ML13029A643
| ML13029A643 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | San Onofre  |
| Issue date: | 01/16/2013 |
| From: | Division of Operating Reactor Licensing |
| To: | |
| Benney B J | |
| References | |
| 2.206, NRC-3023, TAC MF0060, TAC MF0061 | |
| Download: ML13029A643 (70) | |
Text
Official Transcript NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title: 10 CFR 2.206 Petition Review Board Pre-Meeting with Friends of the Earth RE: San Onofre Units 2 and 3
Docket Numbers: 50-361 and 50-362
Location: Rockville, Maryland
Date: Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Work Order No.: NRC-3023 Pages 1-69
NEAL R. GROS S AND CO., INC. Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433
NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 1 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 2 + + + + +
3 10 CFR 2.206 PETITION REVIEW BOARD (PRB) 4 PRE-MEETING WITH FRIENDS OF THE EARTH 5 RE: SAN ONOFRE UNITS 2 AND 3 6 REPLACEMENT STEAM GENERATORS 7 + + + + +
8 WEDNESDAY 9 JANUARY 16, 2013 10 + + + + +
11 The meeting convened in the Commissioner's 12 Hearing Room, One White flint North, 11555 Rockville 13 Pike, Rockville, Maryland, at 12:30 p.m., Sher Bahadur, 14 Chairperson of the Petition Review Board, presiding.
15 16 PETITIONER: FRIENDS OF THE EARTH 17 RICHARD AYRES, ESQ., Ayres Law Group 18 ARNOLD GUNDERSEN 19 20 21 22 23 24 PETITION REVIEW BOARD MEMBERS 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 2 SHER BAHADUR, Deputy Director 1 Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation 2 BRIAN BENNEY, Petition Manager for 2.206 3 petition 4 LEE BANIC, Petition Coordinator 5 MOLLY BARKMAN MARCH, Office of General Counsel 6 DAVID BEAULIEU, Office of Nuclear Reactor 7 Regulation 8 ART HOWELL, Region IV 9 GREG WERNER, Region IV 10 11 NRC HEADQUARTERS STAFF PRESENT:
12 DOUG BROADDUS, Chief, SONGS Special Projects 13 Branch 14 15 LICENSEE REPRESENTATIVE:
16 STEVEN FRANTZ 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 3 T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S 1 Introductions and Opening Remarks
.................. 4 2 Remarks from Petitioner
........................... 12 3 Questions from the Pe tition Review Board
.......... 40 4 Questions and Comment s from the Public
............ 52 5 Adjournment
....................................... 68 6 7 8 9 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.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 4 1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 2 12:30 p.m.
3 MR. RODRIGUEZ:
Good afternoon.
4 My name is Michael Rodriguez, and I'd like 5 to thank everyone for attending the Category 3 Public 6 Meeting. The meeting is to allow the Petitioner, 7 Friends of the Earth, represented by Mr. Richard Ayres, 8 to address the NRC Petition Review Board, also referred 9 to as the PRB, regarding the 2.206 petition dated June 10 18, 2012.
11 This is a Category 3 Public Meeting where 12 the public is invited to participate in the meeting by 13 providing comments and asking questions throughout the 14 meeting. In this instance, the public will have an 15 opportunity to ask questions pertaining only to the 10 16 CFR 2.206 processes after th e Petitioner completes his 17 uninterrupted presentation to the PRB.
18 The purpose of this meeting is to provide 19 the Petitioner with an opportunity to address the NRC 20 Petition Review Board. The portion of that original 21 petition that the NRC is tasked with is your claim that 22 the Southern California Edison violated 10 CFR 50.59 when 23 the steam generators were replaced in 2010 and 2011.
24 Brian Benney is the Petition Manager for the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 5petition, and Dr. Sher Bahadur is the Pe tition Review 1 Board Chairman. Dr. Bahadur will provide you with the 2 meeting details and petition process.
3 As part of the PRB's agreement with the 4 petition, the Pet itioner was offered an initial 5 opportunity to address the PRB to provide any relevant 6 additional explanation in support for the petition. Mr.
7 Ayres requested this opportunity to provide supplemental 8 information in supp ort for the petition before the PRB 9 meets internally to make the initial recommendation to 10 accept or reject the p etition for a review.
11 This meeting is scheduled for one and a half 12 hours1.388889e-4 days <br />0.00333 hours <br />1.984127e-5 weeks <br />4.566e-6 months <br />. The meeting is being recor ded by the NRC 13 Operations Center and will be transcribed by a court 14 reporter. The transcript will become a supplement to 15 the petition. Prior to placing the transcript in ADAMS, 16 the PRB will review it to ensure that it does not contain 17 any allegations or sensitive information.
18 There are some meeting ground rules to 19 discuss. This is a recorded event so we ask that only 20 one person speak at a time. We ask that everyone respect 21 and not interrupt the person speaking. Because this 22 meeting is limited in time, we're going to allow 23 approximately one minute for questions or concerns by 24 each individual of the publ ic. The NRC operator will 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 6supervise the telephone lines and allow only one person 1 to speak at a time.
2 I'd like to emphasize that you need to speak 3 clearly and loudly to ensure that the court reporter can 4 accurately transcribe this meeting. When doing so, 5 please state your name and your affiliation.
6 For individuals attending the meeting, 7 public meeting feedback forms are available to fill out 8 over on the side of the meeting room.
You may either 9 leave them here at the conclusion of the meeting or mail 10 them back. The forms are postage-paid.
11 If you are participating by phone and would 12 like to email your questions or provide feedback in this 13 public meeting, please forward your comments to the 14 Petition Review Board by email at brian.benney --
15 B-E-N-N-E-Y -- @nrc.gov.
16 I'd like to open the meeting with 17 introductions of the NRC PRB members. I ask that all the 18 members clearly state your name, your title or position 19 and your organization.
20 For those in atte ndance, please speak 21 clearly so the court repo rter can accurately record your 22 statement. For those dialing into the meeting, please 23 remember to state your name and any affiliation. Once 24 again, the NRC operator will maintain line supervision.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 7And we ask that you speak clearly for the court reporter.
1 At this time, I'd like to turn it over to 2 the PRB Chairman, Dr. Sher Bahadur.
3 MR. BAHADUR: Thank you, Mike.
4 Good afternoon. We lcome to this meeting 5 regarding the 2.206 petition submitted by Mr. Richard 6 Ayres, counsel of Frie nds of the Earth.
7 And we are fortunate that it's raining 8 outside. So sit ting inside, we don
't feel that bad.
9 We have this meeting scheduled for about an 10 hour1.157407e-4 days <br />0.00278 hours <br />1.653439e-5 weeks <br />3.805e-6 months <br /> and a half, and we'd like to see that the proceedings 11 go smoothly. And I promise that we'll complete that in 12 time. 13 I'd first like to sh are some background of 14 this process. And please bear with me because they're 15 somewhat tedious. But for the complet eness and since we 16 have the court reporter here, I'm going to be reading some 17 of these mater ials for you.
18 Section 2.206 of Title 10 of the Code of 19 Federal Regulations describes the pe tition process as 20 the primary mechanism fo r the public to request 21 enforcement action by the NRC in a public process. This 22 process permits anyone to petition NRC to take 23 enforcement action related to an NRC licensee or a 24 licensed activity. Depending on the results of this 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 8evaluation, NRC can modify, suspend or revoke the 1 NRC-issued license or take any other appropriate 2 enforcement ac tion to resolve the problem.
3 The NRC staff's guidance for the 4 disposition of 2.206 petition requests is in the 5 Management Directive 8.11. And I'm sure you're familiar 6 with that. It's publicly available also.
7 The purpose of today's meeting is to give 8 the Petitioner -- that's the gentleman in front of me and 9 the ladies -- an opportunity to pr ovide additional 10 support for the petition before the Petition Review 11 Board's initial consideration and recommendation. So 12 in that sense, this meeting is not a hearing, nor is it 13 an opportunity for the Pe titioner to ques tion or examine 14 the PRB's on its merits or the issue pre sented in the 15 petition request.
16 No decision regarding the merit of this 17 petition will be made in this meeting. And following 18 this meeting, the Petition Review Board will conduct its 19 internal deliberations. And the outcome of that 20 internal meeting will be discussed with the Petitioner.
21 The Petition Review Board typically 22 consists of a Chairman, usually a manager or a senior 23 executive service-level of the NRC. It has a petition 24 manager, and other members of the Board are determined 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 9 by the NRC staff based on the content of th e information 1 in the petition request.
2 So at this time, I'd like to introduce the 3 Board. 4 I am Sher Bahadur. I'm a Deputy Director 5 in the Office of Nuclear Re actor Regulation . And my 6 division, which is the Division of Policy and Rulemaking, 7 is responsible for the process of the petition. I will 8 be chairing the Review Board.
9 Brian Benney on my right is the Petition 10 Manager. Lee Banic is the Petition Coord inator for the 11 petition under discussion today. Our technical and 12 administrative staf f include David Beaulieu which is 13 also in the Office of NRR, and Mr. Art Howell from the 14 NRC Region IV Office; Mr. Greg Werner from the NRC's 15 Region IV Office --
is he online?
16 PARTICIPANT:
He's on the phone.
17 MR. BAHADUR: And he is on the telephone.
18 In addition, we obtain advice from the 19 Office of General Counsel which is represented by Ms.
20 Molly Barkman March on my left.
21 So as part of our process, the NRC staff may 22 ask clarifying questions in order to better understand 23 the Petitioner's presentation and to reach a reasoned 24 decision whether to accept or reject the Petitioner's 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 10 request for revi ew under the 2
.206 process.
1 Also, as described in our process, the 2 licensees have been invited to participate in today's 3 meeting to ensure that they understand the concern about 4 their facility or activity, which are sitting on my left. 5 While the licensees may also ask questions 6 to clarify the issues raised by the Petitioner, I want 7 to stress that the licensees are not a part of the PRB's 8 decision making process.
9 So I would have to summarize the PRB's 10 understanding of the scope of the petition under 11 consideration and also the NRC's ac tivity to date.
12 On November 8, 2012, the U.S. N RC approved 13 the Memorandum and Order which was CLI-12-20 to address 14 the intervention petition where the Friends of the Earth 15 argued that Southern California Edison violated Title 10 16 of the Code of Federal Regulations Section 50.59 when the 17 steam generators fo r San Onofre Nucl ear Generating 18 Station Units 2 and 3 were replaced in 2010 and 2011 19 without a license amendment.
20 So FOE requested a hearing on the 10 CFR 21 50.59 claim and asked that its petition not be construed 22 as a request for enforcement relief under 10 CFR 2.206.
23 In a subsequent submittal, FO E stated that the 10 CFR 24 2.206 process was not a viable alternative for obtaining 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 11relief. The Commission disagreed and referred this 1 portion of the FOE's petition to the Ex ecutive Director 2 of Operations for consideration as a petition under 10 3 CFR 2.206.
4 So the purpose of this meeting is to provide 5 the Petitioner with an opportunity to address the NRC 6 Petition Review Board, which I just introduced, pursuant 7 to 10 CFR 2.206, specifically to allow the Petitioner to 8 present the information regarding the 50.59 process that 9 the licensee followed in order to replace these steam 10 generators.
11 Now the original petition argues that the 12 Southern California Edison violated 10 CFR 50.59 when 13 these steam generators were replaced in 2010 and 2011.
14 And of course, they will elaborate that further. So the 15 Petitioner requests that th e NRC undertake license 16 amendment proceedings including the adjudi catory public 17 hearing required under 10 CFR 2.209, a hearing request, 18 petitions to interv ene requirements.
19 So to date, the Petit ioner submitted the 20 petition to NRC on July 30, 2012. T he Commission 21 responded on November 8, 2012. And on December 10, 2012, 22 Mr. Brian Benney, petition manager on my right, contacted 23 Mr. Ayres to inform him of the NRC's receipt of the 24 petition in the 2.206 process. Mr. Ayres requested an 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 12opportunity to address the PRB in a public meeting which 1 is what is the purpose of to day's meeting.
2 So therefore, the meeting participants, 3 please identify yourself if you make any remarks as this 4 will help in the preparation of the me eting transcript 5 that will be made publicly available.
6 In addition, the NRC staff verified that 7 there was no secur ity-related inform ation contained 8 within the petition. Since this is a public meeting, I 9 would have to remind the PR B members the licensees, the 10 Petitioner and other meeting participants of the need to 11 refrain from discussing any NRC security-related 12 information du ring today's public meeting.
13 So Mr. Ayres, I'd like to turn it over to 14 you to allow you to provide any addition al information 15 you believe the PRB should consider as part of this 16 petition.
17 MR. AYRES: Than k you very much, Mr.
18 Chairman.
19 My name is Richard Ayres, and I represent 20 Friends of the Earth in this matter. We're here because 21 of the concern of the organization
-- Friends of the Earth 22 -- it's members and others in Southern California about 23 the safety of operating San Onofre in its present 24 condition.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 13 Under the Co mmission's order, this body is 1 to consider whether enforcement action should be taken 2 against Edison. And by the way, I want to note that we're 3 of course aware of Edison's filing of about a week ago 4 I think it was. And we plan to respond with a filing on 5 paper to that earlier. So the extent we don't discuss 6 or respond to any arguments in the Edison filing, they 7 will be responded to in our subsequent filing.
8 We have concluded that Edison violated the 9 NRC Regulation 10 CFR 50.59 when it chose not to seek a 10 license for the replacement steam generators at San 11 Onofre. We're here today to explain why we think you 12 should reach the same conclusion. We also want to 13 discuss appropriate enforcement measures in response to 14 Edison's violation of the Regulation.
15 There will be two presenters today -- myself 16 and Arnie Gundersen, to my left. Arnie will explain why 17 the changes made at Edison in our view triggered an 18 obligation on the part of Edison to seek a license 19 amendment.
20 Mr. Gundersen is a nuclear engineer with 40 21 years of experience. He's been a licensed nuclear 22 reactor operator. He also managed and coordinated 23 projects at some 70 nuclear power plants across the 24 country. I'd also say that in his earlier expert report 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 14filed with our original petition, I think if one looks 1 at that again, you'll find that he pretty well hit the 2 nail on the head abou t happened there.
3 In any case, I'd like to turn it over to 4 Arnie. And when he's completed his presentation, I have 5 a few additional words to say.
6 Arnie? 7 MR. GUNDERSEN: Thanks. I'm Arnie 8 Gundersen. For those of you on the phone bridge, 9 Gundersen with an "E" with Fairewinds. And that has an 10 "E" in it, too.
We like "Es" in Vermont.
11 The presentation I'm about to give is 12 available on the Fairewinds.org site. If there's 13 anybody on the phone bridge who'd like to go up to 14 Fairewinds.org and click on it, you can follow along.
15 And I understand that apparen tly the NRC has made it 16 available, too. So it's readily av ailable to anyone who 17 wants to follow along.
18 Thank you for having me today.
19 And I will just go slide-by-slide through 20 the presentation. And we'll skip 1 which is a pretty 21 picture of the power plant.
22 Today is a discuss ion using the 2.206 23 process to discuss 50.59 violations at San Onofre as the 24 plant progressed toward its replacement steam generator 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 15 process. 1 The sequence, which is slide 3, first, I'll 2 give a brief chronology of events as I see them.
3 Secondly, I'll discuss the magnitude of the design 4 changes. And thirdly, I'll offer up some conclusions.
5 So let's get right into it -- chronology of 6 events. 7 I'm on slide 5.
8 It's important to know that according to 9 Edison's annual rep ort and lots of ot her references, 10 Edison applied in 2004 -- early in 2004 -- to the 11 California Public Utilities Commission to have the steam 12 generators replaced. And later in 2004 --
the end of 13 September -- they placed an order with Mitsubishi Heavy 14 Industries. I'll probably just call them Mitsubishi.
15 As the owner of five Mitsubishi in my life, I should go 16 on record as having bought their product in the past.
17 But more importantly is that this was a 18 fixed-price contract, and the price was determined in 19 2004. T he Public Utilities Commission was told it would 20 be around $670 million total, not all through Mitsubishi, 21 but for the entire process. So the price was known to 22 the parties early in 2004.
23 Slide 6 now.
24 An Edison employee provided us -- Friends 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 16 of the Earth -- with portions of the design specification 1 for the replacement steam generators at San Onofre.
2 This specification number is SO23-617.1. And the 3 individuals that were involved in developing the 4 specification are listed in slide 6.
5 Most importantly though, the specification 6 required that 50.59 would not apply for San Onofre. So 7 even before the bid was given to Mitsubishi, the decision 8 had been made by Edison that 50.50 would not apply. Now, 9 to my opinion, like slide 7, that's putting the cart 10 before the horse.
11 Slide 8 really gets into the specific 12 sections of the design specification that we were given 13 by an Edison employee that really speak to the issue of 14 the intent of Edison even before the design was 15 finalized. Section 3.6.1.1 says that Edison's intent 16 was to replace the generators under 50.59, but that the 17 supplier shall guarantee in writing that the design is 18 licensable and provide all support necessary. And 19 finally, that any deviations from these requirements 20 require Ediso n approval.
21 The slide 9, I think, has the key paragraph 22 in it. And it's from 3.6.2 from the Edison design 23 specification. And it states that the supplier --
24 ultimately that was to be Mitsubishi, but at the time this 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 17was given -- all the bidders were aware of it -- would 1 provide a licensing topical report that demonstrates 2 compliance with the RSG design. The report shall 3 include an engineering evaluation including all 4 necessary analyses that justifies that the RSGs can be 5 replaced under 50.59 wit hout prior NRC approval.
6 So sometime at the end of '03 when this spec 7 was made, and certainly in '04 when the bids were let, 8 the decision had already been made by Edison that no NRC 9 approval would be required and that the licensee was 10 required to provide -- I' m sorry -- th at Edison was 11 required to provide a topical report stating that. The 12 final evaluation thou gh was Edison's.
13 Moving on in time, the public record 14 indicates that the official notification of the NRC was 15 in June of '06. The kick-off meeting, if you will, was 16 requested by Edison in June of '06. Slide 11, and 17 subsequent slides, affirm that presentation.
18 So in June of '06, there are, by the way, 19 no notes in the public document room about this. As a 20 matter of fact, this presentat ion from '06 wasn't in the 21 public document room until several months ago when I went 22 looking for it. So there really is no public record of 23 what went on in th is meeting except for these several 24 slides. 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 18 The most important issue is the slide that 1 starts with "Lic ensing." And that the statement is that 2 it'll be implement ed under 50.59. Now, that's all we 3 know based on the statement. But clearly, that could be 4 read as we've comple ted a thorough engi neering analysis 5 and we've determined that 50.59 doesn't apply. In 2006, 6 that may be what could be read into the record. Or it 7 could also mean that you were told that we haven't 8 completed the analysis but we've already determined that 9 50.59 doesn't apply. The record isn't clear. It is 10 clear from this that it was discussed, but there's 11 nothing in Friends of the Earth's position to indicate 12 anymore detail than that.
13 We have a filed a FOIA six months ago on 14 information related to this. And to date, we have no 15 additional informatio n from the FOIA.
16 Slide 12 is also interesting. This is 17 again from the Edison presentation in 2006. It talks 18 about improvements in the design which are compared to 19 the original steam generators. The two I'd like to 20 highlight is that they c laim to have improved the AVB 21 design. AVB stands for anti-vibration bars. And also 22 that they improved the materials in the tube supports.
23 There's other issues on that sheet, but the two that will 24 come back will into the discussion a little later are the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 19AVB design "improvements" and the materials for tube 1 support. 2 I also call your atte ntion to the picture.
3 This is a pict ure of the generators being built in 2006.
4 So while the NRC was notified for the very first time in 5 June of 2006, clearly the process was well along the way 6 and these generat ors were substantially into the 7 construction process. 8 Another slide which I didn't include also 9 talks about the procurement of tubes which occurred very 10 early in the process so that key design decisions had been 11 made in '04, '05, and certainly before this meeting in 12 '06. One would hope that the 50
.59 decision that 13 licensing didn't apply would have been completed before 14 they started to build these enor mous vessels.
15 My slide 13 is also important because in the 16 kick-off meeting, Edison assumed responsibility for this 17 project. Although it was being built by Mitsubishi, 18 they clearly said that they were retaini ng oversight 19 responsibility including doing design reviews, 20 technical meetings. They had resident personnel on 21 site, special engineering visits, readiness reviews, 22 independent inspections and audits. So Edison clearly 23 was the person that was responsible for the design and 24 the fabrication of this. And they told t he NRC so at the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 20 very first meeting.
1 Okay. Moving on to my slide 14 is that I 2 believe that the contract restrained -- constrained 3 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries on the issue of the 50.59 4 process. Somewhere between '04 when the contract was 5 awarded to Mitsubishi and the kick-off meeting in '06, 6 it seems to me that NEI had to force fit the replacement 7 steam generator analysis and design in order to support 8 the previous decision -- the earli er decision that 50.59 9 would not apply. Again, the cart was before the horse.
10 And Mitsubishi analysis had to substantiate what the 11 contract required as oppose d to the other way around.
12 My slide 15 refers to the Edison letter you 13 got last week. Edison says on page five of their letter 14 that NEI 96-07, which is the approved NRC process for 15 50.59, clearly states changes are a multi-step process.
16 The first step of the process, according to Edison, is 17 that the licensee must determine that the proposed change 18 is safe and effective through appropriate engineering 19 and technical evaluations. I have no problem with that 20 statement. That's not what happened at San Onofre.
21 The contractual language was in place 22 before the engineering analysis was begun. And we know 23 that because of the contract requirements that were 24 provided to us by an Edison employee. So there was no 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 21appropriate engineering and technical evaluation 1 performed by Edison when the contract was written and the 2 decision on 50.59 had already been made. The dye was 3 cast in 2003 or 2004.
4 My slide 16, moving on in time, we've come 5 to 2009 at which point Edison is applying for standard 6 technical specification change. And Edison was asked in 7 an RAI -- a request for additional information -- to make 8 some comparisons which t hey provided to the NRC.
9 The slide 17 is some of the information that 10 Edison provided to the NRC that was in response to NRC 11 RAIs. The middle column is Edison information. But the 12 ratio is done by Fairewinds. So th ose numbers -- the 13 23,100 -- come from information Edison provided. But 14 then the actual division of the two numbers comparing the 15 replacement steam generator to the original are 16 Fairewinds. So the right most column percent 17 differences indicate some very significant changes 18 between the original steam generator and the replacement 19 steam generators.
20 I'll call your attention to a couple. The 21 secondary volume to cover the tubes in one steam 22 generator was a 14 percent increase -- seven percent 23 heavier or 100,000 pounds; cold pipe c oolant mass, 13 24 percent increase. These kinds of increases clearly to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 22 me indicate that they shou ld have fired off the NRC's 1 warning system saying that this real ly doesn't look 2 like-for-like.
3 Now it's about six years too late in the 4 process by 2009. At least the Unit 2 steam generators 5 were being shipped across the Pacific. Bu t there was an 6 indication of some huge changes in those generators that 7 was in the NRC's possession before the plants were 8 started up.
9 My slide 18. Edison and MHI co-authored a 10 report that touts all the design changes that were 11 implemented at San Onofre. This was published in a major 12 magazine. And there's a li st of literally dozens of 13 major changes. This is the first time -- 2011 -- when 14 the public became aware of the magnitude of the changes 15 in the replacement steam generator process. Now I've 16 been through the PDR, and I can't find any substantive 17 discussions on the magnitude of the change.
18 There are four reports on the Fairewinds 19 website relating to the changes that Edison made. And 20 I think we'll just reference those when we submit in 21 writing. We've got four repo rts we'd like to get on the 22 record about those changes as well as the affidavit that 23 I submitted last week on the other issue covered by the 24 ASLB. So we'll provide those. But this 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 23 Edison report identifies that they were removing the stay 1 cylinder, that they were adding 377 tubes, that they were 2 changing the tube support structure, that they were 3 adding new anti-vibration bars and dozens of other 4 changes. So it's 2011 when the public first became aware 5 of the magnitude of the changes in a co-authored report 6 by MHI and Edison. And then of course ca me the failures 7 at the beginning of 2012.
8 Section 2 moves on to what is the magnitude 9 of these design changes that were really made to these 10 generators. Were they small? Was it really for like?
11 And should the NRC have been noticed as opposed to the 12 50.59 process determining that these were like-for-like 13 and the NRC didn't have to know? Should the NRC have to 14 been noticed?
15 My slide 20, John Large, who's also a 16 consultant with Friends of the Earth and I both agree that 17 in and of themselves, Edison's design changes to the 18 replacement steam generators should have triggered a 19 50.59 review by the NRC.
20 Now the steam genera tor tubes and the tube 21 sheet are part of the containment boundary on a PWR.
22 They prevent the radioactive fluids from going from the 23 primary containment -- from the primary system over to 24 the secondary. So clearly they're safety related.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 24 Also in this process , you have to remember 1 that back in '06, Edison claimed to the NRC that they had 2 "improved" their anti-vibrat ion bars, and that these --
3 I'm assuming because there are no notes from that meeting 4 -- that the improvements would reduce wear inside those 5 steam generators. The original steam ge nerators at San 6 Onofre experienced a lot of denting at the top because 7 of the old design. And Edison claimed that the new 8 anti-vibration bars were improvements.
9 Now I think that's a euphemism.
Frankly, 10 I think improved is another way of saying it's a test or 11 an experiment. In which case it should fall under 50.59. 12 But clearly it was important enough that at the very first 13 meeting with you back in '06, the NRC was told that the 14 AVBs had been "improved." 15 My slide 22 is very long and very busy, and 16 I won't spend much time on it. But it lists the eight 17 criteria on the left side. And across the top, it lists 18 eight changes th at were identified by Mitsubishi and 19 Edison in their paper that they published in 2011.
20 Now in this table, green is good. So no is 21 good. Red, yes, is bad. So eight by eight is 64. And 22 I count 39 yeses which is 39 opportunities where the 50.59 23 process should h ave been noticed to the NRC.
24 Now some of those may have been legitimately 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 25filtered out. And I can appreciate that. However, the 1 odds of 39 out of 64 of them being legitimately filtered 2 out by the Edison process, given the fact that they had 3 already determined in '03 what the answer was, that to 4 me is unbelievable.
5 I want to focus on just four of the columns 6 -- the stay cylinder issue, the changes in the tube 7 supports and additional tubes. Those are the first 8 three columns in that table.
9 So my slide 23, I don't believe that MHI --
10 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries -- should be made the 11 scapegoat. In Edison's let ter to you jus t last week, 12 they say , "If the RSGs had been designed and manufactured 13 in accordance with the procurement specifications, the 14 leak and tube wear would never have occurred." That's 15 in absolute disagreement with the AIT report. The AIT 16 report on page 23 says th at the "replacement steam 17 generator designed and developed by Mitsubishi were in 18 accordance with the licensee" -- San Onofre's design 19 specification -- "and were translated into design and 20 fabrication drawings." So I think the AIT wo uld agree 21 that this is not Mitsubishi's problem and that it should 22 not be scapegoated.
23 Both Large and I agree though that the 24 problems in these replacement steam generators are not 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 26fabrication problems. There were fabrication problems 1 of course. But it's our op inion that no matter who in 2 the world -- and there's about five people that can make 3 these -- were building these generators, th ey would have 4 experienced a fluid elastic instability due to a high 5 void fraction anyway. 6 So the problem is not ho w they were 7 fabricated, althoug h fabrication problems certainly 8 compounded it, but no matter who built it, these 9 generators would have failed eventually. Now if it was 10 six months or four years, that part is uncertain based 11 on fabrication problems. But the high void fractions 12 were built into the design and the fluid inelastic 13 instability was inevit able in the design.
14 Now Edison's annual report going back in 15 time to 2003 states that the Palo Verde steam generators, 16 which are also combustion plant -- a little bit bigger 17 but essentially the same -- the Palo Verde steam 18 generators are identical to the San Onofre steam 19 generators. More importantly, they say the new -- the 20 replaced steam generators on Palo Verde Unit 2 are of the 21 same design and the same material as the original steam 22 generators on San Onofre.
23 Now I'll remind you that the replacement 24 steam generators that Palo Verde did go through the 50.59 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 27NRC process, and I'll talk a little bit more about that 1 later. But I think it's important to know that Edison 2 has identified one plant in the whole planet that is 3 essentially identical to it, and it's Palo Verde Unit 2.
4 And that's in a filing with the Security Exchange 5 Commission which su pposedly should be quite accurate.
6 My slide 25 is a picture from the Palo Verde 7 application which shows a stay cylinder. It's a big hunk 8 of iron. It's huge. So one would think the removal of 9 it would be a big deal.
10 The stay cylinder at Palo Verde was 11 retained. The stay cylinder at San Onofre was removed.
12 I think and John Large also thinks that this is one of 13 the causative factors in the problems that were 14 encountered at San Onofre.
15 The stay cylinder -- while we're on it --
16 actually goe s through the tube sheet. It was originally 17 designed -- remember the tube sheet is a containment 18 boundary, and its fai lure is considered beyond 19 imaginable. So it was a key structural support when 20 Combustion built these things back in the day when I was 21 young and actually was in their shops in Ch attanooga.
22 But it also goes up through the generator to the tube side 23 and provides a water column up throu gh the center which 24 in the design has no a dditional heat provided.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 28 My slide 26 says also that at Palo Verde they 1 retained the combustion approach which used egg crate 2 tubes tube support which are the tubes on the right. But 3 at San Onofre, the original way Combu stion built those 4 generators was replaced with a broach tube which a good 5 approximation is the p icture on the left.
6 It's my position, and Mr. Large's as well, 7 that the San Onofre problems were foreseeable. And 8 here's why. The stay cylinder removal and the 9 additional tubes put four percent more heat into the 10 center of the bundle. Now four percent is actually the 11 377 tubes are four percent of the total tubes. So the 12 heat output from the nuclear reactor didn't change, but 13 the location of that heat within the stea m generator 14 changed dramatically. By adding four percent more tubes 15 in the center, the heat distribution was different than 16 in the original steam generators and more was driven to 17 the center.
18 The other part of that is we need to know 19 that Palo Verde had added 10 percent more tubes and almost 20 three percent more heat. But Palo Ve rde retained their 21 stay cylinder, and Palo Verde also di d not experience 22 fluid elastic instabilitie
- s. Edison, on the other hand, 23 destroyed their generator in less than a ye ar. So by 24 adding the heat on the periphery like Palo Verde did and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 29because also they didn't go with broached tubes, they 1 essentially were ab le to avoid the pocket with the high 2 void fraction that was created in the San Onofre 3 generators.
4 So my slide 28 is from another Edison report 5 that was provided by a different person within San Onofre 6 to Friends of the Earth.
And it's a contour of steam 7 quality. 8 The stay cylinder would have been in the 9 middle of this drawing, sort of right in the center of 10 that large circle. The flow of course is from the cold 11 side to the hot side. And that large red area is the area 12 where the void fraction is highest an d where th e fluid 13 elastic instability was most pronounced.
14 By adding four percent in the middle, I 15 believe and Large believes that it exacerbated if not 16 created the fluid elastic instability that occurred just 17 slightly to the right as you would expect because that's 18 the direction of the flow.
19 It was inevitable when you add heat to the 20 center of the tube bundle as opposed to on the periphery 21 that you're going to heat up the center mo re and create 22 these high void fractions like we see in this Edison 23 drawing. 24 So my slide 29 -- I think it's important to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 30go back and look at the letter you received last week.
1 Edison says two things. At the time the RSGs were 2 designed, Mitsubishi evalua ted the flow patterns and 3 determined that the fluid elastic instability would not 4 occur. And separatel y three pages later, they say that 5 MHI provided the ther mal-hydraulic analysis as part of 6 the original design that shows that there would be no FEI. 7 I think that's an answer to a question that 8 was never asked. I don't care what Mitsubishi said at 9 the early part of the design. But you have to remember 10 that back on my slide 9, Mitsubishi was contractually 11 required to provide something called a licensing topical 12 report that would co ver the applicability of 50.59. So 13 Edison in their letter to yo u is not ref erring to the 14 "licensing topical report" that they had in the contract 15 commitments, but rather some earlier Mitsubishi 16 analysis, none of which has Friends of the Earth seen.
17 So removing the stay cylinder allowed 377 18 extra tubes into the center. That's four percent. The 19 riser column does another thing. Remember the stay 20 cylinder moves through both on the primary side and on 21 the steam side of the generator. The riser column 22 provides a water void. So the Palo Verde design has 23 essentially a water void through the center of it. I 24 like to think of that as a jersey barrier. It's designed 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 31 to keep the flow mo ving vertically.
1 So now when that's removed, there's nothing 2 on the steam side to facilitate and bias the flow 3 direction. The steam side flow patterns were never 4 established because the stay cylinder was removed. So 5 the 50.59 analysis sh ould have identi fied that a high 6 void fraction and confused in and o ut of the plain FEI 7 was inevitable because they added tubes, it changed to 8 broached supports which also affect the flow, and they 9 removed the stay cylinder.
10 So my slide 30 refers to the Edison letter 11 again. Edison says that on page nine, "design changes 12 may be screened out under 50.59." I agree. The 50.59 13 process can be a screen if used appropriately.
14 Edison then goes on to say the adverse 15 condition that later resulted in the tube leak was not 16 known at the time the 50.59 evaluation was performed.
17 Mr. Large and I don't believe that that's the case. An 18 example of that is the anti-vibration bars. The AVBs on 19 Unit 2 -- an AVB is like a giant woman's ha irpin, and it 20 peels back on itself -- and in the proces s of taking a 21 straight piece of steel and bending it over on itself, 22 on Unit 2 distortion was introduced. That was shipped 23 across the Pacific with the distortion in it. But on 24 Unit 3, a different process was used and the distortion 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 32was removed. So I believe that the AVBs were in fact a 1 test. At least on Unit 2, the AVBs were a test or an 2 experiment because they clearly were modified on Unit 3.
3 We both agree -- John Large and I -- that 4 these problems were foreseeable in '04 when the stay 5 cylinder was removed, when the extra tubes were added and 6 when the broached tube support plates were installed.
7 Increasing the void fraction was inevitable. And of 8 course the increased void fraction then leads over to the 9 FEI. 10 Almost finally -- at least finally for the 11 second section -- t he Edison cause report is just flat 12 out wrong. I'm on my slide 31.
13 I met with Chairman Jaczko this summer.
14 And he said well, we promised the State of California a 15 root cause analysis. And I said no, you haven't. If you 16 read the CAL, the CAL requires a cause analysis but not 17 a root cause analysis. And Chairman Jaczko went up and 18 he went across his desk and he found the CAL and he said, 19 oh, my God, you're right. He said that they're the same. 20 And they are not.
21 An Edison employee provided us with another 22 document that had the Kepner Tregoe analysis that Edison 23 used to determine what they consider to be the cause.
24 Kepner Tregoe -- in 1976, way back in the day, I was 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 33trained in Kepner Tregoe. One of the very first nuclear 1 engineers in the nuclear community did use it. It's a 2 tool to identify ro ot cause. And it
's a great tool.
3 And I dusted off my book. I still had it, 4 and I pulled it out. The pages are getting a little 5 yellow. But I actu ally have the Firs t Edition of the 6 Kepner Tregoe book. It's still in my bookcase. So I 7 dusted off the book. And the key point of a Kepner Tregoe 8 analysis for solving problems is that you define the 9 problem correctly.
10 There's a famous saying by Thomas Pynchon.
11 If you can get them asking the wrong questions, then you 12 don't have to worry about the answers. Well, that's 13 exactly what happened in the Kepner Tregoe analysis 14 that's being used by Edison to compar e the replacement 15 steam generators at San Onofre to the rest of the nuclear 16 fleet. 17 The question Edison asked is what is 18 different, what has changed -- which is sort of a standard 19 Kepner Tregoe kickoff. What is different or has changed 20 when comparing SONGS' replacement steam generators to 21 another plant's replacement steam generator? That's on 22 page 43 of their co ndition report. That's the wrong 23 question. There are no chan ges between what San Onofre 24 did and what St. Lucie did or between San Onofre and 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 34another PWR. That's almost like asking what is the 1 difference between my Volkswagen and your Chevy? They 2 shouldn't be compared. It's an apples and orange 3 comparison.
4 The comparison should be if you're using the 5 Kepner Tregoe process correctly is that the original 6 steam generators should be compared to the replacement 7 steam generators. The question should be what's the 8 difference between the original steam generators and the 9 replacement steam generators, not between San Onofre's 10 Volkswagen and s omebody else's C hevy or Ford.
11 So the other possibility, which would also 12 be legitimate, is to compare the replacement steam 13 generators in San Onofre to the replacement steam 14 generators at Palo Verde. Palo Verde di dn't experience 15 an FEI. I've been back over the Palo Verde questions --
16 the RAIs that the NRC asked -- and they're great. If you 17 had asked the same questions of San Onofre, you would have 18 identified the problems that occurred in 2011 five years 19 earlier, and we wouldn't be here today. But you weren't 20 given the opportunity to ask the questions because the 21 licensee didn't declare 50.59 applicability.
22 But back to the original slide on this issue 23 of the Kepner Tregoe analys is, I don't t hink that the 24 promise the NRC made to the State of California has yet 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 35been met. There is no root cause analysis for Palo 1 Verde, and there won't be until you compare not on an 2 apples and oranges basis, but when yo u compare oranges 3 to oranges or maybe lemon to orange or whatever. But in 4 any event, the key is to compare to something that's 5 similar, not what Edison did.
6 Now my slide 33 is an example of this.
7 These are right from the Kepner Tregoe analysis that's 8 in the cause report that was provided to Friends of the 9 Earth by an Edison employee.
10 They have two columns. One is the possible 11 causes and one is th e reason why it ca n't be a cause.
12 The three possible causes include the 13 issues of the tubes in the U bend region, the design that 14 was changed by replacing the stay cylinder and issues 15 related to the support on the straight legs of the tubes.
16 So Edison claims to have looked at things 17 like replacing the stay cylinder. But if you look at the 18 right-most column, they were thrown out and never 19 analyzed. The right-most colum n says that they were not 20 analyzed because they were not a causal factor in the tube 21 wear. That gets back to the wrong question was asked.
22 When you ask the wrong questio ns, you're going to get the 23 wrong answer.
24 And I submit to you that the NRC's been on 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 36that hunt now for six months. Ins tead of comparing the 1 original steam generators to the replacements or the 2 replacement steam generators at San Onofre to the 3 replacements steam generators at Palo Ve rde, you've 4 bought hook, line and sinker the approach that San Onofre 5 would like you to do, which is to compare their Volkswagen 6 -- their steam generator -- to all the other fleet in the 7 country. And th ere's in fact no similarities.
8 Okay. My conclusions. I'm on 35. The 9 changes that Edison made were foreseeable. Over the 10 past eight years, there's been ample evidence from 11 multiple sources that these were not like-for-like 12 replacements.
13 I think that the significant damage that has 14 occurred really clearly shows that de sign changes did 15 have a significant impact upon the key design functions.
16 And in fact, the containment bounda ry was degraded.
17 I realize that 50.59 is not a retroactive 18 thing and because it failed that is not an indication 19 50.59 should have been use
- d. On the ot her hand, both 20 John Large and I agree that in '04 instead of 21 contractually demanding the 50.59 be used in such a way 22 that the NRC didn't have to be notified, if engineers had 23 gone in and made the determination first -- got the cart 24 in front of the horse instead of behind the horse -- we 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 37 both believe that the NRC would have been notified.
1 And based on the questions you ask at Palo 2 Verde, I think you would have identified this problem.
3 It's clear you guys were on to the FEI issues at Palo 4 Verde. And Palo Verde, while it did have some tube 5 problems -- it had some minor -- like 20 t ubes involved 6 in minor problems. The 1300 tubes that were damaged at 7 San Onofre, Palo Verde pails in comparison.
8 The appropriate analysis would be to compare the original 9 to the replacement or the Palo Verde replacement to the 10 San Onofre re placement.
11 Edison should have identified to the NRC 12 that this change requi red NRC evaluation.
13 My slide 26 is that I think we need to admit 14 that this was a near miss. This is the biggest equipment 15 failure since Davis Bessie. Davis Bessie was worse.
16 I'm not denying that. But in the last 10 years, nobody 17 has screwed up a piece of equipment more than the steam 18 generators at San Onofre.
19 My 37 -- when you go back into the tech specs 20 at San Onofre, they say that the licensing basis is a 21 double ended rupture of a single tube. My 38 though 22 shows that when the pressure test was applied, eight 23 tubes failed, not one.
24 So that tells me that San Onofre was 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 38operating outside of its original design bases since 1 those generators were installed. To date, the NRC 2 really hasn't addressed the fact that you had a plant that 3 was operating outside of it s original de sign bases.
4 Now one tube failed as a leaker. Had there 5 been a main steam lin e break, it's likely that all eight 6 would have failed. The emergency plans and also 7 operator training is based on one tube failing. I've 8 been working with another former NRC expert, Dr.
9 Hopenfeld. And he and I have concluded that the make-up 10 into the reactor vessel as a result of loss through eight 11 tubes would have resulted in a serious loss of coolant 12 accident had it occurred.
Now we're all lucky a main 13 steam line break didn't happen. But if it had, it's 14 likely that the design bases of one tube fa iling would 15 have been exceeded.
16 The NRC AIT also mentions something 17 similar. They say that although in this case the 18 degraded condition manifested as just a small primary to 19 secondary leak. Parenthetically although it was 20 growing, but it started small enough that the plant shut 21 down. It is possible that a full-blown rupture could 22 have been the fi rst indication.
23 And that sums up my presentation. My 24 background is on the last page, but I don't think we need 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 39to go into it. So th ank you very much.
1 MR. BAHADUR: Thank you.
2 MR. AYRES: And tha nk you very much.
3 I just want to give a bit of a summary of 4 Mr. Gundersen's pre sentation and its implications for 5 this process.
6 He's presented info rmation today showing 7 that the design of the RSGs at San Onofre -- that in the 8 design, they made changes that adversely affected a 9 design function in that they foreseeably degraded the 10 steam generator adversely affecting the ability of the 11 generator to contain radioactive steam and water from the 12 primary loop of the reactor.
13 He's also told us that these adverse effects 14 were foreseeable at the time , and time has in fact 15 confirmed that they were f oreseeable beca use we've seen 16 what's happened at the plant.
17 Edison should under the requirements of 18 50.59 therefore have notified the NRC that it would seek 19 a license amendment back in 2006 or whenever the 20 appropriate time was. Instead, Edison did not inform 21 the NRC or seek an amendment. And that in our view is 22 a violation of Section 50.59.
23 This body therefore should consider 24 appropriate enforcement actions for two reasons. One 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 40reason is to protect the health and safety of people in 1 California. And the second is to deter others from 2 making a similar ki nd of mistake.
3 In terms of what the enforcement might be, 4 we suggest the following. The plant license should be 5 suspended until Edison applies for and receives license 6 amendments that ad dress the changes that adversely 7 affected the design functions in Units 2 and 3. Thus the 8 Board should order a license amendment proceeding if 9 Edison wishes to go forward with restarting the plants.
10 So that's what we draw from this 11 presentation and from what we've provided before. As I 12 said, we'll be also submitting our own responses to the 13 comments that were filed last week by Edison. 14 So with that, I think we're prepared to take 15 questions from the Board or whoever it might be.
16 MR. RODRIGUEZ: At this time, since this is 17 a public meeting, I would like to remind the PRB members, 18 the licensees, the Petitioner and other meeting 19 participants of the need to refrain from discussing any 20 security-related information during today's public 21 meeting. 22 Does the staff from the NRC Headquarters 23 have any questions fo r the Petitioner?
24 MR. BEAULIEU: This is Dave Beaulieu in 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 41 NRR, and I'm responsible for 50.59s in NRR.
1 Everything you said about 50.59 was correct 2 in terms of 50.59 is a prospective, that you need prior 3 NRC approval, and it's not a retrospective. And now 4 you're saying th at the licensee was unaware of the 5 deficiency so therefore they did not evaluate it under 6 50.59 at the time. So they weren't aware of the 7 deficiency until afte r the tube leak.
8 So in terms of -- I just want to understand.
9 What would you -- why do you think that the licensee would 10 submit a license amendment based on a condition that 11 would not exist on a g oing forward basis?
12 MR. AYRES: This is Mr. Ayres responding.
13 Mr. Gundersen may wa nt to as well.
14 But I think that's -- what you -- how you 15 characterized that is not quite th e argument we're 16 making. What we're saying is that Edison should have 17 know if it had done an analysis app ropriately here that 18 the criteria in 50.59 were tripped which then required 19 application for a license amendment. And they didn't do 20 that. 21 They have the responsibility to do that.
22 And in my view at least for them to say oh, well, we didn't 23 understand that because we didn't look at it is not 24 fulfilling the obligation they have to understand the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 42 effects of the chan ges they're maki ng in the plan.
1 MR. GUNDERSEN: Let me expand on that, too.
2 Can I? 3 MR. AYRES: Please.
4 MR. GUNDERSEN: Hi. Arnie Gundersen.
5 If I said that, I want to correct the record. 6 I'm on my slide 30. And I read into the 7 record, "The adverse condition that later resulted in the 8 tube leak was a deficiency associated with the design."
9 It was not known at the time the process was performed.
10 That was not my posit ion. That's Edison's 11 position. That came in the Edison letter you got last 12 week. 13 My position I thought I went on to develop 14 was the issue that let's just look at one example -- the 15 AVBs. The AVB on Unit 2 was known to be distorted and 16 shipped across the Pacific. An d while that was shipping 17 across the Pacific in a distorted form, it was modified 18 on Unit 3 to avoid the distortion. So it really gets to 19 the point that the adverse condition was known to Edison 20 before these were ever operated. And so, I 21 meant to say -- and if I didn't, I apologize -- I meant 22 to say that Edison's statement just last week is wrong, 23 that the adverse conditions were known at the time these 24 things were being built. And in fact, as modifications 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 43from Unit 2 to Unit 3 to co rrect some of th ose adverse 1 conditions.
2 And then in addition, I would also agree 3 with what Mr. Ayres said that the analysis at the time 4 it was done -- which in my opinion should have been '04 5 -- but according to this letter from Edison that we got 6 last week indicates that the 50.59 analysis might have 7 been done in '08, well after this plant -- this missile's 8 been fired. It's not a ballistic trajectory at this 9 point. It was too late when the 50.59 was done to change 10 the outcome because Mitsubishi was co ntractually bound 11 and shackled.
12 Thank you.
13 MR. BENNEY: This is Brian Benney.
14 You mentioned that you're going to continue 15 to give us more information. I just want to put on the 16 record that this is a limited process. And today is 17 really your best shot for providing whatever new 18 information or substantial information that you have on 19 the 50.59 process that was done before the steam 20 generators were installed.
21 And again, this isn't a hearing. So 22 there's still time for discussions here and for you to 23 provide information. But you mentioned that you're 24 going to provide a response to Edison. I'm just curious 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 44when that's going to come in because we've got to meet 1 as a Board and complete our process here.
2 MR. AYRES: Well, perhaps you could give us 3 an idea of when that's goin g to occur beca use obviously 4 we'd like to make our response expe ditiously. But we 5 want to be sure also that it will be read before the Board 6 starts making its decision. Can yo u give us an idea of 7 what that schedule is like?
8 MR. BENNEY: This is Brian Benney.
9 I don't have it scheduled yet. But I have 10 some pressures here to complete the process. Not that 11 we wouldn't follow anything that we found safety related 12 in this respect, but the fact remains that your original 13 petition came in June 18 of 2012. We're n ow in January 14 of 2013. I'm just wonderi ng how much more information 15 is out there and when are we going to finally get to see 16 it so that we can make a decision.
17 MR. AYRES: Th is is Mr. Ayres.
18 I would expect that we'd be able to respond 19 within two wee ks from today.
20 MR. BENNEY: Thank you.
21 MR. BROADDUS: Chair, if it's okay, I had 22 a question as well.
23 My name is Doug Broaddus. I'm branch chief 24 in the Division of Operating Reactor Licensing. I'm the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 45chief of the SONGS special projects branch, not part of 1 the PRB. But the question was did any of the NRC staff 2 want to ask questions.
3 Mr. Gundersen, you referred to Palo Verde 4 in a couple places. And you indicated that Palo Verde 5 went through a 50.59 process. A nd then in another 6 instance, you indicated that if the NRC staff had asked 7 the same questions of Palo Verde that we would have 8 identified these issues.
9 First of all, can you clarify what you mean 10 by they went through a 50.59 process and what you meant 11 by that? And then, what qu estions that we asked, and 12 what the context of that is. We might be able to go back 13 and look at that information.
14 MR. GUNDERSEN
- Yes. In, I think 2001 --
15 it might have been 2000 -- Palo Verde Unit 2 added 10 16 percent more tubes to the generator on the periphery 17 retaining a correct design retained the central stay 18 through the unit and also increased power by 2.9 percent.
19 That whole process -- the steam generators modifications 20 and the 2.9 percent power increase -- was flagged by Palo 21 Verde, and the N RC was notified.
22 I was going through RAIs on Palo Verde, and 23 there was extensive questions about the possibility of 24 an FEI. Off the top of my head, I don't remember what 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 46the RAI was. But it was in the RAI process. For people 1 on the phone, RAI is request for additional information.
2 And so, in the RAI process, the NRC asked -- and Palo Verde 3 adequately answered -- questions related to flow and FEI 4 questions.
5 Now I think maybe in our response back --
6 and perhaps you'll have it before then -- but I can 7 identify the specific RAIs that talked a bout the FEI 8 issues, the questions that were asked.
9 MR. AYRES: And just to clarify, I heard 10 Arnie say that. And I thought as he said it, it might 11 mislead. 12 What he's saying is San Onofre went through 13 an amendment process -- went through the 50.59, triggered 14 -- 15 MR. GUNDERSEN: Palo Verde.
16 MR. AYRES: Palo Verde. I'm sorry. These 17 plants get confused.
18 But it did go through a license amendment 19 process unlike San Onofre.
20 MR. BROADDUS: So they have submitted a 21 license amendment specifically for the replacement steam 22 generators and the RAI questions were in response to that 23 license amendment reques t? Is that what --
24 MR. GUNDERSEN:
Arnie Gundersen.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 47 There were two issues. The application 1 says to replace the steam generators and for a 2.9 percent 2 power upgrade.
3 MR. BROADDUS: Okay.
4 MR. GUNDERSEN:
And they are coupled 5 together inextricably. It
's hard to s ay that if they 6 didn't get the power upgrade would they have applied for 7 the 50.59 -- notified the NRC. But a 2.9 percent power 8 upgrade was part of a 10 percent tube addition. But 9 those tubes were added on the periphery. The steam 10 generator was made larger on the diameter to accommodate 11 the 10 percent tubes whereas the San Onofre generator was 12 increased slightly. But the four percent tubes at San 13 Onofre were put in the center and the 10 percent tubes 14 at Palo Verde were put on the outside. One experienced 15 an FEI. One didn't.
16 MR. BROADDUS: Okay. That helps to 17 clarify it so we can go back and look at that information 18 more specifically.
19 The second question that I had was I thought 20 I heard you say when you were talking about the 21 supplemental information, and this is along the lines of 22 what Brian was saying. I thought I heard you say that 23 you also planned to supplement the information that you 24 have provided to the ASLB as part of this. Because you 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 48referred to other informati on you provided to the ASLB.
1 MR. AYRES: Well, we did provide an 2 affidavit from Mr. Gundersen to the ASLB. I think that's 3 what he was re ferring to.
4 MR. BROADDUS: Only that you provided some 5 additional information to them, but you're not 6 requesting that to be part of this?
7 MR. GUNDERSEN:
Arnie Gundersen.
8 I would hope you'd read the affidavit to the 9 ASLB because it is a technical affidavit, not a legal one. 10 And there's definit ely a correlation. We could submit 11 the affidavit again as part of this two-week response.
12 But it's already known to the NRC, and this presentation 13 today plus what was in the affidavit is all I planned to 14 say on the matter until of course Ed ison modified the 15 record last week. And I think that's what Dick is 16 talking about now.
17 MR. BROADDUS: Yes. I think it would be 18 helpful for us -- if there's specific information in all 19 of what you submitted -- that you want to make reference 20 so we know which information to look at and make sure it's 21 clear. 22 That's all the questions I had.
23 MR. BENNEY: Brian Benney.
24 I do agree. That would be extremely 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 49 helpful because I have a large pile of paper at this point 1 in time. 2 And based on that large pile of paper, we 3 start back in, like I said June 18, 2012, with your 4 initial petition. And subsequent things have happened 5 since then. And unfortunately, I'm going to have 6 probably rely a lit tle bit on your kn owledge of it.
7 But in the AIT report that came out -- when 8 was it -- November 8th -- I'll give you t he Adams number 9 since I've got it written down here on the paper. It's 10 M-L or Mike Lima if you're into the --
11 1-2-1-8-8-Alpha-7-4-8.
12 It states on page ii under ite m number five, 13 "Based on the updated safety analysis report description 14 of the original steam generators, the steam generators' 15 major design changes were appropriately reviewed in 16 accordance with 10 CFR 50.59 requirements." 17 Since that report came out, what new 18 information do you have that that original 50.59 was done 19 incorrectly, examples that you've got, any other facts 20 in evidence you want to get in to have the Board challenge 21 that statement?
22 MR. GUNDERSEN:
Arnie Gundersen.
23 In July, we filed an FOIA and we haven't 24 gotten anything yet. So we have no information from the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 50NRC about its internal processes, nor hav e we seen the 1 50.59 analysis that the AIT refers to. So we are frankly 2 in the dark. We don't know what the NRC's deliberative 3 process was, and we don't know what Edison wrote 4 originally.
5 We don't even know when the 50.59 was done.
6 Was it '04 when th ey did the contrac t? Was it '08 as 7 suggested in the memo last we ek? We are in the dark.
8 Mr. Large and I have determined that if we 9 were there in '04 with these changes, our decision would 10 be different. But again, we're boxing in the dark here, 11 and we just have no clue ho w the AIT arrived at that 12 conclusion.
13 MR. AYRES: Just to follow up on that -- Mr.
14 Ayres again. You should un derstand if you don't already 15 that the Friends of the Earth asked in the ASLB proceeding 16 for a series of documents that were characterized by 17 Edison as proprietary. These would have been helpful -- 18 both our experts thought and understanding what happened 19 as well as understa nding the past.
20 The Board denied that request. So 21 consequently, we're operating without a lot of 22 information that is available to the Commission and is 23 available to Edison. We think this is not exactly fair.
24 But it does handicap our ability to come up new factual 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 51 gem. 1 Having said that, however, I think the key 2 here on the AIT report -- the conclusion you read -- is 3 that that is essentially a legal conclusion that's stated 4 there. There was co mpliance with 50.59.
5 Yes, there's a tech nical element to that 6 conclusion. But it's ultimately a legal conclusion.
7 And there was a cover letter with the AIT report in which 8 Elmo Collins, the Regional Director of Region IV, made 9 that point very forcefully. He said, "It is not the 10 responsibility of an AIT to determine compliance with the 11 NRC rules and regulations or to recommend enforcement 12 action. That will be done through subsequent NRC 13 inspection or review." 14 So I think our point is that that statement, 15 in our view, does not carry weight as a legal conclusion.
16 And what it's talking about is something which is a legal 17 conclusion.
18 MR. BROADDUS:
Just to clarify, the 19 November 9th inspection report was as a result of a 20 follow-up inspection that Mr. Collins was referring to 21 in that initi al report.
22 There's a distinction between the AIT 23 activities and then a routine or special inspection 24 activities and that the AIT is fact-finding mission 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 52whereas an inspection or even a sp ecial insp ection, 1 you're looking at compliance from th at standpoint.
2 So that foll ow-up inspection was to address 3 those issues that were identified by the AIT in their 4 initial or fac t-finding charg e basically.
5 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Are there any additional 6 questions from NRC staff?
7 (No audible response.)
8 MR. RODRIGUEZ: At this ti me, do the 9 licensees in this room have any questions or comments?
10 MR. FRANTZ: This is Steve Frantz 11 representing Southern California Edison.
12 We understand the purpose of this meeting 13 is not to discuss the merits but simply to ask questions.
14 We have no questions of Friends of th e Earth. 15 MR. RODRIGUEZ: NRC operator, please admit 16 the lines at this time.
17 Are there any questions or statements for 18 the Petitioner or the Petition Review Board from the 19 public? 20 MR. LIGHTNING: Yes. My name is Don. I 21 have a question.
22 Hi. Don Lightning. I'm calling from San 23 Diego. 24 We have issued -- an NRC AIT review requires 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 53an NRR investigation document. I've sent that in. It 1 deals specifically with the 50.59 proc ess at San Onofre.
2 It also goes in that the length of the tubes 3 were also increased in size by seven inches which 4 exacerbated the problem at the top of the steam 5 generators.
6 Also, in the 50.59 process, the NRR 7 technical specialist found two instances that failed to 8 adequately address was the change in volved a departure 9 of the methods of evaluation described in the updated 10 final safety ana lysis report.
11 And we listed thos e things, and I can 12 provide that to Bri an if you want.
13 But there's a wealth of information out 14 there. And I'd just like to say for the other technical 15 people of the public, unless we have access to this 16 information, how are we supposed to ma ke intelligent, 17 helpful suggestions to the NRR and/or the NRC to do its 18 job? You're keeping us blinded. And that's not fair.
19 And it's not conducive to nuclear safety in America. We 20 can't afford a Fukushima-type event in America. It will 21 devastate the country.
22 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Well, sir, we appreciate 23 your comments.
24 And once again, brian.benney
-- B-E-N-N-E-Y 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 54-- @nrc.gov is the resource location so that you can 1 provide information -- additional input -- to Brian 2 regarding the 2.206 process for today's activities.
3 I will take a question from the audience.
4 Operator, hold, please.
5 MR. FREEMAN: My name is S. David Freeman.
6 And I'm a volunteer helping Friends of the Earth. I have 7 a statement.
8 I think the discu ssion I heard and the 9 question that was asked by someone from the staff made 10 fuzzy what appears to be the central issue in this case.
11 A utility does not have to kn ow that its 12 equipment will not work in order for it to be different 13 enough to be required to go through the full license 14 amendment process. So the issue in this case cannot be 15 did Edison know that its equipment was defective or was 16 going to get in as much trouble as it has. The issue is 17 whether it was like the former steam generator. And I 18 think the evidence of the differences between the two 19 steam generators are abundant.
20 And I don't really know that any additional 21 information is need ed. This case seems as clear as a 22 bell to me, that it was very apparent th at the steam 23 generator was modified in a number of significant ways, 24 and there should have been a license amendm ent process 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 55 even if it had all worked.
1 MR. BEAULIEU: I understand. Thank you 2 for that clarification.
3 MS. ROBINSON:
I have a question.
4 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Please go ahead. State 5 your name and any af filiation, please.
6 MS. ROBINSON: Rita Robinson, the Benedict 7 Independent Newspaper.
8 Was there a 50.59 done in an earlier process 9 that's just not evident? There some confusion in my mind 10 about that.
11 MR. BROADDUS: This is Doug Broaddus.
12 Could you please clarify when you say a 50.
59, a 50.59 13 specifically on the steam generators? Is that what 14 you're asking -- th e steam generator replacements?
15 MS. ROBINSON: A 50
.59 was done. NRC was 16 notified on earlier changes at San On ofre. I did not 17 find any evidence of that. I'm asking if that's correct. 18 MR. BROADDUS: I'm sorry. You were 19 breaking up.
20 Did you understand?
21 MR. BENNEY: This is Brian Benney.
22 I think I caught it. Dave, can you talk 23 about the 50.59 proc ess a little bit and whether or not 24 a 50.59 to replace the steam generators was done at San 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 56 Onofre? 1 MR. BEAULIEU: Yes. The licensee 2 performed a 50.59. And they determined th at prior NRC 3 review and appro val was not requ ired by 50.59.
4 There were two other license amendments 5 related to tech specs that they requested and received 6 changes for, but no additional changes or amendments were 7 required.
8 MR. AYRES: Just one comment. This is 9 Richard Ayres responding.
10 I can understand th e confusion because of 11 the way these wo rds are used.
12 But the 50.59 process is an analytical 13 process. The result of that process is either a decision 14 that a license amendment is necessary or is not 15 necessary. An d really, the question here is whether the 16 right answer was given by Edison. They apparently did 17 do a 50.59 analysis on t hese steam generators. They 18 concluded that no license amendment was needed. As you 19 heard today, we think very strongly that a license 20 amendment was needed and that by not asking for it, Edison 21 violated 50.59 of the regulations.
22 MS. ROBINSON: Okay. That helps very 23 much. Thank you.
24 MR. HURD: Dan Hurd here from Committee to 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 57 Bridge the Gap. May I ask a question?
1 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Could you please repeat 2 your name and state your affiliation?
3 MR. HURD: Dan Hurd from Committee to 4 Bridge the Gap.
5 MR. RODRIGUEZ:
Okay, Mr. Hurd.
6 MR. HURD: I'm quite struck by the 7 Kafkaesque nature of this proceeding whereby you are 8 asking Friends of the Earth what is wrong with the Edison 9 50.59 analysis, but you will not release the 50.59 10 analysis to Friends of the Earth to review or make it 11 public. 12 I was wondering if you can explain why 13 you're keeping secret the central documents and then 14 placing the burden on these people to critique something 15 they cannot see.
16 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Mr.
Hurd, once again, we're 17 just going to stay within the bounds of the 2.206 process 18 regarding what Mr. Ayres and his associates have 19 discussed before the Board.
20 Could you re-state your question, please, 21 so that it stays within the bounds of the proceedings?
22 MR. HURD: I think it's clearly within the 23 bounds. The 2.206 proceeding is one in which you're 24 placing the burden on Friends of th e Earth to tell you 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 58what's wrong with a document you will not permit them to 1 see. So I'm asking you to explain the rationale behind 2 a public agency keeping those public documents secret 3 from the public an d then demanding that the public 4 critique something that they can't have access to.
5 MR. BROADDUS: The 2.206 process -- this is 6 Doug Broaddus. The 2.206 process is a process by which 7 any individual may bring an issue, concer n to us -- to 8 us in the NRC. That's the process that we're in at this 9 point is to understand -- to listen and understand the 10 issues that are b eing put before us. And it's not that 11 we're challenging
-- I want to make sure that that's clear 12 -- we're not trying to challenge you or anything. We're 13 just trying to find out what information you have 14 available to help us to get through this process. And 15 I want to make sure that that's clear.
16 The 50.59 is a licensee control document.
17 That's something th at the licensee has control over.
18 It's not something th at is submitted to us. If it is 19 something that is reviewed during inspections by our 20 inspectors because it's required to be maintained by the 21 licensee to ensure that we have the ability to review that 22 and determine whether they were in compliance and in the 23 process that they followed.
24 So it is not something that's been submitted 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 59to us that we could make availa ble at that point. It 1 hasn't been submitted to us fo r our review in that sense.
2 MR. HURD: And one quick comment here. It 3 seems to me that your system is completely broken if you 4 allow the licensee to make the det ermination whether or 5 not they have to come to you for license amendments and 6 then you keep that sec ret from the public.
7 Let me make one concl uding point, if I may. 8 I think the evidence is just absolutely clear empirically 9 that a license amendment was required under 50.59.
10 50.59 requires a li cense amendment if there's a change 11 which could increase the likelihood by more than a minor 12 amount of malfunction of a system that is critical to 13 safety. And ste am generators are one of those.
14 Empirically, there's absolutely no 15 question that the change that was made by Edison with this 16 new design led to a more than minor increase in the 17 likelihood of malfunction because in fact it did 18 malfunction. It seems to me that the question you are 19 asking has been empirically demonstrated by a billion 20 dollar steam genera tor project collapsing. They told 21 you the change couldn't increase by more than a minimal 22 amount the likelihood of malfunction, and it did increase 23 the likelihood of malfunction by a great deal. End of 24 story, it seems to me.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 60 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Well, thank you, sir. We 1 appreciate your comments.
2 Any additional comm ents from the public?
3 DR. BROWN: This is Dr. Jerry Brown with the 4 World Busines s Academy.
5 I have an information point related to 2.206 6 and referring to Ar nie Gundersen's sl ide 38, referring 7 to page 57 of the NRC AIT report that the degraded 8 condition of the tubes manifested as a small primary to 9 secondary leak. The whole process here is predicated on 10 the fact that there was premature wear and tear and that 11 the plant has been -- both reactors have been shut down 12 since January 2012.
13 The shutdown -- was that monitore d due to 14 radiation leaks -- and this is a question to the NRC staff 15 -- monitored by the NRC and/or the licensee? If so, was 16 the amount of radiation and specific isotopes available 17 to the public and where would that be available? And 18 what procedures are in place should the NRC allow the 19 licensee to re-start the plant to monitor for additional 20 radiation releases?
21 MR. BAHADUR: Th is is Sher Bahadur.
22 The question you asked would be perhaps best 23 given to Brian. And you already have the mailing address 24 for Brian. If not, I'll ask Mike to repeat that one more 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 61 time. 1 Let's just keep the questions focused on 2 issues where we need the clarification from Mr. Ayres 3 and Mr. Gundersen or if you need to know specific 4 information about the process 2.206. Would that be all 5 right with you?
6 DR. BROWN: Well, I think this question is 7 germane. I think the public would like to know about it. 8 We are in a public discussion and you've indicated there 9 might not be many more relevant to this case. And I would 10 like to know what t he source of that in formation would 11 be in this discussion if you could provide that 12 information.
13 MR. WERNER: This is Greg Werner, Region 14 IV. Can you hear me?
15 DR. BROWN:
Yes, sir.
16 MR. WERNER: Look on page 57 of the AIT 17 report under Section 10. It actually addresses your 18 question about radiation monitoring, some of the 19 isotopes as well as the radiation that was associated 20 potentially could have been received by a member of the 21 public. If you'll look at that, it should answer your 22 question.
23 DR. BROWN: Th ank you, sir.
24 MR. AYRES: Th is is Mr. Ayres.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 62 I wonder if I migh t interject a comment on 1 the 50.59 point that was disc ussed a few minutes ago.
2 To me, it seems obvious from the 3 conversation that we've had today that the 50.59 analysis 4 that was done by Edison is central to this determination 5 that you have to make.
6 As we've said, we've not seen it. We asked 7 for it in the ASLB process. We agreed to abide and signed 8 agreements to abide by requirement to keep all 9 confidential material confidential and to adopt 10 processes to make sure that it was not released to the 11 public. But that request was denied by the Board.
12 I want to suggest that this group -- this 13 Board -- should think about requesting from Edison that 14 50.59 report. It seems to me it's cr ucial to what you 15 do. 16 I would ask that when you do that we be 17 allowed to see the document as well under the same 18 conditions as we've agreed to in the ASLB proceeding.
19 I'll leave that with you. You can make a 20 decision now or later.
21 MR. BAHADUR: Mr.
Ayres, your suggestion is 22 well taken.
23 MR. RODRIGUEZ: We will have a question 24 from the public here within the NRC facilities, Kendra 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 63 Ulrich from Friends of the Earth.
1 MS. ULRICH: Yes. I have two statements I 2 would like to make. 3 The first is that the comment from Elmo 4 Collins that Mr. Ayres had brought up related to the AIT 5 concluding that Edison was in compliance w as actually in 6 direct response to the brief that they had submitted to 7 you -- the testimony they had submitted to you --
8 asserting that the AIT h ad made those conclusions.
9 Now I did want to just point out to the 10 public something that Mr. Broaddus had brought up 11 regarding the Special Investigations Team and the 12 November 9th report which is that it was implied that all 13 of the questions from the AIT that had been raised with 14 regard to licensing had been resolved when in fact the 15 computer modeling -- that was the implication, and you 16 didn't say it explicitly
-- so I just want to make it very 17 clear to the NRC staff that are considering this as well 18 as for the public on the phone that one of the main issues 19 that had been raised by the AIT with regard to whether 20 or not Edison was in violation of their license was with 21 the use of the FIT III computer modeling. That issue was 22 not addressed and not resolved by the Special 23 Investigations Teams and still remains under 24 investigation as to whether or not that should have 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 64tripped the 50.59 and Edison should have been required 1 to go through the license amendment process as a result 2 of the use of the FIT III code.
3 Thank you.
4 MR. BROADDUS: Thank you also for that 5 clarification. It was not my intention to say that all 6 issues had been resolved.
7 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Ladies and gentlemen, 8 we've exceeded our time for 2:00 o'clock. However, 9 we'll keep the phone lines open for another five minutes 10 in the spirit of openness and communication.
11 Any additional que stions from the public on 12 the phones?
13 MR. LIGHTNING: Yes, I have another 14 question.
15 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Please identify yourself 16 -- your name and yo ur affiliation.
17 MR. LIGHTNING: Don Lightning. I'm with 18 the DAB Safety T eam, San Diego.
19 Given the testimony today about multiple 20 and as I like to say, cascading tube effect failures, how 21 is this going to affect the 50.59 process? And in the 22 bigger picture, how is the NRC and the NRR going to 23 address safety for all reactors because up to now, it's 24 never been proven as a fact, and yet now after San 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 65 Onofre's eight failures in situ testing, we have to admit 1 the possibility of cascading tube failures and the effect 2 it might have on the public health.
And I don't hear 3 anybody talking about that. And I think I've heard the 4 person's name, Dr. Hopenfeld. That is the pers on who 5 identified that a long time ago. Because our research 6 said that was --
7 MR. BENNEY: This is Brian Benney. I'm the 8 Petition Manager.
9 The reason you don't hear that being 10 discussed today is that's ac tually being handled under 11 a different process. What we're looking at today is the 12 50.59 process before the steam generators were 13 installed.
14 And it's challenging for us to keep things 15 separated, but unfortunately I have to keep things 16 separated and finish the process that we're under here 17 for the 50.59 before the steam generators were installed.
18 MR. LIGHTNING: I would like to add to that 19 that I agree with most of th e other commen ters today that 20 the system is seriously flawed now. And if Edison gets 21 away with begging fo r forgiveness instead of asking for 22 permission, you're sending the worst possible message to 23 the industry because everyday they're held up and they 24 can't generate electricity, they're losing millions of 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 66 dollars. 1 And so, you need to make it crystal clear 2 to the industry and the public that's depending on you 3 for safety that if people make changes, they need to ask 4 and get permission and have it reviewed because the 5 people in Southern California almost had a really bad 6 problem with San Onofre, and they missed by the skin of 7 their teeth. And th at's a proven fact.
8 So thank you very much.
9 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Thank you, Mr. Lightning.
10 We'll take one more question from the public 11 over the phone.
12 MR. WERNER: This is Greg Werner, Region 13 IV. And I'll make one clarifying statement about FIT 14 III. 15 FIT III is an unresolved item that is still 16 out there, that's still open. However, it does not 17 involve 10 CF R 50.59. 18 MR. BENNEY: Mike, this is Brian. Can you 19 take one more question?
20 MR. RODRIGUEZ: One more question from the 21 public, please, over the phone lines.
22 NRC operator, any additional public members 23 on the telephone?
24 MR. STYMITZ: Th is is Jeff Stymitz.
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 67 When is the NRC going to --
1 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Mr. Stymitz, could you 2 repeat your question? You bro ke up. Please?
3 We've lost transmission. We will take one 4 final question from the public within NRC Headquarters.
5 MR. LEE: Hi, this is Morgan Lee with the 6 Union Tribune Newspaper in San Diego.
7 I just wanted to ask if there's a time frame 8 for a decision on this matt er or what happens next.
9 MR. BAHADUR: Th is is Sher Bahadur.
10 As we said earlier, now that we got the 11 additional information from the Petitioner, the next 12 step would be for the Petition Review Board to meet. The 13 meeting is unscheduled yet. But I may te ll you it's not 14 a matter of months or weeks, but I think in a matter of 15 days once we get the additional information from the 16 Petitioner. And I understand it's two weeks time that 17 Mr. Ayres said he will be providing us additional 18 information.
19 After that, we'll find a common time slot 20 where the PRB can meet. So I think it's just a matter 21 of weeks that we sh ould be meeting.
22 Whether the next meeting would end in a 23 decision or not, I do not know at this time. It depends 24 upon the extent of information that's put in front of the 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 68PRB members. So we'll know more about this after the 1 first meeting.
2 MR. RODRIGUEZ
- Ms. Ulrich?
3 MS. ULRICH: I just wanted to very quickly 4 respond to what Mr. Werner said over the phone which is 5 that that it is incongruent with what's actually in the 6 AIT report. I can go back and look for the language, but 7 it specifically que stions whether or not the computer 8 modeling should have tripped the 50.59 and whether or not 9 that that was the licensing issue.
10 So in any event, I just wanted to point that 11 out. 12 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Dr.
Bahadur, would you like 13 to throw out closing statements, please?
14 MR. BAHADUR: Well, Mr. Ayres, Mr.
15 Gundersen, thank you so much for taking time to provide 16 NRC staff with clar ifying information.
17 I thank you very much for your patience to 18 sit through this.
19 Thank you, public, for being cooperative 20 and patient, licensee and my staff.
21 And the meeting is now adjourned.
22 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Before we close, does the 23 court reporter need any additional information for the 24 meeting transcript?
25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 69 (No audible response.)
1 MR. RODRIGUEZ: Thank you for your 2 attendance. This me eting is concluded.
3 Operator, the telephone lines may be 4 terminated now.
5 (Whereupon, at 2:13 p.m., the meeting was 6 concluded.)
7 8