ML040440486
| ML040440486 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Arkansas Nuclear  |
| Issue date: | 02/03/2004 |
| From: | Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation |
| To: | |
| Imboden S, NRR/DRIP/RLEP, 415-2462 | |
| Shared Package | |
| ML040570279 | List: |
| References | |
| NRC-1279 | |
| Download: ML040440486 (68) | |
Text
ENCLOSURE 2 TRANSCRIPTS: ARKANSAS NUCLEAR ONE, UNIT 2 LICENSE RENEWAL PUBLIC MEETING (AFTERNOON)
I Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2 License Renewal Public Meeting Docket Number: 50-368 Location: Russeliville, Arkansas Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2004 Work Order No.: NRC-1 279 Pages 1-27 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3
4 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING 5 PROCESS FOR ARKANSAS NUCLEAR ONE, UNIT 2 6 LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION 7
8 TUESDAY, 9 FEBRUARY 3, 2004 10 11 RUSSELLVILLE, ARKANSAS 12 13 The Public Meeting convened in the Holiday 14 Inn at 2407 North Arkansas Avenue, Russellville, 15 Arkansas 72801 at 1:30 p.m.
16 17 Present on behalf of the Nuclear Rearulatorv 18 Commission:
19 CHIP CAMERON 20 JOHN TAPPERT 21 THOMAS KENYON 22 STACEY IMBODEN 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 I N D E X 2 Welcome and Introductions, Chip Cameron . . . . . 3 3 Welcome and Purpose of the Meeting, 4 John Tappert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5 Overview of License Renewal Process, 6 Thomas Kenyon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 7 Overview of Environmental Review Process, 8 Stacey Imboden . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 9 Questions from the Audience . . . . . . . . . . 23 10 Closing Comments, John Tappert . . . . . . . . 26 11 Adjourn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 1:30 p.m.
3 MR. CAMERON: Can everybody hear me?
4 Okay, it is on.
5 Welcome to the NRC' s Public Meeting today.
6 My name is Chip Cameron and I'm the Special Counsel 7 for Public Liaison at the Nuclear Regulatory 8 Commission and it's my pleasure to serve as the 9 facilitator for the meeting today. In that role, I'll 10 try to help all of you to have a productive meeting.
11 I can say personally that it' s always nice 12 to be back in Arkansas, so I'm glad to be here and I 13 thank you all for coming out to the meeting this 14 afternoon.
15 Our subject is going to be the NRC 16 environmental review that is part of the Nuclear 17 Regulatory Commission's evaluation of a request that 18 we received from Entergy to renew the operating 19 license for Arkansas Nuclear Unit 2 and I just wanted 20 to say a couple of words about format for the meeting 21 and ground rules and introduce the NRC speakers before 22 we got started.
23 The format for the meeting, we're going to 24 basically divide into two parts and these two parts 25 really match our objectives today. The first part is NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 to provide you with some clear information about the 2 NRC's license renewal process and specifically about 3 the environmental review part of that process and to 4 answer any questions that you might have about that.
5 The second part of the meeting is to give 6 us an opportunity to listen to you about any comments, 7 recommendations, advice that the NRC should use in 8 terms of deciding what types of issues, what types of 9 data they should look at in preparing the draft 10 environmental impact statement on the license renewal 11 application.
12 In terms of things that we hear today, 13 they're going to have the same weight as any written 14 comments that we receive and the NRC staff will be 15 telling you in a few minutes about the process for 16 submitting written comments. But we do have Ms. Peggy 17 Brown, right here, who is going to transcribe the 18 meeting so that we will have a record of what is said 19 today.
20 The ground rules are real easy. If you 21 have a question, just give me a signal and I'll bring 22 you this cordless mic and if you could give us your 23 name and affiliation, if appropriate, we'll try to 24 answer your question to the best that we can.
25 When we get to the formal comment part of NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 the meeting, in order that we can make sure that we 2 hear from everybody, I would just ask you to limit 3 formal comments to a five to seven minute guideline.
4 I don't think we're going to have any crunch today in 5 terms of time, so we can be flexible with that.
6 And let me just introduce the NRC staff 7 who are going to be talking to you today. We're going 8 to go in a minute to Mr. John Tappert who is right 9 here. And John is the Chief of the Environmental 10 Section in our Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation at 11 the NRC and John and his staff do the environmental 12 reviews, they supervise the environmental reviews for 13 any reactor activity that needs environmental impacts 14 looked at.
15 John has been with the NRC for about 13 16 years. He was an NRC resident inspector before that.
17 These are the people, and we have them at ANO, our 18 staff that are there to make sure that NRC regulations 19 are complied with. John was in the Nuclear Navy 20 before that and his Bachelor's degree is in Aeronautic 21 and Ocean Engineering from Virginia Teach. And he has 22 a Master's in Environmental Engineering from Johns 23 Hopkins University.
24 After John's welcome and a little bit of 25 background, we're going to go to Mr. Tom Kenyon from NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 the NRC who's here, one of the people who work for 2 John. He's a project manager on the Arkansas Nuclear 3 License Renewal at this point. He's been with the 4 Agency forever, as we say, about 23 years now. He's 5 been involved over that time in a lot of different 6 activities, including being a project manager for 7 operating reactors and also involved in the advanced 8 design certification activities that we do. And Tom 9 has a Bachelor's in Nuclear Engineering from the 10 University of Michigan. And he's going to give you 11 sort of an overview of the entire license renewal 12 process.
13 And then we're going to go to the NRC 14 staff member who is specifically responsible for the 15 oversight of the preparation of the environmental 16 review on this license renewal application and that's 17 Ms. Stacey Imboden, who's right here. Stacey is one 18 of our newer staff members. She's been with us for 19 two and a half years and she has a Bachelor's in 20 meteorology from Penn State University and a Master's 21 in Environmental Engineering from Clemson University.
22 So we'll go -- we're going to have John 23 talk and then Tom and I think we're going to be fairly 24 brief, so maybe we can hold the questions until all 25 three of the speakers are done and then we'll go on to NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 your questions.
2 John?
3 MR. TAPPERT: Thank you, Chip, and good 4 afternoon, everyone.
5 My name is John Tappert and on behalf of 6 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, I'd like to thank 7 you for coming out here today and participating in 8 this process.
9 Now we're not going to attempt to compete 10 with the Super Bowl half time show, but I hope that 11 you will find our presentations to be informative and 12 helpful and we look forward to receiving your 13 comments, both today and in the future.
14 I'd like to start off today by briefly 15 going over the agenda and purposes of today's meeting.
16 Next slide.
17 First of all, we'd like to give you a 18 brief overview of the entire license renewal process.
19 This includes both the safety review as well as an 20 environmental review which will be the main focus 21 today. Then we'll give you additional information 22 about how we are going to perform our environmental 23 review which will assess the impacts associated with 24 extending the operating license for Arkansas Nuclear 25 One Unit 2 for an additional 20 years.
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8 1 Then we' 11 give you some information about 2 the balance of our schedule and how you can submit 3 comments in the future. And then we get to the real 4 heart of today's meeting which is to receive any 5 comments that you may have today.
6 First, let me provide some background for 7 the license renewal process itself.
8 Next slide.
9 The Atomic Energy Act gives the NRC the 10 authority to issue operating licenses to commercial 11 nuclear power plants for a period of 40 years. For 12 Unit 2, that operating license will expire in 2018.
13 Our regulations also make provisions for extending 14 those operating licenses for an additional 20 years as 15 part of our license renewal program. And Entergy has 16 requested license renewal for Unit 2.
17 Now you might notice I'm only talking 18 about Unit 2 right now and if you're familiar with the 19 site, you realize there's two units, Unit 1 and Unit 20 2. And the reason we're not talking about Unit 1 today 21 is because Entergy has previously requested and 22 received a license extension for Unit 1 on that 23 operating license until 2034.
24 So as we review Entergy's request for Unit 25 2 we are performing reviews and one of those reviews NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 is the environmental review. And right now we're in 2 what we call the scoping portion of that review where 3 we seek to identify those issues which will require 4 the greatest focus in our environmental impact 5 statement. And this public meeting here today is an 6 important part of that scoping process.
7 Now after we get finished with the scoping 8 process and do our initial assessment, we will publish 9 a draft environmental impact statement and we will 10 come here again in the fall to have another public 11 meeting to receive your comments on that draft.
12 And again, just to refocus what the major 13 purpose today is is to receive any comments that you 14 may have today on the scoping process.
15 And with that, I'd like to ask Tom to give 16 us some additional information on the safety review.
17 MR. KENYON: Thank you, John. As John 18 mentioned my name is Tom Kenyon and I'm the 19 Environmental Project Manager for the ANO 2 license 20 renewal review.
21 Now before we get into a discussion of the 22 license renewal process, I'd like to take a minute to 23 talk about what the mission of the Nuclear Regulatory 24 Commission is or what we call the NRC and discuss what 25 it is that we do.
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10 1 The NRC's mission is really threefold.
2 First, it's to protect the health and safety of the 3 public. Second is to protect the environment. And 4 third, is to provide for the common defense and 5 security. Now we accomplish our mission through a 6 combination of regulatory programs and processes such 7 as inspections, enforcement actions, assessments of 8 licensee's performance and the evaluation of operating 9 experience of nuclear plants throughout the United 10 States.
11 Now the NRC's license renewal review is 12 very similar to the original licensing process that we 13 used when we licensed the plant some time ago and it 14 involves two parts: a safety review and an 15 environmental review.
16 I'm going to focus on what we considered 17 during our safety review for the next couple of 18 minutes.
19 There are two types of safety issues that 20 we look at. Current operating issues which are dealt 21 with now and then aging management issues that we deal 22 with in our reviews of license renewal.
23 The NRC's regulatory oversight under the 24 current operating license deals with the current 25 safety issues and these are issues such as security or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 emergency preparedness. And so we don't wait for the 2 plant to come in for a license renewal request before 3 we deal with those issues. We deal with them now in 4 current time.
5 Because we're dealing with them now, we do 6 not re-evaluate them in the license renewal review, 7 rather, our safety review for license renewal focuses 8 on the aging management issues and the programs that 9 Entergy has in place to maintain its equipment.
10 Now when we complete the safety review for 11 the license renewal, we will issue a safety evaluation 12 report that is independently reviewed by a special 13 Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards or what we 14 call the ACRS.
15 Now that committee is a group of academic 16 and industry experts that look at both the application 17 that is submitted by Entergy and then they look at the 18 results of our review that we publish in the SER and 19 they provide the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with 20 their own independent evaluation and recommendations, 21 independent of the rest of the NRC staff.
22 Now although Stacey Imboden will discuss 23 the environmental review in detail shortly, there's a 24 couple of key points I wanted to mention at this point 25 having to do with our environmental review. The NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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12 1 environmental review evaluates the impact of a number 2 of different environmental areas including the 3 ecology, hydrology, cultural resources and socio-4 economic issues. Now part of that environmental 5 review includes what we call the scoping process 6 during which we identify those environmental issues 7 that we think are appropriate to be addressed for the 8 ANO 2 plant.
9 During that scoping process, we ask the 10 public to provide us with their input as to what they 11 think we should be looking at in terms of the 12 environmental review. Tonight's meeting is -- today's 13 meeting is part of that scoping process and Stacey 14 will discuss the process in more detail in a few 15 minutes.
16 Next slide.
17 Now this next slide illustrates the entire 18 license renewal process. As you can see, this slide 19 shows both the parallel paths of both types of review 20 I was just talking about. The upper path shows the 21 safety review process which involves the NRC staff's 22 review and assessment of the technical information 23 that's contained in Entergy's license renewal 24 application.
25 We have a team of about 30 people back at NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 the NRC headquarters in Washington, D.C. right now 2 performing the safety evaluation review. They are 3 focusing on the effectiveness of the proposed aging 4 management programs that are contained in the 5 application.
6 The NRC staff reviews these aging 7 management programs to ensure that the plant can be 8 maintained and operated safely for the license renewal 9 term which is the additional 20 years that they've 10 requested.
11 Now the results of the staff's safety 12 review will be documented in the safety evaluation 13 report. You can see and as I've mentioned earlier 14 that will also be looked at by the ACRS in their 15 review.
16 Now the safety process also involves 17 audits and on-site inspections which are conducted by 18 a team of inspectors pulled together from both the NRC 19 headquarters as well as the regional offices. And the 20 results of these inspections are issued in separate 21 inspection reports.
22 Now the lower path shows how we perform 23 the environmental review and as I mentioned earlier 24 that involves the scoping activities which we are 25 currently involved in. Once we conduct our review we NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 will issue a draft supplement to the generic 2 environmental impact statement, or what we call the 3 GEIS, which documents the results of our environmental 4 review. We will issue that supplement, draft, for 5 comment and we'll be back here in about a year to 6 discuss the results of our review.
7 Eventually, we will issue a final version 8 of that draft -- of the supplement report that will 9 address the comments that we received during our 10 review process.
11 So as you can see from the slide, the 12 final agency decision on whether to approve or deny 13 the application comes from a number of reviews that we 14 conduct. The results can be found in the inspection 15 reports. They can be found in our safety evaluation 16 report which addresses the safety review and they can 17 be found in the supplement to the generic 18 environmental impact statement which addresses our 19 environmental reviews, as well as the independent 20 report from the ACRS. All of these various 21 assessments are considered when the final Agency 22 decision is made.
23 Now one point I'd like to make is that the 24 splash marks shown on the slide indicate the 25 opportunities for public participation. The first NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 opportunity during the environmental review occurs 2 during the scoping process which this meeting is part 3 of. During the scoping process, members of the public 4 can provide us with their input as to what they think 5 the scope of our review should include. Then the next 6 opportunity during the environmental review is after 7 we've issued the draft supplement to the GEIS and 8 there will be another comment period for providing us 9 with that input.
10 Separately, if there's a petition filed to 11 intervene in this process by an individual or group, 12 and if they have adequate standing, in other words, if 13 their request for a hearing is granted by either the 14 Atomic Safety Licensing Board or the NRC Commission 15 itself, then a hearing may be granted. The hearing 16 would be presided over by a panel of Administrative 17 Law Judges and it would involve contentions, discovery 18 and cross examinations, just like in a court trial.
19 However, nobody has requested a petition, 20 has submitted a petition to intervene on the ANO 2 21 proceedings. So there will not be a hearing.
22 And that ends my presentation on the 23 overall review process. Next, let me turn the 24 microphone over to Stacey Imboden who is working with 25 me on this project and who will provide you with the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 details of the environmental review process.
2 Stacey?
3 MS. IMBODEN: Good afternoon. I am Stacey 4 Imboden and I'm a project manager on the NRC staff.
5 Tom Kenyon and I are responsible for coordinating the 6 activities of the NRC staff and experts at national 7 labs to develop an environmental impact statement for 8 the license renewal of Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2.
9 The National Environmental Policy Act of 10 1969 requires -- I'm sorry, can I have the next slide?
11 The National Environmental Policy Act of 12 1969 requires that federal agencies follow a 13 systematic approach in evaluating potential 14 environmental impacts associated with certain actions.
15 We are required to consider the impact of the proposed 16 action and also any mitigation for those impacts that 17 we consider to be significant. We're also required to 18 consider alternatives to the proposed action, in this 19 case license renewal, and that includes the no-action 20 alternative. In other words, if we decide not to 21 renew the license at Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2, 22 what will the environmental impacts be?
23 The National Environmental Policy Act and 24 our environmental impact statement are disclosure 25 tools. They are specifically structured to involve NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 public participation and this meeting is a part of 2 facilitating the public's participation in our 3 environmental review.
4 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has 5 determined that an environmental impact statement will 6 be prepared for proposed license renewal of nuclear 7 power plants. In preparing an EIS, the NRC conducts 8 a scoping process. The purpose of the scoping process 9 is to identify significant issues that are to be 10 analyzed in depth. We are now gathering information 11 for the EIS and are here to collect public comments on 12 the scope of our review. What special issues should 13 the NRC staff consider when developing the 14 environmental impact statement for the renewal of 15 Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2?
16 The staff developed a generic EIS that 17 addressed a number of issues that are common to all 18 power plants that come to us for license renewal. We 19 are supplementing that generic EIS with a site 20 specific EIS that will address environmental impacts 21 specific to this individual site.
22 The staff also evaluates the conclusions 23 reached in the generic EIS to determine if there is 24 any new and significant information that would change 25 any of those conclusions.
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18 1 Next slide.
2 This slide shows our decision standard for 3 our environmental review and this is the legal 4 language describing our decision standard. And what 5 that basically means is that in the environmental 6 impact statement we determine if license renewal is 7 acceptable from an environmental standpoint.
8 Next slide, please.
9 This slide is just an expansion of the 10 lower portion of a slide that Tom had up a few moments 11 ago. It describes the environmental review process in 12 greater detail. We received Entergy's application 13 for the license renewal of Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 14 2, on October 15, 2003. On December 22, 2003, we 15 issued a Federal Register Notice of Intent to prepare 16 an environmental impact statement and conduct scoping 17 process.
18 This started a 60-day clock defined as the 19 scoping comment period and we are within the scoping 20 comment period right now.
21 This meeting is a part of the scoping 22 process so that we can get comments from the public to 23 help us scope out the bounds of our environmental 24 review. At the end of the scoping comment period 25 which is February 20th, we will issue a scoping NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 summary report that will address all of the comments 2 that we received from all sources during the review.
3 This week, members of the NRC staff and a 4 team of experts from Pacific Northwest National Lab 5 are conducting an environmental site audit to help 6 gather information for the scoping process.
7 If in the conduct of our review, we 8 require information beyond what was already provided 9 to us in the initial application, we will issue a 10 request for additional information. We expect to 11 issue that request for additional information on March 12 26, 2004.
13 Approximately eight weeks later, we expect 14 to hear back from Entergy on those requests. At that 15 time, based on all of the information that we have in 16 hand, we will publish a draft of the environmental 17 impact statement for public comment.
18 We envision publishing the draft of the 19 environmental impact statement in September 2004 and 20 at that time it will go out for a 75-day public 21 comment period.
22 We plan to have another meeting here in 23 Arkansas in October 2004 to receive public comments on 24 the draft EIS. Once we get comments on the draft EIS, 25 we will publish it in final form in April 2005.
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20 1 Next slide.
2 This slide shows some of the sources where 3 we gather information during our review. In addition 4 to our site audit, we communicate with federal, state 5 and local officials, as well as local service 6 agencies. One example of our communications is later 7 this week we have a meeting with the State Historic 8 Preservation Officer in Little Rock, Arkansas. And we 9 consider all of the comments that we receive from the 10 public as well.
11 Next slide.
12 For this review, we've established a team 13 made up of members of the NRC staff and experts from 14 Pacific Northwest National Lab. And this slide gives 15 you an idea of some of the areas that these experts 16 evaluate. Some of these areas are terrestrial 17 ecology, aquatic ecology, archeology and radiation 18 protection.
19 Next slide, please.
20 This slide just recaps a couple of the key 21 milestone dates in our schedule. As mentioned, we are 22 currently in a scoping comment period which ends on 23 February 20, 2004. All comments from this transcribed 24 public meeting will be considered.
25 Tom mentioned the generis EIS, the generic NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 environmental impact statement for license renewal.
2 That's an environmental impact statement that takes 3 into account issues that affect all power plants that 4 come to us for license renewal. We will be publishing 5 an Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2, site-specific 6 supplement to the generic EIS called a SEIS. That 7 supplement will be issued in draft form in September 8 with a 75-day public comment period. After 9 considering your comments on the draft, we will 10 publish it in final form in April 2005.
11 Next slide.
12 This slide identifies Tom Kenyon and I as 13 your primary points of contact on the NRC staff for 14 the preparation of the environmental impact statement.
15 It also identifies where documents related to the 16 review can be found in the local area. The Ross 17 Pendergraft Library at Arkansas Tech University has 18 agreed to make the license renewal application 19 available, along with all correspondence from NRC to 20 Entergy and other agencies regarding the environmental 21 review.
22 The draft environmental impact statement 23 will also be available at the library when it is 24 published later this year.
25 And these documents are also available on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 NRC's website and that web address is www.nrc.gov.
2 In addition, as you came in, you were 3 asked to fill out a registration card at our reception 4 desk and if you have provided your address on that 5 card, we will mail you a copy of the draft and final 6 environmental impact statements.
7 Next slide.
8 In addition to providing comments at this 9 meeting, there are other ways that you can submit 10 comments on our environmental review process. You can 11 provide written comments to the Chief of our Rules and 12 Directives Branch and that will ensure that your 13 comments get into our public record. You can make 14 comments in person if you happen to be in Rockville, 15 Maryland.
16 We've established a specific e-mail 17 address at the NRC for the purpose of receiving your 18 comments on the draft environmental impact statement 19 and what you think the scope of our review should be.
20 That e-mail address is anoeis@nrc.gov. All of your 21 comments will be collected and considered.
22 This concludes my remarks. And now Tom 23 Kenyon and I are available to answer any questions.
24 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, thank you very 25 much, Stacey and Tom. And we do have a question right NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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23 1 now here. And if you could just give us your name, 2 sir?
3 MR. LEONARD: My name is Bob Leonard. I'm 4 with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. I was 5 just curious. Will you send us all a copy of the 6 notes and comments that you receive at these meetings 7 to the people you have there on your list?
8 MS. IMBODEN: If you have provided your 9 address on the card at the.reception desk, all of the 10 comments will be in the scoping summary report and the 11 draft environmental impact statement. And you will 12 receive copies of those if you have provided your 13 address.
14 MR. LEONARD; You've already been sending 15 correspondence to me, so I assume you've got it.
16 MS. IMBODEN: Okay.
17 MR. CAMERON: Okay, and we are going to 18 have a transcript from this meeting also so that if 19 you want to have a look at the straight transcript, in 20 addition to our summary, we can send you a copy of 21 that too.
22 All right. Great. Other questions for 23 Stacey or Tom?
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24 1 might want to file?
2 Okay, let's go and give us your name 3 again?
4 MR. LEONARD: Bob Leonard again, Game and 5 Fish. You're going to have some transmission lines 6 associated with this, correct?
7 MS. IMBODEN: Yes.
8 MR. LEONARD: Will you be providing some 9 maps here today for the routing of those transmission 10 lines?
11 MR. CAMERON: We're going to go out in the 12 audience here and try to get some information on that.
13 Anything from the NRC before we go out here?
14 MR. KENYON: You're talking about --
15 you're here for a specific review? Go ahead.
16 MR. CAMERON: Let's get you on the 17 transcript here.
18 MR. BUCKLEY: Rick Buckley, Entergy, and 19 you can find a copy of the map in the ANO 2 ER. There 20 will be a map showing that.
21 MR. CAMERON: And the ER is environmental 22 review. Okay. Report. Environmental Report. All 23 right.
24 Does that give you everything you need to 25 know? All right. Terrific.
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25 1 Other questions? I'm going to stay right 2 here.
3 (Laughter.)
4 Seriously, do you have anything else?
5 Anybody else have information? Because if you're 6 interested in looking at the report and everything, 7 even if you're not going to file comments, if there's 8 any information that we can offer to help you with 9 that, this is the -- this is not the only time to ask 10 a question because I think Stacey, you gave us your 11 contact information.
12 MS. IMBODEN: Yes. And Tom's.
13 MR. CAMERON: So if you do have comments 14 or questions in the future call Stacey, but is there 15 anybody else who has a question at this point?
16 Okay. Thank you, Stacey. Thank you, Tom.
17 Thanks, John, for injecting that humor about the Super 18 Bowl.
19 (Laughter.)
20 This is the second part of the meeting 21 where we usually, where we always ask people to give 22 us their advice, recommendations. We didn't have 23 anybody sign up in advance to give us any formal 24 comments, but we would like anybody who wants to talk 25 now to be able to do that.
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26 1 Does anybody have anything to tell us 2 about what types of issues we should be looking at?
3 Are there any transmission line issues that you think 4 that we should be specifically concerned about?
5 MR. LEONARD: That would be site specific, 6 depending on how you go with the transmission lines.
7 Aren't they currently in use right now?
8 MR. CAMERON: Transmission lines and we're 9 getting -- I'll put this on the record, the 10 transmission lines currently are in use right now.
11 Okay.
12 Anything else like that that would be --
13 that we should know about?
14 Okay, we're going to be here tonight, 6 15 o'clock open house; 7 o'clock public meeting to do 16 this again and we certainly welcome all of you to come 17 back and join us.
18 John, I always ask John, as our leader to 19 close out the meeting for us. John, do you want to do 20 that?
21 MR. TAPPERT: Sure. Thanks again for 22 coming out. We'll be back again tonight and if you 23 have any written comments, we'll be accepting them 24 until February 20th. So I appreciate your time and 25 that's it.
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27 1 MR. CAMERON: We're adjourned. Thank you.
2 (Whereupon, at 2:02 p.m., the public 3 meeting was concluded.)
4 5
6 7
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ENCLOSURE 3 TRANSCRIPTS: ARKANSAS NUCLEAR ONE, UNIT 2 LICENSE RENEWAL PUBLIC MEETING (EVENING)
Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title:
Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2 License Renewal Public Meeting Docket Number: 50-368 Location: Russellville, Arkansas Date: Tuesday, February 3, 2004 Work Order No.: NRC-1279 Pages 1-22 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC.
Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.A.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 . . . . .
4 PUBLIC MEETING TO DISCUSS ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING 5 PROCESS FOR ARKANSAS NUCLEAR ONE, UNIT 2 6 LICENSE RENEWAL APPLICATION 7 . . . . .
8 TUESDAY, 9 FEBRUARY 3, 2004 10 . . . . .
11 RUSSELLVILLE, ARKANSAS 12 . . . . .
13 The Public Meeting convened in the Holiday 14 Inn at 2407 North Arkansas Avenue, Russellville, 15 Arkansas 72801 at 7:00 p.m.
16 Present on behalf of the Nuclear Reaulatorv 17 Commission:
18 CHIP CAMERON 19 JOHN TAPPERT 20 THOMAS KENYON 21 STACEY IMBODEN 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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2 1 I N D E X 2 Welcome and Introductions, Chip Cameron . . . . . 3 3 Welcome and Purpose of the Meeting, John Tappert 6 4 Overview of License Renewal Process, 5 Thomas Kenyon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 6 Overview of Environmental Review Process, 7 Stacey Imboden . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 8 Closing Comments, Chip Cameron . . . . . . . . 21 9 Adjourn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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3 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 7:00 p.m.
3 MR. CAMERON: My name is Chip Cameron and 4 I want to welcome you to the NRC's (Nuclear Regulatory 5 Commission's) Public Meeting tonight.
6 I'm going to be your facilitator for the 7 meeting and my responsibility will be to try to ensure 8 that we have a constructive meeting tonight.
9 The meeting is on the NRC's environmental 10 review; one part of the NRC's evaluation of the 11 request that we had from the Entergy Company to renew 12 the operating license for Arkansas Nuclear (ANO) Unit 13 2.
14 And in terms of format we're going to have 15 basically a two-part format for the meeting and they 16 match the objectives for the meeting. The first part 17 we're going to try to give you some information, clear 18 information about the NRC's license renewal process 19 and specifically the environmental review part of that 20 process and to answer any questions that you might 21 have.
22 The second part of the meeting is an 23 opportunity for us to hear from any of you who want to 24 give us comments, recommendations, advice, concerns on 25 items that we should look at in doing the -- preparing NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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4 1 the draft environmental impact statement.
2 We are going to take written comments on 3 these issues, but anything you say to us tonight will 4 carry the same weight as the written comments. And we 5 are transcribing the meeting. Peggy Brown is our 6 transcriptionist and that will be our record of the 7 meeting. If anybody needs a copy of that, we'll be 8 glad to provide it.
9 And the ground rules are very simple.
10 During our discussion, after the presentations, if you 11 have a comment or question, just signal me and I'll 12 bring you this cordless microphone. Give us your name 13 and affiliation, if appropriate, and we'll try to 14 answer your questions.
15 Usually, when we have the formal comment 16 part of the meeting we set a five to seven minute 17 guideline, but I don't think we have to worry about 18 being pressed for time tonight.
19 And with that, just let me introduce the 20 NRC speakers. First of all, we're going to have a 21 welcome from Mr. John Tappert who is right here. And 22 John is the Chief of the Environmental Section in our 23 Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation back in 24 Rockville, Maryland at NRC Headquarters and John and 25 his staff oversee the preparation of any environmental NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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5 1 reviews on reactor licensing issues, including license 2 renewal applications like this one.
3 John has been with the Agency for 13 4 years. He has been one of our resident inspectors and 5 before that he was with the Nuclear Navy, our Nuclear 6 Navy, I guess I should emphasize.
7 (Laughter.)
8 And he has a Bachelor's degree in 9 Aeronautic and Ocean Engineering from Virginia Tech 10 and a Master's degree in Environmental Engineering 11 from Johns Hopkins University.
12 After John gives us a brief welcome and 13 some information on license renewal, we're going to go 14 to Mr. Tom Kenyon who is on John's staff and he's a 15 project manager on this license renewal application.
16 He's been with the NRC for 23 years and has been 17 involved in advance design certification. He's served 18 as a project manager for various operating reactors, 19 has a wealth of experience and Tom has a degree from 20 the University of Michigan, a Bachelor's degree in 21 Nuclear Engineering. And he's going to talk about the 22 license renewal process overall.
23 And then we're going to get to the 24 specifics of the environmental review process and we 25 have Stacey Imboden who is right here. She's also on NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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6 1 John's staff. She's a Project Manager on this license 2 renewal application and she's been with us just a 3 couple of years, about two and a half, exactly.
4 Stacey comes to us with a Master's degree in 5 Environmental Engineering from Clemson University and 6 her Bachelor's is in Meteorology. I'm sure I 7 pronounced that right, but the weather, from Penn 8 State.
9 And with that, John?
10 MR. TAPPERT: Thank you, Chip, and good 11 evening and welcome. Welcome back to those returning 12 from this afternoon's meeting.
13 As Chip said, my name is John Tappert and 14 on behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, I'd 15 like to thank you for coming out and taking time out 16 of your evening and participating in this process.
17 I hope that the information that we will 18 share with you this evening will be helpful and we 19 look forward to receiving your comments, both tonight 20 and in the future.
21 Now we want to start by briefly going over 22 the purposes and agenda of tonight's meeting. First 23 of all, we'd like to give you a brief overview of the 24 entire license renewal process. This includes both 25 the safety review as well as an environmental review NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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7 1 which will be the principal focus of tonight's 2 meeting. Then we'll give you some additional 3 information about how we will conduct that 4 environmental review which will assess the impacts 5 associated with extending the operating license for 6 Arkansas Nuclear One Unit 2 for an additional 20 7 years.
8 Then we'll give you some information about 9 the balance of our review schedule and how you can 10 submit comments in the future and then we get to the 11 major part of today's meeting which is to receive any 12 comments that you may have tonight.
13 First, let me provide some background for 14 the license renewal process itself. The Atomic Energy 15 Act gives the NRC the authority to issue operating 16 licenses to commercial nuclear power plants for a 17 period of 40 years. For Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2, 18 that operating license will expire in 2018. Our 19 regulations also make provisions for extending that 20 operating license as part of our license renewal 21 program. And Entergy has requested license renewal 22 for the Unit 2.
23 Now you notice I've been talking about 24 Unit 2 and those familiar with the Arkansas Nuclear 25 One Station know that there's two reactors there. And NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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8 1 the reason for that is that previously Entergy has 2 requested license renewal and received an extension on 3 that operating license until 2034.
4 So for Unit 2 we will now develop an 5 environmental impact statement assessing the impacts 6 of extending the operation of the plant. Right now 7 we're early in that process in what we call scoping 8 where we seek to identify those issues which will 9 require the greatest focus in our environmental impact 10 statement.
11 Now after we complete the scoping process 12 and do our review, we will develop a draft 13 environmental impact statement and return to the 14 community later this year to present our findings.
15 So with that brief introduction, I'd just 16 like to reiterate the purpose of today's meeting is to 17 receive any comments that you have tonight and I'd 18 like to ask Tom to give us some more details on the 19 safety review.
20 Tom?
21 MR. KENYON: Thank you, John. As John 22 mentioned my name is Tom Kenyon and I'm the 23 Environmental Project Manager for the ANO 2 license 24 renewal application.
25 Now before we get into a discussion of the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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9 1 license renewal process, I'd like to take a few 2 minutes to talk about the Nuclear Regulatory' s mission 3 and what it is that we do.
4 The NRC's mission is really threefold. It 5 is to ensure the adequate protection of the health and 6 safety of the public. It is to provide, protect the 7 environment and to provide for the common defense and 8 security. The NRC accomplishes this mission in a 9 number of different ways and through programs and 10 processes such as inspections, enforcement actions, 11 assessment of licensee performance and the evaluation 12 of operating experience of the various nuclear plants 13 throughout the United States.
14 Now the NRC's license renewal process is 15 very similar to the original licensing process that 16 was used to license ANO 2 and it involves two parts, 17 a safety review and an environmental review. And I'm 18 going to focus on what we considered during our safety 19 review for the next couple of minutes.
20 There are two types of safety issues that 21 we look at. There are current operating issues which 22 are dealt with now and then there are the aging 23 management issues that we deal with as part of our 24 license renewal review. Now the NRC's regulatory 25 oversight under the current operating license deals NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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10 1 with the current safety issues and these are issues 2 such as emergency planning or security. And we're 3 dealing with those issues now, rather than waiting 4 until an applicant comes in and requests a renewed 5 license.
6 Because the NRC is dealing with those 7 issues, we do not re-evaluate them as part of our 8 license renewal review. Rather, our safety review for 9 license renewal focuses on aging management issues and 10 the programs that Entergy has in place to maintain its 11 equipment.
12 When we complete the safety review for 13 license renewal, we will issue a safety evaluation 14 report that is independently reviewed by a special 15 Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards or what we 16 call the ACRS.
17 Now that committee is a group of academic 18 and industry experts that look at both the application 19 that is submitted by Entergy and then they look at the 20 results of our review that's in the SER and they 21 provide the Nuclear Regulatory Commission with their 22 findings and recommendations independent of the NRC 23 staff.
24 Now although Stacey Imboden will discuss 25 the environmental review in detail shortly, I just NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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11 1 want to talk about a couple of key points regarding 2 how we do the environmental review. When we perform 3 our environmental review, we look at a number of 4 different areas such as the ecology, the hydrology, 5 cultural resources and socio-economic issues. Now 6 part of that environmental review includes what we 7 call the scoping process during which we identify 8 those environmental issues that should be included in 9 the scope of our review at this point. And as John 10 mentioned, this meeting is part of the scoping process 11 and Stacey will discuss this process in more detail in 12 a few minutes.
13 Now this next slide will illustrate the 14 entire license renewal process. As you can see, this 15 slide shows the two parallel paths that I mentioned.
16 The upper path shows the safety review process which 17 involves the NRC staff's review and assessment of the 18 technical information that's contained in Entergy's 19 application.
20 We have a team of about 30 NRC technical 21 reviewers back at our headquarters in Washington, D.C.
22 that are conducting the safety review right now. They 23 are focusing on the effectiveness of the proposed 24 aging management programs that are contained in the 25 application.
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12 1 The NRC staff reviews these aging 2 management programs to ensure that the plant can be 3 maintained and operated safely throughout the license 4 renewal term which is really just the additional 20 5 years of operation that they've requested.
6 Now the results of the staff's safety 7 review will be documented in the safety evaluation 8 report. You can see that there and as you can see 9 that report is provided to the ACRS for their review 10 and comment.
11 Now the safety process also involves 12 audits and on-site inspections and these inspections 13 are conducted by a team of inspectors that are pulled 14 together from both the NRC headquarters as well as the 15 regional offices and the results of their inspections 16 are documented in separate inspection reports.
17 Now the lower path shows how we perform 18 the environmental review and as I mentioned earlier it 19 involves the scoping activities which we are 20 conducting right now. We will then develop a draft 21 supplement to the generic environmental impact 22 statement, or GEIS, which documents the results of our 23 review. And eventually, we will issue the draft 24 report for comment and we will issue a final version 25 of the supplement to the GEIS once we've addressed all NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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13 1 the comments that we've received.
2 So as you can see from the slide, the 3 final agency decision on whether to approve or deny 4 the application will factor in the results of a number 5 of different reviews. The results can be found in the 6 inspection reports, in the safety evaluation report 7 which addresses the safety review and the final 8 supplement to the GEIS which addresses our 9 environmental review as well as in the independent 10 report from the ACRS. All of these various 11 assessments are considered when the final Agency 12 decision is made.
13 Now one point I 'd like to make is that the 14 splash marks shown on the slide indicate the 15 opportunities for public participation. The first 16 opportunity during the environmental review is during 17 the scoping process as we've discussed in which this 18 meeting is part of. Now during the scoping process, 19 members of the public can provide us with their 20 insights either during this meeting or in writing up 21 until February 20th. The next opportunity during the 22 environmental review is when we request comments on 23 the draft supplemental report.
24 Now separately, if there's a petition 25 filed to intervene in this process by an individual or NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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14 1 group, and if they have adequate standing, in other 2 words, if their request to intervene is granted by 3 either the Atomic Safety Licensing Board or by the 4 Nuclear Regulatory Commission itself, then a hearing 5 may also be involved in this process. The hearing 6 would be presided over by a panel of Administrative 7 Law Judges and it involves contentions, discovery and 8 cross examinations, just like in a court trial.
9 However, there were no petitions to intervene on 10 the ANO 2 proceedings.
11 And that ends my presentation on the 12 overall review process. Let me turn the microphone 13 over to Stacey Imboden who is working with me on this 14 review and who will talk about the details of the 15 environmental review process.
16 MS. IMBODEN: Thank you, Tom. I am Stacey 17 Imboden and I'm a project manager with the NRC.
18 Can I have Slide 6? Tom Kenyon and I are 19 responsible for coordinating the activities of the NRC 20 staff and experts in various fields from national labs 21 to develop an environmental impact statement for the 22 license renewal of Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2.
23 The National Environmental Policy Act of 24 1969 requires that federal agencies follow a 25 systematic approach in evaluating potential NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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15 1 environmental impacts associated with certain actions.
2 We are required to consider the impact of the proposed 3 action and also any mitigation for those impacts that 4 we consider to be significant. We're also required to 5 consider alternatives to the proposed action, in this 6 case license renewal, and that includes the no-action 7 alternative. In other words, if we decide not to 8 renew the license at Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2, 9 what will the environmental impacts be?
10 The National Environmental Policy Act and 11 our environmental impact statement are disclosure 12 tools. They are specifically structured to involve 13 public participation and this meeting is a part of 14 facilitating the public's participation in our 15 environmental review.
16 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has 17 determined that an environmental impact statement will 18 be prepared for proposed license renewal of nuclear 19 power plants. In preparing an EIS, the NRC conducts 20 a scoping process. The purpose of the scoping process 21 is to identify the significant issues to be analyzed 22 in depth. We are now gathering information for the 23 EIS and are here to collect public comments on the 24 scope of our review. What special issues should the 25 NRC staff consider when developing the environmental NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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16 1 impact statement for Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2?
2 The staff developed a generic EIS that 3 addressed a number of issues that are common to all 4 power plants that come to us for license renewal. The 5 staff is supplementing that generic EIS with an 6 Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2 site-specific EIS that 7 will address environmental impacts specific to this 8 individual site.
9 The staff also evaluates the conclusions 10 reached in the generic EIS to determine if there is 11 any new and significant information that would change 12 any of those conclusions.
13 Next slide.
14 This slide shows the decision standard for 15 our environmental review and this is just the legal 16 language for our decision standard. And what it's 17 basically saying is that in the environmental impact 18 statement we determine if license renewal is 19 acceptable from an environmental standpoint.
20 Next slide.
21 This slide is just an expansion of the 22 lower portion of a slide that Tom had up a few moments 23 ago. It shows the environmental review process in 24 greater detail. We received Entergy's application 25 for the license renewal of Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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17 1 2, on October 15, 2003. On December 22, 2003, we 2 issued a Federal Register Notice of Intent to prepare 3 an environmental impact statement and conduct scoping 4 process.
5 This started a 60-day clock defined as the 6 scoping period and we are within the scoping period 7 right now.
8 This meeting is a part of the scoping 9 process so that we can get comments from the public to 10 help us scope out the bounds of our environmental 11 review. At the end of the scoping period which is 12 February 20, 2004, we will issue a scoping summary 13 report that will address all of the comments that we 14 receive from all sources during the scoping process.
15 This week, members of the NRC staff and 16 experts from Pacific Northwest National Lab are 17 conducting an environmental site audit to help gather 18 information for the scoping process.
19 If during the conduct of the review, we 20 determine that we need additional information beyond 21 what was already provided to us in the initial 22 application, we will issue a request for additional 23 information and we expect to issue that request on 24 March 26, 2004.
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18 1 to hear back from Entergy on those requests. At that 2 time, based on all of the information that we have in 3 hand, we will publish a draft of the environmental 4 impact statement for public comment.
5 We envision publishing the draft of the 6 environmental impact statement in September 2004 and 7 at that time it will go out for a 75-day public 8 comment period.
9 We plan to have another meeting here in 10 Arkansas in October to receive your comments on the 11 draft environmental impact statement. Once we get 12 comments on the draft environmental impact statement, 13 we will publish it in final form in April 2005.
14 Next slide.
15 This slide shows some of the sources where 16 we gather information during our review. In addition 17 to our site audit, we communicate with federal, state, 18 and local officials, as well as local service 19 agencies. One example of our communications is later 20 this week we have a meeting with the State Historic 21 Preservation Officer in Little Rock, Arkansas. And we 22 consider all of the comments that we receive from the 23 public as well.
24 Next slide.
25 For this review, we've established a team NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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19 1 made up of NRC staff supplemented by experts in 2 various fields from Pacific Northwest National Lab.
3 And this slide gives you an idea of some of the areas 4 that these experts evaluate. Some of these areas are 5 terrestrial ecology, aquatic ecology, archeology and 6 radiation protection.
7 Next slide.
8 This slide just recaps a couple of the key 9 milestones in our schedule. As mentioned, we are 10 currently in a scoping comment period which ends on 11 February 20, 2004. All comments from this transcribed 12 public meeting will be considered.
13 Tom mentioned the GEIS, the generic 14 environmental impact statement for license renewal.
15 That's an environmental impact statement that 16 addresses issues that are common to all power plants 17 that come to us for license renewal. We will be 18 publishing an Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2 specific 19 supplement to the GEIS called a SEIS. That supplement 20 will be issued in draft form in September with a 75-21 day public comment period. After considering your 22 comments on the draft, we will publish it in final 23 form in April 2005.
24 Next slide.
25 This slide identifies Tom Kenyon and I as NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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20 1 your primary points of contact on the NRC staff for 2 the environmental review. It also identifies where 3 documents related to the review can be found in the 4 local area. The Ross Pendergraft Library at Arkansas 5 Tech University has agreed to make the license renewal 6 application available, as well as any correspondence 7 sent by NRC to Entergy or other agencies regarding the 8 Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2 review.
9 The draft environmental impact statement 10 will also be available at the library when it is 11 published later this year.
12 And these documents are also available on 13 NRC's website and that web address www.nrc.gov.
14 In addition, as you came in, you were 15 asked to fill out a registration card at the reception 16 desk and if you have provided your address on that 17 card, we will mail you a copy of the draft and final 18 environmental impact statements.
19 Next slide.
20 In addition to providing comments at this 21 meeting, there are other ways that you can submit 22 comments on our environmental review process. You can 23 provide written comments to the Chief of our Rules and 24 Directives Branch and that will ensure that your 25 comments get into our public record. You can also NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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21 1 make comments in person if you happen to be in 2 Rockville, Maryland.
3 We've established a specific e-mail 4 address at the NRC for the purpose of receiving your 5 comments on the draft environmental impact statement 6 and what you think the scope of our review should be.
7 That e-mail address is anoeis@nrc.gov. All of your 8 comments will be collected and considered.
9 This concludes my remarks. And now Tom 10 Kenyon and I are available to answer any questions.
11 MR. CAMERON: Great. Thank you, Stacey 12 and thanks, Tom.
13 Can we answer any questions for any of you 14 about this process or how you participate in it, what 15 we're going to be looking at, when we prepare the 16 environmental review?
17 Any questions at all at this point?
18 (No response.)
19 This is the time of the meeting where we 20 look to you for formal comment and usually we have 21 people signed up to give us some comments. We don't 22 have anybody who has signed up. That doesn't mean 23 that anybody who wants to give us any type of formal 24 comment now on what we should look at in the scope of 25 the environmental review can't say anything. Anybody NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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22 1 want to say anything at this point?
2 (No response.)
3 Okay, the NRC staff and some of our 4 experts from the national lab, we have them with us 5 tonight. They're available to talk to you after the 6 meeting about various subjects. So I think that 7 that's probably the end of the meeting.
8 And John, do you want to say anything 9 before we close at this point? Okay, well, thank you 10 all for being here and we're adjourned.
11 (Whereupon, at 7:24 p.m., the meeting was 12 concluded.)
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ENCLOSURE 4 SLIDES: ENVIRONMENTAL SCOPING MEETING ARKANSAS NUCLEAR ONE, UNIT 2
Environmental 0 1 Scoping Meeting ansas Nuclear One, Unit 2 Nuclear Regulatd nmission February 3,5
911' I I
Og Purse o Today's Discuss NRC' s license renewal process Describe the environmental review proces Identify environmental areas that the staff typically evaluates Provide the review schedule Accept any comments you may have today Describe how to submit comments 2
Arkans uclear One, Unit 2 Licens 0J.enewaI
> Current operating license expires 7/173
> Application requests authorization to operate Unit 2 for an additional 20 years 3
C, AcNRC s3/4ense Renewal at, 0 Re lew
> Safety review
> Environmental review
> Plant inspections
> Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) 4
CO-A' iw, enewal Process nspect on Report
- * ?%-r Agency Decision on Application Formal
' Public *lf a request for hearing is granted 5 Participation
4; i-i, Natoai Environmental
> NEPA requires Federal agencies to use a atic approach to consider environmental impact
> An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is r for major Federal actions significantly affecting quality of the human environment
> Commission has determined that a supplement to t "Generic EIS for License Renewal of Nuclear Plant will be prepared for a license renewal application.
6
0 Decision Standard for Environmne tal Review To determine whether or not the adverse environmental impacts of license renewal for Arkansas Nuclear One, Unit 2 are so great that preserving the option of license renewal for energy planning decisionmakers would be unreasonable.
Pvironmental R [eview V+ Process hicense Renewal Application Received October 15, 2003
[ Notice of Intent December 22, 2003
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License Renewal Application Staff's Site Audit ments State & Local Social Agencies Services Permitting Authorities
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> Scoping & Comment period -12/2' 2/03 to 2)
> Issue draft SEIS - September 2004
> Issue final SEIS - April 2005 11
Poinfo Contact
> Agency points of contact:
Thomas Kenyon Stacey Imboden (800) 368-5642
> Documents are located at the Ross Pendergraft Li at Arkansas Tech University
> Documents can also be viewed at the NRC' s Web si (www.nrc.gov) 1
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Provide written comments:
> By mail at: Chief, Rules and Directives B Division of Administrative Servi Mailstop T-6D59 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissior Washington, DC 20555
> In person at: 11545 Rockville Pike Rockville, Maryland
> E-mail at: ANOEIS @nrc.gov 13
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