we have the highest rates of pediatric 15 cancer in the nation here. We also have the highest 16 rates of bladder cancer in New Hampshire in the 17 nation, along with breast, and esophageal cancer, and 18 bladder cancer.
19 So one of the things that we=ve been 20 trying to do is to know what our exposure is. We 21 know that there is some radiation release during 22 regular maintenance activities. We wonder about the 23 ASR and whether or not there=s additional radiation 24 113 being released as a result of the ASR.
1 And we would like to know, in our 2 communities, what our real time exposure is to 3 radiation. We would like to have real time radiation 4 monitors in the seacoast outside of the plant so the 5 communities know what their exposure is.
6 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
7 MR. DONOGHUE: Thanks. A lot of 8 questions, we=ll try to get them all. You saw I was 9 taking notes.
10 MS. MESSMER: I tried to put them all in 11 once. 12 MR. DONOGHUE: Huh?
13 MS. MESSMER: I got them all at once.
14 MR. DONOGHUE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good.
15 But when we get through, let me know if we didn=t 16 touch on something B 17 MS. MESSMER: Okay.
18 MR. DONOGHUE: -- you want to hear about.
19 So on decoupling the license renewal and the license 20 amendment, so I=ll start. And then I think Eric=s 21 going to fill in gaps that I=ll probably leave on the 22 answer. 23 In order to relicense the plant, the 24 114 licensing basis of the plant needs to include the 1 programs B-2 MS. MESSMER: I understand.
3 MR. DONOGHUE: -- to, okay, to address 4 ASR. 5 And, you know, right now, the way that the 6 safety evaluations are structured is the technical 7 review for ASR is largely in the license amendment.
8 So that gets, you know, the plan would be to issue 9 that. Once that=s issued, the license renewal would 10 follow. 11 12 MS. MESSMER: So why can=t you decouple 13 that and just do the amendment that has to do with 14 the ASR --
15 MR. DONOGHUE: Oh, I see, okay.
16 MS. MESSMER: -- evaluation, so that we 17 get that in place and then, you know, why rush to 18 extend the license?
19 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay, okay. Well, again, 20 my perspective is that we=re not rushing to issue.
21 The license amendment, once that=s in place, we don=t 22 see a need to hold up the license renewal.
23 Issuing the license amendment, that=s 24 115 what the contention is on, the subject of the hearing 1 is the license amendment. So, you know, we=d still 2 be having a similar question, right, we=d still be 3 taking an action before the hearing. So the renewal 4 B- 5 MS. MESSMER: Actually, that was my other 6 question.
7 (Simultaneous speaking) 8 MR. DONOGHUE: Go ahead.
9 MS. MESSMER: Whether the April B- why 10 you=re doing this before April, and whether or not 11 the April meeting is going to be public, and why 12 you=re doing it ahead of the April meeting.
13 MR. DONOGHUE: The April meeting. So the 14 hearing, the ASLB hearing, that was going to be even 15 later in the year. I think on our slide there it=s 16 mid to late 2019. So maybe you=re think ing about a 17 different B-18 MS. MESSMER: Somebody mentioned an April 19 assessment meeting.
20 MR. KLUKAN: Yeah, that=s the annual -B 21 MR. DONOGHUE: Oh, the annual assessment 22 meeting for the plant, the Region I. So again, I=m 23 going to say again, the safety evaluation is complete.
24 116 It=s been a long review, both the license renewal 1 itself and the license amendment, relatively long 2 compared to other similar actions.
3 And we find there=s no safety concern 4 from what we=ve looked at. So we=re ready to issue 5 the actions. Those don=t undermine the hearing. So 6 the hearing can progress. And any outcome of that 7 hearing, if need be, we could go back and change the 8 license in this area, including up to ordering the 9 plant to do something.
10 Did you have something to add?
11 MR. OESTERLE: So, Joe, you did a great 12 job of covering everything. I=m just going to add 13 some specifics. For the license amendment, that 14 includes the methodology which the NRC will approve 15 for NextEra to evaluate the impact of ASR degradation 16 on concrete structures and also the monitoring 17 programs for ASR.
18 Now, that evaluation methodology in those 19 monitoring programs form the basis for the aging 20 management programs that are being credited in the 21 license renewal application. So there=s the 22 connection right there. And so they cannot be 23 decoupled.
24 117 So the license amendment has to be 1 approved to get those things into the licensing basis 2 for the plant and update the licensing basis so that 3 that new licensing basis, updated licensing basis, 4 can be renewed for the plant.
5 MS. MESSMER: So there=s no mechanism by 6 which you can amend the license to address the ASR 7 without extending the license?
8 MR. OESTERLE: No. It goes the other way 9 around. We have to amend the license first to include 10 the analysis methodology for ASR -B 11 MS. MESSMER: That=s what I=m asking.
12 MR. OESTERLE: -- before we can renew the 13 license. 14 MS. MESSMER: I know. But I=m saying, 15 why can=t you just amend the license to address the 16 ASR through the regular process of allowing us to 17 have a public comment period and then address the 18 license extension later on?
19 MR. OESTERLE: That could be done. But 20 we are following our normal process where we evaluate 21 what was requested of us, come to our safety 22 conclusion and, in addition, this is not part of the 23 normal process, but because ASR was such an important 24 118 issue for Seabrook, and for the NRC, and for the 1 Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, they also 2 wanted to look at what was done by the Applicant and 3 the staff=s review.
4 And so they confirmed the staff=s 5 conclusions through their peer review. So now we=ve 6 got independent verification, from a very highly 7 technical and independent review body, of the NRC 8 staff=s conclusions.
9 And based on those conclusions, safety 10 conclusions, the expectation of the staff is that we 11 issue the licensing action promptly. And the hearing 12 is independent of that licensing action.
13 And like Joe said, the specific issues 14 that are under contention in that hearing will be 15 adjudicated by the Board. And if there are any 16 actions that come out of the Board=s decision, the 17 staff will take those actions that are necessary out 18 of that hearing process.
19 MR. DONOGHUE: So the next, I think, 20 three or four questions you had, and I=m going to try 21 to, in shorthand, repeat them back to make sure we=re 22 getting them all. I warned her ahead of time I=m 23 tossing them to Angie, because they=re more 24 119 technical.
1 The concrete cores that were taken at the 2 plant and how they were considered in evaluating the 3 effects of ASR, what stage of degradation various 4 structures are in, just from listening, I know a 5 little bit about that. But I=m not going to waste 6 time, so I=ll let Angie try to address that one.
7 Not treating all the structures, and 8 again, I think, you know, definitely safety related 9 structures, I don=t know what structure you=re 10 specifically referring to but B-11 MS. MESSMER: Are you talking about the 12 second? So there were two concrete structures built.
13 Only one was used actively for the plant. The other 14 on is sitting there --
15 MR. DONOGHUE: Oh, the --
16 MS. MESSMER: -- unfinished.
17 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay, I --
18 MS. MESSMER: And that is the same 19 concrete as the first one --
20 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay, okay.
21 MS. MESSMER: -- theoretically, 22 hopefully, probably is. Why wouldn=t you have tested 23 the concrete on site in that second reactor vessel 24 120 that was never employed instead of taking concrete 1 from some other place and trying to model it?
2 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay. I=m not going to 3 hazard a guess at an answer. I=m going to see if 4 Angie knows. But if not, I=ll try to answer it as 5 best I can.
6 And then the slow progression that=s been 7 observed --
8 MS. MESSMER: And whether it=s been 9 calculated out.
10 MR. DONOGHUE: Through PEO. I think the 11 answer to that is yes, but I=ll let Angie give you a 12 little more detailed answer than just yes.
13 MS. BUFORD: Okay, so the first question 14 was when you say why weren=t cores used to do the ASR 15 evaluation, you=re talking about when I mentioned 16 that when they took cores, and they looked at the 17 rebar, into the condition of that.
18 Those cores were taken as a part of a 19 process to install through-wall extensometers which 20 are measuring devices that measure through-wall 21 expansion.
22 MS. MESSMER: Right.
23 MS. BUFORD: So are you asking why didn=t 24 121 they do, like, a petrographic analysis of those or B-1 MS. MESSMER: Yes, any of the analysis 2 that you used to determine the degradation of the 3 ASR, why didn=t you just use the cores or some other 4 B- you have cores already B- you know, or you could 5 take cores, so why didn=t you just use real cores?
6 MS. BUFORD: The purpose of taking cores 7 is to assess whether there is ASR and then from there, 8 you know, determine how to monitor it. And so it=s 9 my understanding that, you know, these cores that they 10 took, they were already in areas where the ASR was at 11 a point where they were measuring through-wall 12 thickness.
13 So I don=t think that it made sense to test 14 whether there is ASR or isn=t, because they=ve already 15 identified ASR in those areas where the cores were 16 taken. Those were the B- they are called staged, or 17 excuse me, Tier 3 areas where the ASR, just from 18 looking at the face of the wall, there was enough 19 cracking where they needed to install through-wall 20 extensometers.
21 You know, there=s really not a lot of 22 value added. And then doing a petrographic to then 23 confirm the presence of ASR when it was already 24 122 evident, from just visual observation, there=s no 1 strength-type characteristics that can be obtained 2 through a petrographic examination. That=s just to 3 determine presence of or lack of ASR.
4 MS. MESSMER: Okay. So let me rephrase 5 that then.
6 MS. BUFORD: Okay.
7 MS. MESSMER: You have samples of the 8 concrete. Why didn=t you use the samples of 9 concrete, or did you retrieve samples of the concrete 10 on the site to do your modeling, of the exact 11 concrete? Because you say it was aggregate from 12 other New England quarries or something.
13 MS. BUFORD: So the samples of concrete 14 that were taken in cores, the problem with doing core 15 testing is that it=s an unreinforced concrete 16 material. And there=s really no way to accurately 17 model the behavior of a structural system by doing a 18 compressive strength test of a core. It=s not 19 analogous to how the structure would behave when 20 called upon to perform their intended functions.
21 So any data that you get from that, from 22 the material testing, it=s really not applicable to 23 structural behavior for actual in situ structures.
24 123 And that wouldn=t have been, well, I 1 don=t know that, you know, that was an initial pushback 2 that staff had that, you know, we questioned. How are 3 you going to address ASR for the inner structural 4 capacity.
5 And so that is really why they opted to 6 go the large scale testing route, because that was 7 consistent with the concrete, you know, governing 8 bodies, the American Concrete Institute, for 9 evaluating concrete structures. And that was found 10 to be a more realistic way to assess than to, you 11 know, look at a compressive strength test or triaxial 12 tension test in a vacuum.
13 MR. DONOGHUE: So purely layman, because 14 I=m not the concrete expert here, okay, I=m not going 15 to pretend to be. But I think I had a similar 16 question to yours when I was first having this 17 explained to me, the difference between testing the 18 material versus testing the structure, right.
19 So a piece of concrete by itself, a core, 20 is going to behave a certain way if it experiences 21 ASR, or it gets loaded, that is shown to be different 22 than a wall, or a floor, or something. And that=s 23 why large scale testing, those words large scale are 24 124 important where it=s the material interacting with 1 the other components that make a structure that=s 2 important to evaluate. Does that make --
3 MS. MESSMER: So when you say large 4 scale, are you talking about, like, when you actually 5 test it, is it granular concrete, or an aggregate, or 6 is it -- it=s not a core, evidently, from what you 7 just said.
8 MS. BUFORD: No. So they=re large scale 9 beams. And I think the dimensions are proprietary.
10 But they are modeled as actual Seabrook walls. You 11 know, and what I failed to mention before is that 12 when we=re looking at -- when the NRC is looking at 13 structures to be able to perform their intended 14 functions, first it=s safety, it=s the interaction 15 between the concrete and the rebar that=s actually 16 the important action for the concrete.
17 So the fact that the concrete is adhered 18 to rebar, that allows for tensile strength and sheer 19 strength. And so when you take the concrete out of 20 its structural context, i.e., it=s not reinforced, 21 and then you test it, the results of that, there=s 22 really not a good way to directly apply that to how 23 the structure would behave, you know, given X number 24 125 of, you know, however inch thick rebars.
1 And so that=s why, you know, they could 2 have taken more petrographic analysis, but I think 3 that the reason they didn=t is because they had 4 already identified that ASR was to a point in those 5 areas that they needed to do through-wall expansion 6 measurements.
7 So the second question here is what=s the 8 current state of the structures?
9 MS. MESSMER: Yeah, and percentage-wise, 10 how many are Stage 3 or Tier 3?
11 MS. BUFORD: It is in the SE. And I 12 don=t want to misspeak, so I would, and maybe I 13 couldn=t even find the exact number. There=s a fair 14 amount of each. I think that, you know what, I=m going 15 to ask you to go back to the SE, because I don=t --
16 MS. MESSMER: Can you just give us a 17 ballpark?
18 MS. BUFORD: So ballpark, 10 to 20, Stage 19 3, about the same in Stage 2. There=s a lot that are 20 Stage 1. And Stage 1 is the lowest ASR levels.
21 MS. MESSMER: Yeah.
22 MS. BUFORD: Stage 3 are the more 23 advanced.
24 126 MS. MESSMER: Any Stage 4?
1 MS. BUFORD: There=s no Stage 4. It=s 2 just Stage 3. And the stages have to do with 3 monitoring frequencies, or no, intervals, monitoring 4 intervals.
5 And the amount of rigorous analysis that 6 was done, all the Stage 3s have very, very rigorous, 7 you know, volumes of analysis, and computered 8 modeling, and that. And as the ASR is less severe, 9 the analyses are a little bit, you know, they were 10 able to be a little bit B- they didn=t have to do a 11 full ANSI model for every structure.
12 MS. MESSMER: Yes.
13 MS. BUFORD: And the NRC reviewed almost 14 all of these analyses for the different stages. We 15 looked at the monitoring for each stage. We looked 16 at the results and also, you know, did an independent 17 review, actually with two different independent 18 groups of the NRC to look and verify.
19 So that, let=s see, the third question I 20 had was why was Unit 2 not used, the concrete. So I 21 understand, at least from what I was told from the 22 licensee, that Unit 2 was not kept in the condition.
23 You know, I think it was abandoned even before they 24 127 were able to finish the dome of the concrete.
1 So it was concrete that was not, you know, 2 it=s degraded in so many other ways that it=s not a 3 representative condition to compare with the Unit 1 4 concrete that has been, you know, up kept. And I 5 think there were also a lot of accessibility issues.
6 You know, as the NRC, we reviewed, you 7 know, we have our oversight process, and we reviewed 8 the license amendment and the license renewal request 9 as it was presented to us. And they opted to use 10 large scale testing. And we reviewed that testing to 11 make our safety conclusion.
12 And, okay, and slow progression, yes.
13 What does slow mean? So just in the general 14 understanding of alkali silica reaction, when you say 15 slow, you know, you=re talking about the expansion of 16 microcracks that are, you know, barely inches, very, 17 very, very small cracks.
18 So the cracks have to be large enough to 19 even start measuring them, right. Because you can 20 only, you know, even with the best optical magnifying 21 glass, you can only detect cracks of a certain size.
22 So at the site, we verified that Seabrook 23 is monitoring all, I=ll say, you know, cracking that 24 128 is able to be monitored and at frequencies that are 1 applicable to the severity of the ASR.
2 And I personally have reviewed six month 3 monitoring data for the past six years, literally 4 every six months. And there are some -- most of the 5 areas have not, over the past five years, even seen 6 any appreciable increase in the cracking at all.
7 The method they do it, we=ve detailed it 8 more in the SER, and we can talk after this is you=d 9 like. But the way that they measure it, you know, the 10 data that we reviewed, some areas it doesn=t appear 11 that it=s moving at all. And I think that in the 12 maximum it=s, you know, it=s hundredths of an inch.
13 MS. MESSMER: Even in the Tier 3?
14 MS. BUFORD: Yes, even in the Tier 3.
15 MS. MESSMER: So have you projected that 16 out to be safe over, even the Tier 3, over the life 17 of the license extension?
18 MS. BUFORD: It=s within the bounds of 19 the testing. So the testing program went above what, 20 you know, I think that they looked at what is the 21 wildest, you know, not wildest, but what=s a 22 projection that made sense through the life of the 23 plant and considering a poss ible life extension, 24 129 tested limits beyond that and then added margin. And 1 then those limits are based there on that margin.
2 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay. Thanks.
3 MS. BUFORD: And then the next one about 4 seawater.
5 MR. DONOGHUE: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So 6 seawater intrusion, I think, was your next question.
7 And my high level understanding is that there are 8 programs, dewatering programs, that are place at the 9 plant. I think that water intrusion is known, and 10 observed, and they put programs in place. I don=t 11 know the details of those programs, but I know that 12 there are programs in place that are inspected.
13 The other issues that you brought up, 14 spent fuel storage, including flooding effects, the 15 cancer data that you referenced, and real time 16 monitoring, I=m just going to say that that=s not a 17 subject of tonight=s meeting. We=ve taken a lot of 18 time to answer your questions related to the amendment 19 for the ASR. So I=m going to --
20 MS. MESSMER: So when is the next time I 21 will probably hear those answers? Is there another 22 point at which we are going hear back from --
23 MR. DONOGHUE: Right. So there were 24 130 previous questions where, I think, Brett said that 1 we=ll ask. The Region=s been taking notes, and at 2 the annual assessment meeting, which is -- it is 3 scheduled for April.
4 MR. GRAY: Mel Gray, branch chief out of 5 NRC Region I office outside of Philadelphia. We are 6 having, I think it=s April B-7 PARTICIPANT:
April 24th.
8 MR. GRAY: -- 24th. It is an annual 9 assessment meeting. That=s broader than ASR, 10 although it=s been ASR-centric in discussions for the 11 past many years. And we bring enough folks that are 12 versant in what we know of the issues, and concerns, 13 and focus of the folks around here. So we would be 14 able to answer that.
15 I would say that our annual -- we do have 16 requirements for monitoring, and they=re very robust 17 requirements. And they=re put out annually every 18 year as to what the releases are from every nuclear 19 power plant. And that=s available on our web page.
20 We could get that for you. I think that --
21 MS. MESSMER: No, I=m familiar with that.
22 I=m talking about in the communities themselves.
23 MR. GRAY: Right. We are -- our mission 24 131 is focused on the plant and safe operation of the 1 plant. And we make requirements to them to monitor 2 it. I=m aware that othe r states have chosen to do 3 something beyond that. That just isn=t part of our 4 mission or our oversight. We oversee what=s done in 5 the plant and not outside the fence.
6 MS. MESSMER: And then the last thing I=m 7 very concerned about is the first responders and 8 whether that sort of training has happened and how 9 that=s going to be handled.
10 MR. GRAY: You know, we would be able to 11 answer that in April.
12 MS. MESSMER: Okay.
13 MR. GRAY: And it=s not my expert area, 14 but that sounds like it would be a
-- and I=m looking 15 at Justin, probably a FEMA, our sister agency. We 16 focus on emergency preparedness and capability in the 17 plant. And we work with our sister agency, FEMA, who 18 focuses on readiness outside the plant. And we reach 19 overall conclusions in coordination with them based 20 on drills. And so that would be where that -- that=s 21 a FEMA role.
22 MS. MESSMER: So in April then, April 23 24th we=ll hear about that?
24 132 MR. GRAY: April 24th, I=m taking notes.
1 I=ll try to be able to answer that very shortly.
2 MS. MESSMER: Thank you very much. Yeah.
3 MR. DONOGHUE: Thank you, Mel. Thank you 4 for your questions.
5 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. Next 6 up we have Philip Hurzder.
7 MR. HURZDER: My name is Phil Hurzder, I 8 live in Newburyport. I am a concerned citizen. I 9 have never derived any income or worked with any part 10 of the nuclear industry. So I think you can sort of 11 tell where I=m going to go from here.
12 I am very concerned about the safety 13 issues that C-10 has raised. For me though, the big, 14 I think, as one of the earlier speakers has mentioned, 15 I think that the disposal problem is, the long term 16 disposal problem is one in which I=ve yet to hear any 17 kind of a hope or a glimmer of a realistic solution 18 nationwide, including this issue.
19 And I=ve forgotten what the other point 20 was I was going to make. Thank you for your time.
21 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
22 So our last scheduled speaker, and we=ll 23 talk about how we proceed with the rest of the meeting 24 133 after this, but our last speaker is Jack Van Loan, 1 last ticketed speaker. Jack Van Loan.
2 MR. VAN LOAN: It=s not hard, Van Loan.
3 MR. KLUKAN: Van Loan. My last name is 4 Klukan. Let me explain to you how I often -- so I 5 have some sympathy as well. My name is constantly 6 mispronounce as Klukan. But any, it=s like the sound 7 of a chicken. But anyway, go on, sorry.
8 MR. VAN LOAN: My name is Jack Van Loan, 9 I live at 4 F Street, Plum Island, Newburyport. I=m 10 also a Board member of C-10.
11 My original question was going to be on 12 Slide 6 and what the corrective actions are. But you 13 have touched on that. So I=d like to go to what=s 14 always been in the back of my mind is, driving up 15 Route 1, a massive double dome containment building.
16 At the assessment hearing three years 17 ago, >16 I think, I was told that the bedrock 18 foundation of the containment building was 21 feet 19 below mean sea level. If you add the other half of 20 the sea level, it=s about five feet up to ground 21 level, you=re approximately 30 feet down. And I 22 don=t know how wide it is, but in my mind that=s a 23 massive quantity of concrete, a lot of cubic yards.
24 134 And is there any testing of all that 1 concrete or how many spots in the containment inside 2 and out are being monitored or observed? Or have you 3 recognized ASR?
4 MR. DONOGHUE: So your question is you 5 wanted to focus on the below grade concrete, and how 6 that=s monitored?
7 MR. VAN LOAN: Well --
8 MR. DONOGHUE: I just want to make sure 9 I got it.
10 MR. VAN LOAN: I want to go back to Willie 11 Sutton. He robbed banks, because that=s where the 12 money is. At Seabrook Station, where most of the 13 concrete is, it=s in and below the containment 14 building.
15 16 MR. DONOGHUE: Right, so how is that 17 monitored?
18 MR. VAN LOAN: Right.
19 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay. I don=t know the 20 answer. I=m going to ask the guys from the SER.
21 MS. BUFORD: So the actual bedrock is not 22 accessible. It=s underneath the foundation of the 23 containment, right. But there are accessible areas 24 135 that are below grade that have experienced ASR and 1 that are being monitored.
2 Those areas are not containment. They 3 are, you know, there are areas where there has been 4 water infiltration and areas where there hasn=t been 5 water infiltration. To be honest, it doesn=t seem to 6 make that big of a difference. There=s really ASR 7 kind of everywhere.
8 As to the containment, you asked if it=s 9 monitored or if there=s been ASR identified. There 10 are a small handful of areas at containment that are 11 monitored, I want to say on the order of two to three 12 areas that are monitored under Tier 2 of the 13 monitoring where NextEra is monitoring those areas as 14 potentially suspect areas.
15 But, you know, in the years since they=ve 16 been looking to see if there=s been any ASR movement 17 or additional cracking, to my understanding, they 18 haven=t found any expansion in the containment area 19 or additional signs of ASR.
20 MR. VAN LOAN: Okay. One of my concerns 21 is that you have a very heavy dead load the farther 22 down you go down to bedrock.
23 MS. BUFORD: Yes.
24 136 MR. VAN LOAN: So you=ve got a lot of 1 stress on the concrete. And if you=ve got ASR down 2 there, and you can=t access it, you seemingly haven=t 3 done any excavations down to bedrock on the outside 4 and looked for symptoms.
5 MS. BUFORD: So to your point, there is 6 quite a large dead load on that concrete. And what 7 that load actually serves to do is to tighten the 8 cracks completely. You know, when you=ve got a 9 really B- so there=s really not a lot of ability for 10 that below grade concrete to expand and crack because 11 of the loading. It=s on it in all directions.
12 So we would be much less likely to find 13 ASR cracking in those heavily loaded below grade areas 14 than we would on areas that are more free to expand.
15 So, you know, in our review, that was acceptable on 16 the safety basis, because we think that the areas 17 that are able to freely expand are really bounding.
18 MR. VAN LOAN: So the higher the dead 19 load on a piece of concrete, the less possibility 20 there is for ASR? Or is there less possibility that 21 it=ll show up?
22 MS. BUFORD: It=s less possible for there 23 to be the cracking because of the ASR. But that=s 24 137 really -B if there=s no cracking, then there=s not an 1 issue with the structure to be able to perform its 2 function, right.
3 So really, the expansion is the concern.
4 So if there=s no expansion -- there may be alkalis, 5 and silicas, and water, so there=s the environment 6 for ASR to occur. But there=s less of a concern for 7 that to affect structural functionality, because the 8 cracking is really restrained by the dead load on top 9 and then by the loads up the hoop, you know, restraints 10 on the side. Because it is bedrock.
11 MR. VAN LOAN: But I=m not scientist, I=m 12 not an engineer, but if you have ASR expansion gels, 13 and your containing it because of dead weight, that 14 doesn=t mean that there=s not ASR there. It=s just 15 that you can=t see it.
16 MS. BUFORD: Right. But the concern is 17 not B- it=s not the ASR itself rather than the 18 structural functionality. So if the ASR doesn=t have 19 an opportunity to manifest itself in cracking and 20 expansion, then the concern for impact to the function 21 is low, right.
22 Because you=re not causing rebar stresses 23 that, you know -- and you=re not causing a lack of 24 138 adherence between the concrete and the steel, you 1 know. So the expansion is just not able to B-2 MR. VAN LOAN: At Ferguson, was there any 3 simulation of a high dead load on ASR concrete?
4 MS. BUFORD: Was there any simulation on 5 a high dead load on concrete?
6 MR. VAN LOAN: With ASR in it.
7 MS. BUFORD: Well, yes. And actually, 8 the simulation was large scale testing. Well, there 9 was actual load testing on the dead, and live, and 10 all of the loads that the Seabrook structures are 11 designed to.
12 And then also in some of the structural 13 analytical analyses, in all of the analytical 14 analyses, the loading combinations that are part of 15 the, including high dead loads, were applied to 16 buildings that received a f ull scale structural 17 analysis such as the containment enclosure building.
18 That=s a good example of one.
19 MR. VAN LOAN: Okay.
20 MS. BUFORD: So yes. That was a long 21 answer to say yes.
22 MR. VAN LOAN: Okay. I won=t go into my 23 theories, because it=s to say I don=t have any 24 139 education or PhDs behind me. Thank you.
1 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.
2 Okay, so as I just noted, and I apologize 3 again if I mispronounced your name, Mr. Van Loan. I 4 hope I didn=t just do it again.
5 We=ve now exhausted the pool of people 6 who pre-registered to speak. So I=m going have to do 7 two surveys. One, is there anyone who has not 8 previously spoken tonight who would like to speak 9 this evening, please raise your hand?
10 MR. KLUKAN: Okay, we have 15 minutes.
11 Oh, we have one person. Please.
12 MR. DONOGHUE: As you come to the mic, 13 ma=am, don=t forget to state your name, okay?
14 MS. SKIBBEE: Oh, my name is Patricia 15 Skibbee, and I serve on the Board of C-10. I just 16 want to make sure everybody is aware that the testing 17 that this nice person has been talking about was 18 testing that=s done at the Ferguson Structural 19 Engineering Labs at the University of Texas.
20 So these pieces of concrete that she=s 21 been talking about that were tested are not part of 22 Seabrook. They are made up samples in Texas. And 23 further, who=s doing this testing? It=s not the NRC.
24 140 It=s two engineering firms that NextEra chose and 1 paid for. So I think, here again, we have a fox 2 guarding the hen house problem. And I think that 3 that should not be happening.
4 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
5 (Applause.)
6 MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Anyone else who has 7 not, can ask for more ti me, anyone else who has not 8 previously spoken and would like to speak tonight?
9 (No response.)
10 MR. KLUKAN: Okay. Next question. Who 11 here who has previously spoken would like to speak 12 again? 13 Okay, we=re going to go in the order in 14 which you signed up. So Mr. Blanch (phonetic) first. 15 Or no, Comley, excuse me. I apologize. And then we 16 have 11 minutes. We=ll see what we can get through, 17 and then go from there, okay. So I=m going to give 18 you each three minutes apiece again.
19 MR. COMLEY: Well, first of all, I wish 20 I had known that, you know, the time stops when you 21 ask a question. Because I had some pretty important 22 questions I wanted to ask.
23 And one of them, I spoke with you B- is 24 141 it okay if I call you Joe?
1 MR. DONOGHUE: Absolutely, yes.
2 MR. COMLEY: Okay. I told you about 3 right now there=s gag orders on the Massachusetts 4 state police and on New Hampshire National Guard that 5 they can have no opinion on whether the plant can be 6 evacuated during the summer months.
7 And I=ve gone to a lot of work with these 8 packets, you know, to save you time. Because I didn=t 9 want to bring up a lot of things. But how do you 10 feel about gag orders on first responders?
11 MR. DONOGHUE: I=m not in a position to 12 comment on that. I=m learning about this really for 13 the first time since I=ve met you. So I=m not in a 14 position to comment on that.
15 MR. COMLEY: Well, there is. And we=ve 16 got -B there=s six towns in Massachusetts within the 17 ten mile radius of the plant. And five of those 18 towns have asked the NRC and FEMA to hold a hearing 19 for first responders so they can testify whether they 20 believe the plant can be evacuated.
21 And that video tape, you know, I really 22 want all three of you, all four of you, to look at 23 that video tape. And I=d like to have comments on 24 142 what you think.
1 Because, you know, I=ve been a business 2 person pretty much all my life. And we=ve got a 3 double standard for the Seabrook plant. Because 4 every hospital, nursing home, and business has to 5 obey the laws 365 days a year.
6 Now, if you find out, after you=ve looked 7 at this video tape, if you find out it=s in question 8 whether they can evacuate that place safely, and if 9 you look at -- the traffic is at a standstill, 10 hundreds of thousands of cars out there.
11 And we=ve asked Maura Healey, she=s 12 looking into it. She=s the Massachusetts Attorney 13 General. And so right now -- and by the way, all the 14 schools within the ten mile radius, I=ve talked to 15 the students and talked to teachers, they have not 16 had legitimate nuclear drills. They=ve had paper 17 drills which are dog and pony shows.
18 I=ve talked to 200,000 first B- 200 first 19 responders. And they want this hearing. You 20 certainly wouldn=t object to having a B- to be in 21 favor of a first responder hearing. Because those 22 families have B- they have families too.
23 And I=ve worked on this for four years.
24 143 And we=ve got these towns, and we=ve got also Hampton 1 Falls now. And we need that hearing. And, I mean, 2 I want to prove that democracy still works in this 3 country. And we need your help to do that.
4 And I=ve been investigating the NRC for 5 a long time. And my own opinion is if you license 6 that -B if you give them that license, you know what 7 you=re going to prove, what I=ve been saying a long 8 time. The Agency is nothing more than a rubber stamp 9 for the issues of the nuclear industry.
10 Here we are, what do we do with a school 11 bus when it fully depreciates? The owners of the 12 plant, the construction B- the architects of the plant 13 said shut it down after 2030. Now we=re extending 14 the license, even considering it to 2050? We don=t 15 let school buses take our kids around when they=re 16 fully depreciated.
17 MR. DONOGHUE: So Mr. --
18 MR. Comley: And I=ll tell you, when you 19 look at those packets, I want yo u to look at every 20 one of the. And I want responses from you, because 21 I brought this up about the gag orders last year.
22 And every one of the panel has to ld me they were going 23 to get to me. They never did. I want to know why.
24 144 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay.
1 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.
2 MR. DONOGHUE: I can=t answer that.
3 Thanks, thanks for your concern. Are the requests 4 for hearing part of your packet? You said there have 5 been requests sent to the NRC?
6 MR. COMLEY: Oh, yeah, five out of six of 7 the towns within the ten, FEMA too.
8 MR. DONOGHUE: So the requests are in 9 here? 10 MR. COMLEY: Yeah.
11 MR. DONOGHUE: I haven=t looked at this, 12 I haven=t had any opportunity.
13 MR. COMLEY: Yeah, the towns are in 14 there. 15 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay, okay. The other 16 thing I want to just address that you said was, you 17 know, the re-licensing of the plant, the original 18 license of the plant, based on 40 years, was based on 19 whatever information that the NRC required at that 20 time. 21 Now, when ASR was discovered, I think I 22 mentioned this earlier, that was at the beginning of 23 the license renewal review. The license renewal 24 145 review, except for ASR, the ASR issue, was complete 1 back in 2012.
2 So really, if the Agency was to be, as 3 you put it, a rubber stamp, we may have found a way, 4 but we did not. We did not come up with a way to re-5 license the plant without the ASR issue resolved. So 6 since 2012, we have not given them a renewed license 7 until we were satisfied, and that was last year, that 8 they=ve addressed ASR.
9 MR. COMLEY: But the evacuation plan has 10 got to be legitimate. And if they can=t evacuate the 11 people in time and safely, that=s a violation.
12 (Off-microphone comments.)
13 MR. DONOGHUE: We have other people that, 14 I think, wanted to be able to come to the mic as well.
15 MR. COMLEY: So I=d like you to look at 16 the material and get back to me. I really appreciate 17 it. I want your own opinion after you=ve looked at 18 this video. And I don=t know if anyone in this room 19 would, you know, if you want a copy of the video, I 20 got it here.
21 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.
22 MR. COMLEY: Thank you.
23 MR. DONOGHUE: Who was next?
24 146 MR. KLUKAN: What was your name again?
1 MR. MCNEIL:
Colby. 2 MR. KLUKAN: We=ll do it in the order in 3 which they were received. Mr. Nord, Nord?
4 MR. NORD: Yes.
5 MR. KLUKAN: You are up next.
6 MR. NORD: All right. Well, I would have 7 appreciated knowing that if I had asked a question I 8 could have taken ten minutes instead of three.
9 MR. KLUKAN: Well, let me stop you right 10 there. 11 MR. NORD: No, you=ve done plenty of 12 talking. I will take my time.
13 MR. KLUKAN: I think it=s important B-14 (Simultaneous speaking) 15 MR. KLUKAN: I will give you your three 16 minutes. 17 MR. NORD: This has been a very unfair 18 use of facilitation, I have to say. Because I 19 represent the organization that caused this meeting 20 to happen. And I did not have a chance to actually 21 finish my presentation.
22 You know, it=s not fair if you=re going 23 to tell people that it=s only three minutes. And 24 147 then you know what, you end up letting people stand 1 and speak for more than six minutes on issues that 2 don=t even pertain to the cause of this meeting. Can 3 I get on with my comments, please?
4 MR. KLUKAN: I think it=s important to 5 address that. And then I will g ive you B- we will go 6 over in time out of fairness to everyone involved.
7 Normally, I said at the beginning of my instructions, 8 I don=t usually allow back and forth. Because it 9 does then expand out.
10 However, because there=s only so much I 11 can do as facilitator when people are posing questions 12 relevant to the meeting at hand. Most of the 13 questions, example, a member of your own group posed 14 questions relevant to degradation of concrete next to 15 the base rock.
16 I thought that was relevant to this 17 meeting, so I allowed him, a member of C-10, to 18 continue those questions even though he was, in terms 19 of how much he was speaking, past his three minute 20 mark. 21 I appreciate that you wanted to give a 22 presentation. And I=ll give you that opportunity 23 now. I just wanted to explain to you my methodology 24 148 out of fairness to everyone in this room.
1 So, to try to complete -- I think a huge 2 point that needs to be understood at this meeting is 3 that the reason C-10 has filed its contingence that 4 we're accepted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 5 for litigation is because the License Amendment 6 Request upon which the License Renewal Application 7 depends is not robust. It is not going to result in 8 good monitoring of the degradation of concreted 9 Seabrook. And we have experts -- world class experts 10 in concrete structural scientists -- concrete 11 structural science to back up that assertion, a number 12 of them. So that's the first point.
13 The second point, these concrete 14 scientists that we're bringing represent the only 15 independent peer review that the License Amendment 16 Request is going to receive. Because the Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission allowed NextEra to call their 18 new unprecedented system for testing proprietary.
19 That has meant that no other scientists that are 20 outside the industry or the Nuclear Regulatory 21 Commission have had a chance to actually check the 22 methodology. The methodology is not good. Just 23 because NRC staff says it's good, does not mean that 24 149 it has been properly and fairly and independently 1 reviewed, second point.
2 Third point, just because you all have 3 the power to make this rule -- to make this ruling, 4 I should say on licensed renewal -- license amendment 5 from within your own system and then license renewal, 6 which depends on license amendment -- Just because 7 you can do that, does not mean that you should do 8 that. Because doing that is a violation of the 9 democratic process. And in New England, we stand 10 firmly in favor of the democratic process.
11 It is irrational in fact, and that's why 12 it's been so difficult for you to explain it -- It's 13 irrational that there is some system in place by which 14 even though there are standing contentions before the 15 NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, somehow the 16 Nuclear Regulatory Commission feels they have the 17 authority to issue a ruling on that same license 18 amendment upon which license renewal depends in order 19 to grant the license of the license renewal.
20 There's no reason that NRC needs to do 21 that because you have 11 years left on your license.
22 The reason that, that system was set in place is 23 because of the Three Mile Island accident and the 24 150 fact that after TMI -- and I hope you'll give me a 1 chance to finish this concept -- after the Three Mile 2 Island accident, there was a challenge to venting 3 steam -- radioactive steam from the reactor 4 containment. And that challenge ended up impeding 5 the license renewal for Three Mile Island. And so 6 NRC put in place this rule that means that you can 7 take this step without dealing with citizens founded 8 contentions that affect -- that may affect that 9 license.
10 But in this case, you have 11 years before 11 the license renewal. There is no reason for you to 12 take that action independent of the Atomic Safety and 13 Licensing Board's decision to grant contentions to C-14 10. So we're asking you in terms of fairness and in 15 terms of the democratic process for this area, that 16 you don't do the thing that you can do. And instead, 17 do the thing that ethically you should do. Thank 18 you. 19 MR. KLUKAN: So there were one or two --
20 Well wait, it's 9 o'clock, which is the scheduled end 21 of the meeting. So who else wanted to make secondary 22 comments?
23 MR. DUARTE: I just want to give that to 24 151 him please.
1 MR. KLUKAN: Sure, of course. All right, 2 so -- 3 PARTICIPANT: I'm just going to be really 4 quick. 5 MR. KLUKAN: Sure.
6 PARTICIPANT: I'd like to really thank 7 the NRC. I really value your patience. I don't know 8 how I would ever put up with this. It's just an 9 incredible organization. And I feel like our 10 politicians that have done this are faulty because 11 why don't they question the CDC? Why don't they 12 question the FAA? It's just the NRC. It is. It's 13 just the NRC. They should -- maybe the vaccine people 14 should start saying don't vaccinate. There's really 15 something wrong with all the vaccines. You know?
16 But anyways, I really thank you.
17 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. Okay, so out of 18 fairness because I did let C-10 talk longer, who else 19 would like to speak? Raise your hand right now. So 20 I have one, two, three, four. And then that's it.
21 Okay? So if you didn't raise your hand right now, 22 we're going to -- once those four have spoken again, 23 line up in the order -- it doesn't really matter 24 152 because you're all going to get a chance to speak.
1 So line up at the mic or you know, amongst yourselves.
2 And then after that, we're going to close the meeting.
3 MR. KURK: Thank you. And I really do 4 have to appreciate the NRC and everything you do. I 5 have read your reports. I have looked at this issue 6 in depthly. I understand the complexities of the 7 engineering. I understand the complexities of the 8 procedures that you are bound by and what works. And 9 I'm also a human being. I'm not paid to be here. I 10 am here because I'm very concerned about the future 11 of the planet. I've come here on my own dollar --
12 on my own dime. And when you sort of make comments 13 that imply that anyone that has a different view than 14 yours is paid here, that's rather dehumanizing.
15 And there are solutions. There's 16 solutions to all the claims that the Anti-Nuclear 17 Movement comes up with. And you just have to get out 18 of your echo chamber to learn about them as I did --
19 breeder reactors. Thank you.
20 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much. Could 21 you state your name one more time just for the 22 transcript?
23 MR. KURK: Colby Kurk.
24 153 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.
1 PARTICIPANT: Current resident of 2 Ipswich, Massachusetts, served by Seabrook Power 3 Plant. I've looked up the numbers. The electricity 4 coming into my house comes from -- or a portion of it 5 comes from Seabrook. And I would not be afraid to 6 live right next to this plant because I understand 7 how safe it is.
8 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you very much.
9 MR. BOGEN: I'm Doug Bogen with Seacoast 10 Anti-Pollution League. Since the law was asked or 11 mentioned about flooding, I'd like to point out that 12 I have been to several meetings in the past including 13 the first one that was held on the scoping of the ASR 14 issue. And I raised the issues of sea level rise and 15 changes in ground water. We were told at the time 16 by from the NRC that the water was fresh water then.
17 I don't know eight years later, is it becoming more 18 brackish -- will it become brackish or more saline in 19 the next 10, 20, 30 years? We haven't heard any 20 response on these issues.
21 There was a study done after Fukushima of 22 course. There was a lot of emphasis certainly on the 23 issues of flooding, extreme weather, storm surge, et 24 154 cetera. And I had an opportunity to peruse that 1 study to some degree, which was issued last year, I 2 believe. And yes, the plant is not within the design 3 basis, I believe is how you put it, for this extreme 4 weather. The worst impacts of climate change and sea 5 level rise and so forth. And the recommended 6 solutions were some doorstops and issuing of 7 sandbags.
8 I really wonder whether you think you can 9 hold back the ocean and sea level rise and climate 10 disruption with sandbags. So I would encourage you 11 to look again at that. We should have a public 12 hearing on that issue because it's a serious issue 13 here on the seacoast. Every other seacoast community 14 is looking very hard at the impacts of climate change.
15 And we should know what affect it's going to have on 16 the plant and its operations. And on the chemistry 17 that affects ASR. So that would be one question.
18 I guess just since I don't have much time 19 and we're getting done here, I just ask given what 20 you know now from the monitoring that's been done; 21 eight years of research and so forth, can you assure 22 the public that in 20, 30 years' time, this plant 23 will continue to be safe to operate? And if you 24 155 can't do that, 100 percent, why are you issuing a re-1 license? And won't we just be re-visiting this in 2 ten or 20 years?
3 I feel like it's been Groundhog Day. I 4 know it was a couple weeks ago. But I get the sense 5 we keep asking the same questions. And we either get 6 the same answer or no answer at all. And I think the 7 public would really like to know some of these 8 answers, which I understand you can't answer here.
9 But somebody should be here in April to answer those 10 questions.
11 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay, on the -- on the 12 safety evaluation for ASR and for the license renewal, 13 I'm going to tell you that the staff's come to the 14 conclusion that the plant can be operated safety based 15 on what we know. And what the monitoring programs 16 intend to do. And as I said before, we'll be 17 inspecting those programs over the life of the plant.
18 Okay? 19 The other issues yes, I'm not going to 20 try to address those now, but you should have 21 assurance that the Agency's done a thorough review 22 here. There's programs that are going to be in place.
23 And when the license is renewed, those requirements 24 156 will be in the license.
1 MR. BOGEN: Well again, on the issue of 2 flooding, I don't have assurance on that. We haven't 3 gotten the answers. And I really encourage you to 4 hold a more intensive public meeting on that whenever 5 you can, hopefully before the license is reissued.
6 Thank you.
7 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you.
8 MR. DONOGHUE: There were two more 9 people, right?
10 MR. KLUKAN: Two more people. You can 11 decide amongst yourselves.
12 MS. CAPRA: Hi, Cathryn Capra from 13 Georgetown again. Thank you so much. This has been 14 very informative and I've enjoyed being here.
15 (Off-microphone comment.)
16 MS. CAPRA: Oh, sure. I did have a 17 follow-up question when we talked about ASR that you 18 know, it can't be corrected or reversed, but that 19 repairs had been done, I think you mentioned -- and 20 I was curious -- you said in one or more of the 21 structures, what those repairs were and why they were 22 made? Was that correct? Did I hear your correctly?
23 MS. BUFORD: Yes, so the monitoring 24 157 program that we reviewed and approved -- Oh, I'm 1 sorry, it includes if there is an area where, you 2 know, the program requires corrective actions. Then 3 there have been at least one instance that I can pull 4 from the top of my head where the ASR had caused some 5 movement between buildings that caused like an 6 elastomeric joint seal to need to be replaced. You 7 know, the requirement was for there to be a joint 8 seal there.
9 PARTICIPANT: Like a rubber joint.
10 MS. BUFORD: Like a rubber joint seal 11 between, you know --
12 MS. CAPRA: Oh, okay.
13 MS. BUFORD: For seismic reasons in some 14 areas, there are elastomeric joints.
15 MS. CAPRA: Okay.
16 MS. BUFORD: And because of the ASR issue 17 -- And I recall in one area that the joint had come 18 apart. That needed to get repaired. That was all 19 just part of, you know, carrying out the program. So 20 we've seen that the program not only monitors, but 21 performs corrective actions in a timely and safe 22 manner. That's an example.
23 MS. CAPRA: Thank you and I just had one 24 158 more question. I'd love to communicate with you guys 1 more, but I'm just -- when you talked about monitoring 2 and the safety monitor -- it was like NextEra or 3 somebody would do an inspection every three to six 4 months for safety, I didn't hear that right.
5 MS. BUFORD: So the monitoring programs 6 -- Well safety is an underlying basis for all of this.
7 MS. CAPRA: Right, right. I just got 8 confused.
9 MS. BUFORD: Yes, so -- And I apologize 10 if I was the one that caused that confusion. But the 11 areas are monitored as often as every six months up 12 to three years, depending on the -- what has been 13 observed -- the ASR symptoms that have been observed 14 to date. And those monitoring frequencies are 15 subject to change if and when ASR becomes more severe 16 in an area, it will be monitored more frequently.
17 And we've verified that those monitoring frequencies 18 are adequate to detect any sort of expansion that 19 would cause the need for a corrective action. And 20 you know six months is a really short frequency.
21 MS. CAPRA: I was going to say three 22 years sounds like a long time.
23 MS. BUFORD: Well so three years is for 24 159 the areas that are -- that the ASR severity is very 1 low. 2 MS. CAPRA: Okay, okay.
3 MS. BUFORD: And it's the maximum time 4 for any area where ASR's been detected. So those are 5 areas where, you know, whether it's barely 6 recognizable up to, you know --
7 MS. CAPRA: Right, like a Tier 1 or Stage 8 1. 9 MS. BUFORD: Like a Tier 1, that's 10 exactly right.
11 MS. CAPRA: Oh, okay. So a Tier 3 would 12 be more like the six months?
13 MS. BUFORD: The six months. Tier 3--
14 MS. CAPRA: Got you.
15 MS. BUFORD: -- is every six months.
16 MS. CAPRA: Okay.
17 MS. BUFORD: Yes and Tier 2 is every 18 18 months. 19 MS. CAPRA: Okay. Thank you for 20 clarifying that. And who would be doing that 21 monitoring, the NRC or NextEra:?
22 MS. BUFORD: NextEra is responsible for 23 carrying out their program. That's why we're --
24 160 That's a part of their license amendment. That's going 1 to be a requirement for the remainder of the license.
2 But the NRC does focused inspections on the program, 3 so we'll continue to do those to make sure that there 4 is an independent verification that the licensee is 5 carrying out the program in accordance with their 6 license.
7 MS. CAPRA: Okay. But those will be two 8 separate things?
9 MS. BUFORD: Yes. Yes, us inspecting 10 the program as they're carrying it out. We're doing 11 it -- We're inspecting to make sure they're doing 12 what their license requires.
13 MS. CAPRA: Okay. Okay, great.
14 MS. BUFORD: Yes.
15 MS. CAPRA: Thank you.
16 MR. KLUKAN: Thank you. All right, our 17 last speaker. And if you would, just start with your 18 name again. I'm sorry.
19 MR. WOODWARD: William Woodard, Durham, 20 New Hampshire. I just had a follow-up question.
21 What is -- well, what have we learned from Indian 22 Head? The state of New York brought a law suit --
23 PARTICIPANT: Indian Point.
24 161 MR. WOODWARD: Indian Point, excuse me.
1 Indian Point, because there was a suspicion that the 2 bolts were degraded. And so I know this is not 3 related -- or maybe it is related to concrete. But 4 I want to know what you've learned from the fact that 5 a high percentage of the bolts were so degraded that 6 they had to shut down Indian Point and repair them?
7 But it took a lawsuit by the state of New York to get 8 them to do that. So have we learned anything from 9 that for New Hampshire?
10 MR. DONOGHUE: So I think you're 11 referring to the baffle-former bolts. Right? Okay.
12 I'll say something and then I'm going to hand the mic 13 over. That issue is something that's now well enough 14 known that the industry has taken some steps. The 15 Indian Point specifics I don't recall. I wasn't part 16 of that activity. But I mean as far as what we've 17 learned as you know, how to address and correct 18 material problems -- Is that -- I just want to make 19 sure we're clear on the question.
20 PARTICIPANT: Maybe regular servicing of 21 the bolts to see if there's a problem.
22 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay, so I know there's 23 inspections that are conducted and service 24 162 inspections that are conducted to make sure that those 1 bolts -- the integrity of those bolts are 2 satisfactory. Is there anything that you can add to 3 that? 4 (Off-microphone comment.)
5 PARTICIPANT: Indian Point, my 6 inspectors did -- we also inspected Indian Point.
7 And you're referring to baffle-former bolts. They 8 are bolts that hold these plates around the core.
9 And we have -- we have requirements and commitments 10 from the industry that they must examine the internals 11 around the reactor. And indeed because of our 12 oversight, these bolts were found at Indian Point and 13 another plant to have more than expected head cracks.
14 But that is the reason we have a program, that they 15 need to examine these bolts. And when we found more 16 that were cracked than expected, we expected the 17 licensees to adjust their programs and to replace 18 them. 19 So the state of New York, I think they 20 did enter with an agreement, but that's not because 21 of -- We have our requirements and I'm aware that 22 there was an agreement with the state, but that's 23 neither here nor there for us. And so what we've 24 163 learned is that we need to ensure that our oversight 1 continues and that are our requirements are met.
2 That's probably our -- that's what we've learned.
3 MR. DONOGHE: Thank you. Thank you very 4 much, Mel.
5 MR. WOODWARD:: I have one more question.
6 What's Plan B? What's Plan B for ASR if in the future 7 with the monitoring -- over the next 20 some years if 8 we discover more ASR problems?
9 MR. DONOGHUE: Okay, so for Seabrook, 10 part of the monitoring program is to monitor the other 11 structures in the plant. And to monitor the 12 progression and the existing ASR and if there's 13 appearance of ASR in other parts of the plant. That's 14 my understanding.
15 As far as the industry, I think -- Well 16 an information notice was issued when this first came 17 to light at Seabrook to tell the whole industry about 18 it. So they have to be monitoring their plants. And 19 if they -- if they find ASR, they're going to have to 20 take some steps. But this is the only plant in the 21 country that has ASR effect in its structures.
22 PARTICIPANT: Have we remediated? Is it 23 possible to remediate?
24 164 MR. DONOGHUE: Well I think Angie pointed 1 out that there can be repairs that might be required 2 to maintain the structural integrity and the ability 3 for plants to perform their functions. So that's the 4 extent of it. You can do repairs to make sure that 5 the structures can do what they're intended to do.
6 There's no magic potion that I'm aware of that, you 7 know, you can use to get rid of the ASR. You just 8 have to learn how to monitor it and deal with it.
9 MS. BUFORD: And I'll just add that you 10 know, they're going to need to monitor ASR just like 11 they're going to need to monitor every other aging 12 effect through the extended operating period. And 13 if there's something that they come across, whether 14 it be ASR or anything else that is -- that challenges 15 the ability for any structure or component to perform 16 its function, they're required to act. You know, so 17 it's one of, you know, a lot of lot things they need 18 to look for. And this is just, you know, one more 19 thing that Seabrook needs to look for that other 20 plants don't.
21 PARTICIPANT: Thank you. That's 22 reassuring.
23 MR. DONOGHUE: Thank you. Before Brett 24 165 closes the meeting, I just want to say a few words.
1 First of all, those of you who are still here, thank 2 you for your perseverance. And for all of you that 3 commented -- provided your comments, we really 4 appreciate it. That's why we're here.
5 At the onset of the meeting, I said as 6 clearly as I could, that we don't think we 7 communicated our decision on when to issue these 8 licensing actions clearly enough. So that's why 9 we're here is to address that and to hear your 10 concerns. I think we heard a wide range of concerns.
11 We heard opinions, certainly on both sides, whether 12 for or against the plant. But we heard concerns 13 about the licensing actions that are before us that 14 are the subject of the meeting.
15 We heard about other issues that were 16 brought up. And we've accepted material. We've 17 taken notes from the concerns that we've heard about.
18 And the Agency is committed to address your concerns.
19 We're committed to the safe operation of this and all 20 facilities and the handling of all radioactive 21 material across the country. And you know, that's 22 our job. That's our central mission. So we're doing 23 that. We're trying our best to communicate how we're 24 166 doing that and to assure you as much as we can that 1 we've achieving that mission. We'll answer your 2 questions in other forums just like this as much as 3 we can to alleviate your concerns.
4 Besides thanking you who participated in 5 the meeting, that was the bulk of the meeting. That's 6 why we're here. I do want to thank the law 7 enforcement officials that are still here. Thank you 8 very much for being here. I appreciate your 9 attention. Maybe you learned about concrete because 10 I certainly have in the last two years, a lot more 11 than I did when I poured some in my backyard.
12 Okay, so there's going to be a transcript 13 of the meeting. There's going to be a meeting 14 summary. I think there was a slide up here that I 15 almost blew by, but Justin stopped me, that had some 16 links on it -- the documents that you can reference.
17 And again, thank you for your participation. Brett.
18 MR. KLUKAN: So I don't have much more 19 to add to that other than I would also like to 20 specifically mention Andrea. She was the one manning 21 the registration desk. Without her assistance, this 22 meeting -- or her -- I shouldn't say assistance --
23 without her hard work in planning for this meeting, 24 167 this meeting would not have happened. So I just 1 wanted to especially thank her while I have the 2 microphone on.
3 And so thank you all for coming. I think 4 we have feedback forms on the table. If not, they 5 are located on the NRC website. We are always 6 interested to know on how you think our meetings are 7 going and what we can do to improve. And so with 8 that, I'll say thank you very much.
9 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter 10 was concluded at 9:21 p.m.)
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