ML081900193
| ML081900193 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Zion File:ZionSolutions icon.png |
| Issue date: | 06/18/2008 |
| From: | NRC/OCM |
| To: | |
| J. Hickman 415-3017 | |
| References | |
| NRC-2248 | |
| Download: ML081900193 (122) | |
Text
Official Transcript of Proceedings
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Title: Zion License Transfer Public Meeting
Docket Numbers: 50-295 & 50-304
Location: Zion, Illinois
Date: Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Work Order No.: NRC-2248 Pages 1-112
NEAL R. GROSS 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 ZION LICENSE TRANSFER 4 WEDNESDAY 5 JUNE 18, 2008 6 + + + + +
7 1 LAKE FRONT DRIVE 8 ZION, ILLINOIS 9 + + + + +
10 The above-entitled matter commenced at 11 the hour of 7:00 p.m.
12 PRESENT: 13 ANDREW PERSINKO, U.S. NRC Decommissioning Branch 14 Chief 15 JOHN B. HICKMAN, U.S. NRC Decommissioning Project 16 Manager 17 WILLIAM G. SNELL, U.S. NRC Senior Health Physicist 18 PATRICK T. DALY, Zion Solutions Senior VP &
19 General Mgr.
20 21 22 23 24 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 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 (7:14 P.M.)
3 MR. HICKMAN: Good evening -- The two key 4 factors we review in any license transfer are 5 technical qualifications and financial 6 qualifications. And by that I mean we're looking at 7 the qualifications of the company or organization 8 that is going to receive the licenses.
9 In the case of our review of technical 10 qualifications, normally for most reactors we're 11 looking at operations qualifications since this is a 12 permanent shutdown reactor, those are not 13 applicable. So the technical aspects we'd be 14 looking at are focused on the maintenance of the 15 facility, fuel handling, constructing and loading 16 and independent spent fuel -- installation and the 17 decreasing of the plant.
18 We will also be looking at the financial 19 qualifications of Zion Solutions to take over the 20 plant --
21 MR. SNELL: Good evening -- I'm Bill 22 Snell. I'm from Region III in Lisle, Illinois I 23 have responsibility for the inspection program and -
24 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- if this is approved I'll have the lead for 1 inspections that will be taking place.
2 So, I'll talk a little bit about our 3 inspection program, what it is and what our 4 objectives are.
5 Essentially we have four primary 6 objectives and the first one is to obtain 7 information through direct observation of and 8 verification of licensee activities that are taking 9 place. Basically doing that by going to the site 10 and observing to see what people are doing and 11 essentially assessing performance while we're out 12 there. 13 We certainly want to verify the 14 activities are adequate and they're conducting 15 activities in accordance with the Regulatory 16 requirements and any other documents that have been 17 approved.
18 Things we look for are things like 19 declining in trends in performance or whether 20 they're following regulations and to do that, we go 21 out in the field and see what's going on.
22 We're also after the paramount purpose 23 of verifying that the site is cleaned up to levels 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 4that allow for release when it's all done. And 1 ensure safety. You know, safety is the main goal of 2 the NRC. We're interested in the safety of the 3 workers that are working there as well as the safety 4 of members of the public and we also want to make 5 sure that the environment is protected throughout 6 all the activities that are taking place.
7 So when we put our program together, 8 some of the things that we focus on are to ensure we 9 have adequate oversight. Then this is handled out 10 of Region, headquarters has a role for licensing 11 activities. Our primary role in the Region is 12 inspection, so we have to be sure we have the people 13 and the resources and the wherewithal to get out in 14 the field to do these inspections.
15 And so we put our program together such 16 that will enable us to do that. We verify that the 17 license is maintained, the documents are adequately 18 implemented, and that they reflect the status of 19 decommissioning. There are multiple programs, 20 including quality assurance programs, radiation 21 protection programs, audit programs, security 22 programs. All of these programs have to be 23 monitored by us. They have procedures that they 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 5have to follow so we're continually verifying that 1 procedures are adequate to do the job that they're 2 trying to do and verifying that they're maintaining 3 these procedures.
4 As conditions at the plant change, some 5 of the procedures may need to be modified. Some of 6 them are no longer relevant and need to be deleted, 7 you know, and so on and so forth. But we're trying 8 to keep on top of all the procedural requirements.
9 We also verify that there's reasonable 10 assurance that they can do what they're trying to 11 do. We look at their activities, we look at their 12 organization, to ensure that they can actually 13 perform what they said they're going to be able to 14 perform.
15 We don't tell them how many people they 16 have to hire to do the job but we want to make sure 17 that it's doable without compromising safety or the 18 environment or these other issues.
19 And certainly we're after the radiation 20 program being implemented appropriately. It's kind 21 of the key to the whole thing and we want to make 22 sure that they're controlling the radiation onsite 23 and protecting the people from radiation dose to the 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 6extent practicable and that they're adequately 1 measuring what's there, you know, quantifying what 2 the source term is and ensuring that, what they 3 already got a good handle on and keep it out of the 4 public domain inadvertently.
5 When we put our inspection plan 6 together, some of the things we look at that we're 7 trying to get across is a balanced cross-sectional 8 look at their entire operation. We look at a little 9 of everything that's going on in the site.
10 We put together a schedule based on 11 planned activities, reflecting in that the 12 decommissioning work that can change real rapidly 13 making it hard to maintain a real good schedule.
14 But to the extent we can, we plan our activities 15 based on what the licensee's doing so we can ensure 16 that we are there to see all major activities that 17 are taking place. Often times that's on short 18 notice and if that's what we have to do, that's what 19 we'll do.
20 We try to make sure our process is 21 extremely flexible. If we see declining trends or 22 problems, we have the people and resources to 23 respond as necessary and address any unexpected 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 7 problems that come up.
1 Our program is organized into two main 2 areas. We have our core inspection program and then 3 we have our discretionary inspection.
4 The core program is something that we 5 generally do every year. We look at all these 6 different areas. We may look at radiation 7 protection every time we come out. Where things 8 like quality assurance maybe be only a couple times 9 a year, it depends on, performance and, how we lay 10 it out. 11 Our discretionary inspections are 12 inspections that we'll put into effect if we see 13 there's a need. If we find a licensee performance 14 error, we may decide that we're going to bring in 15 additional people or more, just time and effort to 16 ensure that things are being done adequately and 17 appropriately.
18 The one thing we do is every year, we 19 develop what we call a master inspection plan and 20 that lays out our planned inspection activities for 21 the entire year. I generate that plan in the 22 regional office based on input from the licensee and 23 what their anticipated activities are.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 8 We try to be flexible based on what 1 activities they have coming up and depending on past 2 performance and what's in these activities that are 3 coming. We try to time our inspections to be 4 thoroughly effective to maximize our benefit from 5 our inspection plan for the time that we have.
6 We do plan everything in advance so it 7 gives us a little more latitude, even though things 8 can change. It's my expectation, if this is 9 approved, I would probably be out here, probably at 10 least every other week initially. And as things get 11 moving, probably at least once a month through the 12 duration of most of the project. We try to be 13 fairly involved and on top of what's going on.
14 That's more or less a quick overview of 15 what the program is and what we try to accomplish.
16 We do this for all our decommissioning reactors.
17 And as you see here, I am not he only inspector, but 18 others from the Region III office will also be doing 19 a lot of inspections up here.
20 Victoria is our public affairs officer.
21 Unfortunately she went home sick this morning. So 22 Prema Chandrathil is here for her today. So if you 23 have questions you can get in touch with her.
24 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 Sarah Bakhsh is probably going to be the 1 lead Region person for the dry cast storage part of 2 the inspection program.
3 They will be here after the meeting, if 4 you need to get their phone number we can get them 5 on the, on the list. I apologize for that. But 6 they will be around so if you want their phone 7 number or e-mail address you'll be able to get that.
8 And now I want to introduce Pat Daly 9 from Zion Solutions.
10 MR. DALY: Thanks a lot. Good evening.
11 As, while he's pulling the slides up, just to give 12 some quick background. Last, it was actually in 13 '06, Energy Solutions and Exelon got together --
14 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Could you use the 15 microphone a little closer?
16 AUDIENCE MEMBER: And your name?
17 MR. DALY: My name is Patrick Daly.
18 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.
19 MR. DALY: Okay. Sorry. In '06 Energy 20 Solutions and Exelon got together and we sat down 21 to, you know, to look at how we could accelerate the 22 decommissioning of the station.
23 And it, in looking at it, Exelon's core 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 10competency is electrical generation. Our core 1 competency is decommissioning and nuclear plant 2 services and waste management, and specifically 3 nuclear waste management.
4 And after we did a due diligence and 5 went through a process, we, we're confident that we 6 can accelerate the decommissioning for what's 7 existing in the trust fund. The prior plan was to 8 allow the trust fund to build up to a much higher 9 level. We think it's adequate as it is now and 10 that's why we want to go forward with this process.
11 And why we chose the process of 12 transferring the license and ownership of the assets 13 is based on lessons learned from other plants, 14 plants such as May Yankee, Connecticut Yankee.
15 There's been a number of issues through using a 16 traditional approach that transferring the 17 accountability to a decommissioning contractor is 18 intended to avoid and put the accountability and the 19 responsibility onto the decommissioning contractor 20 to get it done.
21 And we're motivated to get it done and 22 move on to the next project. So, again, that state 23 is to our, our job is to prepare the decommission of 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 11the plant, prepare the land for unrestricted use, 1 amend the license, transfer the license back to 2 Exelon and then we're going to move on to the next 3 project. 4 Just for those folks that, this is not 5 long enough, I wanted to go over and point out, but 6 just for those folks that aren't familiar with the 7 plant configuration, this is a current picture of 8 the plant.
9 The two large buildings are the 10 containment buildings where they contain the reactor 11 vessels and, and primary system components. The 12 large building in the middle is the turbine building 13 and turbine generator. And in between the two 14 containments is the fuel building and aux building.
15 16 The fuel building has a pool where the 17 spent nuclear fuel's currently contained. One of 18 the, one of the main tasks we have early on is to 19 remove the fuel, package it into dry storage 20 containers and move it to a licensed pad on the 21 property. And that will allow us access to that 22 building and to complete the decommissioning of the 23 plant. 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 12 I think that, as -- mentioned, we're, 1 Zion Solutions is wholly owned subsidiary of Energy 2 Solutions. We are formed specifically to perform 3 this decommissioning. And I, I'm the general 4 manager, John Christian's the president of Zion 5 Solutions.
6 Energy Solutions is a nuclear services 7 company. We're essentially at virtually every 8 nuclear facility in the U.S. performing services 9 both for nuclear waste processing, waste management, 10 decommissioning. We're also at several government 11 facilities, Department of Energy facilities, we have 12 several contracts over there.
13 We also have responsibility for 14 decommissioning responsibilities in the United 15 Kingdom. We currently have the contract for 22 16 reactors in the United Kingdom that are currently 17 undergoing decommissioning.
18 We are also a publicly traded company so 19 if you are interested, if you look under the symbol 20 ES, you can find additional information about our 21 company. The asset sale agreement is an 22 agreement that Exelon and Energy Solutions signed 23 just prior to the holidays. It is to transfer all 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 13the assets associated with the site and that 1 includes all the structures, buildings, components, 2 everything that's needed to maintain the current 3 configuration of the plant, along with, we submitted 4 a license transfer application just as was described 5 by the NRC to transfer the intensity of our 50 6 licenses to Zion Solutions.
7 And then once that's approved and we 8 meet some additional requirements, we'll close with 9 Exelon on the asset sale and then we'll be the owner 10 and responsible person for the site and for the 11 decommissioning.
12 We are, we are assuming all the 13 liabilities and all the risk of the decommissioning 14 and we believe that the current trust fund is 15 adequate to perform the decommissioning.
16 If, for some reason, there was some 17 unforeseen incident we have also in the -- we are 18 required to place a $200 million letter of credit or 19 bond to back up, you know, if we are running into 20 financial difficulties. As well as we're also 21 required to provide any disposal asset backup.
22 And what that involves is, we own the 23 only commercial low-level radioactive disposal site 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 14in the country, the only licensed disposal site for 1 commercial and held in Clive, Utah.
2 And we agreed with Exelon, should we 3 fail, we've guaranteed space in that cell for all of 4 Zion low-level radioactive waste. So there, there's 5 several backs ups. And we're, again, we're very 6 confident that we can complete this within the 7 decommissioning fund and we won't, we won't need 8 those back ups.
9 And I, the NRC mentioned this earlier 10 too, Exelon will retain ownership of the land, we 11 will lease the land during the process of the 12 decommissioning. They also retain ownership of the 13 spent fuel under a general license. We will be 14 accountable and responsible for the handling and, 15 and fuel transfer and, and maintenance of the fuel.
16 And the last item there, the greater 17 class C waste, that's a type of waste, it's actually 18 the irradiated metal within the reactor vessels that 19 once we remove that, that also is going to be placed 20 in a dry fuel storage canister and placed on the pad 21 with the fuel and then eventually that's the 22 responsibility of the Department of Energy to, to 23 dispose of.
24 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 Our approach is, is different. Again, 1 we looked at the lessons learned from the other 2 decommissioning projects. Are approached is to bulk 3 remove material. The traditional approach is to 4 surgically remove, you know, look, surveying, look 5 for contamination, surgically remove it, survey 6 again, then free release equipment.
7 Our approach is we're going to go in, 8 we're going to rip out the equipment, we're going to 9 bulk remove it, we're going to ship it by train to 10 Clive, Utah and then we'll move fuel absolutely 11 that, the, the material out of there, then we're 12 going to perform our surveys.
13 And this is all, I'm talking about 14 moving the materials inside the building where we're 15 doing all the work inside the buildings where it's 16 confined.
17 And then we'll do our surveys. We'll 18 get to a point where we'll be able to release the 19 buildings for general demolition and that will be 20 out in about year five, five/six, somewhere in that 21 range. That we'll actually into the full demolition 22 of the buildings.
23 But the most of the work the head is 24 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 going to be labor intensive and it's going to be 1 inside the buildings. And again, we utilize gondola 2 carts for, for build debris, concrete debris. We 3 also use trains for major components such as a steam 4 generator on a rail car that at the time has eight 5 of those generators, we're going to be shipping to 6 Clive. 7 And -- that I've mentioned, that's going 8 to be about a four year campaign for us and it 9 involves a pad just, just like is depicted in this 10 picture here. It involves entering into a contract 11 with a, a licensed vendor, a vendor who has a 12 licensed design to store for, for the fuel, who will 13 purchase canisters and equipment, load the fuel, 14 place the fuel on the pad and then that's the 15 licensed facility that will store the fuel until --
16 is, comes to the company for disposal.
17 The, the campaign, as I mentioned, is 18 about four years long. There's about two years of 19 effort to design, build a pad, procure the 20 equipment, train people, get everybody lined up and 21 then two years of double shift work to load the 22 cans. We'll load a can, about one a week and put 23 them on the, put them on the pad.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 17 One of the last things, after we, after 1 we remove the fuel, all the, all the equipment and 2 components have been stripped out of the buildings, 3 the buildings have been free released and we 4 demolish them, then we go onto a phase of 5 restoration.
6 You know, we go into our final set of 7 surveys and at that point we will have our license 8 termination plan in hand, we'll be doing our 9 surveys, our sampling, we'll be backfilling, we'll 10 be grading. The NRC at that point will be coming in 11 to do their independent verifications and then 12 there's a, we have a fairly lengthy process time in 13 there to work through any issues and to obtain the 14 license amendment to release the land from 15 restricted use.
16 We, in our estimate, and if you go 17 online and pull the document off the NRC website, 18 our current estimate has, has about $978 million in 19 current dollars to perform the overall 20 decommissioning. And this is just our, our best 21 guess as how that dollar, how those dollars are 22 going to be spent and how those dollars are going, a 23 lot of those dollars are going to end up in the 24 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 community.
1 And, as you can see, the biggest, the 2 biggest factor on that is labor. We anticipate, at 3 our peak, employing approximately 400 to 450 people.
4 Half of those will be trades and labor. The other 5 half will be technicians, engineers and professional 6 finance and those type of folks.
7 Just, just a very simple schedule, it, 8 right now we have in our estimate, ten years. The 9 bulk of the work, the bulk of the physical work will 10 be done in the first six years. And we have the, 11 the fuel storage, as I mentioned, is about a four 12 year effort. It, the middle bar in there, that 13 really involves removal of all the radiological 14 materials, source material, sending it to Clive for 15 disposal, demolishing the buildings and grading.
16 And then the last part is restoration 17 work on the land. Final status surveys, surveys of 18 the land to make sure it's free of, not only 19 radiological material but we also are responsible 20 for moving any hazardous material as well.
21 So we do all that work, do the samples.
22 Both the NRC and as well as the State of Illinois 23 and any other folks will then come in, perform their 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 19verifications of our work and once everybody is 1 satisfied, then we, we submit the amendment for 2 license to be approved by the NRC.
3 That's about it.
4 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you, Pat. That 5 concludes our presentation or presentations. We 6 would like to, this is the point in the meeting 7 where we would like to solicit comments from the 8 public. Before we do that, though, I would like to 9 propose that we take a five minute break.
10 Audio and visual from the hotel is here, 11 we're going to try to get the audio/visual, the 12 audio system hooked up. So if you could just, maybe 13 just stretch your legs for five minutes and then 14 we'll resume. Okay. Thank you.
15 (Off the record.)
16 MR. PERSINKO: The only thing I'll ask 17 is that as you make your comment, speak up if you 18 can, as loud as you can so we catch it on the 19 transcription here. Unfortunately I can't, I can't 20 move the microphone out where I want it to be. So 21 I'd ask you to, to speak up and I'll try to restate 22 your question into the microphone if possible.
23 So, with that I'd like to ask, open it 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 20up for comments, questions and we'll, we'll try to 1 answer any questions you may have. Yes?
2 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Okay. This is a 3 question about the licensing and a licensee. This 4 says that the licensee submits the plan to the NRC.
5 The NRC has the best people available to them, not 6 only in the United States but in the world. How is 7 it that the NRC doesn't put out a plan that then a 8 licensee can submit a --
9 MR. PERSINKO: Are you, the plan you're 10 referring to, the license termination plan that we -
11 - 12 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: No. It says, 13 the concepts. The licensee submits a plan to the 14 NRC. So my question is, why wouldn't the NRC have a 15 clean up plan and put it out for a bid for someone 16 to, to do it, some company to do it?
17 MR. PERSINKO: The responsibility of the 18 clean up is the licensee's responsibility. The NRC 19 is an oversight group that will ensure that the 20 cleanup meets the NRC's regulations.
21 So the plan that's put forth by, that's 22 submitted to the NRC is, is the licensee's plan.
23 There are bidding licensees out there and there are 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 21 different --
1 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: But you're 2 superior, you are superior to everyone. You really 3 have the expertise available to you from everyone.
4 Every, the best in the world. So, you know, why 5 wouldn't the top bureau, governmental entity have a, 6 have a way, present that this is the way to do it 7 right? 8 MR. PERSINKO: Did you hear the question 9 -- there are many ways, I would say, to do it right.
10 The, there are different constraints, different 11 drivers on how a, how a licensee wants to proceed 12 doing the decommissioning. How, what order things 13 needs to be disassembled. And it's not always the 14 same order all the time.
15 There are different, different reasons 16 why a different, one licensee may want to 17 disassemble component A first and moving B second.
18 So there's no one plan that the NRC can put forth 19 and say this is the way to do it.
20 But the NRC has bodies and the NRC has 21 regulations that must be met. So when the licensee 22 completes its, well during decommissioning, as Bill 23 said, we, we have oversight, we do inspections to 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 22make sure that the workers are safe meeting the 1 NRC's radiological regulations.
2 And we, and at the end toward, you heard 3 about the final status surveys, NRC does their 4 analyses to make sure that the residual 5 radioactivity that's remaining at the site is below 6 NRC threshold levels. That's what the NRC cares 7 about. It's basically what, what we call 8 performance based regulations.
9 We don't dictate the step by step 10 processes but we are very, very interested in that 11 end point as well. Because the end point is, is the 12 real important part. It's the, we want to make sure 13 that the radioactivity level, that's it not a hazard 14 to public health and safety.
15 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Okay. I really 16 commend you for that type of oversight for safety.
17 But I'm just thinking on the interest of saving the 18 public the money it would cost for trial and error, 19 not mention the danger of trial and error by all 20 these licensees trying out to their best to the best 21 -- why not ask the top, top scientists, the health 22 physicists, the nuclear engineers, the ones who meet 23 in Washington who, who know what -- more than other 24 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 staff? 1 I submit to you -- people over you so 2 that maybe they might, the National Regulatory 3 Commission might coordinate with the right, one of 4 the right, well the right way, the way that's best 5 recommended by a Commission of top scientists, top 6 nuclear engineers.
7 Okay -- for that particular site.
8 MR. PERSINKO: Okay. We have your 9 comment and, and thank you very much. Any other 10 comments, questions?
11 AUDIENCE MEMBER: There was several 12 mentions about accountability and some other issues 13 and the word rules used on the last group of slides.
14 So there was discussion of a bond, are we lead to 15 believe that Zion Solutions has a net worth of in 16 excess of $200 million and/or that somehow they 17 could come to the rescue if something does go afoul 18 here? 19 MR. PERSINKO: Well, Mike do you want to 20 handle this or --
21 MR. DUSANIWSKY: I can do this loud and 22 clear -- whatever method they wish to use for the --
23 if we were to do that, I'll have to say 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 24respectively, respectably that the, that you have to 1 really talk to the Congress of the United States.
2 Our charter is clear.
3 The old Atomic Energy Commission had 4 that kind of responsibility of discussing but that 5 was separated when the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 6 -- in 1975.
7 As far as the $200 -- $200 million line 8 of credit that they will have -- and it is up to the 9 bank as to whether or not they will accept the 10 balance sheet, the assets, the criteria, whatever 11 they may choose to issue such a $200 million line of 12 credit. 13 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I understand that.
14 But you used the word, who, please -- Zion Solutions 15 or is it Energy Solutions? Is it your company or is 16 it this little company that may or may not -- I, 17 detail of which escapes me for the moment but I 18 believe that is Energy Solutions that is putting it 19 up? 20 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Right. It is Energy 21 Solutions' parent guarantee. Energy Solutions is a 22 publicly held company on the New York Stock 23 Exchange. You can look it up when you go home, try 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 25under the symbol ES. I checked it this morning so 1 unless there's a big change, our market 2 capitalization is something over $2 billion.
3 The net worth of the company, you can 4 look up in our annual report under the quarterly 5 filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission 6 so all those details will be there.
7 If you have further questions that, that 8 aren't revealed to you through, through that kind of 9 research, I can certainly put you in touch with our 10 investor relations people in our home office in St.
11 Lake City who can answer those kinds of questions.
12 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Great. I'm sorry, I 13 don't mean to -- this is and I understand, I think 14 the charter issues in some of that, but it would 15 appear to me anyways, that the NRC is either going 16 to push the yes button or push the no button here.
17 So they are, in fact, reviewing the details of this.
18 And it does appear to me with little question that 19 the large company with a significant net worth, 20 greater than the gentleman's statements here, is 21 being let off the hook, so to speak, by the transfer 22 of the license to yet another body who will 23 undertake work.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 26 Now if something does go wrong, am I 1 correct in thinking right now that Exelon is not 2 responsible during this ten year period because they 3 simply are not the licensee? Is that correct?
4 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I understand the 5 nature of your concern. But what you're asking is 6 really a legal question. And I do understand that 7 once the license is transferred, it will be the 8 responsibility of Zion Solutions, with its parent 9 company, Energy Solutions to decommission and 10 decontaminate this facility.
11 Now if something goes wrong, from 12 whatever caliber you may discuss, the truth is that 13 there is sufficient number of dollars involved that 14 what, you know, how much, how far do we go for 15 reasonable is really what it's going to come down 16 to. 17 AUDIENCE MEMBER: The drinking water for 18 16 million people --
19 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Understood.
20 AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- is 100 yards away.
21 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Understood. But what 22 I can only tell you is that as far as the financial 23 qualifications of the applicant, in this case being 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 27Zion Solutions, is significant. And, in addition to 1 which, even if it were to remain with Exelon, those 2 same concerns you are discussing now are essentially 3 the same.
4 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I doubt that.
5 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well --
6 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well how could that 7 possibly be on a balance sheet basis? How? Exelon 8 has a -- is not using any of their money, they're 9 using the money that people in this room paid in for 10 the -- fund. And they're making a call on it.
11 If they run short, there's $200 million.
12 Granted, who knows what it is. But when these 13 other legal questions possibly come into play, I 14 don't know what those would be, very frankly, I'm 15 not capable of saying that. But let's just imagine 16 that you -- a short list of the worst things that 17 could happen -- far and above anybody's capability 18 of this, in this audience. So realistically, if one 19 of those things should go wrong, who do we want 20 answering that?
21 The people who got the original license 22 or do we want people that have maybe great 23 capabilities that are simply operating on site? I 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 28mean how, how is that repaired? I don't understand 1 where the resources would come to address that?
2 AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- the disposal site.
3 Which means that they don't necessarily have to put 4 up a dollar amount value for that disposal but it 5 releases dollars that would have otherwise been used 6 towards that for other activities. It still 7 releases a lot of dollars available to take care of 8 the necessary decommissioning and decontamination 9 requirements.
10 AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's the business 11 operation, I understand that. But also being a U.S.
12 taxpayer and being bit about -- so does the 13 Department of Energy have an equal site, why can't 14 we put it in our own place, if that's the case 15 that's going to save money. Don't we have a, don't 16 we have a DOE site in Utah also, where we can place 17 things at taxpayer expense versus private 18 enterprise? Couldn't we save money there?
19 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm not sure where 20 the, where the question's going but I can tell you 21 that the reasonable assurance is there based on our 22 regulations.
23 MR. PERSINKO: Let me say -- that 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 29substantial amount of information and that's a 1 question for the, of the applicant. But the review 2 of the --
3 AUDIENCE MEMBER: All right.
4 MR. PERSINKO: Yes, ma'am? Even though 5 you -- 6 MS. LEWISON: I'm Glenda Lewison and I'm 7 with Nuclear Energy Information Services, which is 8 the nuclear watch out group in Illinois. We've been 9 around for 27 years. And we have many concerns 10 about the decommissioning and doing it in the proper 11 way. 12 So I just want to address a couple of 13 them. One was mentioned by our director, Dave 14 Craft, when we were up here at the last meeting.
15 And that was about protecting the high level nuclear 16 waste on site when you move it. That is probably 17 the most dangerous part of the process.
18 And Dave Craft made the point at the 19 last meeting, which I just want to reiterate, that 20 when you set it up there like bowling pins and you -
21 - that's a much more, much too dangerous way to 22 configure the new arrangement.
23 What you want to do, what's suggested as 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 30the best practice is, is to scatter those canisters 1 in an irregular way throughout the site so that you 2 can't just blob them like, you know, like a bowling 3 ball to those very regular, just one football field 4 size. 5 And also what was suggested, we haven't 6 had a lot more security on any of these sites since 7 9/11 which is its own problem, that we not, that we 8 berm the site so that there aren't these direct site 9 lines for terrorists or people who would like to 10 attack or aim missiles at them, that we berm the 11 site so that we at least protect it that way.
12 So we would be very interested in being 13 on the task force because I think that we have the 14 expertise in these areas and that there needs to be 15 that watchdog function as part of the task force to, 16 to change that configuration both to scatter it 17 throughout the site and to berm it for the obvious 18 reasons that I, that I just mentioned.
19 And the other consideration that I 20 wanted to, to bring up was, again, to address the 21 trust, the trust fund issues. How much is there and 22 what is the, at the last meeting you said there was 23 $850 million that we put down on our electric bill 24 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 over the years and that you needed a billion and 1 that you expected the interest from the declining 2 principle to put up, to come forth with the net, 3 with the last 150 million over the course of the ten 4 years. 5 Could you, could you address that again, 6 too? 7 MR. DUSANIWSKY: I understand -- but I 8 will -- in terms of describing what we have not 9 found to be a show stopper at this point, I am not 10 finished with my analysis and I can't really get 11 into more detail that that at this point, at least 12 on the financial parts of it.
13 MR. PERSINKO: We have your comment on 14 the transcription with Mike's review of the 15 financial aspects thus far. One thing I'd like to 16 just say on your earlier 17 -- review of the spent fuel -- canisters -- that 18 review is done by another group of -- we have a set 19 of regulations and parts that -- and parts -- that 20 specifies what needs to be done -- the spent fuel.
21 And that review is done by another group. And it's 22 not, not our group, but it will be another group 23 that reviews that to assure that the regulations are 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 32 met. 1 Just one second, try to spread it around 2 through here. Yes, ma'am?
3 MS. SHINEFLUG: My name is Marilyn 4 Shineflug. Unfortunately I don't have a prepared 5 speech tonight but I do have some questions.
6 I have been concerned about nuclear 7 power since the mid 1970's and it, there, you know, 8 it, but I've recently become concerned now because 9 of the plans up here at Zion. Now, obviously it 10 will be better to have the spent fuel pool closed, 11 you know, I do agree with that. And the sooner it's 12 decommissioned the better.
13 However, I'm concerned about some of the 14 methods that you, that you are mentioning. And I'm 15 also concerned about some facts that you're not 16 mentioning. To begin with, what type of casks do 17 you plan to use onsite? What kind of dry storage 18 casks do you plan to use?
19 MR. PERSINKO: I don't know if the 20 decision's been made yet, it's not the NRC's 21 decision as to what kind of cask should be used.
22 The licensee decides what casks they would like to 23 use and then they would propose that to the NRC.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 33 Well the casks are, there are certain 1 kind of casks that have, there are different 2 manufacturers of casks.
3 MS. SHINEFLUG: Yes. Yes, I know.
4 MR. PERSINKO: That have NRC approval 5 already. The choice of those casks, which there's 6 different vendors, different styles, is the licensee 7 decision and then they would come to the NRC for the 8 approval. I don't know if the decision has been 9 made as to what kind of cask and what vendor they're 10 -- 11 MR. DALY: We have not, we have not 12 selected a vendor. There have been, there's about 13 four vendors that have licensed --
14 MS. SHINEFLUG: And the names of those 15 vendors, please, that you're considering?
16 MR. DALY: One is called Holteck -- a company 17 called Mack -- and 18 MS. SHINEFLUG: What are the, the 19 gentleman here wants me to ask, what are the 20 different pros and cons between the different brands 21 of casks?
22 MR. DALY: They're, they're essentially 23 all very similar. They all have to meet the 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 34requirements of the NRC. They're all configured the 1 same way. The differences are in the size. Some 2 hold more fuel and some hold less. But they're all 3 essentially the same configuration. And I've got, 4 you know, photographs of the different canisters and 5 they all look, you couldn't, if you looked at them, 6 you didn't know the difference between the vendors.
7 If you looked at one, you couldn't tell one from 8 another. 9 MS. SHINEFLUG: Well, but the problem, 10 the problem as far as the public is concerned, if 11 you disagree, is that there are differences, and I 12 know that the Holteck cask has had many problems. I 13 can't remember the name of the gentleman that was 14 released from Exelon because he, you know, looked, 15 looked at some of the difficulties in the way that 16 the casks were constructed.
17 But rather than argue about the type of 18 cask at this point, have you considered hardening 19 the casks because a number of groups throughout the 20 country are in support of this decommissioning and 21 in support of the storage in the dry casks, as 22 opposed to the spent fuel pool, it's not that any 23 group likes any of it but, you know, we have to deal 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 35 with the problems that we have.
1 So, my question is, have you considered 2 hardening the casks?
3 MR. DALY: -- is to meet the federal 4 requirements that ensure public health and safety.
5 So we will only use -- that are designed in a safety 6 basis and have been approved by the NRC. They are 7 very robust systems. They come with over-casks so 8 you have a canister that's inside a concrete, 9 reinforced concrete and steel outer cask that's 10 approximately two to three feet in thickness.
11 So these, these are very robust. They 12 are, they are very robust.
13 MS. SHINEFLUG: Well, you say they're, 14 you say they're robust but there's, all you have to 15 do is go on the internet and I'll give you a couple 16 of different sites that everybody here in the room 17 can take the opportunity to look at without too much 18 trouble and what is it, those missiles that some, 19 there are some type of missile that they've shot at 20 these things, you know, once maybe it was okay, it 21 couldn't get through the outer level but then they, 22 if a second missile would go off, it could easily go 23 in and cause all kinds of havoc and, and huge 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 36amounts of radiation to come out and to, you're 1 smiling, you know, like you've heard this before.
2 MR. DALY: Well --
3 MS. SHINEFLUG: But, you know, those are 4 the, a hardened onsite cask, I, I don't know if 5 there's agreement exactly on how it would be built, 6 but it would be these dry storage casks with some 7 type of concrete shell put over them so that they 8 would not be so open, vulnerable, to, thank you, to 9 some kind of terrorist or any kind of mischievous or 10 an airplane or something like that.
11 So, okay, that's why I'm concerned, so 12 you don't --
13 MS. BAKHSH: Can I --
14 MS. SHINEFLUG: Sure.
15 MS. BAKHSH: My name is Sarah Bakhsh, 16 I'm just trying to address some of this -- the 17 direct fuel storage, inspector in the Region III NRC 18 office. Just to, the vendor, like the manufacturer 19 of the casks would be responsible for, like the 20 responsible, they would be responsible for making a 21 cask with greater shielding.
22 There's different types of casks for the 23 different types of fuels that are in there, 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 37depending on how long it's been in there. And the 1 list of approved casks in the regulation, the -- are 2 the ones from the NRC.
3 And they've analyzed, like your 4 reference before to the bowling pins, these are 100, 5 over 100 ton casks. And they're, been analyzed to 6 where they were going to be put on the site by the 7 NRC. They've been tested for missiles and seismic.
8 All that has, is looked into before these casks are 9 approved. And that's why there's just a list.
10 And then based on that, they have 11 licensing basis that we also go and inspect to when 12 the fuel will be transported.
13 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Do you have a science 14 -- 15 MS. BAKHSH: Yes.
16 MS. SHINEFLUG: But the question, but 17 the question is, are the NRC standards strict enough 18 at this point? And, and the feeling is they're not 19 and, and that the public should really request that 20 these independent spent fuel storage facilities be, 21 have hardened, have the concrete over-structure or 22 somehow be made safer.
23 Okay. I think I made my point. What 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 38 is, and another question that came up as we were 1 talking here, what is the exact train route? I was 2 at an earlier meeting and you, you gave the most 3 simplistic, insulting map which showed a dot at Zion 4 and another dot at Proviso. And it did not explain 5 or detail what route? Are these going to go over 6 the Chicago Northwestern tracks, are they over the 7 Milwaukee road tracks? What is the exact train, 8 proposed train route for getting rid of, I don't 9 know, how many, how many train loads of this is 10 there going to be?
11 MR. PERSINKO: I don't know the answer 12 to that. 13 MR. DALY: I can answer. I mean, we, we 14 will be entering into an agreement with Union 15 Pacific on --
16 MS. SHINEFLUG: Union Pacific?
17 MR. DALY: Yeah, Union Pacific. But we, 18 we're not at that point.
19 MS. SHINEFLUG: So is that the old 20 Chicago Northwestern line?
21 MR. DALY: I, I can't answer that.
22 MS. SHINEFLUG: I think it is.
23 MR. DALY: I mean we're, we're still 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 39quite a ways away from entering into an agreement 1 with them. We're, still quite a ways away from 2 actually moving and shipping debris, the low level 3 debris from the site.
4 MS. SHINEFLUG: But, but if there's 5 planning to take place, I would think that this 6 would be one of the first things that you want 7 because if you end up with a whole lot of protests 8 about the particular route that the train is taking, 9 then you're going to have to think of another route, 10 you know. I mean I'm, I don't organize protests.
11 I'm just asking questions, yeah. Okay.
12 MR. DALY: A lot, then a lot will have 13 to depend on the railroad, just for a sidebar, I 14 mean, they, shipments are made every day in this 15 country. They're on the railroads, they're on the 16 roads. Low level radioactive waste -- the 17 alternative to be would be we'll leave it here. I 18 don't think that's good for the high level.
19 MS. SHINEFLUG: But yeah, it's the 20 higher level waste and the fact that it seems like 21 the definition between low level and mid level has 22 been changed so that mid level can be thrown in and 23 be considered low level?
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 40 MR. DALY: No. No.
1 MS. SHINEFLUG: Okay. Greater than 2 Class C waste stays on site and it, what are the 3 other two classes? A and B? Okay. What, can you 4 define those for the folks, the radiation levels 5 from each group?
6 MR. DALY: A is very low level. And, 7 and that's what we're licensed to take in -- there's 8 a Class B waste and a Class C waste which is 9 intermediate level which, right now, as of this 10 month, in fact, the only disposal facility in the 11 United States is closing is --
12 MS. SHINEFLUG: Yeah, Barwell, right?
13 MR. DALY: Yes, Barnwell.
14 MS. SHINEFLUG: Okay.
15 MR. DALY: It's close to Illinois so 16 there won't be a final -- for B and C waste.
17 MS. SHINEFLUG: Okay. So now there's no 18 place to take it?
19 MR. DALY: Well, our agreement with 20 Exelon is we are to package the waste in compliant 21 containers. We will maintain, safely maintain that 22 waste until the -- is met and if a disposal site is 23 not available at that time, we are going to go 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 41locate that waste at a licensed storage facility, 1 that's licensed for storage. It won't be onsite, it 2 will be somewhere else.
3 There, there are facilities in Tennessee 4 and Texas that are licensed storage.
5 MS. SHINEFLUG: Okay. Thank you. Well, 6 one last question. Our concern, too, the concern, I 7 think, of some of the environmentalists is that this 8 stuff is going to stay here forever because, in 9 fact, we have no guarantee at all that, that the 10 Yucca Mountain site where this is all supposed to go 11 is ever going to open. And I know the nuclear 12 industry likes to say, well, it's up to the 13 Department of Transportation to take it and they're 14 going to say well, you know, we'd put it in Yucca 15 but it's the people's fault, you know, and if they 16 wouldn't complain about it, you know, we'd have 17 taken care of it.
18 So it's just this giant circle that goes 19 around and around of blame. And, you know, what, 20 what are you going to, how, how long can it stay 21 here? I mean four years, 60 years, what is the 22 length of time that, that it could stay here if 23 Yucca Mountain never opens?
24 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 MR. DALY: I, I can't --
1 MS. SHINEFLUG: Okay. Well, well that's 2 a concern. Let's, let's just, I'll encourage people 3 go to websites for Union of concerned scientists, 4 there's another one called Beyond Nuclear. You can 5 just Google all this stuff. NIRS is Nuclear 6 Information Resource Service which is very similar 7 to this lady's group which is Nuclear Energy 8 Information Service which his more local.
9 But, but NIRS is Nuclear Information 10 Resource Service. Another one, Institute for Energy 11 and Environmental Research. IEER.org has got a 12 number of very qualified individuals who are saying 13 -- for a nuclear free future. Thank you.
14 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you. I'd just like 15 to note that the NRC received an application last 16 week from the Department of -- Yucca Mountain. So 17 the NRC is in the beginning stages of its license 18 review for Yucca Mountain.
19 MS. SHINEFLUG: But it's been going on 20 for decades.
21 MR. PERSINKO: But we never got the 22 application until last week.
23 AUDIENCE MEMBER: What I had to say was, 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 43 I -- 1 MR. PERSINKO: I'd like to spread the 2 questions around because, like colleagues of yours 3 to be able to ask questions and then, if time exists 4 at the end, I'm, we can handle questions more. But 5 I guess I would like to maybe limit your questions 6 or comments to about five minutes and then we can, 7 and then if time permits at the end and you still 8 have more questions and there's available time, we 9 can be happy to take further questions and comments.
10 And also let me say, if you don't have a 11 microphone in front of you, please speak up because 12 we're trying to capture it on the microphone over 13 here. 14 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'd like to piggyback 15 a little bit on what this lady was just saying about 16 the Yucca Mountain. I got a copy of the amended 17 post shut down decommissioning activities report 18 which was dated March 17, 2008. Part of it on page 19 10 says, finally when the high level repository in 20 Yucca Mountain, Nevada becomes operational, spent 21 fuel storage containers will be transported to Yucca 22 Mountain facilities for their ultimate disposal.
23 I had the privilege of going to Yucca 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 44 Mountain for about the last five years and I was 1 recently there in December of '07. And we do a tour 2 there, I belong to the IBEW nuclear side so we do a, 3 we have our nuclear conference out there, utility 4 conference every year.
5 The lead engineer gives us a tour out 6 there and he's telling us there's no, there's no 7 time table for it. It could be 20 years, it could 8 never happen. We don't know yet.
9 So, and I live about 100 miles from here 10 so I'm not going to be affected, necessarily by 11 this, but I think the people of Zion might, might 12 want to know, what happens should this never open up 13 and how long, and the question was before, in fact, 14 you said you didn't really know because you just 15 don't know yet but how long are these containers 16 going to remain at Zion, right now where the Zion 17 station is, and how long can they be stored there?
18 And is that the intent, is to store them 19 there should Yucca Mountain not open up, are they 20 going to remain?
21 MR. PERSINKO: Unfortunately, that's a 22 national policy decision that goes, well, I guess 23 frankly, well above our pay grade. Right now there 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 45is a lot of discussion as to whether it's 1 appropriate to have the spent fuel stored at lots of 2 locations around the country or one location, Yucca 3 Mountain. And it's, it's not a decision we can, we 4 can make one way or the other. I mean we can look 5 at the application the DOE submitted to us and the 6 group in the NRC's going to review that.
7 But whether or not it actually happens 8 is pretty much going to be a Congressional decision.
9 Could we kind of spread it around? I 10 think you've spoken already.
11 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Just a question I 12 wanted to ask, two weeks ago the -- radioactive 13 waste and all of these -- the last time we got 14 together. And the current state of the art from 15 those people, and I seem -- we have some new people 16 in this conference is that you put it in the 17 hardened onsite storage containers, it's -- last 18 about 15 years -- and that's what they're 19 recommending for -- that's all.
20 AUDIENCE MEMBER: How many nuclear, 21 nuclear reactors has the NRC, over the years, 22 decommissioned or regulated their decommissioning?
23 And how many accidents have there been? Is there an 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 46 accident rate ratio associated with that?
1 MR. PERSINKO: I haven't counted how 2 many we've done. Half dozen to a dozen, somewhere 3 in that range.
4 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Maine, Vermont.
5 MR. PERSINKO: -- power reactors such as 6 Zion, I'm guessing half dozen. There are also 7 research and test reactors out there too that NRC 8 has responsibility for overseeing the 9 decommissioning of but --
10 AUDIENCE MEMBER: How many of those have 11 you done?
12 MR. PERSINKO: Quite a few.
13 MR. DALY: Half a dozen of those.
14 AUDIENCE MEMBER: So you approximately 15 have 18 reactors that have been decommissioned and 16 you've been the over site -- of those, how many 17 accidents have you encountered or accident ratios?
18 MR. DALY: What kind of accidents?
19 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Accidents that you 20 would either, radiation or worker being hurt.
21 Anything that you would say would be recordable?
22 MR. PERSINKO: I don't know how many, 23 let me say this, the accidents connotate a major 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 47error. There are cases where certain people may 1 receive overexposure. I don't believe it's very 2 often and it's very great. I don't know if you have 3 more to say about that, Bill?
4 MR. SNELL: I, I can't speak globally to 5 everybody. The only thing that I, I can tell you 6 I've had experience was, because I went through the 7 entire Big Rock Point decommissioning process which 8 was nine years along, I was up there when they lost 9 their 23 year record for not having a lost day, 10 motion report of a lost day accident. And that's 11 because an individual slipped in some snow outside 12 the plant area and broke his ankle and had to go 13 into surgery the next day.
14 And I think they went through the rest 15 of the decommissioning without another lost day 16 accident. And to my knowledge, nobody had any 17 overexposure for the entire duration of the, of the 18 project. 19 And Pat worked up there too, he may have 20 -- 21 MR. PERSINKO: Could you speak up, Pat?
22 MR. DALY: All right. Real quick, our 23 report or -- or for our company for Commercial 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 48 Services --
1 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I've already 2 researched the violations --
3 MR. DALY: For the whole company is less 4 than 1.26 so it's, it's world class. And you have, 5 it is safer to work at a nuclear plant than it is to 6 work -- that's the we, we put the high priority on 7 it. The other think I, I -- we are going to have a 8 safety committee that's going to be half labor guys, 9 trade labor guys and half management and they're 10 going to -- the legal limit for exposure is five --
11 and we, we are going to implement a -- we're going 12 to manage even lower levels than that so --
13 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Will everybody be 14 monitored daily?
15 MR. DALY: Everybody will be monitored 16 in and out. And everybody will be, have a -- suit 17 and everybody will receive training.
18 AUDIENCE MEMBER: What about the site?
19 Will the site be monitored also?
20 MR. DALY: The site, yes, has 21 requirements to both the surface -- monitoring as 22 well as air, air point monitoring.
23 AUDIENCE MEMBER: And who will oversee 24 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 the, will the NRC will oversee it?
1 MR. DALY: Absolutely. That's what our 2 job is. And we, we absolutely welcome the trade and 3 labor guys to get involved in that, and particularly 4 -- 5 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm one of those.
6 MR. DALY: Okay.
7 MR. PERSINKO: Gentleman in the back 8 down there?
9 MR. HOSTY: I have a prepared statement.
10 Good evening -- for giving me the opportunity to 11 speak tonight. I'm Patrick Host, the executive 12 director of the Chicago Area laborers employers 13 cooperation and education trust, also known as 14 LECET. LECET is a labor management organization 15 comprised of the 20 local Unions of the Laborers 16 district council of Chicago and vicinity, the 17 signatory contractor associations and independent 18 signatory contractors.
19 LECET represents over 2,000 contractors 20 and 20,000 Union laborers in the nine county area of 21 northeastern Illinois, including approximately 1,400 22 in Lake County.
23 We at LECET work to bring Union laborers 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 50and contractors together to develop opportunities 1 beneficial to one another and to the people who 2 depend on their services, including the communities 3 in northern Illinois.
4 LECET strongly supports -- decommission 5 the Zion Nuclear Station. Our labor management team 6 believes that the chance to decommission this plant 7 earlier than expected is beneficial to this 8 community. A long term, large scale project like 9 this will create much needed construction jobs in 10 northern Illinois.
11 The decommissioning will undoubtedly 12 provide work for the Union contractors and skilled 13 laborers represented by LECET. This proposal will 14 help stimulate the unstable construction industry 15 while providing steady incomes and well deserved 16 benefits to our Union laborers and their families 17 which will ultimately be pumped back into the local 18 and regional economies.
19 So, in closing, construction contractors 20 and Union laborers from the region need this work 21 which will ultimately clean up and beautify this 22 area. The Laborers International 23 Union of North American and all of its affiliates 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 51look forward to providing Zion Solutions and the 1 citizens of this area with the skilled personnel, 2 equipment and knowledge required to safely and 3 efficiently decommission the Zion Nuclear Station.
4 Thank you.
5 MR. PERSINKO: Can you state your name, 6 please? I'm told that the --
7 MR. HOSTY: Patrick Hosty, H-o-s-t-y.
8 MR. PERSINKO: And also, there were 9 others who have spoken tonight, the lady taking 10 transcription would like to have your name 11 afterwards so she can identify you in the transcript 12 other than by the color of your shirt or skirt that 13 you're wearing.
14 The fellow in the back, please?
15 MR. ARMSTRONG: I just have a question, 16 everybody's concern is that storage onsite, where's 17 it being stored now?
18 MR. PERSINKO: Onsite.
19 MR. ARMSTRONG: Onsite. I shipped 20 radioactive garbage out of that place in the early 21 '80's for 22 months. Parts of that building were in 22 a little rough shape then. It's onsite now in 40, 23 45 year old building that's falling down. Wouldn't 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 52we be further ahead to leave it onsite in new 1 technology than an old, falling down building?
2 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you. Thank you for 3 your comment. The gentleman here up front? Just to 4 state your name back there for the transcription?
5 MR. ARMSTRONG: Neil Armstrong.
6 MR. PERSINKO: Okay.
7 DAVE: Hi, my name's Dave -- I'm with 8 IBEW Local 15, I represent the Nuclear Workers at 9 Zion station. I have a two part question. Number 10 one, has there been any discussion with the Nuclear 11 Regulatory Commission about restarting the Zion 12 reactors?
13 And, secondly, is it not true that Yucca 14 Mountain with this, with all the current spent fuel 15 that's on the pads throughout the United States 16 would be full if it was to open right now and is 17 Zion considered, their spent fuel considered with 18 that? 19 MR. PERSINKO: Can you repeat that last 20 part, please?
21 DAVE: I have toured Yucca Mountain for 22 the last several years. You know, we've been told 23 that all the spent fuel that's already in the United 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 53States would already fill Yucca Mountain. Is Zion's 1 spent fuel part of that, that would already make 2 Yucca Mountain full or is it included in it? I 3 mean, we just don't know.
4 MR. PERSINKO: I don't know the answer 5 to that second, to that question. Anybody else?
6 No. 7 MR. DUSANIWSKY: The only thing I can 8 tell you is that the application that just come in 9 about a week ago and that type of question might be 10 answered once we have a chance to review it.
11 MR. PERSINKO: And there's been no 12 discussion that I know of about restarting the Zion 13 plant. 14 MR. SNELL: So, we're here to take it 15 down. 16 MR. HAMMER: My name is Bernard Hammer 17 and I am a concerned -- if everyone who would, these 18 people that have presented -- what happens when 19 concrete is exposed to radiation like this? Does 20 anybody know?
21 MR. PERSINKO: How much radiation?
22 MR. HAMMER: A lot. Nobody knows. Do 23 you know?
24 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 MR. PERSINKO: No, I don't. But there 1 are folks at headquarters that do.
2 MR. HAMMER: I do. Radiation causes 3 concrete to degrade, fall apart, crumble. Why?
4 Because concrete is not like granite. Concrete is a 5 chemically hard compound made out of chemicals and 6 water. I think practically everybody has seen a bag 7 of concrete mix, put in some water, mix it up, put 8 it in place and it gets hard in a couple of hours.
9 There's a crystal structure in concrete.
10 When radiation hits the concrete, the radiation 11 causes the water molecules which have polarity, both 12 positive and negative, the hydrogen is positive, the 13 oxygen is negative. It's like a little, tiny 14 magnet. It's like you put a nail near a compass and 15 it turns, cause of the -- the magnetic field.
16 In a microwave, you put a piece of meat 17 or pie or something and you turn on the radiation.
18 That radiation causes those water molecules to twist 19 and turn and twist and turn. And then they get, it 20 gets the food that it's a part of cooked.
21 Sometimes it steams. But the water 22 molecules, when they do that, break up the crystal 23 structure of the concrete and the concrete crumbles.
24 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 Now here's an article, it was in the Chicago 1 Tribune on April 28, 2008. And it talks about the 2 steel tomb for Chernobyl. It talks about the 3 concrete shelter constructed from iron and concrete 4 to seal that up.
5 It also says, and I quote, the old 6 shelter, called a sarcophagus, good name, was built 7 but intense radiation has weakened it, according to 8 the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and rain and 9 snow are seeping through the cracks.
10 It shows a picture in this article that 11 was in the Tribune for the public to read. And it 12 says, Chernobyl reactor number four in the Ukraine 13 has been leaking poison since the accident.
14 Now, it's my understanding that this 15 high level waste, which is right here in this 16 location now, can be dangerous for some 10,000 17 years. And the talk here has been, well, we'll put 18 it in these concrete containers and it's good for at 19 least 50 years. Well there's, there's no proof that 20 it will last 50 years. They're just saying that 21 that's their estimate.
22 Now what happens if the same thing 23 happens to these concrete dry casks? It happened at 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 56Chernobyl, they'll crumble. They'll leak and rain 1 and snow will get in and it will get all over and it 2 will be very, very dangerous for this neighborhood 3 especially. And for our Lake Michigan because it's 4 like Pandora's box, once the troubles get out of the 5 box, you can't get them back in.
6 That's no joke. It seems to me we have 7 to be very concerned about these so-called safe 8 casks, these dry casks. Even if they put stainless 9 steel or some other metal liner, why, because metal 10 is also got a metallic crystal structure. And that 11 crystal structure can be affected adversely by the 12 radiation. This is really, really dangerous stuff.
13 If the metal is degraded and then the 14 concrete is degraded, it gets out of that container 15 and it's all over the place, especially if it 16 happens to be in a big rainstorm when the leak 17 starts leaking.
18 We have to be most cautious about the 19 estimates, the assumptions, the statements of 20 possibility or probability. These are very 21 unscientific drugs, those words, you just have to 22 listen to them very carefully. Assumed, assumed 23 means maybe. This is dangerous stuff and so I 24 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 submit you have to be careful about what they're 1 doing. 2 And if Yucca Flats says, no, we can't 3 accept all of that toxic garbage, where is it going 4 to be? It's going to be right in this neighborhood, 5 it's not going anywhere because no one is going to 6 say, well put it in my backyard because they won't.
7 They are even attempts to ship it to 8 other continents. Well, those people are poor 9 people and what we would be doing is shipping our 10 toxic garbage to their backyard so that their people 11 and their land would be contaminated.
12 When Chernobyl blew up, the whole area 13 was contaminated, I won't say forever but for 14 thousands of years. Nobody can live there now.
15 Nobody can eat anything that's grown there, nobody 16 can vacation there. All the last, in effect, has 17 been removed from existence for humanity. And 18 that's what happens when all this stuff is assumed.
19 Because nobody here in this room will be alive 100 20 years from now. But your grandchildren, your great 21 grandchildren, your great, great grandchildren, 22 maybe they will be here. But they will be the ones 23 that are going to say, what did that generation do 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 58 to us, to give us an inheritance of disaster.
1 And that's with, and what's being done?
2 A company for the purpose of moving this stuff 3 around and making money on the moving is not going 4 to be around or liable when that disaster is here 5 for your great grandchildren.
6 I can say more but I'll stop here 7 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Have you ever been --
8 MR. HAMMER: No.
9 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Do you know what 10 separates you from that right now? A garage door.
11 MR. HAMMER: That's very good shielding.
12 Not very good shielding for me. I agree with you.
13 AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's what's 14 protecting those right now.
15 MR. HAMMER: Oh, there's one more 16 question I have. Why all of this is going on, that 17 land fronting on Lake Michigan, which is very, very, 18 very valuable land, it's taken out of productivity 19 for society. You can't build a school there. You 20 can't build a factory there, a housing development, 21 a shopping center.
22 Now what's that going to do to the tax 23 base of this community? Like you pull out your 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 59teeth and you don't have any teeth in your mouth, 1 they're gone. All the time that that's being 2 decommissioned, then being put on the shelf, it's 3 not doing anything. And it may never do anything.
4 This community is entitled to have the 5 benefits of its asset but because this plant was put 6 here, without thinking of the future, the future is 7 now. Yesterday's actions became today. And if we 8 don't think of what that damage is going to do to 9 this community, who's going to want to move here and 10 buy your property if there's a dangerous, like a 11 dangerous Frankenstein nearby.
12 Ant that dangerous Frankenstein, what if 13 it ever escaped, then what? Everything this whole 14 community owns will be garbage. We've seen that 15 happen on the east coast where they had chemical 16 waste go into Love's Canal and that whole area was 17 poisoned. You better think real, real 18 carefully about what's going on here. I won't say 19 what should or shouldn't be done, but think about 20 the dangers. You can't just turn your, stick your 21 head in the sand like an ostrich and go, oh, it's 22 down there on the lakefront, no big deal. Yeah, 23 it's down there on the lakefront, protected by a 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 60roll up door -- the building surrounding it falls 1 down. 2 Now, granted, these gentlemen here, 3 maybe it's not the greatest thing in the world.
4 Maybe Yucca Mountain, not Flats, may never happen.
5 That's happened right now, you know, what I'm 6 saying. 7 They're doing the best they can with 8 what they got. I personally think, I pray, I really 9 wish nobody had even invented nuclear power but 10 we're screwed, we're stuck with it. Screwed.
11 MR. PERSINKO: First of all, thank you 12 for your comment. Thank you for your comment. I 13 would just like to add one thing. I would like to 14 say that the NRC does, is very careful in what it 15 does. So the NRC, the NRC reviews all aspects of 16 nuclear safety and, in particular as I mentioned, 17 there's a group at the NRC that specializes in the 18 review, technical review of the spent fuel casks as 19 well as the, the foundations and all the other parts 20 of the independent spent fuel storage installation.
21 So I do want to say that the NRC does 22 look at it very carefully.
23 MR. HAMMER: Have they tested those 24 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 casks for 50 years?
1 MR. PERSINKO: NRC, I don't, I don't 2 know the specifics of that but I can, but I, there 3 are people at the NRC who could answer your 4 question. I just, your name is on the record.
5 We'll see if we can get you an answer on that.
6 But, let me, I don't have the, I'm not 7 the expert on the spent fuel casks.
8 I just want to say that Chernobyl has 9 certain attributes that are different than the 10 status of spent fuel on spent fuel pads. That's all 11 -- 12 MR. HAMMER: Degraded concrete is 13 degraded concrete. And I'm talking about it's 14 dangerous for the next 10,000 years.
15 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Just real quick, you 16 made a comment that even if they put it into like a 17 steel cask, they are in a steel casks. It's 18 typically a five inch stainless steel cask it gets 19 put in before it's put inside of the concrete over 20 pack. And those are, inverted, there's no water 21 inside. 22 MR. HAMMER: And the radiation degrades 23 the steel.
24 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 MR. SNELL: Well five inches of 1 stainless steel is going to last a lot longer than 2 the concrete. The other thing I just wanted to 3 mention is the comment on the, on the current status 4 of the spent fuel pool at the site. We inspect the 5 site on an ongoing basis currently and I can assure 6 you the fuel in the pool is safe. The building is 7 not falling down, if it was, we would be doing 8 something about it.
9 MR. SHULTUZ: Yeah, my name is Scott 10 Shultuz. I'm a laborer for Laborers Local 152. As 11 he just said, those fuel rods are right now stored 12 in concrete with stainless around it. And they've 13 been there for 40 years, you know.
14 They're going to go in new concrete, new 15 stainless, you know. That building, like the other 16 gentleman had said is deteriorating. The damage is 17 done. I mean this guy says, you know, nuclear fuel, 18 maybe it's not good, I'm sure it's not. It's there 19 and we got to deal with it. We've got to do 20 something with it.
21 And I feel like the time is now. That 22 place is deteriorating. And it will be in new lead 23 lined or stainless lined concrete where it's in old 24 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 stuff right now. I have worked down on the --
1 The NRC is very good on their oversight 2 on regulating what you do. I have worked for 3 contractors down there in the past and I'm sure it's 4 not going to be any different with this 5 dismantlement of this place, so. Thank you.
6 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you. This 7 gentleman.
8 MR. SCHRAEDER: Good evening. My name 9 is Ron Schraeder, I'm a business representative for 10 Local 150 International Union of Operating 11 Engineers. Approximately 23,000 members strong 12 throughout Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana.
13 We're the ones that you see out on 294 14 running the heavy equipment, bulldozers, backhoes, 15 paving equipment.
16 I stand here tonight to express the 17 support of the International Union of Operating 18 Engineers that has, excuse me, Zion Nuclear plant 19 license to be transferred over from Exelon to Zion 20 Solutions.
21 Believe at this time is, it's time to 22 take action and it's not a producing facility and to 23 move forward with the decommissioning of this 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 64 nuclear plant instead of sitting back and let it 1 degrade as it is.
2 Although there are many reasons for this 3 plant to be removed, most important are the 4 environmental enhancements and the economic stimulus 5 of this area. A project of this size will bring 6 jobs to this area during very tight economic times.
7 We also offer, this also offers members 8 of the Union in the community to work inside of 9 their own community to help safeguard our 10 communities from current degradation of the plant 11 which is what's currently going on.
12 The operating engineers are highly 13 skilled and high-tech and very well trained through 14 Federal Government and through following Federal 15 Government guidelines.
16 We're eager to supply Zion Solutions 17 with experienced and highly qualified expertise of 18 our members who are running the heavy equipment that 19 will be required for the decommissioning of this 20 plant. 21 We strongly support the early 22 decommission of the plant and move on with the 23 future. Thank you.
24 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 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you. Well, we want 1 to put it on to the transcript.
2 AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- the other gentlemen 3 they, about putting it in the casks. I guess my 4 concern is, the assumption is also that if we do 5 nothing, that we're all safe. And how can you 6 safeguard that? Well how does that assumption prove 7 true? I, you have two different assumptions out, 8 which one's right? A 40 year plant. I've been in 9 there, I've worked as a business manager of IBEW 10 Local 150 and my members are here in Lake County.
11 Economically it would be a boom to our 12 members. But I'm also, I have kids in the area, I 13 have granddaughters and grandsons in the area. I'm 14 also safety concerned. My feel that you're looking 15 at assumptions and trying to say if we don't do 16 anything, everything's going to be great. I don't 17 believe in that.
18 I think something should be done with 19 that plant. It's been ten years since it's stopped 20 generating electricity. And sooner or later it's 21 going to prop up and you're going to have a problem.
22 And then when do you solve the problem?
23 If it's done, and that's why I've done 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 66my research on Zion solutions and the parent 1 company. Yeah, they're a safe company. Otherwise 2 the Federal Government, they would not allow them to 3 bid on this project.
4 Do I have faith in the NRC, that's what 5 I was alluding to on any accidents that have 6 happened. They have moved 16, 18 reactors. So what 7 do you do? Do you let it stay or do you do 8 something about it now and move it? Don't have the 9 answer there but I'm supporting the removal.
10 That's what I'm supporting. Is it 11 selfish on my part? Yes because my members will 12 economically receive a profit from this, it's called 13 a wage, just like everybody else in this county is 14 trying to do is make a fair and decent living.
15 So now, what are you doing to do? Are 16 you going to leave it or are you going to move it?
17 I feel confident at moving it. Thank you.
18 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you. Gentleman in 19 the back, please?
20 MR. CONLEY: My name's Jim Conley, I'm 21 with the Laborers District Council and Pat Hosty 22 pretty much said what it, that we have 24,000 23 members and 14,000 that reside, 1,400 that reside in 24 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 Lake County.
1 We're here today hopefully that Exelon 2 probably will be switched over to Energy Solutions 3 so that they can decommission it. We support you.
4 And echoed what the, what the laborers feel about it 5 and I think you heard most of the other crafts out 6 here that it's, they're here to protect the 7 community also. When it's, when it's out of 8 there and it's rid of everything, everybody will be 9 able to sleep safer.
10 MR. KARNER: I've got the floor? Lynn 11 Karner, I'm the president currently of the Lake 12 County Building and Construction Trades Council.
13 We, as a council, are made up of the approximately 14 25 construction Unions that work here and live in 15 Lake County.
16 The, the first we identified is that, 17 well, some of the groups here are concerned about 18 community safety, long term safety, as we are.
19 We're also concerned about another aspect of this 20 project and that's the actual workers that go in 21 there. You're talking about 450 workers. You're 22 talking about a ten year project.
23 We're looking at what those workers are 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 68going to face and what they're going to be exposed 1 to. I've been in construction for about 30 years, a 2 little over 30 years. I have not been with any 3 company nor have we seen anybody come to us as a 4 Council with a safety record like Energy Solutions, 5 incredibly safe. Their choice as a 6 contractor to take on this project from our point of 7 view and as far as safety goes is fantastic. It's, 8 we've not dealt with anybody with that kind of a 9 safety record. Now that kind of group that can deal 10 with the workers onsite that way, that's got to 11 translate into safety for the community.
12 Another thing is that we've, fi we look 13 at the jobs, we would probably have preferred that 14 this plant, would have preferred that this plant 15 stay open. It' just not an option. It's not going 16 to happen and the next step in this plant's life is 17 to take it down. We're, we're looking at ths 18 short team safety things here in some of the 19 discussion tonight. But at the same time, we would 20 like to see this lakefront reclaimed for development 21 down the line. Now you know you're talking, it's a 22 decade away. But the sooner you start, the sooner 23 the lakefront is reclaimed for this area.
24 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 And the third thing that I want to bring 1 up an and the last point is, I grew up at 2037 2 Herman, in Zion. I was there before this plant was 3 built. I used to play as a kid with, like many 4 other people did here, down at this lakefront.
5 This plant served Zion well at one time 6 but it's time is over. It, it should be removed as, 7 as professionally with the Building Trades Council I 8 would like to say that we are satisfied, absolutely, 9 with what we've heard from Energy Solutions so far.
10 11 The NRC of course is, anybody that's had 12 any dealings with the NRC just knows that, that's 13 one of the bright spots in our, in our Government 14 agencies. And, and the reason you can say that is 15 you look at the safety record of nuclear in this 16 country and those of you with the nuclear groups, 17 you look at that safety record, compare it to the 18 coal plants.
19 Compare it, compare it to what some of 20 the other fossil fuels do to the public. And if 21 you've done your research, you know what I'm talking 22 about. You've got coal plants in the area that do, 23 that pollute far more than, to the public, far more 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 70 than this nuclear plant has done.
1 So I look forward to the day ten years 2 from now when this lakefront is reclaimed. Thank 3 you. 4 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you for your 5 comment. I think the gentleman in the back hasn't 6 spoken yet.
7 MR. ZAMORA: Good evening and thank you 8 for the -- to speak here tonight. My name is Adolfo 9 Zamora and I am a business agent with Laborers Local 10 225 that works along with the Chicagoland Laborers 11 District Council and LECET.
12 Laborers Local 225 does mostly 13 demolition work and hazmat type work, whether it be 14 asbestos, lead, those type of dangerous jobs. We 15 have approximately 2,800 members that are able and 16 capable of performing this type of work in a safe 17 and effective manner through the training that 18 they've received and, you know, as far as Federal 19 guidelines go.
20 I'm not to repeat what other people have 21 said here today. But I look over at those two 22 pictures when I first walked into this room and 23 there's something wrong with the picture on the 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 71left, that's the picture with the power plant, it's 1 not producing any steam. It's not doing anything.
2 And somebody said here it hasn't been 3 doing anything for ten years. I have friends and 4 family in this neighborhood. I would much rather 5 see the picture on the right, reclaim the lakefront 6 like a gentleman said here a little while ago, and 7 it will produce tax dollars somewhere down the line.
8 It, it will beautify this community.
9 And, and I think this community needs the, the 10 stimulus economically from the jobs it's going to 11 create and the money will get pumped up regionally, 12 not just in this community, from the 400 plus jobs 13 that are going to be here for ten years.
14 Thank you for the opportunity. And I do 15 ask the Commission to transfer the license over to, 16 from Exelon to Zion Solutions, with the parent 17 company Energy Solutions. Thank you.
18 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you. I don't think 19 this gentleman has spoken yet.
20 MR. RODMAN: Yeah. My name is Rick 21 Rodman, a lifelong resident of Lake County. Two 22 quick questions to the NRC. These dry casks that 23 Zion Solutions proposes to use, what's the longest 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 72one of them has been used to this point? Five 1 years, ten years?
2 MR. HICKMAN: I know there's at least 3 two that have been in service more than 15. The 4 original license is for 15 years and there's at 5 least two facilities that had their license extended 6 beyond the original license.
7 MR. RODMAN: Okay. 15 years. Question 8 to Zion Solutions. If you, if the license is 9 transferred, say in October, when would you 10 determine that the first cask will be placed on the 11 pad with high radiation inside of it?
12 MR. DALY: We, we anticipate two years 13 after closing to have the first cask --
14 MR. RODMAN: Okay. So that 17 years we 15 have from the time an existing canister of this type 16 is being used to the time Zion Solutions sets the 17 first canister. I fully think that there's going to 18 be a problem with these canisters, it would be 19 addressed at the plants that have been dealt with 15 20 years ago.
21 -- from within the NRC, somewhere in 22 life you got to put your faith somewhere. You have 23 to put your faith in the NRC in this country, like 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 73it or not, they're the best we got, you've even said 1 they're the best in the world. So I say we move 2 forward, transfer the license to Zion Solutions and 3 get over with it. Thank you.
4 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Just one last comment, 5 please. Why was Zion shut down to begin with?
6 MR. PERSINKO: I don't have the answer 7 to that. Does, does anybody from the --
8 AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's economics.
9 AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's not what I 10 understand.
11 AUDIENCE MEMBER: It's economics.
12 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I worked in there. No 13 leaks in the exchangers?
14 AUDIENCE MEMBER: The licensee can now 15 elect to say we don't want to use it anymore.
16 That's what unfortunately happened.
17 MR. HAMMER: But why did they say that?
18 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Economics. It's pure 19 economics.
20 MR. HAMMER: -- functioning, constructed 21 operational plan and all of a sudden they say, shut 22 it down. 23 AUDIENCE MEMBER: They can do it and, 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 74 and just so other people in this room are not, you 1 know, not -- from illusion, this property, and I'm 2 not pro or con but the thing mentioned -- that this 3 somehow magically reverts to the community. If 4 everybody in this room is thinking that, you're 5 absolutely wrong.
6 This is a corporate asset of Exelon.
7 They carry it on their books. What would you do if 8 you owned it? You would keep it. Now maybe it will 9 be up for sale but to think that this is somehow 10 magically going to work into the use of the 11 community, forget it, there's no guarantee, there's 12 no contracts, there's nothing on that basis. And 13 the last thing I would say is that we already have 14 three super -- toxic waste dumps in our county right 15 now. 16 I'm not suggesting that this is going to 17 be one but could this and possibly be the fourth?
18 And every single business agent, some of these 19 Unions I've employed, they're highly skilled but all 20 of you also had work done at every single one of 21 those toxic dumps we have now.
22 So you really got to ask yourself, our 23 we critically thinking or are we just looking for 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 75jobs. And I understand the jobs issue. I 1 understand the salesmanship. But the real question 2 is, are we doing the right thing. That's really 3 what has to be thought about.
4 And I'd challenge everybody in this room 5 really to think on those terms rather than before or 6 against or on the issue of perhaps the minutia.
7 AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- to the right thing 8 -- 9 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, right now, the 10 brochure right here that your company has, this is 11 all being accelerated. If you ask yourself the 12 question why. Who benefits? Who benefits?
13 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Who benefits, the 14 community does --
15 AUDIENCE MEMBER: In what way?
16 AUDIENCE MEMBER: In the long run. The 17 jobs. 18 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well we, we've gone, 19 we covered that. I understand that point.
20 AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's a ten year 21 project. 22 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah. Does it, does 23 it incrementally improve us? I don't know. I mean, 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 76do you know? I don't know whether it incrementally 1 approves us.
2 MR. SHULTUZ: You made your comment a 3 second ago about the VA's and the labor Unions and 4 the like that you had work for you.
5 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. I'm not 6 disrespectful to that. I'm just, I'm just saying, I 7 appreciate that. But you guys are selling something 8 and you're endorsing something and I really want to 9 know if there's any substance, whether you've looked 10 at the downside. I guess that's what I'd ask every 11 single one.
12 MR. SHULTUZ: -- if you hire Union 13 people, you're making a lot more money than I am.
14 AUDIENCE MEMBER: How do you know that?
15 MR. SHULTUZ: I work for them because I 16 can't hire you -- I don't have that kind of money.
17 I have to do the work myself.
18 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, okay.
19 MR. SHULTUZ: So the jobs are a good 20 thing to people that don't have the money. What's 21 the downside --
22 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm not, I'm not 23 disrespectful to that. I'm just saying, I'd love to 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 77see the position. I've heard endorsements here 1 tonight from leadership in Unions. And what I'd 2 like to see is the position papers on the critical 3 thinking, not the jobs. It doesn't make sense to 4 adopt this plan or this proposal.
5 In the company's own brochure it says, 6 that right now, as they sit here, the NRC has said 7 it can sit here for a long period of time. It's in 8 print, go over there and get it. This is all about 9 accelerating things.
10 And I guess we have to say to ourselves, 11 for whose benefit? I don't know. Does anybody here 12 know? I don't really know.
13 MR. SHULTUZ: There's $900 million 14 sitting there and --
15 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, that's your 16 money, that's my money.
17 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Let the man, let the 18 man talk.
19 MR. SHULTUZ: Put that money to work.
20 MR. PERSINKO: Okay. Look. This is an 21 interesting discussion, good discussions but I maybe 22 want to refocus the meeting back to comments and 23 questions to --
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 78 AUDIENCE MEMBER: All right. Well, 1 thank you.
2 MR. PERSINKO: -- the NRC. And I know 3 you had your hand up a couple of times there and I 4 was trying to let other folks talk who hadn't spoken 5 yet. Did you have a question that you wanted to ask 6 when you were raising your hand? Or, or that was 7 it? 8 AUDIENCE MEMBER: -- my question.
9 MR. PERSINKO: Okay.
10 AUDIENCE MEMBER: That was my question 11 for the NRC.
12 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you. Okay. Let me 13 try folks who haven't spoken yet. This gentleman 14 back here I don't think has spoken.
15 MR. FREEDMORE: My name is Terry 16 Freedmore.
17 MR. PERSINKO: Could you say it into the 18 microphone for.
19 MR. FREEDMORE: My name is Terry 20 Freedmore, Union rep for IBEW Local 15. I represent 21 people working here for Exelon currently at Zion 22 station. My question goes back to the, the dry cask 23 storage pad. Do we have any idea what the expected 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 79dose rates are reading out once, once that thing is 1 fully loaded with all the casks sitting there? Do 2 we have any idea what their dose rates would be?
3 Thank you.
4 MS. BAKHSH: Dose rates are where 5 workers from the plant are allowed, as far as the 6 public, public wouldn't be around or around that 7 area. But for the workers at the plant, it's almost 8 zero. We have it up to like two millirem per hour.
9 So once, there's nothing that's, there's the casks 10 that are sitting on the pad and then there's the 11 fence around it. Once you get beyond a couple of 12 feet the dose rates drop to almost zero.
13 MR. PERSINKO: Yeah, I guess, back 14 corner, please? Wait for the microphone, please.
15 He's brining it around.
16 MR. ZAMORA: I'd like to comment on the 17 issue of the transferring the building and all that 18 over to the, to Energy Solutions, Zion Solutions.
19 I've been in the demolition industry since the late 20 '80's as a laborer and as a business agent for the 21 last seven and a half years.
22 It is common practice and on any 23 demolition site, to transfer the property that's 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 80being demolished over to the contractor. It's 1 common practice. And, just like they're planning to 2 do here. It's common practice through the whole 3 industry.
4 It's been so for as long as I've been in 5 the business. Thank you.
6 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you. Just one 7 question while you're over there with the 8 microphone. AUDIENCE MEMBER: What happens 9 when the license transfer does not happen? Is it 10 going to sit there for 50 more years?
11 MR. DALY: After the determination as to 12 when to do the decommission we -- the licensee.
13 There's a 60 year time limit on, on, to complete the 14 decommission of that.
15 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Does the NRC guarantee 16 then, if it is not transferred that we will still be 17 safe then? Assuming another assumption, since we 18 have pointed out, the NRC's the greatest of the 19 greatest. So I want to know, if you don't transfer 20 the license and it's 50 years from now, are we still 21 all safe? Because I guess that's what some people 22 have brought up here?
23 MR. PERSINKO: Did the gentleman in the 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 81 back, did you have a question, did you have your 1 hand up? Okay.
2 SENATOR BOND: -- can you answer the 3 question about this idea of lessons learned and kind 4 of the state of the art of decommissioning? It 5 seems to me it's kind of the answer's why now, or 6 why so fast. The why now is kind of obvious. We 7 have plants that will be coming offline over the 8 next 20, 30 years that were built in the '60's and 9 '70's. 10 This one is on deck now for whatever 11 reasons. Can you answer the question about the 12 lessons learned and it gets at the first question 13 about the $200 million of financial backstop. What 14 is the number one cause of cost overruns? If we're 15 talking about the financial risk to the taxpayer and 16 what is it about these lessons learned, why, why is 17 transferring it the best economic answer versus 18 parsing it out to subcontractors? Could someone 19 comment on that?
20 MR. PERSINKO: Pat? Please.
21 MR. DALY: -- I can -- of the 22 decommissioning process. They took, again, as I 23 mentioned, they took the approach of surgically, we 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 82go in, we scuttle, we remove the surface 1 contamination, survey, go back. What they found is, 2 then they were chasing construction joints, they 3 were chasing cracks, you know, it was difficult to 4 meet the NRC requirements to prove what the actual 5 levels were.
6 Right now, there's a window open and the 7 window that's open is we have a disposal facility, 8 the actual price for disposal, low radioactive 9 material has gone down in the last several years and 10 the reason why that is so is that the U.S.
11 Government is in the business as well.
12 Somebody mentioned about a DOE site.
13 The DOE, they bury their material, now they've 14 opened a lot of disposal cells but it's only for 15 Government material, not for commercial. And so 16 right now the window's open. Our approach is we 17 aren't going to surgically remove it. We're going 18 to go in there and bulk remove it and, and put it in 19 rail cars and ship it out.
20 There was a question about the secondary 21 system on the steam generators and leaking and goes 22 into the secondary, we are taking the whole 23 secondary system to Clive. We're not going to try, 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 83it's more than likely clean but to prove it, to meet 1 the NRC requirements would require us to disassemble 2 every piece of equipment and hand survey it. We're 3 not going to do that, we're going to cut it out and 4 send it to Clive and get it in.
5 And that is the reason why we can 6 accelerate this. This is the first two unit plant 7 to be decommissioned. Our, our plan right now is 8 ten years. That is the fastest anybody has ever 9 done a single unit. And, and we believe we can do 10 two units in that period of time.
11 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: But -- radiation 12 detect whether some of what you're disassembling is 13 -- or not?
14 MR. DALY: No, we do. It's, it's the 15 amount of effort you put into trying to find it and 16 prove it. For example, if you were going to release 17 a table, it's a flat surface, that's easy to look 18 for contamination. But if you have a complicated 19 piece of equipment that with all kinds of spaces 20 where contamination could be trapped, proving that 21 to the NRC is clean is very difficult and time 22 consuming.
23 We're going to consume it's 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 84contaminated, if it's potentially contaminated, 1 we're going to bury it.
2 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: -- able to 3 detect radiation, we can't detect radiation in a 4 complicated kind --
5 MR. DALY: Not without, the requirement 6 is you have to open it up and you have to survey the 7 surfaces. You can't just look at it with an 8 instrument, you have to cut it open and survey it 9 100 percent. Those are the requirements that, that 10 are set forth in the regulations and that's what we 11 have to meet.
12 MR. PERSINKO: Did that answer your 13 question or was -- I just wanted to see if we 14 answered the question in the back -- no, the 15 original question was -- I just want to see if we, 16 if that answered your question.
17 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I appreciate the 18 comments about the critical thinking and I'm looking 19 at and very interested in what are the key drivers 20 of cost overruns. And what is your amount of profit 21 you're entitled to?
22 MR. DALY: -- for those very things. You 23 go into a space, there's unknowns, you open it up, 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 85they end up in litigation, there's a lot of, there's 1 a lot of money spent, wasted in the conflict between 2 the two. 3 Transferring the responsibility 4 completely to a decommissioning contractor, there is 5 nobody, there is nobody we can go to and ask for a 6 change order or an increase of funding. It's our 7 responsibility. If we're wrong, we're, we're going 8 to lose money on this deal. We believe we can, we 9 can do it and do it safely and do it correctly and 10 get it done and, and make a profit at it.
11 AUDIENCE MEMBER: If you have a -- you 12 have 200 million set aside in a fund plus you're --
13 theoretically burn through 200 million, burn through 14 12 to 15 percent profit, so you can withstand a 35 15 percent cost overrun and still not be broke.
16 MR. DALY: We, we can, with that -- each 17 have to run it back and forth. That, that's true.
18 We, all our profit's at risk. So if we get into 19 financial trouble, the profit goes first. Also, we 20 own the disposal cell and that traditionally have 21 been the pinch point for previous decommissioning, 22 they underestimated how much low level waste that 23 was on their site. And so their costs were, were 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 86 significantly higher on the waste disposal.
1 We own the disposal cell. If we're 2 gone, we can dispose these, still would dispose of 3 the material at our cost. There isn't any, no more 4 cash out of our hands, we'll just put it in a cell 5 and then that space won't be available for other 6 waste. 7 MR. HAMMER: And bury it?
8 MR. DALY: Yes.
9 MR. HAMMER: You'll bury it in the 10 ground? 11 MR. DALY: Yes. We bury it in a 12 licensed disposal cell. An engineered licensed 13 disposal cell, just like the Federal Government, 14 just like we do with the sanitary waste except it's 15 a licensed disposal cell out west.
16 MR. HAMMER: Does that disposal cell --
17 MR. DALY: No. This, this is, this is 18 just low level waste. After, after about 100 years, 19 that waste all decayed away. It's in a licensed 20 disposal cell with a liner, it's in the middle of 21 the desert. It's, again, it is engineered and 22 licensed by, by the Government.
23 MR. HAMMER: Does that -- will be time 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 87tested, if any -- all of that thought, this is not -
1 - any other reactor --
2 MR. DALY: This is low level waste, 3 we're not speaking high level waste here.
4 MR. HAMMER: We're not -- water that's 5 in the plants, that will be -- you'll radiate the 6 marrow in the bones of the living creature that 7 absorbs that chemical. That chemical is -- as in 8 radioactive chemical, the same isotope. So, you 9 see, it doesn't make any difference, it can be 10 living in grass or a plant or a tree or an animal.
11 But the radiation that's in their bone marrow.
12 MR. PERSINKO: I would just like to 13 emphasize that this is low level waste. This isn't 14 high level waste, we're not talking about the spent 15 fuel. And the, the facility is licensed by the NRC.
16 This lady, please?
17 MS. SHINEFLUG: I just, just as a follow 18 up to that. There needs to be a, there needs to be 19 a -- radioactive low level, radioactive -- in 20 Illinois. And that has since been, that was closed 21 down many years ago and there was some contamination 22 that started to go offsite or it may have gone 23 offsite and then I believe, this is 20, 30 years 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 88ago, that the company had to purchase additional 1 land so that technically the radioactive waste was 2 not offsite. It, it was contained on their site.
3 But, in fact, low level radioactive 4 waste sites can leak. Why is, and Barnwell, why are 5 they closing? They don't want any more. So I think 6 the questions are valid and, but it's fortunate that 7 your facility is in the desert and, and just to 8 clear up an argument, that might be a disagreement, 9 there's no, I don't have problems with the nuclear, 10 with putting, you know, decommissioning the reactor 11 and getting rid of the spent fuel storage pool.
12 What I would hope is that the public and 13 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would look at the 14 idea of hardened onsite storage and there's like 100 15 some nuclear groups or environmental groups that 16 support that that looking into making it safer. Not 17 not doing it, not just letting it sit there like it 18 is but making it safer. Thank you.
19 MR. PERSINKO: I, I don't know --
20 AUDIENCE MEMBER: There's still, 21 Barnwell is still remaining open for --
22 MR. PERSINKO: That's okay. This lady, 23 I don't think she's spoken yet.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 89 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I just want to --
1 MR. PERSINKO: Wait for the microphone.
2 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'm a resident of 3 Zion. Actually my father was in the Pipefitter 4 Local that helped build the plant and worked in the 5 plant. On page, I guess it's eight, are these three 6 pathfinder test reactor Ft. Saint Vrain and Shoreham 7 Nuclear Power Station, are those the three that were 8 entombed as decommissioned?
9 MR. PERSINKO: On page eight of what?
10 AUDIENCE MEMBER: Of this. And, and 11 what is Ft. Saint Vrain because there's not, there's 12 -- 13 MR. PERSINKO: Plus, very quick, Ft.
14 Saint Vrain was a high tempered gas cooled reactor 15 out in Colorado. It was transferred over into a, I 16 believe it's now a natural gas fired plant is what I 17 believe. It's been decommissioned, it was shut down 18 and converted into a, I believe it's a natural gas 19 fired plant.
20 AUDIENCE MEMBER: I mean is it entombed?
21 MR. PERSINKO: No, it's not entombed.
22 AUDIENCE MEMBER: What are the -- that 23 are -- 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 90 MR. PERSINKO: Off the top of my head I 1 don't know the answer to that.
2 Sure. Just one more comment here from 3 Senator Michael Bond.
4 SENATOR BOND: Just, there's a lot of 5 really good ideas being surfaced right now and 6 whether storage or transportation or reprocessing.
7 The General Assembly in Illinois, we introduced --
8 101 which sets out the Illinois Nuclear Energy Task 9 Force. It's a by-partisan, by -- commission, has 10 passed the Illinois Senate and it's pending in the 11 House currently.
12 It is charged with five things. One, 13 look at decommissioning. The second is looking at 14 storage and transportation of spent nuclear fuel.
15 Third is spent fuel reprocessing. There's been a 16 ban on spent fuel reprocessing in the United States 17 based on the United States Congress since Jimmy 18 Carter's term.
19 The fourth is to consider the Homeland 20 Security implications and the overlapping 21 regulations there and those concerns. And finally, 22 the fifth is to look at lifting the moratorium in 23 Illinois on the construction of new plants which has 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 91 been 20 years ago since we did that.
1 We need to look and have very critical 2 thinking on all of those topics. We expect the 3 House to take action, the Commission will then 4 became law, it has a representative from the 5 Attorney General's office. The Director of Illinois 6 EPA will be on that Commission. And the Director of 7 Illinois Power Authority will be on that Commission.
8 A member of the environmental community will be 9 appointed. A member from industry will also be 10 appointed and a, and a member that has national 11 security experience.
12 So it's an 11 member panel. The work 13 can begin. This is probably not going to be the 14 last decommissioning that we have to face in the 15 State of Illinois. These plants are aging and 16 they're coming offline and these are issues we 17 really do need to think critically about.
18 So there's a group of us in the Illinois 19 Senate that want to get the debate started and we 20 will be having our first working group will be in 21 July. And all of these ideas, we really need to 22 figure out a way to work together. So I welcome all 23 the comments that I, I thought it was great.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 92 So I will, I will make sure I stick 1 around, I will give you my business cards and I 2 want, I want to work together with everyone because 3 these are really important questions that have been 4 raised and we need to be really careful about what 5 we do. So, thank you.
6 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you, Senator. Let 7 me respond to the lady here about three entombed 8 reactors. I was not aware of any NRC power reactors 9 that have used the entomb method. And in the 10 document on page nine it says three Department of 11 Energy facilities, one reactor in Puerto Rico, one 12 in Nebraska and one in Ohio have been decommissioned 13 using the entomb method.
14 So I was not aware of any NRC reactors 15 that use the entomb method. Any other questions, 16 comments? Yes, ma'am?
17 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Well, first I 18 wanted, I'm Judith Marinelli-Godfrey. Well first, I 19 just really want to tell you who I am. I'm the 20 daughter of a pioneering scientist who connected the 21 measurement of radiation, the detection of radiation 22 to the effects of radiation in the human body.
23 So he was really a pioneer on human 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 93radio biology. And he served on the NR, Nuclear 1 Regulatory Commission. He served on the -- the, 2 yes, but he also served on that. He served on the 3 AEC. He wrote the AEC being the Atomic Energy 4 Commission.
5 He was, he was really one of the very 6 prime experts in the Bureau of Standards handbook 7 which determines the toxicity burden of radiation in 8 the human body. And this, of course, was debated 9 for more than 30 years but, but I just want to 10 convey how really much you're, I really appreciate 11 your job and how difficult it is if you're just 12 regulating. I understand that.
13 You explained that in 1975 there was a 14 cut between the AEC and the NRC. And that really is 15 a problem. It's like separating the head from the 16 arm. And here you are, an arm, supposed to be doing 17 all this stuff but there's no connection to the 18 critical thinking head that really, I mean things 19 were small when people used to call my father or 20 call Argon National Laboratory where he was director 21 of research in this area, people could ask the top 22 scientists, everybody knew.
23 You know, I, I'm sitting here thinking, 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 94 who do you ask when you don't know something and 1 don't, of course, you know, I know you're going to 2 say, of course you know that you don't know 3 something because there's just so much to know, it's 4 more, it's a tremendous amount. So my, you know, 5 who do you pick up the phone and ask when you don't 6 know something?
7 MR. PERSINKO: The NRC.
8 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Well, you 9 yourself, personally, you know, when it comes to --
10 MR. PERSINKO: The NRC, first of all, 11 NRC has a number of people who are specialists who 12 are not here tonight. They specialize in all kinds 13 of scientific areas. And we are, many of us our 14 engineers, many scientists at NRC.
15 So, in house, we have lots of 16 capability. When we don't, when we come across 17 certain areas where we may not have the capability, 18 we have other, other avenues upon which to seek 19 that. For example, we have access to experts at 20 Department of Energy laboratories, such as Argon 21 National Lab, such as Oak Ridge. So we employ the 22 use of experts at the Department of Energy labs who 23 also have their expertise and they're all scientists 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 95 and engineers and specialists.
1 So we have experts to draw upon if we 2 don't, in house, have that particular expertise.
3 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: So when ComEd 4 said to you, we have a license, we said we'd do this 5 job, but, you know, it's just getting, we're going 6 to, we're asking you if we can please transfer this 7 license, we, we really can't do the job anymore.
8 Did, you know, this, this was really a break in 9 faith that you had, that the NRC had in the 10 licensee.
11 MR. PERSINKO: No. It's not. It's not 12 a break in faith. It was a different business 13 approach, I think, that was taken by Exelon and Zion 14 Solutions and, you know, I don't really personally 15 care about the business, contractual arrangements.
16 I care about that the job is finished correctly --
17 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: There.
18 MR. PERSINKO: -- and safely. And after 19 sufficient -- capable, the technical capabilities to 20 do the job are in Zion, within the Zion Solutions 21 corporation and I care that they are sufficient 22 funding to complete the job. And that's what I, 23 that's what the NRC cares about.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 96 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Well, can this 1 be done if the license is going to be transferred 2 and then transferred again and then transferred 3 again and Exelon sits there holding the land making 4 all the, you know, knowing that their investment is 5 a good one?
6 MR. PERSINKO: Well, we are looking at 7 the financial -- aspect. But there's, there's no 8 reason why the job cannot be done by another company 9 having the technical qualifications the financial, 10 financial wherewithal to complete the job. There's 11 no reason why it can't be done by another company.
12 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Except that it 13 wasn't by the previous company or the previous 14 company or the previous.
15 MR. PERSINKO: The current licensee, 16 Exelon, chose not to do it. They, they put the 17 facility into safe store and by doing so, they were 18 actually letting the financial insurance fund grow 19 through gaining interest and that kind of things.
20 So it was in safe store while the, the fund was 21 growing in, in assets, and growing in amount. But 22 that, that's a business decision.
23 I mean, that's a perfectly viable, 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 97acceptable option for the NRC is safe store. The, 1 you know, once LICB begins the decommissioning, they 2 have 60 years to, once they shut down, they have 60 3 years to complete decommissioning.
4 So what the current licensee was doing, 5 Exelon, was within the NRC regulations.
6 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Do you think 7 maybe that regulation needs to be looked at because 8 it, in effect, there's no penalty for someone not to 9 finish the job?
10 MR. HAMMER: What if they screw it up?
11 MR. PERSINKO: I don't understand why 12 you said they screwed up. I don't understand that.
13 MR. HAMMER: I said what if.
14 MR. PERSINKO: Oh. MR. HAMMER: Does 15 that let Exelon off the hook?
16 MR. PERSINKO: Well, we're back to a 17 question I think we were dealing with earlier 18 tonight as far as financial assurance goes. And I 19 guess, I, you heard Mike's answer to that. I, I 20 can't add to that.
21 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: But you said 22 it's your job to see that the mission is 23 accomplished.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 98 MR. PERSINKO: That's correct. And 1 that's what we're doing. That's what, Michael and 2 his group are looking at the financial aspects.
3 John and his group and our group are looking at the 4 technical qualifications of Zion Solutions.
5 MR. HAMMER: But what if people are 6 injured by Zion Solutions' failure to do a good job?
7 Who is going to protect the injuries that those 8 people receive or may receive?
9 MR. PERSINKO: I would like to say that, 10 first of all, the NRC looks at this to make, looks 11 at the aspects that I mentioned, the technical 12 qualifications and the financial assurance aspects 13 to make sure the job is done and make sure it's done 14 right. 15 The inspectors in the region will look 16 at the job as it's in progress to make sure that, 17 that the job is progressing safely and within the 18 NRC regulations.
19 I mean, you can always postulate what if 20 something happens, what if this, but we, by the, by 21 our technical reviews and by our inspections, we are 22 attempting to minimize to the absolute minimum of 23 that ever occurring.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 99 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: But the job 1 wasn't done, I mean you have all of these wonderful 2 people who are workers who want to help you do it.
3 MR. PERSINKO: I guess I'm missing 4 something. I don't understand what you mean the job 5 wasn't done. It wasn't done by Exelon, they chose 6 to, they chose to put the plant into safe store for 7 their own business reasons, I assume, I don't know 8 why but they chose safe store which is an acceptable 9 method for the NRC to, to, it's in safe condition.
10 It's there, the inspectors inspect it. It's not 11 like, like Bill said, it's not like the buildings 12 are crumbling. The spent fuel pool is not 13 crumbling.
14 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: The gentleman 15 said that the garage door was crumbling.
16 MR. PERSINKO: Well Bill has been at the 17 site being an inspector and Bill, Bill knows what's 18 going on at the site. It's not crumbling, I can 19 assure you of that. So, I mean, I, I guess I don't 20 know how else to answer your question.
21 But I would like to add one thing, why 22 the NRC was created. It's not because we cut off 23 the head from the arm. What happened is that the 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 100AEC, the Atomic Energy Commission had both a 1 promotional and a regulatory responsibility. So you 2 had one organization promoting nuclear power and 3 nuclear energy and the same organization regulating 4 it. 5 So the reason the NRC was created was to 6 take out any --
7 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Conflict.
8 MR. PERSINKO: -- potential or whatever 9 conflict of interest. So now we have a one body, 10 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with one mission 11 and one mission only which is to ensure the safety 12 of the public health and safety and protecting the 13 environment.
14 And we all, and workers as well. But, 15 but the idea is that we don't have a conflict any 16 more because the NRC is not in the promotion, 17 promotion business. And that's why the NRC was 18 separated out from the Atomic Energy Commission.
19 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Well, just as in 20 Redison, when they were developing how to use 21 radiation for the benefit of medicine, they could go 22 to some experts. How is it that in the, in the 23 process of decommissioning, there seems to be no 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 101ability to go to experts to see how to go about it 1 so that we're not spinning our wheels or wasting our 2 money? 3 MR. PERSINKO: Well, let me say this, 4 the NRC has experts and -- we decommissioned at 5 least a half dozen power reactors. Yankee Rowe in 6 Massachusetts, Maine Yankee in Maine, Connecticut 7 Yankee in, north of Hartford, Connecticut. Trojan 8 out in -- Oregon. I mean I can site these.
9 We go to these plants now and, for 10 example, you go to Maine Yankee plant, you won't see 11 a plant, you'll see an -- where the fuel is stored 12 but that's it. The plant is gone. It's 13 unrestricted release. The, the site was cleaned up 14 to the NRC regulatory limit, below NRC regulatory 15 limits for unrestricted use. It's a free site. It 16 can be licensed, there's no licensee for that site.
17 It was a licensee for the ISFSI and NRC still has 18 regulatory oversight of how ISFSI is run and all the 19 safety aspects and security aspects of the, when I 20 say the ISFSI let me, let me clear what that is, is, 21 it's an acronym that stands for Independent Spent 22 Fuel Storage Installation.
23 And what it is, it's the pad. It's the 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 102pad with the, with the spent fuel casks on it. So 1 I'm using the, I apologize for using the acronym, 2 but it's second nature, I guess. But it's, it's 3 where the spent fuel is stored. It's the picture 4 you saw with the, the pad, the concrete pad and the, 5 the casks standing up on it.
6 That's the, we call that the ISFSI. But 7 the NRC still has regulatory oversight of that and 8 that's still under NRC license. But the rest of 9 these sites at the, the rest of the site at these 10 particular power reactors that I mentioned are 11 gone. I mean, you look at it, it's, it's land you 12 can do anything you want on right now.
13 MR. HAMMER: Is it being used or 14 anything except growing weeds and grass?
15 MR. PERSINKO: I don't know what they've 16 done with it be it's been free, it's, the NRC no 17 longer has an interest in that and -- released from 18 the NRC license. What happens after that, it's not 19 the NRC's concern.
20 MR. HAMMER: Well what about this area, 21 what's going to happen to the land after you put 22 everything on a concrete pad? Are they going to be 23 using it for factories, housing developments, 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 103recreation park or everyone is going to stay away 1 from there?
2 MR. PERSINKO: I don't know what it will 3 be used for. And quite honestly, quite honestly, 4 from the NRC's perspective, we care that it's 5 cleaned up to the NRC standards and then it, the 6 unrestricted use standards so there's no 7 restrictions on future use of that site.
8 Quite frankly, we terminate the license 9 at that point, we're out of the picture. We'll, 10 we'll still be involved with the ISFSI, the spent 11 fuel, spent fuel storage installation. But as far 12 as the rest of the site, if it meets the NRC's 13 unrestricted use criteria, we're out of the picture.
14 MR. HAMMER: Then it goes back to title 15 to Exelon?
16 MR. PERSINKO: That is, it's Exelon's 17 property, they can do what, I mean, at that point, 18 we terminate their license, we don't have an 19 interest any more.
20 MR. HAMMER: I still have to pay taxes 21 through the locality?
22 MR. PERSINKO: I have no, that's not my, 23 I don't, that's not my, my responsibility at that 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 104 point, or the NRC's responsibility.
1 MR. HAMMER: But that's a question that 2 should be answered.
3 MR. PERSINKO: The NRC's regulations are 4 for public health and safety and to protect the 5 environment.
6 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: So when you pass 7 on a site, you actually go out and measure it, just 8 measure --
9 MR. PERSINKO: Absolutely.
10 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Okay.
11 MR. PERSINKO: We absolutely do that.
12 First of all the, the licensee does that to, there's 13 a methodology for surveying the site upon, before it 14 is terminated. The methodology goes out and we 15 measure the soil, we measure the radiation in the, 16 in the, where the site previously used to, where the 17 site is, where the buildings used to be.
18 But NRC independently then does sampling 19 as well. And we independently confirm the 20 licensee's measurements.
21 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Do you go below 22 the water level to see it doesn't contaminate the --
23 MR. PERSINKO: We do check ground water 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 105 as well. 1 MR. HAMMER: Is all that published?
2 MR. PERSINKO: Yes. It's published and 3 most of it is on NRC's website. In fact, almost 4 everything we do, except for classified information 5 and things of that nature are, it's publicly 6 available and it's accessible to the NRC's website, 7 a lot of it is just purely on the website if you go 8 to www.NRC.gov, we also have something called our, 9 and the acronym is ADAMS but it's an electronic 10 filing system where everything else you can access 11 online through this ADAMS system.
12 You can access that through the NRC 13 website as well. I hope I helped.
14 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: I guess you did.
15 MS. OWER: -- and one of the things that 16 came out of this when you produced this third 17 possibility it's not, do nothing or go with this 18 plan that's being promoted tonight. The third 19 possibility, which has seemed to come out here at 20 the end is that if we do it on a different 21 timetable, the longer timetable, that questions 22 about what is the back story, I still don't know the 23 answer to that but it certainly, the question is 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 106becoming much more important, why, who is going to 1 benefit, what is the back story behind this 2 acceleration?
3 And I just wanted to go back to your 4 last comment about that and be sure I understood you 5 correctly. You said if we do nothing, the NRC, that 6 is you, the, representing the NRC, if we do nothing 7 on this accelerated schedule and we stick to the 8 original, I forgot how many years you said, 50 --
9 MR. PERSINKO: Yeah, 60 years --
10 MS. OWER: -- scheduled, that there will 11 be, that you feel the, on behalf of the NRC that 12 there will not be any adverse, well, could you just 13 reiterate that --
14 MR. PERSINKO: We need to continue to do 15 our inspections. We would make sure that the site 16 is safe. It's not like the buildings are going to 17 be crumbling, we would take action of some sort if 18 we found a safety problem. So --
19 MS. OWER: And is the third scenario is 20 to do nothing for now or on a longer timeframe, the 21 original timeframe. What is the NRC's 22 recommendation in, within that longer timeframe?
23 MR. PERSINKO: We, we don't have a, I 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 107mean, there's no recommendation. The licensee makes 1 the call as to what the licensee would like to do.
2 Licensee has to work within certain NRC parameters 3 such as the 60 year time limit to complete 4 decommissioning.
5 And then, of course, within all the NRC 6 regulations, of course, as well. But the NRC 7 doesn't make the call as to you need to do this now.
8 The NRC makes sure that what's there is safe. And 9 we still have a license. We can do our regulatory 10 and our enforcement actions if we need to.
11 MS. OWER: So there is a timeframe here 12 -- 13 MR. PERSINKO: But it's a 60 year 14 timeframe to complete the --
15 MS. OWER: -- so how far along are we?
16 Are we at year what?
17 MR. PERSINKO: What are we at, John, 18 about ten? Ten years.
19 MS. OWER: So 50 years?
20 MR. PERSINKO: 50 more years left before 21 decommissioning has to be completed.
22 MS. OWER: But then that would have to 23 start maybe ten years before that 60 years. But 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 108even then, let's say for 40 or 50 years, that in 1 your expert opinion, it could go that way, you would 2 keep monitoring it. And I need to ask myself, 3 locally, who benefits, what is the back story, what 4 does Exelon really want here, how come it doesn't 5 benefit the community, it doesn't revert to the 6 community.
7 You know, and I don't have those answers 8 tonight but I'm learning that, that there is a back 9 story that I don't know yet and that I --
10 MR. PERSINKO: I can't answer that 11 question. It's not my --
12 MS. OWER: But you have this 40 year 13 timeframe or 50, whatever it may be to -- the 60 in 14 mind. I'm just trying to make sure I'm clear on 15 that, it was just sort of a last comment. Thank 16 you. 17 MR. PERSINKO: Yes, please?
18 MR. HAMMER: Are documents really 19 available under the Freedom of Information Act 20 through your agency?
21 MR. PERSINKO: Yes, we are subjected to 22 -- 23 MR. HAMMER: Every file with you is 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 109 freely available?
1 MR. PERSINKO: Not everything. I mean, 2 there are certain restrictions, certain things that 3 are proprietary, certain things that are, there are 4 certain, ceratin criteria that have to be met before 5 the, for the NRC to withhold it from the public.
6 There's things as security issues where 7 it's not publicly available. Proprietary 8 information that's deemed to be proprietary. That's 9 one category. But by, in large, the --
10 MR. HAMMER: But what do you mean by 11 that word proprietary?
12 MR. PERSINKO: Trade secrets, that would 13 benefit one, one competitor over another. But by in 14 large, the vast majority of the NRC documents are --
15 and they're publicly held through the ATOMS website, 16 to the ATOMS system which --
17 MR. HAMMER: And have they notified you 18 why they want to shut everything down and do away 19 with it? 20 MR. PERSINKO: No. But, I mean, I'm not 21 asking that question. I want to know that with the 22 proposal on the table is the proposal that's on the 23 table in front of us, we're evaluating it on it's, 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 110it's merits. We're looking at it, we're making sure 1 that it's, you know, it's in front of us, meets our 2 regulations and before we can approve it.
3 MR. HAMMER: So basically you're saying 4 that you have no right to ask them questions and so 5 what causes them to be motivated to do something?
6 It almost sounds like the don't ask, don't tell 7 thing they had for awhile.
8 MR. PERSINKO: Well, no. I mean, I am 9 not saying that at all. I mean that, why they're 10 doing certain things is not my, not within my 11 purview. I want to know that what they're proposing 12 is done safely.
13 AUDIENCE MEMBER: But that, that's the 14 issue. If they can be doing all kinds of safe 15 things using all our money up and not accomplishing 16 what needs to be accomplished.
17 MR. PERSINKO: Well, we are looking, as 18 Mike said, we're looking at the financial assurance 19 aspect. You want to ask, Mike, you got to use the 20 microphone, Mike.
21 MR. DUSANIWSKY: I recognize where this, 22 where your question is coming from and I cannot give 23 you any idea of a guarantee. It's impossible.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 111We're talking about future events. But what I can 1 look for is reasonable assurance. The best 2 companies in the world cannot offer you that kind of 3 a guarantee.
4 My job is take a look at what it is it's 5 going to cost to do this job, do they have the funds 6 to accomplish it. The answer so far I would have to 7 say is, yes, but, again, it's pre-conditional. I 8 have not finished my analysis.
9 One way or the other, the licensee, 10 whoever that may be at the time is responsible for 11 finishing the job, whether there's money or not.
12 And if we have to cross those roads, there are other 13 alternatives.
14 If I'm going to tell you that it's not 15 going to cost anybody anything, it's impossible.
16 Pure economics say you cannot do that.
17 What I am trying to find out is, is it 18 reasonable, based on what they're proposing and is 19 there enough money.
20 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: But is there a 21 Government contractor who's looking over what's 22 being done, that it's being done to accomplish the 23 end, so that the licensee isn't just experimenting?
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 112 MR. DUSANIWSKY: I don't think you can 1 classify this as experimenting. This is something 2 that they're proposing to do to accomplish a job.
3 And the money that is required to do it, is it 4 reasonable or not.
5 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: So you're 6 judging the cost, yes, but who's judging the method?
7 Who is, who is approving of their method?
8 MR. DUSANIWSKY: It's the engineers at 9 the NRC. 10 MR. HAMMER: And if they fail, is Exelon 11 off the hook? They make --
12 MR. DUSANIWSKY: I cannot answer that.
13 MR. HAMMER: Well that's a very 14 important question.
15 MR. DUSANIWSKY: And it's a very 16 important question that will be answered when the 17 analysis is completed. Now if you --
18 MR. HAMMER: -- off the book.
19 MR. DUSANIWSKY: I cannot give you an 20 answer at this time because the analysis is not 21 finished.
22 MR. HAMMER: Exelon is off the hook if 23 they're not the licensee. It's that simple --
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 113please review that statement -- if they're not the 1 licensee, they are not on the hook, are we agreed 2 there? 3 People promised to be good spouses and 4 they fail.
5 MR. DUSANIWSKY: -- a fine point --
6 MR. HAMMER: No. I understand that.
7 Who is they you're saying is going to pledge this --
8 MR. DUSANIWSKY: The licensee --
9 MR. HAMMER: Okay. The question is, is 10 Exelon off the hook?
11 MR. PERSINKO: You know, you know, well 12 -- 13 MR. HAMMER: A simple answer, I believe, 14 you can just say yes or no, not that you don't know.
15 Is it they're not the licensee they are off the 16 hook? They don't have to do any EPA cleanup, they 17 don't have to respond, they don't have to do any of 18 that if they're not the licensee, correct?
19 MR. PERSINKO: I would like to say too 20 that if you wait until the analysis is completed, 21 you will see the answer.
22 MR. HAMMER: Legally, I'd like to see 23 that review, I'd love to see that review. This is a 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 114transfer of responsibility to someone else that may 1 be very capable and I think most -- with that and I 2 believe every single party here, speakers and in 3 this audience wants things to be done -- I have no 4 problem with that.
5 But it's always like wait or we're not 6 sure. I am sure. I am absolutely, positively sure 7 that Exelon is off the hook if they're not the 8 licensee.
9 MR. PERSINKO: One of the reasons I 10 think, coming, I'm not answering the question, and I 11 think we're not answering, you're asking a legal 12 question and none of us here are lawyers. We're 13 not, we're not within the NRC --
14 MR. HAMMER: You've got lawyers here and 15 -- 16 MR. PERSINKO: Not NRC lawyers. We 17 don't have any, we don't have any, any lawyers from 18 NRC here today.
19 MR. HAMMER: Will you give us a public 20 answer, publicly to the --
21 MR. PERSINKO: We'll take that question 22 back to the legal, our lawyers and Mike also has 23 said that when he finishes his analysis he'll -- the 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 115 question.
1 Let me ask, we have this room for five 2 more minutes, til, we have until 10:00 o'clock is 3 what we rented it for. One second, before you, 4 you've talked quite a bit, I just want to make sure 5 that your colleagues also get a fair, a fair shake 6 here, if there's any other questions from any other 7 people. We've spoken quite a bit. Is there anybody 8 else here that would like to ask or say, ask a 9 question, say a comment before we close the meeting 10 at some, we're getting close to closing the meeting.
11 Is there any other comments or 12 questions? Okay. If there's none from anybody 13 else, then we have a few minutes yet.
14 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: You haven't -- a 15 real problem that there's a lack of communication, I 16 understood you are the one who can speak about the 17 contract or who overlooks the licensees doing the 18 job. Did I understand that's your job?
19 MR. PERSINKO: We, oversee what they're 20 doing. We inspect what they're doing, yes.
21 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Okay.
22 MR. PERSINKO: I mean don't, let me say 23 something. It's not that the NRC approves every 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 116step that is being done at the facility. It's, 1 that's not the way that we, we approve a, a 2 decommission. It's not like we say you need to take 3 the bolt A off first and bolt B second and bolt C 4 third. That's not what we do.
5 I mean what we are really interested in 6 is that the job is done safely from a radiological 7 point of view. And we want to make, and that, and 8 so ultimately what's most important to the NRC is 9 that before this license is terminated that the, 10 the, any contamination that is remaining at the site 11 is extremely low and that it meets the NRC's 12 unrestricted use criteria.
13 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: So who wants to 14 know whether it's being done sensibly rather than 15 stupidly?
16 MR. PERSINKO: First of all, I guess, we 17 have inspectors at the site and our interest is 18 safely. But, but, you know, I, I don't know how to 19 answer your question other than to say, I mean, you 20 know, there's some element of trust here too that a 21 license, that a licensee doesn't want to do 22 something stupid and, and lose money in the deal or 23 harm any employees or, or other things of that 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 117 nature.
1 So, I mean, we do inspect for the safety 2 of the workers that are doing the decommissioning.
3 Not, you know, we're not OSHA inspectors, we inspect 4 from the radiological point of view.
5 But, but I also want to say that, you 6 know, there's no one to trust here that nobody wants 7 to do something, a licensee does not want to do 8 something stupid and lose money.
9 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Then why does he 10 want to give you the license back and have you give 11 it to somebody --
12 MR. PERSINKO: I think it's just a 13 business decision. I think that, you know, that's 14 what been told to the NRC is that, under this 15 arrangement, that the, that the decommissioning 16 could be done faster and cheaper. And that's what's 17 been told to the NRC and that's the, the, my 18 understanding of why this arrangement is taking 19 place. 20 -- faster and cheaper, you know, it was 21 explained, you know, about the, the detailed 22 scabbling and removing of these details. The method 23 that's being proposed, it's my understanding would 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 118 be done faster and cheaper.
1 And Pat, do you want to add anything 2 more to that? But you got to use the microphone, 3 Pat. You got to use the microphone.
4 MR. DALY: Oh, okay. Everything that 5 we're proposing to do is not new. It's been done at 6 other plants, it's been done before. It's fairly 7 straightforward work. It involves removing metal 8 and concrete and package it for disposal.
9 We're not proposing to do anything new 10 and radical other than we're going to remove more 11 material than generally is removed from the plant 12 and ship it to, for disposal to accelerate the 13 schedule.
14 It will never be less expensive to 15 decommission the plant as it is right now. If you 16 wait 40 years, try and estimate what the cost will 17 be. 18 Also, as I mentioned before, the window 19 is open. You know about Barnwell closing. Who's to 20 say if Clive will be open 40 years from now. That's 21 not a, that's not a certainty. So right now, I 22 think it takes will power, now's the time to act and 23 move forward.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 119 Waiting and sitting on our hands, I 1 think is the wrong thing to do.
2 MR. PERSINKO: Thank you.
3 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Why did you 4 permit Exelon, what was the name of that company 5 again, Exelon?
6 MR. PERSINKO: Exelon is the current 7 licensee.
8 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: The, the current 9 one? And who owns the land?
10 MR. PERSINKO: Exelon.
11 MS. MARINELLI-GODFREY: Who owns --
12 MR. PERSINKO: Well it's, it's 10:00 13 o'clock. It's been a very stimulating discussion 14 this evening. I hope that you found this 15 informative. We have your questions, comments and, 16 on the transcript and we'll go through the 17 transcript and try to get back to you with your, 18 with, if you posed questions that we'll try to 19 answer your questions and get back to you.
20 I would like to say though that the, the 21 lady doing the transcription, the earlier speakers 22 did not identify themselves and all she has you down 23 is by the color of your sweater or whatever.
24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
(202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 www.nealrgross.com 120 MR. HAMMER: She doesn't have our 1 address either.
2 MR. PERSINKO: She just needs it for the 3 transcript. She doesn't need addresses. We would 4 have to get back somehow, other way to the question.
5 MR. DALY: And as far as, there will be 6 a meeting summary posted on our website for this 7 meeting that will include the transcript. So 8 anybody who wants to get that will be able to get it 9 on our website.
10 MR. PERSINKO: Yes, of course. I mean -
11 - there's no formal comment -- but, of course, 12 you're always welcome to submit comments. This 13 isn't, you know, like John said, there would be no -
14 - we think questions are, it's not at a point of --
15 but, you know, it's not like -- there's no set 16 comment for that --
17 But, yes -- any last thoughts? If not, 18 I would like to thank all of you for attending and 19 it was a very stimulating discussion. Thank you 20 very much.
21 (Whereupon, at 10:00 p.m., the public 22 hearing was concluded.)
23 24 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W.
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