ML053180346
| ML053180346 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Palisades  |
| Issue date: | 11/03/2005 |
| From: | Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel |
| To: | |
| Byrdsong A T | |
| References | |
| 50-255-LR, ASLBP 05-842-03-LR, NRC-693, RAS 10724 | |
| Download: ML053180346 (78) | |
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... 1.
RA5 Official Transcript -of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Palisades Nuclear-Generating Station Limited Appearance Public Hearing Docket Number: .50-255-LR; ASLBP No.: 05-842-03-LR
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Location: -.. - ;South Haven,. Michigan : --- ;- USNRC Novi ember 9, 2005. (4:10pm)
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-- -- OFFICE OF SECRETARY
-RULEMAKINGS AND ADJUDICATIONS STAFF Date: Thursday,- November 3, 2005 Work .Order No.: : NRC-693'* Pages 1-76.
NEAL R.GROSS AND CO., -NC.
Court Reporters and -Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W; Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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BEFORE THE NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
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NUCLEAR MANAGEMENT COMPANY PALISADES NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION Regarding the Renewal of Facility Operating License No. DPR-20 for a 20-Year Period Docket No. 50-255-LR ASLB No. 05-842-03-LR LIMITED APPEARANCE THURSDAY NOVEMBER 3, 2005
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1555 PHOENIX ROAD SOUTH HAVEN, MICHIGAN
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The above-entitled matter commenced pursuant to Notice before Ann Marshall Young, Dr. Anthony Baratta, Dr.
Nicholar Trikouros, Administrative Judges.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
9 1P R 0 C E E D I N G S 2 (5:30 P.M.)
3 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: I'm the chair of the 4 licensing board.
5 To my left is Dr. Anthony Baratta one of the 6 technical judges. And to my right is Nicolas Trikouras the 7 other technical judge. And I'm the legal judge.
8 We are here to hear your statements. They are 9 going to be on the record. We would ask everyone as you 10 speak to spell your name for the court reporter so we can 11 make sure we get them right.
12 We do have your list, your sign up list but 13 based on my own handwriting I know sometimes you can't 14 always read the handwriting signatures so if you would do 15 that that would be helpful.
16 There was one person and it may be the last 17 person who signed up, Chuck, are you the person that has a 18 class, we'll let you go first because you emailed me 19 earlier and we said we'd let you do that.
20 So I think everybody knows it's five minutes 21 per person. And if you have, before we got started someone 22 asked about written materials. If you have any written 23 materials Debra Wilfar, law clerk, will get them from you 24 and make sure they're placed in the record with the 25 transcript of tonight's session.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
3 I So all right. Go ahead. And if you could tell 2 your last name again --
3 MR. JORDAN: Jordan.
4 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: I can't read it.
5 MR. JORDAN: Jordan. (J-o-r-d-a-n).
6 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Okay. Thank you very 7 much.
8 MR. JORDAN: Chuck Jordan. I represent the Van 9 Buren County Greens and the West Michigan or the Michigan 10 Greens, excuse me. And I just wanted to say that we are 11 against re-licensing the Palisades Plant because it is old.
12 And like I said before with an old car something is sooner 13 or later going to go wrong with it and you can keep fixing 14 it and fixing it but sooner or later it can't be fixed.
15 And when a nuclear reactor goes it's a little 16 more catastrophic than losing a car or being stuck on the 17 highway.
18 The other issue is the waste. There's still no 19 way to know what's going to happen with the waste. It is a 20 serious issue and nobody wants it in their backyard.
21 If we do send it the Indian Reservation in Utah 22 I think it is, you're still responsible for transporting 23 it. All right.
24 I don't have many illusions about whether we're 25 going to be able to stop the re-licensing of, of Palisades.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
A*
I do think that it takes something like the Katrina to get the government, get peoples' attention. It seems like it 3 will take a catastrophe before people wake up and 4 understand if we keep re-licensing these plants they could 5 be catastrophic.
6 Thank you.
7 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Kathy 8 Barnes. And you have very good handwriting. It's (B-a-r-9 n-e-s).
10 MS. BARNES: Yes. With a K.
11 I've lived in Michigan for all my life which is 12 56 years, well, actually 52 years I've lived in Michigan.
13 And I have swum in Lake Michigan ever since as early as I 14 remember.
15 And when I was a little kid you could drink the 16 water. Sometimes it was a little fishy but it was still 17 just regular water. When I got to be a teenager I could 18 taste a little chemical taste in the water.
19 But as time goes on there's, the water quality 20 is becoming poorer and poorer. This year my granddaughter, 21 my daughter and I went swimming in Lake Michigan and they 22 were in the water longer than I was. They both got rashes.
23 And I got a slight rash. I wasn't in it but maybe five 24 minutes and I, I had a rash.
25 What it was was there was algae floating in the NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
. _ - , ,, , , _. I '. - . , . ... I .
b 1 cold wacer and in all my years of, you know, being a 2 naturalist and being, you know, aware of the environment 3 I've never seen algae grow naturally in cold water.
4 So this is something new to me and the fact 5 that it was stinging and the fact that it left bumps and a 6 rash is kind of strange also.
7 This is a map here I'd like others, there's 8 three of them here one for each of you. This is 82 hours9.490741e-4 days <br />0.0228 hours <br />1.35582e-4 weeks <br />3.1201e-5 months <br /> 9 after Chernobyl and this map here shows the soil deposition 10 of the radioactive elements and how far it traveled in 82 11 hours1.273148e-4 days <br />0.00306 hours <br />1.818783e-5 weeks <br />4.1855e-6 months <br />.
12 Italy here is about, less than, about an inch 13 maybe. Italy, I'm just wondering how big is Michigan. If 14 something happened at Palisades how, how much would be 15 affected besides Michigan. You've got Canada and you've 16 got Ohio, Indiana. I mean you could fit, imagine if the 17 yellow part was Lake Superior that's maybe the size of it 18 here.
19 So we're talking about something that could 20 affect more than one country. This is something that if, 21 if something happened at Palisades I probably wouldn't be 22 able to talk anymore because I would be wiped out.
23 Probably the first thing that would die would 24 be my beautiful animals. And then when I went outside I 25 would be exposed and I would die.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
6 I All of the fresh water here than is so precious 2 would be gone. Our, our soil that grows so many crops 3 would be gone. When this man that sat here and I don't 4 know what his name is or his position said that, let me 5 see. The risk is acceptable. There's no way. That risk, 6 any risk when you're dealing with nuclear energy is not 7 acceptable.
8 The production of atomic energy initially was a 9 good concept but as we have found out it's not a failsafe.
10 It causes nuclear waste, it causes degradation of 11 environment. It causes cancer pockets. It, it extends way 12 beyond this location. It extends to all the places that 13 Consumer Energy has done undercover dumping etcetera, 14 etcetera.
15 So there's a lot more people than just the 16 South Haven population that is exposed and it's a huge 17 problem.
18 Consumers Energy recently came out with this 19 green generation program. I signed up for it. They 20 guaranteed me a hundred percent of my energy was coming 21 from the wind. What they're doing as they are starting to 22 realize that wind energy is a good deal and they are 23 investing in wind generation systems with Mackinaw Pow Wind 24 Generation and other companies. They're building grids and 25 they're putting up windmills.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
7 i If you re-license this nuclear power plant you 2 will be, you will be undermining this effort. If you 3 don't, this, this is something that they will be doing and 4 they are starting to do it.
5 It says here over 50 percent of responders to 6 their survey said they would be highly likely to enroll in 7 a renewable energy program. Only, over 50 percent. And 8 that's what they said would you be willing to pay a little 9 bit more. And I pay probably $4 a month more for wind 10 energy but to me it's worth it for the investment and for 11 our future.
12 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Let me just, you've got 13 about a minute more and --
14 MS. BARNES: Okay.
15 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: -- I want to make sure 16 everyone has time to talk so.
17 MS. BARNES: For sure, okay, thank you.
18 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you.
19 MS. BARNES: So my premises is this. It's not 20 needed. They should make a transition out of this big 21 problematic thing which they are hugely liable for if 22 something happens. The use of seelets and the cracking of 23 this plant you can't just keep operating something and say 24 well, we'll, we'll see what happens, we'll make up a, we'll 25 make up a plan, we'll take care of the problems as they, as NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
8 1 they occur. That's not good enough. There is no risk 2 acceptable.
3 I met a man who worked for Consumers Energy 4 Palisades. He now works out of state. He says he would 5 never work in Michigan again. He says, I said well do you 6 see Cook for ten years covered up the fact they didn't have 7 a, a functioning coolant system. I said is, are they 8 covering up stuff at Palisades? He said no, they don't 9 cover it up he says they just don't report it.
10 And he says it's slipshod. They don't report 11 things. He says they keep everybody in the dark.
12 And I think that's probably the case and 13 there's a million reasons to not re-license it. And I 14 thank you for your time. God bless everybody.
15 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Corinne 16 Carey.
17 MS. CAREY: I brought a few props today because 18 this is such an exciting time in general, week actually.
19 And I felt we had to take advantage of that.
20 Now this little report we used earlier in the 21 week but it certainly fits here. Oops, this overlays.
22 Because it doesn't take any more nuclear bombs 23 to do what is happening because of the nuclear materials we 24 are manufacturing. The nuclear plants in their little bit 25 of permissible emissions. But that's like being a little NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
a 1 bit pregnant. It doesn't stop there.
2 And the possibility of course of a 20 year 3 extension for Palisades, this is too close. It's just 4 plain not sensible. Well, now I thought I had this figured 5 here I don't know.
6 Well, yes, no is not a nice thing but it 7 happens. Oh, I know.
8 Okay. There is another prop I brought and it's 9 this one because 20 more years of the nuclear plant is 10 constructing another 20 more years of radioactive waste.
11 And I know that when we were here a month or so ago when we 12 asked well, how many casks are there now was over 5000 13 Hiroshima bombs in radioactivity sitting on the shore right 14 over here at the plant. You can see them from the beach.
15 And we asked how many casks are there now.
16 Nobody seemed to know. Not the people from Washington or 17 the people from regional Chicago or even the local people.
18 Eventually we found out there's 25 which when you say one 19 cask has the equivalent of 120 Hiroshima bombs and there 20 they sit and they're sitting on these pads that are like a 21 garage footing and they are sitting on the singing sands.
22 Now this afternoon you were talking it and I do 23 want to give you some material about that so you'll all 24 have it.
25 The singing sands only happen in about four NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
10 i places in the world. They are round like bebes. And they 2 act like walking on bebes and that's why they squeak.
3 But should that earthquake fault across the 4 south, the southern edge of Michigan get activated which it 5 has on occasion then the effect of those bebes like sands 6 with the pads on them and the casks on the pads could be 7 catastrophic.
8 Now we have to think of these things.
9 Especially now with what we've seen of the hurricane 10 situation that things happen that we didn't plan. And who 11 knows, maybe in the 10,000 years or so that the casks are 12 designed supposedly to last, we will have global warming 13 here and we will have hurricanes here.
14 So another 20 years of adding to that 15 radioactivity doesn't make any sense at all.
16 Actually on Halloween some 20 years ago it was 17 the public release by Carl Sagan and others of the nuclear 18 winter concept. That was from explosion of nuclear bombs.
19 But it's just, it's happening the same, slowly from 20 radioactivity from other sources including of course the 21 depleted uranium ammunition being used, we are using all 22 over the world thinking it's not going to go here to us.
23 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: You've got about a 24 minute more.
25 MS. CAREY: Okay. Now there is, okay, they, oh, NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
11 I I got it here somewhere.
2 Nuclear was definitely a wrong turn. But the 3 addition of another 20 years of operation and over 10,000 4 Hiroshimas at that point like the cask number four that 5 hasn't been unloaded in 11 years because it didn't work to 6 simply reverse the process as we were told at the time.
7 So the radioactive waste that's with us is non 8 transportable. How are we going to get it out of those 9 casks. And how are we going to reload it into something 10 that can ride on a train or a truck that's going to go from 11 city to city to city to city until it gets to someplace.
12 And there is no place where it can go.
13 And as you know Yaka Mountain has been put 14 under litigation and therefore we were told that we 15 couldn't even discuss the radioactive waste when it comes 16 to this extension of Palisades.
17 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: You're going to need to 18 wrap up.
19 MS. CAREY: Okay. It was put under on, on, 20 under litigation because it was deliberately falsified 21 information.
22 So what we need to do is to take care of the 23 air, water, soil for me and my five grand kids and theirs 24 and theirs and theirs for thousand of years and yours.
25 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
.1.. .
12 1 MS. CAREY: Oh, these are some of the letters of 2 people that agree.
3 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: You're welcome to turn, 4 hand those up here if you like. While we're waiting for 5 the next person it just occurred to me some of you weren't 6 here for the earlier oral argument. But we did discuss 7 some alternative means of bringing issues to the attention 8 of the Commission.
9 And so you may want to contact Mr. Lodge here 10 to get more information on that as time goes on.
11 The next person on the list is Ken Richards.
12 Or today contact the NRC as well but he might 13 be able to explain on a local basis the alternatives.
14 Go ahead, Mr. Richards.
15 MR. RICHARDS: Hello, my name is Ken Richards.
16 That's Richards (R-i-c-h-a-r-d-s).
17 And I live approximately three miles from the 18 Palisades Nuclear Power Plant next to the South Haven 19 Municipal Airport which has gone through security upgrades 20 since the 9/11, 2001 terrorist attacks because of its close 21 proximity both to the Palisades and the Donald C. Cook 22 Nuclear Power Plants.
23 This concern I share mainly because of the way 24 the highly irradiated spent fuel assemblies are stored at 25 the Palisades Plant site. The high level containment is NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
13 I not so much a worry for me because it was designed and 2 constructed to withstand such a possible catastrophe.
3 Whereas the dry storage casks, many placed 4 right on the shoreline 150 yards from Lake Michigan were 5 not. I doubt very much they could withstand such an attack 6 as 9/11 or the Oklahoma City Federal bombing.
7 A large boat instead of a truck. Even an 8 accidental passenger jet crash.
9 Still this is a remote concern for me unlike 10 the operation of Palisades Plant itself. The re-license to 11 operate an additional 20 years from a shutdown date in 2011 12 which was already an extension because power plant 13 operators argued successfully that the plant took much 14 longer than expected to start up with a million problems 15 encountered at the time, years in fact. So the extension 16 was extended.
17 I remember more than ten years back when the 18 dry casks were first put in place when the decommissioning 19 date was the late 90s. The Palisades, then Palisades would 20 turn into a nuclear waste dump which is pretty much what 21 with the dry cask storage and all of the obsolete highly 22 irradiated equipment such as the original stream generator 23 still stored at the site within its mortuary does now.
24 All of this highly irradiated material was 25 supposed to be transferred to someplace such as Yaka NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
14 i Mountain or the Squaw Valley Indian Reservation. But here 2 in South Haven and Culvert area we've been hearing 3 solutions such as these since the plants were built.
4 Nothing has ever came of any of it but the fuel pools 5 filling up the double design capacity and now these cut 6 rate dry cask storage placements.
7 Much of this radioactive material has half 8 lives going thousands of years. With all the transport 9 problems along with our nation's inability to find and 10 construct a final storage site I believe we here in these 11 communities will be the caretakers of all this dangerous 12 waste and to shut down plants themselves for many 13 generations to come.
14 Of course there are many around here who need 15 and depend on these jobs. Plenty of job security here.
16 Still we are literally talking about forever as we know it.
17 Looking through history this is not a good thing. Our 18 economy can come and go right along with its ability to 19 care for something so lethal.
20 Thousands of years whole civilizations come and 21 go. What are they going to do with this radioactive 22 legacy.
23 One thing we the public have heard from the 24 beginning this was supposed to be cheap electricity and now 25 we are hearing the same argument again. Yet I don't see NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
15 l its supporters figuring in the cost of caring for all this 2 radioactive waste for the eons it will take to radiate 3 itself into harmless material. They just keeping insisting 4 there'll be some site to take it soon. Yet soon or 5 anything like it never happens. We're stuck with it.
6 Another concern is the plant's reactor pressure 7 vessel. The last time I worked for Palisades Nuclear Power 8 Plant during the refueling shutdown during the first Golf 9 War, to put a date on it, they were examining the reactor 10 vessel for embrittlement and found some at critical points.
11 So the operators began to practice the placing 12 all long stored stainless steel fuel assemblies at these 13 critical places to sop up radiation and keep it from 14 harming the vessel further.
15 Now correct me if I'm wrong but as I have 16 always understood it fuel rods must be removed when spent 17 because they become more not less radioactive and unstable 18 because of their three years in the reactor. Still this 19 practice goes on.
20 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: And if you could wrap 21 up in about a minute.
22 MR. RICHARDS: All right. Still this practice 23 goes on, okay.
24 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you.
25 MR. RICHARDS; Like the cut rate storage casks I NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
16 I feel the operators always put immediate profits ahead of 2 public and plant safety. All too often when matters like 3 these come to public light they are always just explained 4 them away just as they are doing now hoping to re-license a 5 38 year old plant which I have seen the inside of and can 6 tell is showing its age in a lot of places.
7 I feel the reactor must be replaced before any 8 consideration of re-licensing is considered along with a 9 permanent underground mortuary for all these dry casks to 10 be constructed and put to use soon.
11 As I, as I mentioned I and many of my family 12 members have worked in this nuclear industry since the 13 plants were first constructed back in the early 70s. My 14 father has, I have a cousin who worked at Cook most of his 15 adult life and he does today.
16 I'm not out to get these nuclear power plant 17 people. I just wish they would operate more responsibly.
18 This is dangerous stuff and they behave as if somebody is 19 out to get them when honest people come forward with honest 20 concern.
21 I hope you judges will be more enlightened. I 22 do realize our present federal government, state legislator 23 are backing this re-licensing attempt, and I acknowledge 24 there is 13 billion allocated for nuclear power development 25 in the current energy bill. Three billion just to fight NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
17 i the industry's opponents in court.
2 There's a lot of money involved. The fact is 3 Palisades is the largest employer. So it is more, so it is 4 more than just profits, also wages at stake here which puts 5 anyone critical of the plant's operation on the wrong side 6 of many a fence.
7 Still even though it's a lot of money it is 8 still a lot of radiation to keep up with which will not be 9 spend long after the money is.
10 Thank you for giving me this opportunity to 11 share with you my concerns for this important issue. Pleas 12 take a long hard look at its realities and put public 13 safety first. Thank you.
14 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you, sir.
15 Mr. Kevin Camps.
16 MR. CAMPS: Thank you. My name is Kevin Camps 17 and I work as a nuclear waste specialist at Nuclear 18 Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C. which 19 is one of the intervening organizations with contentions in 20 this proceeding.
21 And I'm thankful for this opportunity to speak.
22 I'm originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan, was 23 born and raised and lived most of my life in Kalamazoo.
24 I've only been in Washington for six years working at 25 Nears.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
~~~. .:..,..
18 I And I became involved with Palisades back in 2 1993 when the irradiated fuel surge pool filled and dry 3 casks were first installed on the beach, just the 150 yards 4 from the water of Lake Michigan.
5 And I worked as a volunteer in Kalamazoo trying 6 to watchdog the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant. And after 7 what seemed like beating my head against the wall for six 8 years in this neck of the woods I decided to try it in 9 Washington, D.C. at the federal level.
10 But always at my heart even though I work on a 11 national level now Palisades is, is the closest to my heart 12 because this is my home.
13 And my ancestors, and the reason I'm giving 14 this background is that the Kalamazoo Gazette, my hometown 15 newspaper recently accused this intervention as being an 16 outside agitatation. So I just wanted to set the record 17 straight.
18 My ancestors came here in 1849 on the Dutch 19 side and 1860 on the Irish side. But and I'm proud of that 20 and my family has been lake huggers ever since. We've 21 lived along the lakeshore hugging the lakeshore all these 22 years. And it's a choice of words, a conscious choice of 23 words to hug the lake because we love the lake. It's 24 sacred, it's precious, it's irreplaceable.
25 But there are others who have lived here much NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
19 1 longer than Native Americans and we do have contentions 2 that involve Native Americans and the impacts of Palisades 3 on their culture, their spirituality and their well being.
4 The two main issues that I wanted to address 5 are, are two of our strongest and most important 6 contentions and that is the embrittlement of the reactor 7 core as well as the dry cask storage.
8 The significance of embrittlement is the 9 reactor vessel is so brittle that like a hot glass under 10 cold water it could rupture in an emergency. And with a 11 troubled history of containment at Palisades that 12 catastrophic radiation release could find its way into Lake 13 Michigan and the surrounding area.
14 The NRC's own report on the consequences of a 15 severe accident entitled Crack Two which was published in 16 1980 put the dollar damage at 52.6 billion dollars that 17 could result from a catastrophic accident at Palisades.
18 This is unadjusted for inflation.
19 One thousand cancer deaths in the first year, 20 7000 injuries in the first year alone. And then over the 21 course of time 10,000 cancer deaths resulting from a 22 catastrophic radiation release.
23 And given the recent biological effects of 24 ionizing radiation report which again as was mentioned 25 today reaffirmed that no matter how small the dose of NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
20 I radiation health damage can be expected from it.
2 I think that those numbers of deaths and 3 injuries and in addition that economic damage is, is low 4 balling it.
5 And I just wanted to say that this region the 6 reason that my family has lived here for so long is because 7 it's so beautiful and it's also such a rich part of this 8 country in terms of the fruit that's grown here, the grapes 9 and the wine, the tourism, the heart of the economy here 10 which really is the life blood of our communities in this 11 entire region of the state and in surrounding states.
12 And a severe accident at Palisades would wipe 13 that all, would wipe it all out. And what's so ironic for 14 the Native Americans is that they have lived here forever.
15 They've lived here for at least 10,000 years. So they have 16 perhaps more than any of us a right to a say in this 17 proceeding.
18 The second issue I really wanted to focus on is 19 the dry cask storage.
20 Our expert witness, Dr. Ross Landsman, a 21 recently retired NRC inspector from Region III in Chicago 22 has been trying within the NRC since 1993 to raise serious 23 concerns about dry cask storage at Palisades.
24 The first dry cask storage pad at Palisades he 25 pointed out in an earthquake situation could result in NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
.~. . . . . --.: :..:..-...-.'.';:..
21 I casks finding their way into Lake Michigan or being buried 2 in the sand. Either of which could cause a catastrophic 3 radiation release into the lake.
4 Unfortunately for 12 years he was ignored 5 largely entirely on that. He did have a part to play in 6 Palisades deciding that it would move those casks from that 7 older pad to the newer pad just installed in 2004. Moving 8 those older casks as well as additional casks that will be 9 installed as time goes on on this newer pad which is more 10 inland. The --
11 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Just, I don't want to 12 interrupt you but you've got about a minute.
13 MR. CAMPS: Okay.
14 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: If you'd wrap up, we've 15 got a lot of people.
16 MR. CAMPS: The problem is that the new pad as 17 well is in violation of NRC earthquake regulations. And 18 Dr. Landsman now that he's retired wants to continue to be 19 involved in this because he knows what the dangers are.
20 He's raised them for so long and he just wants the NRC to 21 do its job.
22 And that raises the issue of waste at 23 Palisades. If this 20 year license extension is granted 24 there's going to be 20 more years of waste at Palisades 25 with nowhere to go, stored indefinitely on the lakeshore NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
~~~~~~~.;. ; ,..:.:-.
22 I which is the source of drinking water for 35 million people 2 downstream.
3 So cost benefit analysis was raised as an issue 4 today. What is the cost of risking the future of the Great 5 Lakes Basin with this dangerous plan. And that's why we 6 call for its shutdown and replacement with safer, cleaner, 7 cheaper alternative sources of electricity such as wind 8 power for which there is tremendous potential in this very 9 region.
10 And we do hope that these strong contentions 11 will be heard by the board.
12 Thank you very much.
13 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. LeRoy 14 Wolins. Did I pronounce that right?
15 MR. WOLINS: My name is LeRoy Wolins. I live in 16 South Haven. And I have been a participant in protests 17 against the Palisades Plant for years. And I'm here again 18 today to remind you that all those casks out on the lake 19 the best thing anyone could do with them at this point is 20 to rearrange them off the concrete slabs into one big word 21 spelled out on the beach with their lengths, help.
22 Maybe somebody in an airplane or a spaceship 23 going by will see our call for help and send us a plan like 24 the people from Palisades were promising us that they'd 25 have ready three years into, into whatever.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
23 1 But that is about all those casks can do would 2 be good is call for help.
3 I talked here in the beginning of September 4 about our historic lack of memory caused in Chicago when 5 they drilled one pile to fix a bridge on the Chicago River 6 and had forgotten that there were tunnels under the entire 7 Loop and the pile driver put the pile through the tunnel 8 roof, flooded the entire Loop all the basements, all the 9 technical stuff, shut down the Loop for a week, cost over a 10 billion dollars in damage, closed all the commodity markets 11 that depended on the electricity through those basements.
12 That is what happened in Chicago.
13 What would happen with the storage of all this 14 nuclear waste is far far beyond anything that happened to 15 Chicago. And I would advocate that we get that help sign 16 out on the beach quick, get somebody to see it and, and 17 give us a plan on what to do with it.
18 I don't know what to do except to stop making 19 more of it. And that's what a 20 year extension is. It's 20 20 years more of manufacturing death.
21 I was with some Russian retired generals and 22 admirals I was showing around the country a few years ago 23 in the 80s and we got to Washington for their send off home 24 and the word came out about Chernobyl and these gentlemen 25 who were all toughen veterans and I mean really toughen NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
921 1 veterans they were all crying at the airport in Washington 2 hearing what had happened to their homeland because the 3 Soviet government was careless with nuclear power. And we 4 must not be careless with nuclear power.
5 All the slogans we've heard and everything 6 forget it. Shut the thing down at the, at the, at the 7 present date scheduled. Shut it down now if you can. But 8 for heaven's sake shut it down.
9 Thank you.
10 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you, sir. (W-o-11 l-i-n-s). I could read his handwriting very easily as 12 well.
13 And then Paul Gunter.
14 MR. GUNTER: Are you calling me down for --
15 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Yes.
16 MR. GUNTER: Okay.
17 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: (G-u-n-t-e-r.) And in 18 LeRoy is it the capital R?
19 MR. WOLINS: Yes.
20 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Okay. (L-e-R-o-y).
21 MR. GUNTER: Thank you, Judge Young. My name is 22 Paul Gunter. I'm director of the reactor watchdog project 23 for Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington.
24 And my family also is here in Michigan only on 25 the, the Detroit side. But, you know, what I wanted to do NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
25 1 in my brief is to say a few words about what we're not 2 allowed to talk about today in the proceeding. And the 3 crisis in public confidence that a very real issue of 4 security and terrorism and what that has done.
5 Now, Judge Young, you are quite familiar with 6 the Cataba McGuire licensing proceeding which we were 7 involved in and we were quite hopeful when the licensing 8 board certified --
9 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Judge Baratta was also 10 one.
11 MR. GUNTER: Yes, sir, thank you. And we were 12 quite hopeful when the, when the Board certified to the 13 Commission some 14 contentions on security that were filed 14 with regard to that license renewal application.
15 In I believe it was December 18th, 2002 the 16 Commission came back with an order saying essentially that 17 we were disallowed from raising security contentions about 18 the, the security risks associated with extending an 19 operating license of --
20 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: You're talking about 21 the license renewal. I stand corrected. I was thinking 22 about the more recent case but.
23 MR. GUNTER: Okay.
24 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Go ahead.
25 MR. GUNTER: The, but the fact is what I wanted NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
. .bA
26 I to do right now was first of all just to, for the, for the 2 matter of the public here and for a matter of the record 3 the, the issue of security has some very real environmental 4 impacts.
5 Most recent, well, let's go by the number one 6 a, the National Commission on Terrorism just a few years 7 ago in its study of the September 1 1 th attack its report 8 originally documented that Al Qaeda had planned to highjack 9 ten aircraft. And two of those ten aircraft were to be 10 directed against nuclear power stations in this country.
11 So clearly the national commission has 12 identified that nuclear power stations around this country 13 are on the target list for, for terrorism.
14 More recently the National Academy of Sciences 15 in an April 2005 report on the safety and security of 16 commercial spent nuclear fuel storage systems documented 17 that, that, that in, in their study which was, which was 18 publically released that, that the fuel pools are of 19 particular concern because of their large inventories of 20 radioactivity and that in fact they're much more vulnerable 21 than, than perhaps the reactor vessels themselves because 22 they're in auxiliary buildings that are less protected and 23 in fact some of the, as in the Mark I reactors have 24 elevated storage systems that are up in the roof of the 25 reactor building outside containment.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
27 I So but, but what they did identify is that 2 there is a vulnerability. And that there is significant 3 risk that was also identified by the, a, a, a January 2001 4 pre 9/11 NRC study that said that an aircraft could 5 penetrate a fuel pool.
6 And that, the fact is is that the, the 7 consequences of a nuclear fuel fire are far reaching. They 8 are, it, the national chamy study put it in hundreds of 9 miles, tens of thousands of deaths and the NRC study put it 10 at, as far as 500 miles with 20, 27,000 deaths.
11 And these are, these are publically available 12 studies and reports about the vulnerability that still 13 exists today but that our due process has essentially been 14 taken away that we can, where we could address these very 15 real concerns in a licensing proceeding that could 16 potentially have some, some mitigating or at least to 17 recognize the environmental consequence that, that, that 18 exists there.
19 But in fact the --
20 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Just about one more 21 minute, okay.
22 MR. GUNTER: Certainly.
23 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: I hate to cut you 24 off --
25 MR. GUNTER: That's fine.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
28 1 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: -- all of you, but I 2 do have --
3 MR. GUNTER: I understand. But as it is right 4 now the public crisis the, you know, the crisis in public 5 confidence deepens. And the, the licensing board has an 6 opportunity to look at the issues that are presented to you 7 today and to make some effort towards restoration of public 8 confidence.
9 But in the long run we do need to be looking at 10 these, these very real security issues.
11 And right now there is not only with the 12 security issue but the emergency planning issue there's a, 13 this, this same crisis in public confidence has been 14 recognized by the inability to evacuate populations on the 15 Gulf Coast in a timely fashion even with three days notice.
16 But the security issue raise, raises some very 17 fast breaking events that we wouldn't have three days 18 advanced notice.
19 Thank you.
20 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Alice Hirt.
21 You were also here earlier.
22 MS. HIRT: Yes. I've been all day and I want to 23 say that we thank you for coming here to listen to our 24 concerns.
25 And sometimes I'm quite skeptical of the NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
29 1 process but I want to say that I feel that you have 2 listened to us today and have taken our concerns seriously.
3 And I, we really do appreciate that.
4 I, as I said I'm Alice Hirt. I live in 5 Holland, Michigan. I'm a wife, a mother and a grandmother.
6 And I am also someone who lives within the 50 mile radius 7 of the plant so I qualify as a legal intervenor in this 8 case.
9 Over the past several months since we filed to 10 intervene many individuals and many groups have joined this 11 opposition effort. At this point we have at least 22 12 groups who have said we oppose this license extension.
13 That doesn't sound like a whole lot of groups 14 but if you count the number of people that those groups 15 represent it is well over 200,000 Michigan residents.
16 I'd like to name just a few of those groups.
17 The Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club.
18 Alliance for the Great Lakes. Clean Water Action.
19 Michigan Environmental Council, which represents tens of 20 thousands of people in Michigan.
21 Michigan Citizens For Water Conservation.
22 Michigan Land Trustees. Public Interest Research Group in 23 Michigan, Purjam. And the West Michigan Environmental 24 Council.
25 And that's just a few of the 22.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
-. .. ::. -- , -- ... *...r..
30 1 Believe me, as Chuck Jordan said, I know what 2 it means to be getting older and things don't work exactly 3 right all the time. And as he said the same thing is true 4 for a nuclear power plant but of course the stakes are much 5 higher.
6 Palisades has a troubled history which really 7 speaks for itself. We should really be demanding the 8 immediate closure of this plant solely based on its level 9 of embrittlement. Instead we are merely saying Consumers 10 don't push the envelope. This plant has passed 11 embrittlement standards set in 1983 any number of times.
12 Palisades is as we said today the poster child 13 for embrittlement across the country.
14 As concerned citizens we have to ask you, 15 Consumers Energy, how do you have the gall to ask for 20 16 year license extension. You don't really know the exact 17 amount of copper and nickel in the metal of the reactor 18 vessel. You don't really know how much embrittlement has 19 actually occurred.
20 And you don't really know how dangerously close 21 the reactor vessel is to a pressurized thermal shock 22 accident.
23 Two things are certain. Kevin Camps already 24 stole my thunder because he talked about the Crack Two 25 report.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
31 1 In 1982 the NRC report to Congress that in a 2 melt down and a large scale radiation release from 3 Palisades would cause 1000 fatalities, 7000 injuries in the 4 first year, 10,000 cancer deaths over time and 52.6 billion 5 in property damages. Those are 1982 numbers.
6 And second of all the Beer Report that was 7 mentioned today that it is absolutely established that 8 there is no safe threshold for radiation levels. Any 9 amount will cause cellular damage.
10 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: If you could wrap up in 11 about a minute.
12 MS. HIRT: These dire predictions have driven us 13 to oppose this license extension request. Unfortunately it 14 appears at times that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is 15 more concerned with Consumers Energy's recalculations of 16 the numbers to make everything look fine than with the 17 reality itself let alone the concerns of the public.
18 It appears to us that the regulatory process is 19 not especially user friendly to the public and in fact 20 defers to owners and operators of these nuclear plants 21 while it ignores public outcry.
22 Palisades is living on borrowed time as we are 23 also because we are its close neighbors. We cannot and 24 will not sit idly by and wait for the surely and inevitable 25 catastrophic accident to happen. We must not allow this NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
32 1 plant to be re-licensed for another 20 years.
2 Thank you.
3 And I'm speaking on behalf --
4 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you.
5 MS. HIRT: -- of at least 200,000 people in --
6 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: That's a lot in my 7 book.
8 MS. HIRT: I thought it was. Thank you.
9 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. (H-i-r-t),
10 correct? Thanks.
11 Okay. Mr. Michael Keegan, and that's 12 K-e-e-g-a-n, is --
13 MR. KEEGAN: Yes.
14 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: -- that right? And 15 did you have a first initial that I --
16 MR. KEEGAN: Michael, I had trouble getting the 17 pen to work.
18 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Oh, okay.
19 MR. KEEGAN: It was a technological failure.
20 Those things occasionally occur.
21 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Okay.
22 MR. KEEGAN: I appreciate the opportunity, 23 Judges, to be here. I did feel that we were heard today, 24 time will tell. But also a cynical mind from 25 years of 25 tracking the nuclear industry and one, one side I feel like NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
33 1 we're merely here today to punch a dance card that we've 2 had those meetings, we've punched that ticket.
3 I'd like to tell you a little story, I hope 4 it's not too boring. Back in the early '90's, Consumers 5 Power indicated they were going to move towards dry cask 6 storage.
7 We began to organize in the community and we 8 had some rallies near the plant. In one summer we had a 9 rally right next to the plant and after our rally was done, 10 about 50 of us wanted to go over towards the dunes and have 11 a little picnic and we saw some college kids on the path 12 and we said, is there a dune, is there a path to a dune 13 that we can overview and, and see the lake from?
14 And they said, well, there used to be a dune 15 there last year, but it's gone. Earlier we discussed 16 Singing Sands a bit. Singing Sands are subject to 17 blowouts, massive erosion, all up and down the coast.
18 Because I think back in my earlier years when I 19 used to come over to Lake Michigan and play, houses were 20 falling into the lake, not far from here. Not far south, 21 not far north. It is a real concern.
22 So consumers proceeds and we, the good 23 intervenors try to follow protocol. We've dealt with 24 Michigan, we were able to get the Attorney General of the 25 State of Michigan to present our argument in Federal Court, NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
34 1 in the Sixth Appellate Court in Cincinnati.
2 We first had to go to the District Court in, in 3 Western Michigan on May 4th, 1993. We tried to get a 4 temporary restraining order to prevent the loading. The 5 Judge docketed it for May 6th to have a preliminary 6 hearing.
7 On May 5th the NRC, the utility produced a 8 document, the unloading procedure. We were essentially 9 arguing there is no procedure for unloading. That's what 10 we argued on May 4th. Dated May, on May 4th. On May 5th 11 the utility presented a document, unloading document.
12 On May 6th we go to court, the Judge says well, 13 here's this unloading procedure. The NRC says it's okay, 14 it's going to work. The utility says it's okay, this is 15 their unloading procedure. Because there's not irreparable 16 harm, I'm not going to issue the injunction. Besides, 17 you're in the wrong court, you need to be in the Appellate 18 Court. Thank you, have a nice day.
19 A year and a half later we get to go to the 20 Appellate Court. Of course, they proceeded to load 21 immediately. Now the thing's unloaded. The fourth cask 22 they loaded had cracks in it and needed to be unloaded.
23 At the Appellate Court, after a long 24 presentation and long deliberation, the ruling came back 25 that we were to go through exhausted administrative NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
- ~~. . ..... ...,:..A
35 1 procedures through a 2206 process, thank you very much, go 2 through that process.
3 Dr. Mary Sinclair, an eminent scholar on these 4 issues researched this and lo and behold, no cask have ever 5 been unloaded anywhere.
6 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: One minute, okay?
7 MR. KEEGAN: Okay. And the configuration of 8 these casks are such that you can't get to the casks that 9 were loaded, you're going to have to pull all the other 10 casks out of there to get to a problematic cask.
11 There would be a radioactive steam release, it 12 would have to be done in a fuel pool. It's never been 13 done. Yet they proceed to load more.
14 My point is we go ahead with 20 years life 15 extension, you got 20 years additional casks on that pad 16 which is faulty and you have dunes that are subject to 17 blowing out and blowing on top of those casks.
18 You're setting up a disaster. Not necessarily 19 you. I hope that folks here, our contentions, they're real 20 and that's my statement.
21 So, thank you very much.
22 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you very much.
23 Ms. Jane Trotter, T-r-o-t-t-e-r, is that right? Or is it 24 Trutter?
25 MS. TROTTER: Trotter.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
. ,,. I
- 7. ..
._ -. ;I ....
. I . ,
36 1 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: 0, T-r-o-t-t-e-r?
2 MS. TROTTER: T-r-o-t-t-e-r.
3 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Okay.
4 MS. TROTTER: And I was not able to be hear 5 earlier today so you have an advantage. You know who I am 6 but I don't know who you are, so.
7 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Well for those people 8 __
9 MS. TROTTER: So I would really appreciate --
10 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: -- who just came in, 11 I'm Ann Marshall Young, I'm the chair of the licensing 12 board. This is Dr. Anthony Baratta who is one the 13 technical --
14 MS. TROTTER: And how do we spell it?
15 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: B-a, you go ahead.
16 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE BARATTA: B-a-r-a-t-t-a.
17 MS. TROTTER: B-a-r-a-t-t-a. Okay.
18 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: And I'm going to let 19 Judge Trikouros introduce himself and spell his own name.
20 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE TRIKOUROS: It's Trikouros, 21 T-r-i-k-o-u-r-o-s. Nicholas.
22 MS. TROTTER: k-o-u-r-o-s. And your first name 23 again?
24 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE TRIKOUROS: Nicholas.
25 MS. TROTTER: Ah, good Irish name.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
37 1 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: And we are limiting 2 people to five minutes to make sure everybody has a chance 3 to talk.
4 MS. TROTTER: That's fine. I will take off my 5 watch and we will begin.
6 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: All right.
7 MS. TROTTER: My name is Jane Trotter. My 8 address is 28095 Palisades Park, Michigan. And I also come 9 from Northbrook, Illinois. Both of these communities 10 drink, take our drinking water directly from Lake Michigan.
11 So I am here not just as an onsite member but 12 also as someone whose entire real estate equity is tied up 13 on both sides of the lake with the quality of the water.
14 And I, my purpose is not to come here and say 15 please save my property values, but it can't be ignored.
16 The property values are there.
17 One of my biggest challenges is, is to come in 18 front of you and realize that you've heard lots of people, 19 you've heard lots of things today. I don't have a funny 20 hat, I don't have any props. I know that you have to 21 listen to what is best for the majority and any one person 22 speaking is only a minority.
23 I'm going to be very careful not to have a "not 24 in my backyard" kind of an attitude. But the fact is, this 25 is my backyard. And, and I would like to ask you if you NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
~. . . . .. ..
38 1 know what it's like to live with iodine pills in your 2 kitchen next to the basil and the oregano, because I do.
3 And what it's like to live with a Geiger 4 counter that you have to check the batteries on, because I 5 do. What it's like to live every time the siren goes off 6 and it's not the first Saturday of every month and to have 7 your heart sit in your throat and watch your watch, because 8 I do. And this is not a good way to proceed.
9 Silly us, we believed the power company all 10 those years ago when they said it was only going to be to 11 the first time and then the second time we figured we could 12 deal with it, that amount of time.
13 My children represent the fifth generation of 14 our family that has come to this community. And I would 15 like to hope that we'll have many more generations and that 16 they'll have all of their fingers and toes in the right 17 places.
18 So this isn't about money, it's about heritage.
19 And I guess you can say in some ways I'm an indigenous 20 person. They took the name from our plant, from our 21 community who just celebrated their centennial this summer.
22 I think the last, the thing is, my biggest 23 concern, our biggest concern is that we have not ever heard 24 anything straight or anything really true that we knew that 25 we could ever believe from any public speaker from NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
39 1 Palisades in our entire life, bar none.
2 I've been there at 2:00 in the morning when 3 they decided to bleed the steam. And when I was six months 4 pregnant and somehow was able to get through to a public 5 service officer on the phone who said, oh, no, this is 6 routine maintenance, at 2:00 in the morning. When it 7 sounded like literally a jet plane was coming through our 8 front door.
9 And I said, you know, I'm six months pregnant, 10 if I need to leave you better tell me now. Oh, no, routine 11 maintenance. And then the next day at Fred's up at the end 12 of the road, all the guys were working, coming off shift 13 and, and talking over coffee and it was not routine 14 maintenance, something sprung a leak and they had to shut 15 down the reactor quickly and they had to bleed the steam 16 quickly.
17 So these are the kinds of things you realize 18 when you live there. You know that it's a no fly zone, but 19 I can tell you there are planes over that plant all day, 20 every day. There may be little ones, but they're there. I 21 know exactly when the coast guard flies by and I can tie to 22 the minute, two times a day. And if, if I can figure this 23 out, other people can figure this out.
24 So, there are a lot of issues here. But 25 mostly, I want to ask all three of you personally to, to NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
40 realize that this is your opportunity, which we fairly 2 rarely have in our lives, to make a difference.
3 And I want to ask you to help us get over our 4 cynicism. I was told before I came here today, don't even 5 bother because this is, they've already made up there minds 6 and this is big interests and money talks louder than 7 little people.
8 And unfortunately my whole life long that's 9 been my experience so far. But, you know, we just put Rosa 10 Parks to rest today. One person can make a difference.
11 You are three people and you can make a difference.
12 And I will just ask you one question, ten years 13 from now, if something goes wrong at that plant, which are 14 you going to regret more, that you approved it or that you 15 disapproved it?
16 Thank you.
17 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. One thing 18 I'd like to mention before we go to the next person and 19 that is I don't know whether you're able to come tomorrow 20 but we are going to continue the oral argument tomorrow 21 morning and people are welcome to come and listen and watch 22 what happens tomorrow.
23 MS. TROTTER: Okay. Thank you.
- . 24 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG
- Mary Ann Middaugh, 25 you'll, I think it's, well it's Mary and then Ann, A-n-n NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
41 1 and then M-i-d-d-a-u-g-h.
2 MS. MIDDAUGH: Mid-aw.
3 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Mid-aw. Thank you.
4 Sorry to mispronounce it.
5 MS. MIDDAUGH: My name is Mary Ann Middaugh.
6 And the people of southwest Michigan voted to have me 7 represent them in the Michigan legislature for six years, 8 the maximum allowed under our constitution.
9 I served as chair of the House, Energy and 10 Technology Committee when electric restructuring was 11 passed.
12 During our hearings and other deliberations it 13 was clear that Michigan needs nuclear energy. And Michigan 14 needs the Palisades plant as it generates enough 15 electricity for 500,000 of Michigan's residents.
16 Because Michigan is a peninsula, we are limited 17 in the amount of energy we can import for contiguous areas.
18 Our committee looked at the environmental and safety record 19 of this plant and the record of how the nuclear management 20 company dealt with any problems that arose.
21 The record is excellent on both counts and we 22 as elected officials were kept apprised of all activities 23 of the plant.
24 Palisades employs about 600 employees with a 25 payroll of about $60 million. We very much need the jobs NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
42 1 that Palisades provides to this area. These employees are 2 not only responsible while at work, but they are also a 3 very real asset to this area of the state.
4 They are involved in their churches, schools, 5 families and communities. Palisades is also a good 6 corporate neighbor. They pay a great deal of taxes to area 7 governments and are very supportive of the community and 8 work together to make this area of the State a good place 9 to live and raise a family.
10 This is evident from the numerous letters and 11 resolutions of support of re-licensing of this plant from 12 area governmental bodies.
13 I add my voice of support for re-licensure of 14 this clean air electric generating plant. Thank you.
15 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Dennis 16 Palgen, P-a-l, you can spell it for us.
17 MR. PALGEN: P-a-l-g-e-n.
18 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you.
19 MR. PALGEN: Pronounce pal-gin.
20 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Pal-gin. Thank you.
21 Dennis C. Palgen?
22 MR. PALGEN: Yes. My name is Dennis Palgen and 23 I am the clerk for Covert Township. And as most of you 24 know, or all of you know, Covert Township enjoys the 25 neighbor of the Palisades Nuclear Plant.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
43 1 They've been there since 1971 and they have 2 been good neighbors. And when we talk about neighbors, we 3 talk about people that are living within these communities 4 that worked at this plant, that managed the plant. And I 5 think that that's important to point out as well.
6 If we had safety issues at that plant that were 7 of grave concern, I think these people would probably not 8 be in this, in this particular area. I think that's 9 important to point out.
10 Mary Ann talked about some things that were 11 part of my discussion as well, but I'd like to talk about a 12 letter that we wrote to Washington D.C., the Division of 13 Administrative Services, Office of Administration, U.S.
14 Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
15 And this was written by our supervisor, Wayne 16 Rendell who could not be here tonight. So I'd just like to 17 comment on a couple of these paragraphs that he wrote 18 because revenue I think is important as well in addition to 19 being a good neighbor.
20 Funding for the Covert Township ambulance, Fire 21 Department and Police Department is through a voted milage 22 for each department. Currently the tax revenue from 23 Consumer's Energy plus Palisades Nuclear Plant is roughly 24 60 percent of the total taxes collected.
25 If we as a township and as a people were to NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
44 1 lose this revenue today, they would have to shut down or 2 drastically reduce the services they provide to the 3 community and a lot of the people in this room, perhaps.
4 The tax revenue for Palisades Nuclear Plant 5 also helps fund the township's water system as well as our 6 general fund. The revenue lost to either of these would 7 also mean either reduce services and/or a raise in taxes.
8 But I think more importantly or as equally 9 important is again the good neighbor standpoint. We've had 10 wonderful relationship with them, someone mentioned steam 11 release. We get a call from Palisades Nuclear Plant if in 12 fact there's a maintenance situation going on there and 13 they let us know that we have a steam release and you know, 14 we get calls from our residents or whatever.
15 And that has not been the case. We don't have 16 a bunch of scared residents in Covert. We have people in 17 Covert that are very happy that the plant is there. We 18 certainly as a Township are very happy. We strongly 19 support the license renewal for the year 2011 through 2031.
20 Thank you very much.
21 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Can you 22 spell the name of your township?
23 MR. PALGEN: Covert.
24 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: C-o-v-e-r-t?
25 MR. PALGEN: C-o-v-e-r-t, yes.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
- ~~. ... .
45 1 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you.
2 MR. PALGEN: You're welcome.
3 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Michael Martin?
4 MR. MARTIN: I wasn't sure the last two 5 speakers for 10,000 years there will be some 6 decommissioning going on so there will be plenty of 7 employment.
8 I realize the architects of these plants have 9 pretty good idea that they were not going to be too cheap 10 to meter and that there would have to be some economies and 11 construction and amongst these would be on the reactor 12 vessel, which is solid steel and up to a foot thick.
13 And that one of the economies in this would be 14 in the grade of steel. It's turned out to be essentially 15 old cars melted up which had imperfections that caused some 16 of the problems found at Three Mile Island and Davis 17 Bessie, due to radiological and boron and one thing or 18 another.
19 And as Mr. Richards pointed out earlier, we 20 already have the steam generator and probably other systems 21 buried at Palisades and these are million dollar projects, 22 I'm sure. And if we looked in another 20 years we can 23 expect a lot of other expensive maintenance not counting 24 accidents and so forth.
25 Therefore, it seems totally too expensive to NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
46 1 keep on. In the light of what we have seen before and what 2 we'll see in the future especially in the light of wind and 3 solar and other energies that are useful and could be 4 tapped almost immediately.
5 Thank you.
6 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Wade Gade, 7 is it? Wade, G-a, I think it's G-a, you'll have to, you 8 must be a Doctor. I'm sorry. Just if you could spell your 9 last name?
10 MR. ADAMS: I'm not an M.D. My name is Wade 11 Adams. I'm here with my wife from Kalamazoo, Michigan, 12 some 40 miles to the east of here. My way of background 13 received a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of 14 Michigan. I've worked as a scientist in the academic world 15 and the corporate world for 35 years.
16 I'm here because I'm concerned. In the early 17 70's, we lived at Edgewood -- in Maryland, not far from 18 Three Mile Island, really a rather short distance. That 19 plant seemed perfectly safe.
20 As you know, in 1979 came very, very close to a 21 serious meltdown at that facility. So that has always had 22 a very lasting affect in my mind.
23 Now without question, the conditions under 24 which that reactor has been and so far as I can tell, 25 consumers has changed a lot of equipment at that plant and NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
1' 1 upgraded. But that reactor remains there and without 2 question, it has undergone fatigue and tempering that make 3 it much less able to withstand any shock that could come 4 some 38 years later.
5 In terms of release of radioactivity and so on, 6 I don't believe I've ever received any information as to 7 what I should do. On a nice windy day, I'd probably be 8 receiving radiation in Kalamazoo within an hour being only 9 40 miles away.
10 I was glad to hear the other lady say about 11 having iodine tablets available. How many people in this 12 vicinity know that? I really wonder.
13 Billions are being spent on Homeland Security 14 but are we really more secure? The people of Covert 15 Township may feel safe, but the last time I visited New 16 Orleans, the people there seemed to be, feel safe too. And 17 look what has happened to them.
18 As far as the storage of the waste on the 19 shores of Lake Michigan, it should never have been allowed.
20 And certainly storing more there should never be allowed.
21 Until this country has a place to store this 22 waste, there should not be any more loose waste generated.
23 If you're a terrorist and you're thinking where 24 could I have an impact, would I impact a nuclear reactor on 25 the Pacific or the Atlantic, well I think there's a lot of NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
48 1 fresh water right here and it's a valuable resource.
2 You're gambling by allowing this registration to go 3 forward, without question.
4 So, in summary, I have to strongly oppose the 5 extension of the licensing for another 20 years, which 6 would make this plant near the end of its term, nearly 60 7 years old.
8 So, I urge you to look at this carefully and, 9 and to reject this on the basis that our economy, the true 10 economy in this area requires it more. What we need in 11 this country is more decentralization of power production.
12 And the State needs to change the laws to allow 13 that and consumers needs to permit that in the air 14 corporate plan. So please reject this licensing extension 15 of the Palisades plant.
16 Thank you.
17 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Lee Ann 18 Johnson.
19 MS. JOHNSON: I don't really have anything new 20 or scientific or exciting in any way to offer. I just, I 21 live in Kalamazoo as well. And I saw the wind in the waves 22 today, I was thinking again, particularly, boy, it wouldn't 23 take that, take long to travel would it?
24 And as I could have considered these things and 25 in doing so, and particularly the lack of available storage NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
. *~~ . -. ,. ,. ';,..'.'-.
49 1 for spent and in doing so, reject the continuation of the 2 licensing. Thank you.
3 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. And then I 4 think the next person was Mr. Jordan who's already left.
5 Beth Anderson.
6 MS. ANDERSON: Hello. My name is Beth 7 Anderson. I was born in this, in South Haven in 1963.
8 This morning on the radio someone, a representative of the 9 nuclear power plant said that we weren't interested, it was 10 just people from out of town coming in. And that's not 11 true.
12 But like someone said before, there's a lot of 13 people in this town that don't feel that they could fight 14 this. You know, that plant has been producing waste almost 15 my entire life. And it will be doing it right into my 16 retirement if this is extended.
17 And everyone talks about cask number four being 18 defective. What does that mean exactly? Is it leaking, 19 are we receiving radiation? I wish that you would close it 20 down. Thank you.
21 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Jeanice or 22 Jeanice, M-u --
23 MS. MORGAN: Morgan.
24 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Morgan? I'll let you 25 spell your name for the court reporter.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
50 1 MS. MORGAN: Jeanice, J-e-a-n-i-c-e, Morgan.
2 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: M-o-r-g-a-n?
3 MS. MORGAN: Yes.
4 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Okay. Thank you.
5 MS. MORGAN: I never stood up for anything, so 6 this is my first time. I'm local. I moved to South Haven 7 from Bloomingdale which is just a little bit out of South 8 Haven. We moved up here from Chicago in '77.
9 So basically my stuff is just kind of common 10 sense thing. I was never good in science, don't know much 11 about nuclear. You know, I've been following this for a 12 while.
13 I'm up here because it's near and dear to my 14 heart. The job thing, it seems to me you're going to have 15 to have jobs to maintain the waste that's there.
16 Unfortunately we can't get rid of that right now.
17 The building's going to have to be maintained.
18 If we have wind power, we're going to have to have jobs for 19 people, you know, to, to build the wind mills.
20 I thought about the cancer thing. My mother 21 has had cancer, my sisters had cancer, grandfather, we've 22 all been around this area. Mother-in-law, grandmother-in-23 law. My mother-in-law used to swim down by Palisades.
24 They removed a seven and a half pound tumor out of her 25 stomach.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
51 1 I've heard a lot about the Homeland Security.
2 Once again, common sense here tells me, you know, what can 3 they do test for the windmill, you know. Homeland 4 Security, this would be a great way to ensure us that this 5 is going the right way.
6 Hospitals in this area, it seems to me they're 7 pretty small, you know, they, are they equipped if there's 8 a disaster? It seems to me we have schools all around 9 Palisades. If, once again, if there's a disaster we don't 10 even have a hospital big enough for the children around the 11 plant if something bad happens.
12 Even if you're somebody that's not trying to 13 stop nuclear power, something like that, it seems to me if 14 you have a building that is old and embrittled, you have 15 the problem with leakage, you wouldn't want no more to 16 rebuild that or put money into it for 20 more years if you 17 don't have to. Then you want to ignore the levies down in 18 New Orleans. You know, I mean, nobody wants this disaster 19 to happen. They didn't want it to happen down there.
20 It seems to me that common sense would tell 21 you, you know, we could stop that. I work in this area, 22 I'm a retail person, it's a big tourist area.
23 I've also been down at the State Park when 24 tourists said, well what is that down there? Well that's 25 the nuclear power plant, you know.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
52 1 I've worked at X-18 where several people coming 2 into our town ran up and said it looks like there's a fire, 3 call the police, there's something blowing down there, you 4 know. No, that's the power plant.
5 It seems to me if we're going to thrive as 6 being a tourist community, we need to make a cleaner, 7 safer, better environment. That seems to be what our town 8 is thriving on right now.
9 I'd love to be reassured or somebody please 10 tell me that there is no poison coming into our water, into 11 our air. Like I said, I'm not very smart when it comes to 12 that stuff, but just, in layman's terms, if somebody could 13 produce some papers or some numbers that would be for real 14 and more convincing then what I've seen.
15 As far as the good neighbor thing goes, it 16 seems to me once again the common sense thing, if you have 17 a neighbor that has waste leaking out into their yard, you 18 might adore that neighbor but, you know, you're not going 19 to want to live by that.
20 If you have a neighbor that has the equivalent 21 of so many Hiroshima bombs in their back barn, you don't 22 want to live by that, you want to turn them in for it or 23 you know, hey, I like you but, sorry, you got to go, you 24 got to clean this up, you know.
25 So the good neighbor thing, I've been a low NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
~~~~~~~.- . . . .. *....--,.;.,.;-:-....-."- -'
53 1 gull, I'm not a seagull, I think that it would be great if 2 you guys could just stop this and let's go for a cleaner 3 energy.
4 Thank you.
5 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Barbara 6 Geisler. G-e-i-s-l-e-r. That's pretty clear.
7 MS. GEISLER: That's right. I have been 8 thinking about why we're even here. Perhaps when this 9 plant was built, there was a certain naivety about what we 10 were getting into. But it's so clear now that it was a bad 11 investment on the part of everybody.
12 And I thought, well, how can this be that we're 13 considering re-licensing one of the oldest and most 14 embrittled plants? And then I started thinking about 15 Detroit and the recent announcement that Delphi is letting 16 thousands of people go.
17 And how Detroit continued to ignore the warning 18 of, again, the early '70's that we were very vulnerable in 19 terms of oil and it might be a good idea to have energy 20 efficient cars and what did we get? We got SUV's and 21 people went for it.
22 And a lot of people can be convinced that 23 nuclear power is absolutely necessary. But there's no 24 future, just as there isn't for the SUV. We're running out 25 of oil. We're on the other side of oil. Geologists will NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
54 1 tell you that who work for the oil industry. There has to 2 be something different. You can even see it in their ads.
3 So instead of seeing those clean energy ads 4 that nuclear people put out, I'd like to see we're 5 investing in alternative energy, we know we need to change.
6 We're going to have wind.
7 10, 15 years ago I heard a woman from 8 Washington who worked on energy issues say, you could have 9 nothing but wind around the Great Lakes, perfect.
10 Now, we're into nuclear now, aren't we? And we 11 can't perhaps shut the plants down tomorrow. But certainly 12 no re-licensing and certainly consumers should be, not 13 dragging its heals but working on what will be needed for 14 the future.
15 I worked in San Francisco for 20 years, 16 although I grew up in Barion County. And I was involved in 17 corporate life and I know how difficult it is to keep your 18 job unless you're showing a profit for the next few months.
19 20 And unfortunately, our society is set up that 21 way. It's my feeling that the only way any industry will 22 change is if there is legal pressure and if the public 23 pushes on the legal establishment to serve the public, to 24 serve the citizens.
25 This is how change comes about. And I'm NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
55 1 pleading with you to be part of that legal system which 2 serves the public for the future. Not for notw, for the 3 future. Because it's clear that for our children and 4 grandchildren there will need to be something other than 5 nuclear power.
6 Their job will be guarding the waste. They'll 7 need something else for energy. Thank you.
8 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Maynard 9 Kauffman. M-a-n-a-r-d?
10 MR. KAUFFMAN: M-a-y-n-a-r-d, yeah. And I'm 11 speaking in behalf of Michigan Land Trustees which is one 12 of the intervening organizations, and as a member of its 13 board of directors, I'll say a little bit more about that
-I 14 later.
15 But I have three very brief points to make this 16 evening. The first is that I haven't heard that murphy's 17 law has been repealed. And as long as Murphy's law stand, 18 which says that if anything can go wrong it will, I think 19 we're on dangerous ground with this old nuclear plant in 20 our area. The embrittled core makes the risk ever so much 21 greater.
22 The second observation is that the application 23 to extend the license for another 20 years at Palisades is, 24 it seems to me, not rurally primarily about the production 25 of electricity, rather it seems to me this is an effort on NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
56 1 the part of investors of a large energy company to make 2 more money. This is the way the world works. We're not 3 naive in southwest Michigan.
4 So nuclear power is one kind of argument but 5 the nuclear industry is quite another. The fact is, right 6 now, according to my reading and I do a lot along energy 7 lines, the, the fact is that currently wind power is about 8 half the cost per kilowatt hour of nuclear power. And Lake 9 Michigan is a prime source for wind.
10 So, and as for jobs, well, it is true that 11 Palisades provides jobs in this area, but it is also true 12 that vastly more jobs could be provided for the people in 13 this area with a combined program of renewable energy along 14 with programs for conservation of energy, better insulated 15 houses and the whole thing that we remember from the '70's 16 we did have for a brief time.
17 As I said, I'm speaking in behalf of Michigan 18 Land Trustees, which is an organization that started back 19 in 1976 with the intention of preserving land for people to 20 raise food on and to help to make that land more accessible 21 to them.
22 This nuclear plant places this, this point has 23 been made by others here, this very precious and unique 24 land here in southwestern Michigan at risk so that a few 25 people can make more money, that's the way I see it.
N NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
57 1 And I think this is another democratic process.
2 While I do appreciate the chance to say a piece here in 3 opposition to the re-licensing, I think if we were really 4 going to be democratic about this, we should have a 5 referendum on the nuclear power industry, to see how much 6 longer we really want to continue it. That's my 7 suggestion. Thank you.
8 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Mr. Philip 9 Micklin. M-i-c-k-l-i-n, is that right?
10 MR. MICKLIN: Yes, it is. I'm from Kalamazoo, 11 so I'm not an outsider. I think Kalamazoo should certainly 12 be considered in the range of any plume that might result 13 from a catastrophic accident at Palisades.
14 I've lived in Kalamazoo for 36 years. I 15 wasn't, as some of the people that have spoken, born here, 16 but I feel like a native.
17 A little historical information because it does 18 relate to this. I'm not an expert in nuclear power. I'm 19 not a nuclear engineer, but back in the 1970's I became 20 extremely interested in the nuclear fuel cycle. And I read 21 all that I could find ADC publications, NRC publications, 22 when that agency was created and I actually published a 23 peer reviewed article on high level waste management in the 24 bulletin of the Atomic Scientist in 1974.
25 And I did because I felt it was worthwhile.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
58 1 Looked particularly into risk analysis. And there are 2 many, there are many, there are benefits, certainly, I 3 won't deny that, from nuclear power. And I understand 4 perfectly well the statements of former representative 5 Middaugh and the manager, County manager or City manager 6 from Covert Township about the economic benefits of nuclear 7 power.
8 But I think you need to very carefully consider 9 in risk analysis and I'm sure, as the experts, as the 10 experts you are aware of this, that it's a very treacherous 11 field. It's a particularly treacherous field because it 12 involves the problem of rare but extremely, extremely 13 serious accidents.
14 The so-called Poison curve problem, the 15 statistical distribution and it has a long, long tale, 16 going way out of very rare events.
17 And I'm not a statistician, but I understand 18 something about mathematics. And in looking at studies 19 that were done, and I'll admit I have not looked at them, 20 the ones that have been done in the last 15 years, but I 21 don't think things have really changed that it's very, very 22 hard to estimate the probabilities of these very rare 23 events.
24 And as you well know what they used was kind of 25 analysis that says here's all the parts in the nuclear NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
59 1 power plant. And the probability of failure of this piece 2 and that piece and another piece is so much and you do some 3 multiplication and in other mathematical approaches and you 4 come up with those famous figures on the probability of an 5 extremely serious accident.
6 But what did we learn, even back it the 1970's 7 and early 1980's? That the real problem in this sort of 8 analysis was not the mathematics but trying to figure out 9 all of those accident pathways.
10 And what happened at Three Mile Island, as you 11 well know, it was the, one of those "incredible accidents, 12 a strange series of events" that no one had thought of.
13 That didn't lead to a catastrophic accident, but it 14 certainly came very, very close, there's no way around 15 that.
16 Chernobyl and the Soviet Union, a different 17 situation, I know Russian reactors, they're different. But 18 still, nobody had thought of the crazy set of circumstances 19 that led to that.
20 So, in considering whether to re-license this 21 plant, I think you must take this along with the other 22 problems, such as the waste problem and casks, very, very 23 seriously.
24 And to me, for that reason, even though I admit 25 there are benefits to nuclear power, it's taking such a NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
60 1 chance. Plant will be as I remember 40 years old in 2011, 2 60 years old in 2031.
3 As these plants get older, just like old 4 airplanes, there's more possibilities for a whole set of 5 strange circumstances to happen that could lead to a very 6 serious accident.
7 And you have a Judge on your panel there and I 8 would say that we can use a criminal law analogy here. And 9 that is in criminal cases before juries, the governing 10 principal is beyond a reasonable doubt, and I would say 11 that if you can't, in good conscience that it is beyond a 12 reasonable doubt that the re-licensing for 20 extra years 13 of this plant is not going to lead to a very serious 14 accident, you really shouldn't do it.
15 I think it's playing Russian Roulette. And let 16 me close by saying that it's 2005. The license is valid 17 2011, seems to me there's plenty of time to figure out how 18 to shut this plant down carefully. How to correct for the 19 economic problems it may, and I stress may cause. And I 20 think that is the very safest course to take.
21 Thank you very much.
22 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Jim 23 Brisky, B-r-i-s-k-y?
24 MR. BRISKY: Hello; glad to be here. I worked 25 as an iron worker building Palisades, and at that time I NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
61 1 didn't realize what I was doing, but it wouldn't have made 2 any difference anyway because I would have been replaced.
3 But I have a lot of questions, and some of it is just like, 4 what does Japan and France do with their waste? You never 5 hear a thing. How come in France almost all their nuclear 6 power plants are the same? In the United States almost 7 every one is different. I mean, that just doesn't make 8 sense on keeping the up and for repairs and everything 9 else.
10 And, I don't know what kind of world we're 11 leaving our kids and grandkids. And I've went through 12 quite a bit of stuff with politicians and I think the 13 biggest problem on this, I think that big business is blown 14 in the ears of the congressmen and tell them what to do, 15 it's all about money.
16 I, one, for one instance, I was raised in upper 17 Michigan, I did iron work for 20 years, and we found out, 18 and I know for a fact that the federal government let the 19 iron ore mines dump the -- in Lake Superior for 20 years, 20 and they polluted it with asbestos. Now, most of the 21 city's along the lake had to drill wells, and the same 22 thing is with this nuclear stuff. There's no guarantee 23 that there won't be an accident, and why are you taking a 24 chance of polluting the big, fresh water? If that got 25 polluted, just imagine that alone, just what, I mean, it NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
62 1 just don't make sense.
2 And there isn't any plant that's 100 percent, I 3 don't care what you say, and I just hope that you people in 4 good conscience vote it down. Thank you.
5 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Jason 6 Carter?
7 MR. CARTER: Hello, and thank you for letting 8 everybody talk. I've been a Kalamazoo area resident for 9 the past 29 years. I was on a trip recently and I had a 10 dream that I had come home and one of my friend's fathers 11 and I were driving in a car and we drove up to a nuclear 12 power plant that was installed in my backyard, going back 13 to the backyard somebody else has said. I wondered about 14 the significance of that dream when I heard that the 15 renewal was coming up for the Palisades renewal.
16 I think it's a great risk to everybody within 17 the Great Lakes Water Basin, which encompasses, I think the 18 number was 35 million people. There's groups as far away 19 as Ontario that are in opposition to the renewal. I think 20 it's old equipment that's, at least needs to be updated or 21 reassessed if there's going to be a renewal. Proof of 22 that, well not proof, but I'm, I wonder about it because 23 there have been death threats on employees that work at the 24 plant, trying to keep them, their mouths quieted down.
25 The biggest problem I have with it is the NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
63 1 casks, although an earthquake isn't something I foresee 2 happening immediately, it is in violation of the NRC's 3 code. I think the biggest problem would be a sand blow.
4 These happen somewhat frequently. I've heard it's more of 5 a when situation than if they can block the ventilation in 6 the vents, causing a catastrophic event, and contaminating 7 that would reach through the Great Lakes and that would get 8 to a lot more people than the people in my immediate area, 9 it would affect Chicago and Wisconsin, Canada, all the 10 Great Lakes.
11 I think the benefits versus the risks are 12 something that we should take into consideration. You 13 know, for risk, we're thinking about the environmental 14 devastation that's going to last for so long, we're 15 thinking about the human lives, the 10's, there's a 16 10,000's range. I think we should definitely weigh those 17 risks when we're thinking about this. I think it's a very 18 great that it's even coming up for renewal, or that we have 19 a chance not to.
20 Yeah, and I think that we have a responsibility 21 being in the region of the largest fresh water reservoir in 22 the world, I think it is, 20 percent, I think a 23 responsibility comes with that. Yeah, and I think that, my 24 opinion on it is better safe than sorry, and if we're safe, 25 we're going to be a lot safer, and if we're sorry we're NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
64 1 going to be really sorry. Thanks.
2 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. There's 3 another Carter, Drew, is it Drew Carter?
4 MR. CARTER: She decided not to talk.
5 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Pardon?
6 MR. CARTER: She decided not to talk.
7 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Okay, okay. We'll 8 consider that you spoke for her. Cecilia Seabury, S-e-a-b-9 u-r-y?
10 MS. SEABURY: That's correct.
11 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: C-e-c-i-l-i-a?
12 MS. SEABURY: Yes. I live here in Covert, and 13 I'm going to start by telling you from 1943 til 1945 I 14 survived the American bombing on my hometown. I even 15 survived friendly fire in the form of one of our own German 16 -- and 62 years later, I'm still here, maybe a little --
17 but nevertheless, I'm strong. I lived in Benton Harbor 18 from '48 til '60, which is much closer to --
19 For the last 25 years I've lived Covert 20 Township, eight miles from Palisades. I have informed 21 myself of the plant, of it's record and so forth, and I 22 must tell you that eight miles, living from there, I am not 23 afraid, nor are my family, nor do I fear members of my 24 Lion's Club or other groups in Covert Township express any 25 fear of living that close.
NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
65 1 So I'm, I'm just, I'm not going to take much 2 time, I'm just going to let you know that Mary Ann Middaugh 3 and Dennis Palgen, the Clerk of Covert Township pretty much 4 said it all, gave you all the statistics, and I totally 5 concur with what they had to say, and we do need Palisades' 6 extension, and we need nuclear power. Thank you.
7 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Randall 8 Chisnell, C-h-i-s-n-e-l-l.
9 MR. CHISNELL: It's Randon.
10 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Randy, R-a-n-d-y?
11 MR. CHISNELL: Randon, R-a-n-d-o-n.
12 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Oh, thank you, R-a-n-13 d-o-n, thank you.
14 MR. CHISNELL: Just got here from Kalamazoo, so 15 I haven't had a lot of time to collect my thoughts, I am a 16 resident of Kalamazoo. There's a lot of so many different 17 things that I've heard. One, talking about the, real 18 quickly about the risk, that's a really kind of an 19 interesting thing. I was thinking about something that I 20 caught myself doing that was, felt kind of bad about myself 21 is, with New Orleans, at one time we were thinking 10,000 22 people had died, then later we found out, well, it was more 23 like 2,000. I don't know, how many of you were like 24 relieved? I was relieved, oh, only 2,000 people, and then 25 I said, well wait a minute, what am I thinking? Why is NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
66 1 2,000 people acceptable and 10,000 not?
2 So when we talk about oh, well, you know, what 3 are the risks, well, maybe only 1,000 people will be killed 4 right away if there's a big disaster, well, that's okay, 5 that's acceptable. Which 1,000, who chooses? So anyway, 6 they're all, you can run the numbers, statistics and that, 7 but I'm thinking, hmm, I don't know. I think zero is 8 acceptable and I think one is not, and I think anything 9 above one is not. That's my opinion.
10 We fairly know the history of nuclear power 11 plants in this country and around the world. I don't know 12 if anyone brought up Fermi in Detroit, but that was another 13 close call that a lot of people don't know about because it 14 was covered up, but there's a good book called, "We Almost 15 Lost Detroit" which is worth reading about that, another 16 set of circumstances that people can predict.
17 But I think, I want to take a different 18 direction, and maybe nobody else has done this, or maybe 19 they have, because I came a little late. But I'm thinking, 20 can we look at this situation and go, hey, here's an 21 opportunity to say, you know what, all these plants have 22 been built around the same time. They're all coming up for 23 renewal, this kind of conversation, these kind of things 24 are going to be going on all over the country. And instead 25 of saying, yeah, okay, we've decided that we're just going NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
67 1 to offer, we're going to throw it another 20 years and send 2 it off to another generation, let them deal with, and we 3 have already talked about all the problems with that.
4 Can we look at this opportunity as an 5 opportunity to say, you know what, we chose to shut down 6 this plant, we chose to take the risk for our community and 7 our people, we said, hey, we're going to go ahead and, 8 yeah, we can make some more money, yeah we can maybe make 9 it work, maybe the risk isn't so bad and everything, but we 10 said, you know, maybe in our community we lead the country 11 instead of being followers, we say, let's shut this plant 12 down. Let's shut this down, let's take that risk, and 13 let's really try to move toward the future and let's be an 14 example of what, of what we can do, what we want to do all 15 over the world.
16 Instead of just following -- and saying, well, 17 this is what everybody's doing, this is kind of where the 18 money goes, this is where the, the penny pushers say the, 19 you know, number crunchers say it's got to be. You know, 20 can we be a little visionary here and say, you know, let's 21 be an example, let's shut this down, let's, yeah, it's 22 going to take time, it's going to cost money, I know it 23 costs more money to shut it down than it does to renew it, 24 so that's an issue.
25 But, you know, let's look at the long term, and NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
68 1 let's look at what an example we can be. We're always 2 talking about, oh, you know, we want to show, you know, 3 we're Americans, we want to be a good example, we're from 4 Michigan, we want to be a good example, we're this, we're 5 that. We're always so happy to show how good a people we 6 can be. So here's an opportunity to be right here, to be a 7 leader, to be visionary, to look at the big picture and 8 say, you know, let's, let's do something positive, and 9 let's not follow everybody else, but let's lead.
10 So, that's, that's my take on it tonight.
11 Thank you for letting me speak.
12 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. Catherine 13 Sugas, S-u-g-a-s, is that right?
14 MS. SUGAS: Yes.
15 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: And it's Catherine 16 with a C, C-a-t-h-e-r-i-n-e?
17 MS. SUGAS: Yes.
18 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: I just first of all 19 want to say thank you for this opportunity to hear the 20 voice of the community, and I, I think that all the points 21 have been made about the dangers of this plant, about the 22 dangers of nuclear power. There's never been a proven way 23 to dispose of the waste. There's never been a way that has 24 been found that has been truly safe.
25 I want to make a stand here for my family, my NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
69 1 friends, I have not one friend who does not oppose the, the 2 operation of this plant to continue into the future. These 3 plants were not made to last this long. The radiation is 4 making the case, I mean, it's just, it's dangerous, and the 5 risk to not only our community, but to the entire 6 population around the Great Lakes, my friends that live up 7 in Traverse City and Charlevoix, it's a huge risk.
8 And I just ask, now, for you to look in your 9 hearts, and to have compassion and to have even mercy when 10 you make this decision, and think about the human cost.
11 There's many other ways for us to make money. We can, we 12 can learn to be sustainable in this country. Please, think 13 of our families. Thank you.
14 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. I think, 15 we only have one other person who's signed up, and that's 16 Dale Lewis, the Mayor of South Haven?
17 MR. LEWIS: Thank you, I got here a little late 18 because I was busy doing some other things. I'm amazed at 19 all the exaggerations that I have heard since I've been 20 here tonight, the exaggerations of the risk of atomic 21 power. The radiation from coal fire plant is much higher 22 than the radiation that comes out of the Palisades Plant.
23 The people that drove here tonight, and I presume most of 24 them drove here tonight, had more risk of being in an 25 accident, of being hurt, than they have from atomic power NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
70 1 plant, Palisades.
2 The economy of this area is greatly dependent 3 upon Palisades. We have many workers that work down there 4 from South Haven area. The, as I said, the economy, this 5 hotel probably would not have been built if it hadn't been 6 for Palisades Power Plant because of the workers that 7 specially come when they're refueling.
8 I just want to impress upon you that the people 9 behind me are not speaking for the majority of the people 10 in South Haven. If we ran a --
11 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Go ahead.
12 MR. LEWIS: If we ran a referendum --
13 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Ma'am; you spoke 14 earlier, so let's let him speak now.
15 MR. LEWIS: If we ran a referendum in South 16 Haven, I'm sure it would pass by a real large margin to 17 keep Palisades. And if, I understand that the Cook Nuclear 18 Plant was given a 20 year, what do you call it, re-19 commission?
20 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Renewal.
21 MR. LEWIS: Renewal; and that's what this is 22 about. The Palisades plant has had a much better record, I 23 think the record the Palisades plant over the years has 24 been much, has been one of the best in the nation. I'm 25 sure the people behind me would close down every nuclear NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433 I . . . .. . . . . . . .
. . I - . __ -'
71 1 plant in the United States, and if we did that, well, I 2 want to know if they'd turn off their lights, because we 3 wouldn't have enough power to run our, our electrical 4 appliances at --
5 So, if you can renew Cook Nuclear Plant, you 6 surely can renew Palisades plant, which is so important to 7 this area, and has a much better record than most nuclear 8 plants in the United States. And I don't expect to be 9 applauded when I turn around and go back to my seat. I 10 expect to be booed. Thank you.
11 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. There's 12 nobody else, we don't have anyone else's name on the list.
13 Is there anyone else here who wanted to speak but didn't 14 manage to sign up? Okay, there's one person back in the 15 back. Come on up, sir.
16 MR. GUMP: Boy, that's a long walk. My name is 17 Joel Gump, I live near Bloomingdale, Michigan which is 18 about 12 miles downwind of the Palisades plant. I'm a 19 retired chemical engineer, I have been involved in the 20 design and operation of chemical plants and refineries, 21 I've also been involved with manufacturing equipment that 22 went into nuclear plants.
23 And, as I recall, and I frequently went out to 24 San Jose, California at General Electric's plant out there 25 and talked to the engineers dealing with our product lines, NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
- ~~~~~.
- . .,. - *;, , . . S
72 1 and it was my impression at that time that the nuclear 2 power plants that were licensed were licensed for 20 years, 3 with a renewal license of 20 years, giving a life on 40 4 years on which the economic decision to go with a nuclear 5 power plant was made by the companies that decide to build 6 them. And here we now are talking about extending this to 7 another 20 years, for a life of 60.
8 If, in designing a chemical plant or a 9 refinery, you posed the problem of, or you posed the 10 possibility of building a plant that was going to last for 11 60 years, you would be laughed out of the room. This was 12 simply not conceived of or thought of in deciding on the 13 economics of building a plant. And here we are with a 14 plant that is going to be 40 years old in, I guess 5, 6 15 years from now, thinking about, and with acknowledged --
16 problems in the reactor, and the reactor that cannot be 17 repaired, and extending that for 20 years and with it 18 increasing the possibility of something going wrong.
19 I've listened to this argument tonight about 20 tax dollars that are going to be lost and jobs that are 21 going to be lost. For goodness sakes, if something happens 22 to this plant in the next 20 years, what difference are 23 those tax dollars and those jobs going to make? This has 24 nothing to do with the argument to maintain this plant for 25 another 20 years. We have to deal with the safety that's NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
73 1 involved to this community, the immediate community, and to 2 the community downwind of this plant. Because anything 3 that happens in South Haven is going to have a direct 4 impact on anything east of here.
5 I can only ask that in considering this 6 licensing, think about the age of the plant, think about 7 how you would feel driving around in a 60 year old car, or 8 a 60 year old any piece of machinery, and how that would, 9 how you would feel safe in doing that, and deny this 10 application for a 20 year extension. They've got six years 11 in which they can go ahead as was pointed out by an earlier 12 speaker and find another way of generating power in this 13 community, and finding work for the people that will be 14 displaced if that plant cuts down. And as far as the 15 immediate tax laws, I'm sure that can be solved as well.
16 Thank you very much.
17 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you. I'd just 18 like to say I appreciate, I think we all appreciate 19 everyone coming out tonight and doing your part as citizens 20 to take part in matters of interest to the public.
21 Tonight's our time to listen to you. It sounds as though 22 you've got a lot of interested people here. I hope you 23 communicate with each other.
24 I would encourage everyone to go to the NRC 25 website if you would like to follow the progress of this NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
74 1 case. All the documents relating to it, including our 2 decision based on today's oral argument, will be placed on 3 the public record in the NRC Adams System. The NRC website 4 I think you can get to by just going to NRC.org. There is 5 a public document --
6 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE BARATTA: Gov.
7 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Gov, I'm sorry, gov, 8 pardon me, NRC.gov, there is a public documents room, and 9 somewhere on that website, I believe there's an 800 number 10 that you can call to get assistance in locating documents 11 if you do have trouble finding them on the website.
12 I know that --
13 MS. BARNES: I --
14 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Yeah, just a second --
15 go ahead.
16 MS. BARNES: I was wondering if I could have 17 like a half a minute to speak.
18 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Yeah, just a second, 19 let me, I just wanted to say; one of the things listening 20 to you has said to me is that we've been listening to you 21 tonight, but I do feel a responsibility to try to explain 22 what we do, how we do that, is in the orders that we issue.
23 And so, when you do go to the website, once we issue an 24 order, it will then be put in the Adams System on the 25 website and you can go and read that and see what we do and NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
75 1 see what our reasons are for it.
2 And, we will be deliberating on that and trying 3 to do that within the next, I don't, I can't give a date 4 certain, but I do encourage you to, to watch for that, and 5 hopefully that will provide explanation for whatever it is 6 that we, as a Licensing Board, do in this proceeding.
7 Now, let's see, you are?
8 MS. BARNES: Kathy Barnes.
9 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Kathy Barnes, the 10 first person, you want another half minute? Go ahead.
11 MS. BARNES: Just a short, short, short, short 12 time. I wanted to make a short talk to people here. This 13 is such an issue with the community. I see a division in 14 your community. Some want nuclear power to exist, some 15 realize the dangers and want it shut down. This company, 16 Consumers Energy, which you say has benefitted your 17 community by taxes, should not be dependent on nuclear 18 energy.
19 There's this thing here, Green Generation, in 20 this booklet, this is their, their program. They say how 21 beneficial wind energy is, they're also promoting small 22 hydroelectric and landfill gasing -- something with natural 23 gas energy initiative.
24 There's going to be plenty of jobs here, the 25 commissioning of a nuclear power plant takes more workers NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
76 1 than to run it. Also, if you can imagine living under the 2 shadow of a windmill that's not going to kill you, but you 3 don't have to worry about it blowing up or radiating your 4 environment or contaminating your drinking water, boy, your 5 energy bills should go down, not up, you'd have a much 6 healthier and better community.
7 So I don't think you should consider Consumers 8 Energy as having to have nuclear power to exist here. This 9 is a program I would say everybody should join, and 10 supposedly 100 percent of my energy bill -- windpower --
11 out of it -- not to re-license them, but make them be good.
12 Thank you.
13 ADMIN. LAW JUDGE YOUNG: Thank you, Ms. Barnes.
14 You started this off, and we'll end with you. I thank you 15 all for coming out, and again, if you want to come tomorrow 16 to observe the proceedings, feel free to do so. We'll be 17 starting at 9:00 o'clock tomorrow morning.
18 (Whereupon, at 7:25 p.m., the meeting 19 was adjourned.)
20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS (202) 234-4433
CERTIFICATE This is to certify that the attached proceedings before the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the matter of:
Name of Proceeding: Palisades Nuclear Generating Station Limited Appearances Public Hearing Docket Number: 50-255-LR ASLBP No.: 05-842-03-LR Location: South Haven, MI were held as herein appears, and that this is the original transcript thereof for the file of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission taken by me and, thereafter reduced to typewriting by me or under the direction of the court reporting company, and that the transcript is a true and accurate record of the foregoing proceedings.
- Ronald nd Official Reporter Neal R. Gross & Co., Inc.
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701. www.nealrgross.com