Official Transcript of Proceedings 

 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Title: Public Meeting on the NRC Staff's Draft 

Supplement to the Environmental Impact 

Statement for the Proposed Geologic 

Repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada 

Docket Number: (n/a) 

Location: Rockville, Maryland 

Date: Thursday, October 15, 2015 

Work Order No.: NRC-1941 Pages 1-75 

NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC. 

 Court Reporters and Transcribers 

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 Washington, D.C. 20005 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

+ + + + + 

PUBLIC MEETING ON THE NRC STAFF'S 

DRAFT SUPPLEMENT TO THE 

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT 

FOR THE PROPOSED GEOLOGIC REPOSITORY 

AT YUCCA MOUNTAIN, NEVADA 

+ + + + + 

THURSDAY 

OCTOBER 15, 2015 

+ + + + + 

The Public Meeting was convened via 

teleconference at 2:00 p.m., Chip Cameron, Facilitator, 

presiding. 

PRESENT

CHIP CAMERON, Facilitator 

ADAM GENDELMAN, Office of the General Counsel 

CHRISTINE PINEDA, Senior Project Manager, Yucca 

Mountain Directorate, NMSS 

JAMES RUBENSTONE, Acting Director, Yucca 

Mountain Directorate, NMSS 
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1 A-G-E-N-D-A 

2 Meeting Opens 

3 Chip Cameron......................................3 

4 Introduction 

5 James Rubenstone..................................6 

6 Overview of Supplement 

7 Christine Pineda..................................8 

8 Opportunity for Clarifying Questions..............17 

9 Opportunity to Provide Oral Comments..............23 

10 Meeting Closes....................................75 

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1 

2 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

3 2:00 p.m. 

4 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Sydney. Good 

5 afternoon, everybody, on the phones. My name is Chip 

6 Cameron, and I wanted to welcome you to today's meeting. 

7 The topic today is the Draft Supplemental 

8 Environmental Impact Statement on Groundwater Issues at 

9 Yucca Mountain Repository for High-Level Waste 

10 Disposal. The draft was prepared by the Nuclear 

11 Regulatory Commission, the NRC, and the NRC would have 

12 licensing authority over any repository proposed for 

13 Yucca Mountain. 

14 My pleasure to serve as your facilitator 

15 for today's meeting. And our meeting today will be 

16 conducted over the phone. The NRC has held previous 

17 public meetings on this subject in front of live 

18 audiences in Rockville, Maryland; Las Vegas, Nevada; 

19 and Amargosa Valley, Nevada, but today's meeting by 

20 phone only is to give all of you another opportunity to 

21 comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. 

22 Listening to your comments today is a prime 

23 objective of the meeting. Other important objectives 

24 are to have the NRC Staff clearly explain to you not only 

25 the process for the Environmental Impact Statement, but 
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1 also to tell you some information about the findings in 

2 the Draft EIS. And I'm emphasizing the word "draft." 

3 This Environmental Impact Statement will not be 

4 finalized until the NRC has considered all of the 

5 comments from this phone meeting today, the other public 

6 meetings, as well as written comments that are submitted 

7 on the Draft EIS, and the NRC Staff will be telling you 

8 how to submit written comments in a few minutes. 

9 The format today is very simple. We're 

10 going to have some brief NRC presentations. Then we're 

11 going to have a short time for clarifying questions on 

12 the EIS process, and then we're going to go to comments 

13 from all of you who wish to make them. And during that 

14 comment portion of the meeting, the NRC Staff is not 

15 going to engage in a discussion with you about your 

16 comments, but they will be listening carefully, and they 

17 will consider your comments in preparing the Final 

18 Environmental Impact Statement. 

19 If you reference a document in your 

20 comments such as a map or a study, the NRC Staff may ask 

21 you, remind you to submit that document with your 

22 comments. 

23 In terms of ground rules, after the NRC 

24 Staff presentations, we'll go out to you for clarifying 

25 questions, and then for comments. And as Sydney has told 
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1 you, and I think she'll remind you again; Sydney is the 

2 operator managing the phone call. She'll ask you to 

3 press star, 1 on your phone, and then she's going to 

4 place your call in line to come into the room here at 

5 NRC Headquarters in Rockville, Maryland. And as always, 

6 I would ask you to be crisp in your comments so that we 

7 can make sure that we hear from everyone who wants to 

8 talk before we adjourn today. So, I'm asking you to 

9 follow a five-minute rule in your comments. And, 

10 fortunately, if you want to amplify on your oral 

11 comments today, you can do that by submitting a written 

12 comment to the NRC. 

13 The focus of the meeting, the focus of the 

14 Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement are 

15 groundwater issues at Yucca Mountain, and I know that 

16 you might have broader concerns than groundwater. The 

17 Yucca Mountain repository process has been long and 

18 complicated, and there's been many, many issues, but the 

19 NRC Staff is going to listen to any concern you raise, 

20 but it would be most helpful to hear comments on the 

21 groundwater issues in the Draft Environmental Impact 

22 Statement. 

23 And, finally, we're transcribing this 

24 meeting and that's going to be NRC's record, and your 

25 record of what happened today on the phones. And please 
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1 note that we have all of your comments from the previous 

2 meetings. You can comment again, if you want to, but if 

3 you're worried that the NRC did not hear your comment, 

4 you don't have to worry about that. They have all of the 

5 comments. 

6 Let me introduce our speakers from the NRC 

7 Staff. First, we're going to go to Jim Rubenstone. Jim 

8 is the Acting Director of the Yucca Mountain Project 

9 Directorate in the Office of Nuclear Material Safety and 

10 Safeguards here at NRC Headquarters in Rockville, 

11 Maryland. Then we're going to go to Christine Pineda. 

12 Christine is the Senior Project Manager in the 

13 Directorate. And we also, although he doesn't have a 

14 speaking role, we do have Adam Gendelman here. Adam is 

15 the counsel to the Yucca Mountain Project Directorate 

16 from NRC's Office of General Counsel, and if there are 

17 any legal issues, he'll be able to deal with all those. 

18 And with that, I thank you for being on the 

19 phone, and I'm going to turn it over to Jim Rubenstone. 

20 MR. RUBENSTONE: Thank you, Chip. Good 

21 afternoon to everyone on the phone, and welcome to this, 

22 our fourth public meeting on the NRC's Draft Supplement 

23 to the Department of Energy's Environmental Impact 

24 Statements for a Geologic Repository for Spent Nuclear 

25 Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca 
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1 Mountain, Nevada. 

2 As Chip said, I'm Jim Rubenstone. I'm 

3 Acting Director of the Yucca Mountain Directorate at 

4 NRC. And I think as you all know, the NRC has released 

5 this Draft Supplement for public comment. The public 

6 comment period began on August 21st, originally for a 

7 comment period of 60 days, but in response to formal 

8 requests from the State of Nevada, Nye County, and 

9 others, NRC has extended this comment period for an 

10 additional month, so it now closes on November 20th. 

11 We have scheduled an additional public 

12 teleconference, as well as this one, to receive comments 

13 that will be on November 12th during this extended 

14 period. 

15 As Chip noted, public comments are very 

16 important to the NRC, and one of the purposes today is 

17 to accept your comments. We want to be sure that they 

18 are properly captured and can be addressed, so today's 

19 call is being recorded and will be transcribed. 

20 Let me remind you that in addition to 

21 providing your comments at this and at our other public 

22 meetings, comments could be submitted by mail to NRC or 

23 through the website Regulations.gov. More details on 

24 how to submit comments are available on the NRC public 

25 website to www.nrc.gov, under the Radioactive Waste 
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1 High-Level Waste Disposal Key Documents drop-down. 

2 The transcripts, meeting summaries, and 

3 handouts from our other public meetings are also 

4 available at the same page on the NRC website, and we 

5 will be posting the transcript and meeting summary from 

6 today's call at the same page as soon as they are 

7 available. 

8 Let me now introduce Christine Pineda, who 

9 is the Senior Project Manager in the Yucca Mountain 

10 Directorate, and she will introduce the Draft 

11 Supplement, and describe the opportunities for 

12 providing comments. 

13 MS. PINEDA: Thanks, Jim. Hi, everyone, and 

14 thank you for your interest in the NRC's Supplement to 

15 the Department of Energy's Environmental Impact 

16 Statement for the proposed Yucca Mountain repository. 

17 The agenda for this call is similar to the 

18 agenda for our public meetings in September, as Chip 

19 described. First, I'll provide some background about 

20 the NRC's environmental review process for the Yucca 

21 Mountain repository, and describe the areas covered by 

22 the Draft Supplement. And I will follow the order of the 

23 slides that we used for the September meetings; 

24 although, we're not using slides for this call. And if 

25 you want, you can access the slides by going to the NRC's 
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1 web page, as Jim described, at www.nrc.gov, then to 

2 Radioactive Waste, then High-Level Radioactive Waste 

3 Disposal, and then Key Documents. 

4 After my overview of the Supplement, we'll 

5 have an opportunity for you to ask clarifying questions, 

6 and then we'll go to the public comment portion of the 

7 call. As Chip mentioned, try to keep your comments to 

8 about five minutes. 

9 So, how did we get to this point in the NRC's 

10 environmental review process for the repository? The 

11 framework for the NRC's environmental review process is 

12 defined by the National Environmental Policy Act, and 

13 that Act requires that federal agencies consider the 

14 environmental consequences of their proposed actions. 

15 The NRC's proposed actions are licensing 

16 actions or rulemakings, and the NRC develops 

17 Environmental Impact Statements, or Environmental 

18 Assessments for these types of actions. The Nuclear 

19 Waste Policy Act requires that the Department of Energy 

20 prepare the Environmental Impact Statement for the 

21 proposed repository, and it also requires that the NRC 

22 adopt the Department of Energy's Environmental Impact 

23 Statement to the extent practicable. 

24 A number of events or activities have 

25 occurred over the last several years that relate to the 
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1 NRC's environmental review process. The Department of 

2 Energy published its Final Environmental Impact 

3 Statement in 2002, and it submitted that EIS along with 

4 its site recommendation to the President in 2002. 

5 In 2008, the Department of Energy published 

6 a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, 

7 which supplemented the entire 2002 repository 

8 Environmental Impact Statement. And in 2008, the 

9 Department of Energy submitted that EIS along with its 

10 original EIS and its license application to the NRC for 

11 review. 

12 The NRC Staff reviewed the Department of 

13 Energy's Environmental Impact Statements and issued 

14 what we refer to as our Adoption Determination Report, 

15 and we issued that in September of 2008. 

16 What did the NRC Staff find in the Adoption 

17 Determination Report? We determined that the Department 

18 of Energy's EISs could be adopted, but that 

19 supplementation was needed. The Adoption Determination 

20 Report describes the scope of the needed analysis 

21 stating that further characterization was needed of how 

22 the groundwater moves through the aquifer, especially 

23 beyond the post-closure regulatory compliance point. 

24 The Staff also determined in the Adoption 

25 Determination Report that an assessment was needed of 
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1 the potential impacts from the repository that could 

2 occur beyond the regulatory compliance point. So, these 

3 would be the potential impacts on the aquifer from 

4 contaminants coming from the repository, as well as the 

5 impacts at locations where groundwater discharges to 

6 the surface. 

7 The Staff also concluded in that report 

8 that further characterization of the aquifer and the 

9 potential impacts should account for both radiological 

10 and non-radiological contaminants. 

11 You may be wondering why the NRC Staff is 

12 supplementing the Department of Energy's EISs, and it 

13 is a complicated chain of events leading up to this 

14 point. In 2008, when we issued our Adoption 

15 Determination Report, the NRC requested that the 

16 Department of Energy produce the needed supplements, 

17 but at that time the Department of Energy deferred to 

18 the NRC. 

19 In 2011, the Commission directed the NRC 

20 Staff and the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board 

21 to cease its license review and hearing activities 

22 related to the repository in response to a lack of 

23 continued funding for the project. 

24 In 2013, the Court of Appeals for the 

25 District of Columbia Circuit ordered the NRC to continue 
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1 its licensing activities as long as it still had funds 

2 available from appropriations that were made in 

3 previous years. In response to the court decision, the 

4 Commission directed the Staff to complete its Safety 

5 Evaluation Report, which was finished in January of this 

6 year. The Commission also requested that the Department 

7 of Energy complete the needed supplementation for the 

8 Environmental Impact Statement. But, again, the 

9 Department of Energy deferred to the NRC, so the 

10 Commission directed the Staff to develop the 

11 Supplement, which we began to work on after completing 

12 the Safety Evaluation Report. 

13 The scope of the Supplement, as I mentioned 

14 earlier, is described in our Adoption Determination 

15 Report, and the scope is limited because the Staff 

16 determined in that report that the EISs were otherwise 

17 acceptable to be adopted by the NRC. 

18 The potentially affected area that we cover 

19 in the Supplement is the area of the groundwater flow 

20 path that could include contaminant releases from the 

21 repository. The focus is on the area beyond the 

22 post-closure regulatory compliance point. From that 

23 point onward, the groundwater flows through the 

24 Amargosa Desert and, ultimately, to the Furnace Creek 

25 and Middle Basin areas of Death Valley. The groundwater 
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1 reaches the surface both in irrigation areas and natural 

2 discharge areas. For example, in the Amargosa Valley 

3 area, groundwater is pumped for the irrigation of crops. 

4 As its primary model of the regional 

5 groundwater system, the NRC Staff used the Death Valley 

6 Regional Groundwater Flow System Model developed by the 

7 United States Geological Survey. You can see the area 

8 encompassed by the model if you click on the poster 

9 titled "Regional Groundwater Flow System," on our Key 

10 Documents web page, or Slide 8 of the presentation from 

11 the September meetings. 

12 The resources that we determined could be 

13 affected by potential contaminants from the repository 

14 entering the groundwater include the groundwater 

15 itself, which we refer to in the Supplement as the 

16 Aquifer Environment, and we refer to it that way because 

17 we consider the rock that the groundwater is flowing 

18 through, whether it's bedrock or sediment, because some 

19 contaminants can become attached to rock particles, 

20 while others may flow along with the groundwater. 

21 We also looked at impacts on soils at 

22 locations where the groundwater discharges to the 

23 ground surface, impacts on public health, if members of 

24 the public were exposed to contaminated soils or 

25 groundwater, and impacts on vegetation and wildlife. We 
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1 looked at the potential for disproportionate impacts on 

2 minorities or low-income populations that may be 

3 located in the areas of groundwater pumping, or at 

4 natural surface discharge locations. 

5 The framework for the analysis, or the key 

6 elements of the analysis are the consideration of 

7 radiological and non-radiological contaminants, and 

8 consideration of the potential impacts from those 

9 contaminants for a period of one million years after the 

10 repository would be closed. 

11 The NRC Staff's analysis builds on DOE's 

12 model of repository performance that the NRC Staff 

13 assessed in its Safety Evaluation Report. In our 

14 analysis in the Supplement, we considered different 

15 groundwater pumping and climate cases so that we could 

16 identify a good range of potential impacts. For 

17 groundwater pumping, we assumed in one case that 

18 groundwater would pumped as is currently occurring at 

19 Amargosa Farms for irrigation. And for that case, we 

20 conservatively assumed that all the contaminants that 

21 enter the groundwater from the repository and flow to 

22 that point would be drawn up through the pumping. 

23 In another case, we assumed that no 

24 groundwater pumping occurred, and in that situation all 

25 of the groundwater would be left to flow to natural 
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1 surface discharge locations. And for each discharge 

2 location, we assumed conservatively that all of the 

3 contaminants would reach the ground surface. 

4 We also looked at two different climate 

5 cases. In one case, we assume a hot and dry climate 

6 similar to today's climate. And this case also 

7 encompasses the conditions of a hotter climate that we 

8 might see in the near future. 

9 In another case, we assume a cooler and 

10 wetter climate which would experience more 

11 precipitation, and this would result in more water 

12 entering the groundwater system, which could affect the 

13 concentrations of the contaminants flowing through that 

14 system. 

15 Both the amount of groundwater pumping and 

16 climate could also affect where groundwater would reach 

17 the surface. For example, in the case of a wetter future 

18 climate, ancient springs that are now dry areas could 

19 become active again. If you happen to be looking at the 

20 slides from the previous meetings, you can see how these 

21 spring areas look currently on Slide 12. 

22 What conclusions does the Staff make in the 

23 Supplement? The Supplement concludes that the potential 

24 direct and indirect impacts from contaminants entering 

25 the groundwater from the repository would be small, and 
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1 the NRC defines "small" as the environmental effects 

2 would not be detectible, or would be so minor that they 

3 would not noticeably alter important attributes of the 

4 resources that we assessed the impact for. 

5 Likewise, we concluded that the potential 

6 cumulative impacts would be small, and these are impacts 

7 from the repository alone when combined with the 

8 potential impacts from other activities in the region, 

9 such as activities on the Nevada test site. 

10 The Staff ultimately determined that our 

11 impact conclusions are consistent with our 

12 understanding of how the potential contaminants would 

13 move through the aquifer. 

14 That summarizes our Draft Supplement. The 

15 next steps, we will have another teleconference, as Jim 

16 mentioned, to receive comments on November 12th, and the 

17 comment period closes November 20th. We will then take 

18 all the public comments we have received, read them, 

19 summarize them, and provide responses to the comment 

20 summaries. The responses will be in an appendix to the 

21 Final Supplement that we'll publish in the first-half 

22 of next year. 

23 Now we can take some clarifying questions 

24 about the NRC's process. 

25 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Sydney, can you see if 
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1 anybody has a clarifying question on the process for us, 

2 and then put that person into the room? 

3 OPERATOR: At this time, if you do have a 

4 question, please press star 1 at record your name at the 

5 prompt. I will then open your line. Again, star 1 if you 

6 do have a question. It will take just a moment for people 

7 to come in. 

8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Do we have Cecile Pineda 

9 on the line? 

10 OPERATOR: Cecile, your line is open. 

11 MS. PINEDA: Thank you very much for your 

12 commentary, Christine and Jim. My hat is off to you; 

13 your ability to prophesy what will be pertaining 

14 conditions on this planet one million years from now is 

15 truly astounding, and you have my deep congratulations. 

16 I am a mere mortal, so I cannot foresee a million years 

17 ahead. 

18 What I can share, however, is that the 

19 western Shoshone whose land of this repository happens 

20 to be proposed for, know that that mountain is swimming 

21 west, and they have known that before contact; that is, 

22 before the White man, number one. 

23 Number two, that mountain is 10 percent 

24 water. Any kind of burial system that you can create will 

25 not be impervious to the constant leaching of 
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1 salt-contaminated waters. Under those conditions, any 

2 canisters that are deposited there will begin to 

3 disintegrate within 20 minutes. 

4 MR. CAMERON: Cecile --- 

5 MS. PINEDA: I want to refer you to my 

6 sources because I think that before any further 

7 discussion is necessary, it is very important to factor 

8 in more information. 

9 The first one is a film. The director is 

10 Michael Madsen. The title of the film is "Into 

11 Eternity," and it documents what the experience is in 

12 Finland at Onkalo, which is deep depository that has 

13 been designed and is currently under construction in 

14 solid granite, and is a very important document that 

15 must be looked at before any kinds of decisions like that 

16 can be made. 

17 The second source is equally important. It 

18 is a book by John, J-O-H-N, D'Agata, capital D, 

19 apostrophe, capital A-G-A-T-A, and the title is "About 

20 a Mountain." It documents precisely what the various 

21 steps and missteps have been in terms of trying to create 

22 a depository out of Yucca Mountain. 

23 The last comment that I basically have to 

24 make is that fundamentally, nuclear energy does not have 

25 a proper means of disposal, and that any kind of attempt 
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1 to identify Yucca Mountain or any other location as a 

2 repository is simply window dressing to make people less 

3 afraid of what will happen to waste substances. 

4 I think that alternative technologies need 

5 to be investigated, and some do exist. They are in a 

6 purely hypothetical stage as yet, and one of them is 

7 called the Roy Process, that's R-O-Y, and it has to do 

8 with the possibility of transforming highly, highly 

9 radiological waste into something that is far less 

10 toxic. But I do counsel you to consider that Yucca 

11 Mountain will yet again be another boondoggle. Billions 

12 of dollars will be allocated to it, and the same thing 

13 will occur. It will become very, very apparent that 

14 Yucca Mountain is simply not a suitable location for 

15 such a depository because the mountain is swimming west, 

16 and it will have moved a great deal in the next million 

17 years. And at the same time, any kind of drip from any 

18 kind --- in any kind of storage area is going to corrode 

19 whatever canisters are placed there, and that process 

20 will begin within 20 minutes. Thank you very much. 

21 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Cecile. We're going 

22 to consider that as a formal comment. And I'd just like 

23 to remind everybody at this point of two things. One, 

24 this is an opportunity to ask a question, a clarifying 

25 question on process. This is not the opportunity to make 
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1 your comment, which we're really interested in hearing. 

2 And, secondly, we are going to hold people to, when we 

3 do get the comments, to a five-minute ground rule. 

4 Now, we're going to go to another 

5 opportunity for a clarifying question, and that's to 

6 Kenneth Freelain. Kenneth, can you put --- Sydney, can 

7 you put Kenneth in? 

8 OPERATOR: His line is now open. 

9 MR. FREELAIN: Yes, hello. Can you hear me? 

10 MR. CAMERON: Yes. 

11 MR. FREELAIN: It is possible that perhaps 

12 I should make my statement a little later in a different 

13 part of the program. 

14 MR. CAMERON: I think if it's a comment, 

15 Kenneth, I think we would ask you to save that so we can 

16 just make sure that we get any clarifications on the 

17 record, and then we'll go to those comments. And I'll 

18 make sure that when we go to the comment period we're 

19 going to start with you first. Okay? 

20 MR. FREELAIN: Okay. 

21 MR. CAMERON: All right. Thank you, Kenneth. 

22 MR. FREELAIN: Sure thing. 

23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. And we have Mary Olson 

24 with, perhaps, a clarifying question. Mary? 

25 MS. OLSON: Hey, Chip Cameron, can you hear 
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1 me? 

2 MR. CAMERON: Yes. 

3 MS. OLSON: Okay. I have two questions. I 

4 understand that there was a court directive to get this 

5 piece of work done, this Supplement, but what options 

6 do people have to at this juncture challenge the idea 

7 of supplementing the previous documents? In other 

8 words, there's been so many shifts and changes that have 

9 occurred, that supplementing documents that are out of 

10 date is, in our view, what's happening. So, the first 

11 question is, are there options in the NRC's regulatory 

12 processes for someone to engage with that, as opposed 

13 to commenting on the product, you know? 

14 And then my second question, a little bit 

15 further afield, but maybe someone can address it; which 

16 is, if the licensing proceeding were to resume on Yucca, 

17 this is sort of happening with the Staff's issuing those 

18 documents, but were the full proceeding to be resumed, 

19 will there be a Federal Register Notice, and what will 

20 be the juncture? I mean, will there be an opportunity 

21 for additional parties at that time, since the whole 

22 thing was suspended, or how will that kick-start happen, 

23 if it does? 

24 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Mary. And we're going 

25 to go to Staff Counsel, Adam Gendelman, to address both 
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1 of your questions. The first one was the ability to 

2 comment on other documents that may have been superseded 

3 by events. And the second question was related to the 

4 process, if it ever gets started again, how will the 

5 public get notice? Will there be an opportunity for 

6 other parties to join the adjudicatory hearing? And I'm 

7 going to turn it over to Adam now on both of those 

8 questions. 

9 MR. GENDELMAN: This is Adam Gendelman. 

10 Thank you for the questions. 

11 First, with regard to the decision to 

12 supplement and the NRC Staff process, the NRC Staff 

13 supplemented the EIS consistent with direction from the 

14 Commission. With regard to the other documents, for 

15 example, the other NEPA documents, there are currently 

16 admitted Contentions in the suspended adjudication 

17 concerning those documents, but beyond that, I don't 

18 believe there's an opportunity to comment on the process 

19 as it's occurred to this point. 

20 With regard to the potential resumption of 

21 the adjudication, I would be very hesitant to speculate 

22 on if and when that could occur. But, in general, if it 

23 did, there would certainly be robust notice of its 

24 resumption. And if additional parties sought to join the 

25 adjudication at that point following our Rules of 
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1 Practice in Part 2, that opportunity would present 

2 itself. 

3 MR. CAMERON: And, Mary, do you have a 

4 follow-up for hearing Adam's answers? Okay, thank you, 

5 Mary, for the questions. And I believe that's all the 

6 clarifying questions we have, so we are going to go to 

7 comment now. And as promised, we're going to go to 

8 Kenneth Freelain first. Sydney, could you put Kenneth 

9 through to us? 

10 OPERATOR: One moment. Kenneth, your line is 

11 now open. 

12 MR. FREELAIN: Okay, thank you. My name is 

13 Kenneth Freelain, and I am a licensed professional 

14 engineer. I can be reached by telephone at 301-891-0496. 

15 I can be reached by email at the following email address; 

16 engineering, E-N-G-I-N-E-E-R-I-N-G, dot or period, 

17 tribute, T-R-I-B-U-T-E@gmail.com. 

18 In this brief statement, I will outline 

19 some of the reasons why the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste 

20 Repository should be discussed and analyzed during the 

21 forthcoming Engineering Tribute to the Presidential 

22 Inauguration of January 20th, 2017. 

23 The Engineering Tribute will be 

24 videotaped, and then it will be aired on television, so 

25 I am now extending this open invitation to individuals, 
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1 to corporations, and/or to government agencies who wish 

2 to participate by taking one of the following two 

3 choices. Choice number one, by providing me with 

4 prerecorded material which has already been prerecorded 

5 for television broadcasting; or choice number two, by 

6 coming into our television studios and then recording 

7 the material which can be aired on television at a later 

8 time. 

9 The forthcoming Engineering Tribute should 

10 include information about the Nuclear Regulatory 

11 Commission, the United States Department of Energy, 

12 and/or the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste 

13 Repository. 

14 Now, here is some historical background 

15 information about the Engineering Tribute. During 

16 various Engineering Tributes, a variety of subjects 

17 have been discussed over the years, including bridges, 

18 roads, the condition of the infrastructure, water 

19 supplies, environmental protection, climate control, 

20 mass transit systems, et cetera. The next Engineering 

21 Tribute is scheduled to take place after the 

22 Presidential Inauguration of January 20th, 2017. 

23 During past Engineering Tributes, various 

24 individuals, governmental agencies, organizations 

25 have participated in using the following material. 
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1 The following three topics should be 

2 included in the Engineering Tribute of 2017, which is 

3 approximately a year and a half away. Information 

4 --- this is Topic 1, information about the Yucca 

5 Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. Topic 2, information 

6 pertaining to the United States Department of Energy. 

7 And Topic 3, information which is relevant to the United 

8 States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. 

9 The closing of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear 

10 Waste Repository leaves many American non-governmental 

11 entities, such as utilities, without any designated 

12 long-term storage site for the high-level radioactive 

13 waste which is stored on site at various nuclear 

14 facilities around the country. Right now, the United 

15 States Government disposes of its nuclear waste at the 

16 Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico in rooms which 

17 are located underground. The Department of Energy is 

18 reviewing other options for a high-level waste 

19 repository. 

20 I want to thank you for your time and 

21 attention, and interested prospective participants are 

22 welcome to call me, Kenneth Freelain, at 301-891-0496. 

23 Those who care to correspond with me by email may use 

24 the following address: Engineering.tribute@gmail.gov.

25 Thank you. 
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1 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Kenneth, for 

2 telling us about the Engineering Tribute. And we 

3 remember you from when you came to our first public 

4 meeting here in Rockville, Maryland. So, thank you, 

5 Kenneth. 

6 And now we're going to go --- okay, we're 

7 going to comment and if you press star 1, Sydney will 

8 put you in the queue. And please introduce yourself to 

9 us. 

10 OPERATOR: I'm showing one comment coming 

11 in. Please stand by. Our first comment will come from 

12 Bill Stremmel. Your line is now open. 

13 MR. STREMMEL: Thank you. Particularly 

14 responding to the woman from the Shoshone Tribe, and she 

15 seems to echo this general line of criticism that Yucca 

16 Mountain is not perfect, so we've got to start the whole 

17 thing all over again, and either find another 

18 centralized repository, or just do things at the 

19 individual sites which we have now over 100, they're 

20 disasters waiting to happen, whether it's the fuel rods 

21 sitting in the pools, or if they're already in casks, 

22 but it's still --- these have to be individually 

23 secured, maintained. 

24 It's just impossible to replicate the 

25 degree of protection and mitigation that we can do with 
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1 the supervised at all these locations. We have a 

2 disaster ongoing at Hanford Nuclear Reservation in 

3 Washington State. The waste that was in liquid was meant 

4 to be solidified in new casks and brought down to Yucca 

5 Mountain. Because the project has been delayed purely 

6 for political, not technical reasons, it has to stay up 

7 there in liquid form, and now it's --- we have a 

8 radioactive pool heading for the Columbia River. Nobody 

9 knows how to stop it. If it goes get in the watershed, 

10 heaven forbid, that all the efforts we've had to restore 

11 the salmon run will be for naught. It will just be 

12 permanently poisonous and rendered inedible for human 

13 consumption. That's just one of many examples. 

14 The Indian Point plant off of New York City, 

15 the two planes that crashed into the Trade Center, they 

16 could have just swooped down and if they had hit that 

17 pool instead, we would have had a much greater 

18 catastrophe than what did happen on 9/11. We would have 

19 had to immediately evacuate over 16 million people from 

20 the disposal of the radioactive content. 

21 So, these are examples of why the present 

22 situation of leaving of waste scattered around the 

23 country is just unacceptable. Maybe there is some 

24 technology for rendering it harmless, but to undertake 

25 all these activities, which is essentially reprocessing 
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1 again, you run the risk of leakage and whatever 

2 replicated over 100 places around the country. 

3 We cannot complete the decommissioning 

4 process at any of these plants. Some of them were closed 

5 decades ago, until the waste is removed off the site. 

6 And this is tying up a lot of valuable real estate. 

7 Almost all of it is prime water frontage because the 

8 plants had to be on some body of water, river, lake, 

9 ocean for their cooling. And we can't redevelop this 

10 land, also because people are afraid of, you know, the 

11 specter of knowing that waste is proximate. It depresses 

12 the property values around. So, I was just at a seminar 

13 in Nevada chaired by Gary Hollis, and he explained, just 

14 went down the line why Yucca Mountain is just about the 

15 only suitable location in the country. 

16 Sure, maybe as the woman said, in a million 

17 years theoretically it's supposed to flow, but that's 

18 true of just about any place on the earth's crust. I 

19 mean, we need to do something. I think this is the best 

20 way forward. 

21 Finally, I do want to ask if there was any 

22 possibility of leakage. There's leakage going on now. 

23 People don't acknowledge it. There's waste constantly 

24 being plugged into Shoshone up on 27 and 178, and to 

25 Peralta to the Nuclear Security Sites. But if there was 
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1 any leakage in addition to what's happening now, will 

2 they consider say a pilot desalination pipeline from the 

3 coast to replace our groundwater that becomes 

4 contaminated? 

5 And, finally, there's a matter of if we had 

6 Yucca Mountain, what is currently being trucked in, it 

7 would be feasible to establish a rail line all the way 

8 down there, and then put everything, including what's 

9 coming in now onto railroad and cease the trucking all 

10 together. And rail is apparently more secure and safe 

11 because it's self-steering, as opposed to trucks which 

12 can run the highways and suffer a much higher degree of 

13 accidents. So, that's the end of my comments. 

14 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 

15 much, Bill. 

16 We're going to hear from Marty Malsch now, 

17 and then David Schonberger, and then Susan Carpenter. 

18 So, Marty, are you on the line? Sydney, can you put Marty 

19 Malsch through? 

20 OPERATOR: His line is now open. 

21 MR. MALSCH: Okay. Thank you, Chip. This is 

22 Marty Malsch, Egan, Fitzpatrick, Malsch, and Lawrence 

23 representing the State of Nevada. 

24 I had one comment and a related question, 

25 and another question. The comment arises from a 
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1 statement the Staff made on page 3-35 of Section 3.3 of 

2 their Draft Environmental Impact Statement. 

3 At the top of that page, the NRC Staff 

4 concludes that "DOE would need to assess whether further 

5 consultation and investigation are necessary to account 

6 for potential impacts on cultural resources that may be 

7 located in areas where groundwater discharges to the 

8 surface." 

9 It strikes me this is an issue within the 

10 scope of the SEIS, as the Staff has defined it; yet, it 

11 indicates that there's an incomplete evaluation. So, 

12 I'm wondering whether the Staff plans to take any 

13 additional steps to close this issue out? 

14 And my second question is really whether in 

15 light of what has happened so far, and the comments that 

16 have been received so far, whether the Staff foresees 

17 any changes to its schedule or its resources estimates 

18 for completing the SEIS? Thank you. 

19 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Marty. Usually, 

20 we don't answer questions raised during the comment 

21 period, but your questions are very pertinent. And I 

22 think Jim Rubenstone is going to attempt to address 

23 those now. Jim? 

24 MR. RUBENSTONE: Yes. On your first 

25 question, I think we're --- our activities planned 
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1 right now are limited to finalizing this Supplement to 

2 the Environmental Impact Statement. 

3 And on your second question, as of now we 

4 have a schedule which has comment period closing on 

5 November 20th. And at that point, we will evaluate based 

6 on the volume and complexity of the comments whether we 

7 need to revise our plan to complete the Final in the 

8 first half of 2006, or 16. Excuse me. 

9 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 

10 Marty. Did you have a comment, or was that it? All right. 

11 Well, we're going to go to David Schonberger now. 

12 Sydney, can you put David into the call? 

13 OPERATOR: He is now on talk. 

14 MR. SCHONBERGER: Hello. 

15 MR. CAMERON: Hi. 

16 MR. SCHONBERGER: Yes. This is David 

17 Schonberger, member of the public calling from the State 

18 of Michigan to submit comments on NUREG-2184 Draft SEIS. 

19 So for Michigan, I would say that there are 

20 tremendous groundwater and surface water issues 

21 pertaining to the Yucca Mountain facility, which are, 

22 in fact, applicable to the Great Lakes Region where I 

23 live. So, I do request, therefore, that additional 

24 in-person public meetings be scheduled in the Great 

25 Lakes Region, including Michigan specifically, where 
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1 there are aging reactors that will need to be 

2 decommissioned. 

3 The opening of the Yucca Mountain facility 

4 would trigger the launch of unprecedented large-scale 

5 interstate shipments of radioactive materials by train, 

6 truck, and barge. There are groundwater and surface 

7 water implications to that. 

8 I contend that the Draft SEIS is currently 

9 deficient for failing to take a hard look at the siloed 

10 federal regulations governing the nation's 

11 transportation infrastructure; specifically, 

12 including the current lack of any federal standards for 

13 railroad wear and cracking. 

14 In rebuttal to a previous commenter, rail 

15 safety is overseen by the Federal Railroad 

16 Administration, but the rail industry has successfully 

17 opposed enacting any federal rules on track wear, so 

18 that the railroad companies are allowed to use their own 

19 voluntary internal guidelines to self-regulate. The 

20 industry's record is terrible as evidenced by recent oil 

21 train accidents which have impacted surface water and 

22 groundwater resources in this country. It is reasonably 

23 foreseeable that the heavy weight and the dynamic loads 

24 of Yucca train shipments heading to Nevada from Michigan 

25 could cause track weaknesses on the rail lines to fail. 
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1 This issue has not been comprehensively analyzed, or 

2 alternatives addressed, or mitigation proposed by the 

3 Draft SEIS, simply due to the limitation of scope of your 

4 Agency's jurisdiction. So, therefore, your Draft SEIS 

5 is inherently structurally flawed, and incomplete, and 

6 inadequate. Thank you. 

7 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, David. 

8 And the Staff did hear your request for meetings in 

9 Michigan. Thank you. 

10 Sydney, could you put Susan Carpenter in to 

11 us? 

12 OPERATOR: Susan's line is now open. 

13 MS. CARPENTER: Thank you. Thank you for the 

14 opportunity to speak. 

15 First of all, I am rather appalled that we 

16 are sitting here talking about Yucca Mountain today. I 

17 am not sure how this came about, because everything I 

18 had read basically disqualified it, and the only reason 

19 it was chosen is because Nevada was politically 

20 vulnerable. 

21 I'm worried about the timeline. You're 

22 talking about putting in storage. First of all, there's 

23 not enough storage space in Yucca Mountain for all of 

24 the waste we already have. Second, I have discovered 

25 that you're talking about putting the waste there, 
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1 leaving it for 100 years, and then installing titanium 

2 drip shields, which makes no sense to me because if 

3 there's a problem with groundwater, then those shields 

4 are necessary. But if everything is safe as you say, then 

5 it kind of makes the question pointless. 

6 I was thinking about this. I was thinking 

7 we're talking about 10,000 years, and now I'm hearing 

8 a million years. And it was only a few thousand years 

9 ago that we entered --- we left the Stone Age. And how 

10 we can have the arrogance to think that we can basically 

11 handle a situation that far in the future. I consider 

12 what happens in four years as a Presidential term, and 

13 imagine this extended into a million years. And we have 

14 no idea what will be happening then. We have no idea how 

15 man will evolve, how the world situation will be. And 

16 I think we're just biting off far more than we can chew, 

17 with the thoughts of taking all of this radiation 

18 material, radioactive waste and moving it across 

19 country, when we know the average rate of accidents in 

20 different areas, and can factor that in. And I think it's 

21 a very bad idea. 

22 I was very interested in what Cecile Pineda 

23 had to say, and I will follow-up those sources. But I 

24 thank you. 

25 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Susan. And 
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1 we're going to go next to Marvin Lewis, then to Sarah 

2 Fields, then to Paula Gotsch. And, Sydney, could you put 

3 Marvin into us, please? 

4 OPERATOR: Marvin's line is now open. 

5 MR. CAMERON: Are you there, Marvin? 

6 OPERATOR: Marvin, please check your mute 

7 button or pick up your handset. 

8 MR. LEWIS: This is Marvin. 

9 MR. CAMERON: Hi, Marvin. 

10 MR. LEWIS: Are you ready for my question or 

11 comment? Thank you. 

12 MR. CAMERON: Yes. 

13 MR. LEWIS: Well, initially, I mean like 

14 today the TPP treaty's text has been partially released. 

15 I feel that this whole Yucca Mountain thing is deficient 

16 in that it has not looked at NAFTA, TPP, and what have 

17 you. In other words, we may find ourselves, depending 

18 on what the text will be, hoisting on our own petard and 

19 having to be the national sacrifice zone for all the 

20 radioactive waste in this world. Just a thought, but I'd 

21 like to hear the comments from the Staff, and I'd like 

22 to see it explored. Thank you. 

23 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you 

24 very much, Marvin. Sydney, could we have Sarah Fields? 

25 OPERATOR: Sarah's line is now open. 
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1 MS. FIELDS: Thank you. I'm Sarah Fields 

2 from Moab, Utah, and I would like to reiterate some of 

3 David Schonberger's concerns regarding the impacts of 

4 opening Yucca Mountain as it spreads out throughout the 

5 country because of the transportation issues, and the 

6 other issues that would impact groundwater in local 

7 communities. 

8 Next to Nevada, Utah would have the most 

9 --- the largest number of casks transported to the 

10 state, and so that will come down to Colorado into Utah. 

11 And a particular concern is the narrow rail line to a 

12 canyon right above the Colorado River. I have ridden on 

13 that rail line before. It's also an Amtrak Rail Line, 

14 and then into canyons in Utah. Also, I-70 which goes 30 

15 miles north of my community would also 

16 --- particularly going through Colorado, any accident 

17 could impact the Colorado River. And our rail lines are 

18 not sufficient to protect the public health and safety 

19 for this type of transportation, and nor are our 

20 interstate highways. This is an issue. 

21 One of the problems is the NRC tries to 

22 isolate issues so that you can work on one little issue, 

23 and say oh, okay, here, and not look at the whole picture 

24 where you have an accumulation of numerous problems. One 

25 problem I understand is that Yucca Mountain was designed 
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1 for a certain type of uniform storage container, and yet 

2 those types of storage containers are no longer under 

3 development. And throughout the country, high-level 

4 nuclear waste is being put into various types of casks. 

5 Many of those would not be suitable for transportation, 

6 or for ultimate storage at Yucca Mountain, so you have 

7 to go through a process of moving waste from spent fuel 

8 pools, from possible interim storage sites, or dry cask 

9 storage at reactor sites, and yet you --- into the 

10 proper type of container, and that has its own issues, 

11 which would also impact groundwater and surface water 

12 at these reactor sites. Thank you. 

13 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 

14 Sarah. We're going to go to Paula Gotsch now. And I would 

15 just remind everybody, if you want to comment just press 

16 star 1 and Sydney, the operator, will be keeping track 

17 of that. Now we're going to hear from Paula. 

18 MS. GOTSCH: Hello? 

19 MR. CAMERON: Hi, Paula. 

20 MS. GOTSCH: Hi. Okay. I couldn't help 

21 having great sympathy for Bill Stremmel who told about 

22 the problems at Hanford, and being in a place where our 

23 local nuclear plant will shut down soon, and we will have 

24 all those fuel pool risks, et cetera. But I want to say 

25 that the whole nuclear industry, I think from the 
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1 beginning has based on a game of let's make believe it's 

2 okay. And I think historically, that's been the mantra. 

3 And if we make believe that this repository 

4 at Yucca is okay, which we all know it isn't, and the 

5 thing of it is then we're perpetrating this awful 

6 industry which has brought us all these insurmountable 

7 problems that everybody speaks about. Oh, my God, what 

8 are we going to do? And that happened because they've 

9 always said everything is okay, or it's okay. So, if we 

10 say Yucca Mountain is okay, that will not have the effect 

11 Mr. Stremmel would like. It will have the effect of any 

12 still crazy pro nuclear people and industry people who 

13 want to then say okay, Yucca is on the board again, and 

14 we're all set, and we can keep on pushing for more 

15 nuclear plants to make more of this awful waste, and to 

16 keep --- and to make us say oh, my God, this is for 

17 millions of years? 

18 Somebody, the woman from the Shoshone place 

19 complimented the people who are, you know, doing this 

20 program that they could foresee millions of years from 

21 now. So, it is past ludicrous, it's past any reasonable 

22 person's ability to try to think about this. So please, 

23 let's not do the next step of make believe. Yucca is not 

24 okay. The transportation will not be okay. The 

25 high-burnup fuel is there, and there are lots of things 
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1 we haven't even dealt with. 

2 The man who talked about the railroads, 

3 David Schonberger, is 100 percent right. And we're mere 

4 mortals, and we've been acting like it's okay. Thank you 

5 for your time. 

6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you very much, Paula. 

7 And we don't have anybody in the queue right now to 

8 comment. And I would just remind people, if you do want 

9 to make a comment press star 1, and then Sydney will be 

10 able to put you into the room with us, so to speak. We 

11 do have Mary Olson now. Mary, are you on? 

12 MS. OLSON: Yes, I'm sorry. I had the button 

13 on my phone pushed. 

14 MR. CAMERON: Okay. 

15 MS. OLSON: I think there's going to be a 

16 little overlap with the previous comments that we made 

17 at a previous call, but I think we've been thinking a 

18 lot more about it, so I'm going to give an expanded 

19 version. 

20 In reviewing, Nuclear Information and 

21 Resource Service, I am Mary Olson. I work for that 

22 organization, NIRS. Our website is www.NIRS.org. And 

23 back in the archives of our website, reviewing it myself 

24 during a period when Kevin Kamps was focusing on these 

25 issues more than I was, we did challenge the federal 
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1 regulation upon which this portion of the SEIS is 

2 hanging, the EPA's standard. And, yes, there was a shift 

3 because of our lawsuit from 10,000 years to the peak dose 

4 according to when the NAS evaluation thinks it might 

5 happen, and others, and that put it out around a million 

6 years. And so that's how the transition went from 10,000 

7 to a million years, for anybody who's still listening. 

8 And I can say that the other facet of that 

9 lawsuit which, unfortunately, was not unsuccessful, but 

10 we did try, was to challenge the notion that 11 miles 

11 away from the repository underpinning, 11 miles out 

12 would be the point at which that regulatory standard 

13 would be applied. So, on one hand it got pushed further 

14 out in time, but it also stayed at this kind of 

15 ridiculous sacrifice zone. I mean, there's --- that's 

16 a lot of space for radionuclides to be allowed to pollute 

17 to any level. And we regret, and we apologize officially 

18 to everybody who may be impacted now and in the future 

19 by that ludicrous idea that you could impose a standard 

20 that far away from the site. 

21 So, I'm just putting it in the record that 

22 we are not happy. We were not happy then, we are not happy 

23 now. We understand that is the situation. So, 

24 understanding that situation, we will now assert once 

25 again that there have been changes in this entire 
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1 program since 2002 that were changes made by elements 

2 of either the waste generating community, the waste 

3 regulating community, or the waste promoting community. 

4 These are not changes that my community had anything to 

5 say about, but they are changes that --- what is the 

6 waste? There's now an Executive Order that will 

7 commingle the defense waste. The 2002 EIS projected that 

8 there would be commingling. That is a major change for 

9 factors that influence that 11 mile, million year mark 

10 of meeting that standard or not, because the heat 

11 factors are totally pivotal in how you would project 

12 when the containers will fail. That which is the thing 

13 that would allow the radioactivity and any other 

14 contaminant that is inside those containers to travel. 

15 So, secondly, you're going to have then the 

16 container issue. The whole EIS in 2002 is strung on a 

17 TAD, a standardized container for transport, aging, and 

18 disposal. There may or may not be TADs in this picture, 

19 but if there are, it's going to be involving a whole lot 

20 of steps that is also going to impact the waste form. 

21 And believe me, the waste form is also pivotal in the 

22 2002 filing of the application, and the original Draft 

23 EIS. And what are we going to be doing if we have a bunch 

24 of fuel pellets instead of fuel assemblies? And that 

25 seems to be a very high probability given the fact the 
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1 Nuclear Regulatory Commission itself approved 

2 high-burnup fuel in the 1990s, which is not reflected 

3 fully. It is somewhat reflected, but I think NRC Staff 

4 has actually admitted it is not fully reflected in the 

5 EIS, nor its subsequent documents. 

6 So, now we have this growing pile of things 

7 that are influential in when and how those containers 

8 fail, what is inside them, how it's going to get out, 

9 and how long it's going to take for it to travel. And 

10 none of it, none of these issues is fully reflected in 

11 the documents that are now being supplemented. And now 

12 you're talking about compliance with a standard 11 miles 

13 out, a million years out that has not, has not been 

14 updated to reflect the change in the type of waste, the 

15 change in the thermal properties of the proposed site, 

16 the change in the container, the change in exactly what 

17 is in the container, and how many times it has been 

18 handled to be in that container, in other words the waste 

19 form. And all of it together, we believe, undercuts any 

20 assertion that anyone could make at this time about an 

21 impact being large or small. It's just too speculative 

22 to make an SEIS that has no, what do you call it, rooting, 

23 anchoring, reality. Yes, like where does it turn into 

24 fantasy? 

25 And I think for a lot of people, you talk 
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1 about a million years out, it's instantly talking about 

2 fantasy. But I come from an evolutionary biology 

3 background, and I'm willing to talk about a million 

4 years out, but only when we have a solid footing on what 

5 exactly we're talking about in 10, or 20 years, or 30 

6 years, or whatever the frame is. When that is out the 

7 window, then you have absolutely no basis for projection 

8 on a million years, because you just don't know what 

9 you're saying. 

10 And I apologize to all of you that you have 

11 careers, that you have things you need to hang your hat 

12 on. I know how angry everybody got when this whole 

13 project was suspended, or tried to be suspended. I 

14 apologize to you, but we've got to get this right. 

15 And I'm going to end by invoking Thomas 

16 Pigford, one of the fathers of nuclear power, and one 

17 of the authors of the National Academy of Science's 

18 report on a site-specific standard for Yucca Mountain. 

19 And Thomas Pigford wrote a dissent on that report 

20 because he said this: "If we don't get the isolation of 

21 nuclear waste correct, then the entire nuclear future 

22 is in jeopardy." So, if you really care about your jobs, 

23 you shouldn't be covering over these mistakes, and 

24 lapses, and fantasies, and departures from good, solid, 

25 empirical approach. You shouldn't cover that over. You 
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1 must stand up for it, because that is the basis upon 

2 which your industry has a future. Without it, well, it's 

3 just going to be a mess, and I really, really encourage 

4 you to hear me saying that as much as I don't want nuclear 

5 energy, I want there to be a very solid, appropriate 

6 outcome of all the decisions that your industry and your 

7 federal regulation have already made. 

8 MR. CAMERON: Okay. 

9 MS. OLSON: And without that, we're all SOL. 

10 So, thanks, Chip, I'm done, but I appreciate you 

11 listening. 

12 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Thank you very 

13 much, Mary. And, Sydney, we're going to go to Leonard 

14 Kellen next, if you could put him through. 

15 OPERATOR: His line is open. 

16 MR. KELLEN: Hello. 

17 MR. CAMERON: Hi. 

18 MR. KELLEN: Hi. I just wanted to say that 

19 for those in the nuclear industry, I'm glad what you did 

20 to help us win World War II, but I've got to say ever 

21 since Fukushima happened, I'm just waiting for our 

22 Pacific Ocean to start dying, and that I think one of 

23 these days you guys will be looked at as maybe 

24 responsible for killing the planet, and then we're going 

25 to need to be around the people who have to clean up that 
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1 mess. And you guys will probably be first on the criminal 

2 list. I'm talking about the supporters of this industry, 

3 this wasteful, dangerous, toxic industry. And that's 

4 all I have to say. I'm not really well educated on 

5 nuclear, except I believe what Helen Caldicott said 

6 about no ionizing radiation is safe. Thank you. 

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Leonard, for 

8 those comments. And we're going to go to Rose Gardner 

9 now. Sydney, can you activate Rose? 

10 OPERATOR: Rose, your line is open. 

11 MS. GARDNER: Thank you very much for taking 

12 my call. I'm Rose Gardner. I live in Eunice, New Mexico. 

13 Just five miles from my home is Waste Control 

14 Specialists, which is a low-level nuclear dump. I'm also 

15 next to a uranium enrichment factory, URENCO, which is 

16 a foreign-owned company. In Texas, also there is an 

17 organization called AFCI that's trying to open a 

18 high-level nuclear waste dump in Culberson County. And 

19 then here in New Mexico about 70 miles, maybe not even 

20 that far, another company, ELEA, the Eddy Lee Energy 

21 Alliance, is trying to open a high-level nuclear waste 

22 dump. And I listened to the arguments that Yucca 

23 Mountain opposition has made. We are a nation of many 

24 hungry companies, corporations that are wanting to dump 

25 high-level nuclear waste next to people that do not want 
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1 it. These companies will not listen to the average lay 

2 people, so in order for these high-level nuclear waste 

3 dumps to be fought, regular people that know very little 

4 about nuclear waste, nuclear energy are having to join 

5 up, sign up, and petition against these companies. And 

6 may very well go into Eminent Domain to acquire the 

7 sites. It's very frightening, and I wholeheartedly 

8 support all opposition against Yucca Mountain and other 

9 high-level nuclear waste sites. 

10 We have to understand these transportation 

11 issues are horrible. I have a train just south of my 

12 hometown that is being speculated as being used to carry 

13 high-level nuclear waste. It derailed earlier this 

14 year. People, this is a frightening thing to happen. 

15 I totally and completely support 

16 opposition to all high-level nuclear waste sites, and 

17 transportation. Thank you so much. 

18 MR. CAMERON: And thank you, Rose. Next 

19 we're going to hear from Amber Ladeira, and then Artie 

20 Andrews. And, Sydney, can you put Amber through, please? 

21 OPERATOR: Amber's line is open. 

22 MS. LADEIRA: Thank you, and thank you for 

23 taking my call. 

24 Basically, you know who I'm angry at? 

25 Decades back, the geologist who signed off that Yucca 
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1 Mountain is a geologically stable, safe repository for 

2 rad waste. And how that person ever got a degree is 

3 beyond me, because Yucca Mountain, first of all, is on 

4 or near earthquake fault lines. All we have to do is look 

5 up the United States Geological Survey to ascertain the 

6 voracity of that statement. 

7 Meanwhile, though, we do have waste that we 

8 have to deal with. And as far as I know, HOSS, Hardened 

9 Onsite Storage, is still the safest way to store rad 

10 waste until better solutions are created, if they ever 

11 are. I have a dim view about nuclear energy, believe me. 

12 Living in Illinois where we have more energy nukes than 

13 anybody else has, you know, and 48 percent of our 

14 electricity comes from them. 

15 As far as the casks go, HOLTEC casks had or 

16 have improper welds according to a now dead General 

17 Electric engineer who issued stop work orders, and those 

18 were largely ignored. 

19 Regarding transporting this high-level 

20 waste across the country to any place, or even to a 

21 mid-located whatever, it's dangerous on the water, 

22 dangerous on the rails, dangerous on the roads. I mean, 

23 years back, and interesting that Mary quoted so many 

24 statistics from 2002. I was looking into certain 

25 statistics in 2002, so I decided to contact the United 
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1 States Department of Transportation, and they sent me 

2 per my request a whole bunch of documentation as to all 

3 kinds of accidents, very --- I mean, all kinds, 

4 hazardous waste transport, as well as others. There 

5 weren't terribly many, but they do exist. And anybody 

6 who watches the news with any regularity would be aware 

7 of that. 

8 And I want to remind people that in the 

9 industry, outside of the industry regular Joes and 

10 Joannas. Rad waste is toxic for 300,000 to one million 

11 years depending on the isotope, and those numbers have 

12 to do with the half-life. So, it's just --- I just can't 

13 imagine --- and there are so many problems associated 

14 with those whole scenario, and have been associated, and 

15 have not changed in the decades this has been proposed, 

16 put on the back burner. It's like trying to resurrect 

17 a damn dinosaur, but you cannot change the fact of all 

18 of these earthquake fault lines under the mountain or 

19 near the mountain. 

20 I don't understand, other than money and 

21 myopia, why anybody would be for this. Anyway, thank you 

22 for letting me expostulate my anti-rad waste madness for 

23 today. 

24 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you, Amber. I 

25 would just remind people that if you do want to make a 
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1 comment press star 1, and that will alert Sydney that 

2 you want to make a comment. And we're going to RD Andrews 

3 now. Sydney, do we have RD on? 

4 OPERATOR: His line is open. 

5 MR. ANDREWS: Yes, can you hear me? 

6 MR. CAMERON: Yes. 

7 MR. ANDREWS: Okay, thank you. 

8 Yes, I'm calling from Colorado not too far 

9 from where the former Rocky Flats sat, a matter of a 

10 short number of miles from here. And that put things a 

11 little bit in context for me, because I have to say that 

12 there was a whole lot of people that --- well, you know, 

13 they were in the environmental community, I would argue, 

14 as I am, myself. But really, they were arguing hey, leave 

15 the waste where it is at Rocky Flats and the nuclear 

16 materials that were there when that plant was proposed 

17 to be decommissioned. And they didn't want anything 

18 moved. Well, I happen to be totally of an opposite 

19 opinion, and I'm very glad that in that case the DOE 

20 didn't listen. And, in fact, they did move the materials 

21 out of there. 

22 I hear a lot of groups arguing Mobile 

23 Chernobyl, Fukushima Freeways, things like that, that 

24 sloganing, that is arguing against moving these 

25 dangerous materials to a repository. And I have to say, 
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1 you know, I have done personally, because I am 

2 professional engineer myself, modeling of the accident 

3 potentials at all of the existing sites which are 

4 scattered all across the country, and most of which are 

5 sitting in or very near major metropolitan areas. So, 

6 my point is we have to do something with these materials. 

7 We can't just keep putting up roadblocks to getting 

8 something done. 

9 For my entire life, which basically covers 

10 most of the atomic age, we have not solved the problems. 

11 We only keep getting piles of reports that just put it 

12 off and put it off. Like the Blue Ribbon Commission most 

13 recently said well, you know, we might get around to 

14 these things someday, maybe 50 years into the future, 

15 maybe never. 

16 We do --- Yucca Mountain may not be the 

17 perfect solution, and I will not argue that it is but, 

18 in fact, I think we do need to face the issue of moving 

19 these materials, and getting them fairly promptly out 

20 of the major metropolitan areas where they are, in fact, 

21 incredibly attractive terrorist sites. We just cannot 

22 run that risk. Hardened onsite storage is best at the 

23 moment, but even more dangerous, of course, are the 

24 spent fuel pools. 

25 We just have to get this process underway. 
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1 I encourage you to do everything you can to start the 

2 process. Don't put it off for decades to come. Thank you. 

3 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you, RD. And 

4 please hit star 1 if you want to get in the queue. We're 

5 here until 4:00, and we want to hear from as many people 

6 as possible. So, if you want to comment, please hit star 

7 1, and Sydney will place you into the call. 

8 OPERATOR: And at this time, I'm showing no 

9 one prompting. And I—looks like as I said that, one 

10 question did come in. 

11 MR. CAMERON: Okay. 

12 OPERATOR: Ace Hoffman, your line is open. 

13 MR. HOFFMAN: I think that you asked for me, 

14 Ace Hoffman. 

15 MR. CAMERON: Yes. This is --- hi, Ace. This 

16 is Ace Hoffman. Welcome to the call, Ace, and go ahead. 

17 MR. HOFFMAN: Hi. I don't have a whole lot 

18 to say today, but I would like to point out that what 

19 the NRC seems to be doing here is something that they're 

20 guilty of on a regular basis, which is to limit the scope 

21 of whatever they're looking at. And, in particular, to 

22 eliminate anything that they think they've decided 

23 before. And I think it was Mary Olson who pointed out 

24 that there's been an awful lot of changes in the 

25 background information. And one of the changes that 
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1 we've learned about here at San Onofre is that the cost 

2 of onsite storage should really be quite a bit higher 

3 than the utilities are calculating. And if safe onsite 

4 storage is going to also occur at Yucca Mountain, 

5 because it can't all go into the mountain right away, 

6 then that cost should also be greatly increased over 

7 what you're probably estimating it to be. And, also, the 

8 cost of using the rail lines. There's millions of costs 

9 that are being underestimated. 

10 But my point here is simply that I think a 

11 lot of things that are not actually properly decided are 

12 being taken as a matter of fact by the NRC. And that 

13 policy maybe needs to be looked at after so many years 

14 of assuming that anything that went before was right. 

15 We now know that there were a lot of mistakes made in 

16 all sorts of areas of the nuclear industry. And thank 

17 you for taking my call. Bye-bye. 

18 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 

19 Ace. And do we have --- let me ask my colleagues, do we 

20 have anybody on the line now who wants to make a first 

21 comment? 

22 Okay. Well, what we're going to do is we're 

23 going to go to Bill Stremmel, who commented previously, 

24 and we're going to hear him again. And in fairness to 

25 others who already commented, we'll listen to them as 
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1 long as we don't have any first commenters on the line. 

2 They have to take precedence. So, Bill, let's go to you. 

3 MR. STREMMEL: Yes. I didn't mean for this 

4 to become a debating society, but with the lack of other 

5 first commenters, I do feel the need to respond to some 

6 of the people who were responding to me. 

7 They were talking about this giving license 

8 to renewed nuclear development. I do think we need to 

9 separate the two issues. The point is, we have many tens 

10 of thousands of tons of waste now that are here and they 

11 need to be dealt with. And we just can't be in denial. 

12 I agree that many terrible mistakes were made with the 

13 selection of the types of reactor, size of the reactors, 

14 fuels and so on, but those mistakes are made, and we need 

15 to take the most prudent and feasible course of dealing 

16 with the waste, and not just being in denial and saying 

17 it just has to stay as is. 

18 For example, my mother and I, she lives on 

19 the shores of Lake Michigan north of Chicago. We were 

20 hiking over Zion Plant, which is closed now, and I heard 

21 this buzzing in the electric lines over there. I said, 

22 "Mother, why am I hearing this buzzing? I thought the 

23 plant was shut down." And she said, "Power is having to 

24 flow back into the plant from the grid to run the cooling 

25 pumps so the spent fuel rods do not melt down and cause 
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1 a catastrophe there, and poison all of Lake Michigan." 

2 And, indeed, that would condemn all of the Great Lakes 

3 down the St. Lawrence River. So, that's just one 

4 example. 

5 Another one is California has been 

6 celebrating the closure of San Onofre, but the waste is 

7 still there. Suppose you have tsunami? That would add 

8 to the contamination we're already dealing with from 

9 Fukushima on the other side of the ocean. 

10 We also need to examine the issue of 

11 pristine. You know, even if it's found that maybe 

12 Arizona, perhaps, there's more room, it's more 

13 appropriate geologically, but Arizona is still 

14 pristine. It doesn't have the heritage of over 100 

15 above-ground nuclear explosions done during the test 

16 phase of the Cold War, and many more hundreds 

17 underground, and all these other activities at the 

18 Nevada Nuclear Site Center there. And Yucca Mountain is 

19 straddling the western boundary of the nuclear test 

20 range, so you have this heritage, and you have already 

21 contamination until the end of foreseeable time from 

22 what's already been done. There's no point in 

23 introducing even the specter of hypothetical risk to a 

24 new area that then we'd have to establish a whole new 

25 security perimeter and everything, acquiring a buffer 
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1 of real estate around it, when that already exists there 

2 around the Yucca Mountain facility. So, we need to stop 

3 being in denial. We need to deal with the issue of 

4 pristine. We don't want to introduce any possible 

5 conceivable source of contamination to an area where 

6 there hasn't been any nuclear activities. Whereas, 

7 there certainly has been and is ongoing at the DOE's and 

8 the DOD's cycle. 

9 So, thank you. That's my follow-up 

10 comments. 

11 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thanks. Thanks again, 

12 Bill. 

13 We're going to take the opportunity now, we 

14 don't have anybody in the queue right now, but as I 

15 mentioned we are here until 4:00, and take the 

16 opportunity now for Christine Pineda, the Senior 

17 Project Manager on this Supplemental EIS to provide some 

18 more information to you all. And that information will 

19 be, like everything else we heard today, that will be 

20 on the transcript. Christine? 

21 MS. PINEDA: Thanks, Chip. Yes, I was just 

22 going to go over how you can submit your written 

23 comments. We provided --- this information is also in 

24 the handout on the website and it's the last slide in 

25 the set of slides. 
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1 You can mail your comments to Cindy Bladey, 

2 that's B-L-A-D-E-Y. She's the Chief, Rules, 

3 Announcements and Directives Branch. And then that's in 

4 the Division of Administrative Services in the Office 

5 of Administration. And that's Mail Stop OWFN for One 

6 White Flint North, dash 12, dash 808. And then United 

7 States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 

8 20555-0001. 

9 Another way you can submit your written 

10 comments is you can post them on the Regulations.gov 

11 website, so that's www.regulations.gov. And then you'll 

12 see a search field, and you can search for any documents 

13 that come up under Docket I.D., identification 

14 NRC-2015-0051. And the comment you'll see for the 

15 documents that come up, the comment button is, I think, 

16 attached to the Federal Register Notice for when we 

17 published this Supplement. And you'll see a button that 

18 says, "Comment Now." You can click on that and it will 

19 bring up a web form, and you can fill out the form. You 

20 can type your comments directly into the form, or 

21 there's also a button I think below the field for putting 

22 in your comments for uploading a document if you want 

23 to just upload a Word file or something like that. 

24 So, those are the two ways, and if you have 

25 any questions after this call, you can call me at 
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1 301-415-6789 or, of course, you can email us at the 

2 ymeis_supplement@nrc.gov. 

3 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 

4 Christine. Do we have anybody in the queue yet? Okay. 

5 Do we need to provide information to people about the 

6 next telephonic meeting that we're going to have? 

7 Christine, would you just put that in the record? 

8 MS. PINEDA: The next meeting is going to be 

9 on November 12th, and it will also be at 2:00 Eastern 

10 Time. And the phone number and the pass code for that 

11 meeting are the same as the phone number and pass code 

12 for this meeting. Those are, bear with me for just a 

13 moment, 888-790-2936 is the phone number, and the pass 

14 code is 1715992. 

15 MR. CAMERON: And it's going to start at 

16 2:00. 

17 MS. PINEDA: Yes, 2:00 Eastern. 

18 MR. CAMERON: And run from 2:00 to 4:00, 2:00 

19 Eastern. Thank you. 

20 MR. RUBENSTONE: And this is Jim Rubenstone. 

21 If I could just remind people again that all this 

22 information is available on the NRC website, 

23 www.nrc.gov. And as we said, if you follow the drop-down 

24 menu under "Radioactive Waste," to High-Level Waste 

25 Disposal Key Documents, you'll find the announcements 
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1 for all the meetings related to the Supplement to the 

2 EIS, and the transcripts and summaries from previous 

3 meetings. And we will endeavor to get the transcript and 

4 summary of this meeting up as soon as it's available. 

5 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thanks, Jim. And I would 

6 just remind everyone out there that if you do want to 

7 make a comment, please press star 1. Okay, we're going 

8 to be waiting to see if anybody comes on, because we're 

9 scheduled to be here until 4:00 p.m. Eastern. 

10 OPERATOR: Mary Olson does have a question 

11 or comment at this time. 

12 MS. OLSON: Hi. Just a brief additional 

13 comment to make, which is that Nuclear Information and 

14 Resource Service would like to endorse the verbal 

15 comments given by the Amargosa Conservancy at your rural 

16 meeting in Nevada. I don't remember which community you 

17 were in, but those comments were delivered that evening, 

18 and we thank the Conservancy, and want to support what 

19 they offered in terms of real-time, real world 

20 observations about the water systems in that area. 

21 MR. CAMERON: Thanks, Mary. We remember the 

22 commenter from that meeting and those comments. Thank 

23 you. 

24 MS. OLSON: Thank you. 

25 MR. CAMERON: Again, if you want to comment, 
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1 please press star 1. 

2 OPERATOR: I'm showing no one queuing at 

3 this time. 

4 MR. CAMERON: Oh, Marvin? Didn't he --- do 

5 we have someone who wants to talk. Marvin Lewis, 

6 perhaps? 

7 OPERATOR: Marvin's line is open. 

8 MR. LEWIS: Yes, for a real question. You're 

9 talking about transcripts. How do we get hold of the 

10 transcripts? How do we find it in the Electronic Reading 

11 Room, or whatever? 

12 MR. CAMERON: We're going to go to Christine 

13 Pineda. 

14 MS. PINEDA: Hi, Marvin. This is Christine 

15 Pineda. I think you are on my email distribution from 

16 the ymeis_supplement address. 

17 MR. LEWIS: Yes, I am. 

18 MS. PINEDA: And I sent out an email I think 

19 last week, and it provides a link to our web page. And 

20 on that web page you can scroll down and go to the date 

21 of the meeting that you're interested in, and the 

22 transcript is linked there. But I can also send you an 

23 email tomorrow. It will be probably be tomorrow, I can 

24 send you an email with the transcript. Which date, which 

25 meeting date were you interested in? 
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1 MR. LEWIS: This one right here. If you send 

2 me a link, it would be great. 

3 MS. PINEDA: Oh, yes. When the transcript 

4 and the meeting summary are available on our public web 

5 page from this meeting, I will send out another email 

6 to the distribution letting everyone know that it's 

7 available. So, that should be next week sometime. 

8 MR. RUBENSTONE: And the people who want to 

9 be on our distribution list, as Christine said, that 

10 email address, send an email to Christine at that 

11 ymeis_supplement@nrc.gov., and she will add you to the 

12 distribution list if you're not receiving those emails 

13 now. 

14 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you, 

15 Jim. And, again, press star 1 if you want to make a 

16 comment to us. 

17 OPERATOR: We do have a question or comment 

18 from Kevin Kamps. Your line is open. 

19 MR. CAMERON: Well, good. Welcome, Kevin. 

20 MR. KAMPS: Hi, Chip, thank you. Can you hear 

21 me? 

22 MR. CAMERON: Yes. 

23 MR. KAMPS: Very good. Well, I did speak 

24 before when the hearing was held at NRC Headquarters, 

25 so I just wanted to add some more comments at this 
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1 opportunity. And I thank you for it. 

2 

3 So, regarding high-burnup fuel which is 

4 something I didn't have time to talk about at the last 

5 hearing, I just wanted to raise the issue of its 

6 significance in this Environmental Impact Statement. 

7 There is very little to no data about the integrity of 

8 high-burnup fuel, whether it be in storage in pools, or 

9 dry casks on site at reactors. Especially significant 

10 will be the impacts of transporting high-burnup fuel, 

11 and the potential for damage to occur during transport. 

12 And, also, its integrity in storage at a proposed 

13 repository such as Yucca Mountain, its integrity during 

14 operations; that is, during long-term or permanent 

15 disposal at Yucca Mountain, how it will hold up. And 

16 I think that that's a significant discrepancy in the 

17 NRC's Environmental Impact Statement; this lack of data 

18 on the integrity of high-burnup fuel, and how it's going 

19 to perform over really forevermore into the future at 

20 Yucca Mountain. So, it throws the total system 

21 performance assessment into question as to how accurate 

22 it is, because high-burnup fuel, which is now the vast 

23 majority of what atomic reactors are generating, is very 

24 suspect as to how it's going to perform, the levels of 

25 radioactive contamination it will release into the 
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1 groundwater at Yucca Mountain. And, certainly, this is 

2 increasing the risks of contamination of the 

3 groundwater. And that's kind of a segue into the next 

4 area that I would like to talk about, which is the 

5 disproportionate impact on the indigenous people 

6 downstream of Yucca Mountain, the Western Shoshone 

7 Indian Nation, and more specifically the Timbisha 

8 Shoshone who live in Death Valley and utilize the spring 

9 water that comes forth from the ground which is Yucca 

10 Mountain groundwater. 

11 And even in the Federal Register Notice for 

12 this proceeding, the NRC asked specifically about that 

13 issue, disproportionate impacts on people of color, 

14 communities, low-income communities. And I think an 

15 important area that needs to be addressed and has not 

16 been yet is the traditional lifestyle of the Western 

17 Shoshone Indians, which if you look big picture at Yucca 

18 Mountain and its history, and its future, the Western 

19 Shoshone traditional lifestyle has been the standard 

20 for many thousands, if not tens of thousands of years 

21 in the area of Yucca Mountain. So, what I'm describing 

22 is more of a hunting and gathering lifestyle, a 

23 traditional lifestyle that utilizes spring water as a 

24 drinking water source, that utilizes the wildlife as a 

25 food source from that area; all of which is being put 
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1 in harm's way by this Yucca Mountain dump proposal where 

2 the entire area for a long distance downstream is being 

3 treated as a nuclear sacrifice zone out to a long 

4 distance. I mean, the point of compliance, 11 miles 

5 downstream, is one issue, but then also the very 

6 precious and irreplaceable drinking water supply of 

7 that area. So, this is very much an issue of 

8 environmental justice that has not been adequately 

9 covered by this NRC EIS proceeding thus far. 

10 And the final issue I did already raise is 

11 an important issue in terms of damage that could be done 

12 to already fragile high-burnup fuel during transport. 

13 Just the transport issue on all fronts, including not 

14 just high-burnup fuel, but also low-burnup fuel that 

15 happens to be damaged. And I think it's still very fair 

16 to say that there is very little experience with 

17 transporting damaged fuel, fragile fuel. And the entire 

18 risk issue with transport in general from truck 

19 shipments, to train shipments, to barge shipments needs 

20 to be part and parcel a part of this proceeding, and has 

21 not been. And that's why we previously called for 

22 hearings to be held in transport corridor communities 

23 that would be impacted by this proposal. And also called 

24 for an extension beyond the 30 days that NRC has granted, 

25 we called for 60 days so that folks living in those 
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1 corridor communities can learn about this proceeding, 

2 learn about how it impacts them, and take part in it. 

3 So, we would reiterate our call for another 30-day 

4 extension, and also for hearings to be held in 

5 transportation corridor communities. And I think that's 

6 it for now for me. 

7 MR. CAMERON: Okay. Thank you very much, 

8 Kevin. 

9 MR. KAMPS: Thank you, Chip. 

10 MR. CAMERON: And, again, a reminder, if you 

11 want to comment, please press star 1 on your phone. 

12 OPERATOR: We do have a comment from Ace 

13 Hoffman once again. Ace, your line is open. 

14 MR. HOFFMAN: Hi, thank you. There's 10,000 

15 dry casks worth of nuclear waste in America, and that's 

16 if we keep building them as big as we're building them, 

17 maybe 20, 25,000, maybe 100,000 if we make them smaller 

18 so that they're safer. There's millions of miles that 

19 this waste is going to be transported over. There's a 

20 million-year outlook of how far we're going to determine 

21 whether or not this idea is safe. And all of that points 

22 to one --- oh, and the 10,000 dry casks that DOE assumes 

23 that only a tiny, tiny fraction of them will ever be 

24 released. And even in a worst, what they call a worst 

25 case scenario, which obviously doesn't include a bridge 
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1 falling on a dry cask that's being transported, or 

2 anything like that. 

3 So, all of these minute possibilities and 

4 enormous time frames, enormous distances, and enormous 

5 quantities point to one thing, which is that we need to 

6 restart the NAS study of the dangers of low-level 

7 radiation that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 

8 that's you guys, stopped. You've got enough extra money 

9 lying around to start working on Yucca Mountain again 

10 until the money runs out. Well, I think start and stop, 

11 and put the money into the study that was stopped. The 

12 study is particularly important, or it could be 

13 particularly useful because, unexpectedly, one of the 

14 study areas shut down suddenly, two reactors closed down 

15 never to reopen. That's, of course, San Onofre, which 

16 was one of the six areas to be studied. And that might 

17 have been some very telling information about whether 

18 or not the radiation that's being emitted on a daily 

19 basis is dangerous. And from that, we're supposed to 

20 interpolate what's going to happen with the 10,000 dry 

21 casks, and the millions of miles, and the millions of 

22 years. 

23 Thank you very much. That should be it for 

24 today. Thanks. 

25 MR. CAMERON: Okay, Ace. Thanks for that 
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1 comment and suggestion. And we don't have anybody on the 

2 line to comment, but we're still here until 4:00. And 

3 if you do want to comment, press star 1. 

4 OPERATOR: I'm showing no one queuing at 

5 this time. 

6 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We don't have anybody in 

7 the queue to talk at this point, but we will be here until 

8 4:00 Eastern, and that's about 17 minutes from now. So 

9 please, if you want to make a comment to the Agency, just 

10 hit star 1. 

11 Hi, we're here at the NRC public telephone 

12 meeting on the Draft Supplemental EIS on Groundwater 

13 Issues at Yucca Mountain. And if you would like to make 

14 a comment, if you could just press star 1. And for those 

15 of you who might be joining us, we are asking people to 

16 follow a five-minute guideline on presenting their 

17 comment. So, we're here until 4:00 Eastern. And we do 

18 have Michael Keegan from Don't Waste Michigan. And, 

19 Michael, are you on the line now? 

20 MR. KEEGAN: I believe I am. Can you hear me? 

21 MR. CAMERON: Yes, we can. 

22 MR. KEEGAN: Okay, thank you for taking my 

23 call. 

24 Yes, I would argue that Yucca Mountain has 

25 been a tremendous success. It's kept the lie alive, the 
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1 illusion that there's a solution of what to do with 

2 nuclear pollution. Nuclear pollution that was generated 

3 by private interests making private profit, and now it's 

4 a public responsibility, a risk to have to be borne by 

5 the public, and publicly responsible for dealing with 

6 this waste. And it's very much a kabuki dance. 

7 It's known from the onset that Yucca 

8 Mountain was unacceptable but, yet, you've proceeded. 

9 Many of you made a career, many folks have retired, many 

10 folks came back from retirement for another dip. 

11 You know, folks know that this is not the 

12 solution, and you've got to stop making this waste. 

13 We've got to stop --- we've got to confront this lie, 

14 not perpetuate it and allow the production of more and 

15 more nuclear waste, with which no one knows what to do. 

16 But it is known. Mary Olson mentioned that people know 

17 that this is foolhardy. It's not going to work. And 

18 knowing that, there's a responsibility that goes along 

19 with that. And I believe that the Nuremberg principles 

20 apply to all those who are propagating this propagation 

21 of nuclear --- of the generation of nuclear waste. To 

22 say oh, well, we're going to figure this out, we're going 

23 to get this right allows the continued generation of 

24 waste that has no solution. 

25 This is beyond science. We've got to stop 
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1 the generation of this nuclear waste. The paradigm is 

2 in absolute collapse. What I would ask for is --- this 

3 is going to be very costly to deal with this, and what 

4 I would ask is that the NRC reach back into the private 

5 utilities who have made money hand over fist and inform 

6 them it's going to cost more money. And we now need to 

7 generate additional revenues going forward on any 

8 additional waste that's being generated, because not to 

9 do so is to be derelict. It's under-funded and these 

10 companies are in collapse. And when they collapse, 

11 someone is going to have to pay that tab. And I suggest 

12 that there be legislation and regulation put in place 

13 to reach back to these companies right now and get 

14 additional monies to deal with this waste going forward. 

15 I am party to over 200 groups in the U.S. 

16 who have advocated hardened onsite storage until a 

17 resolve is come to a consensus on, but we've got to stop 

18 the problem, stop generating this waste for which no one 

19 knows what to do. 

20 And, again, the Nuremberg principles do 

21 apply to those folks who continue to do what they're 

22 doing knowing full well there is no solution. So, thank 

23 you for allowing me to make some comments, and I'm with 

24 Don't Waste Michigan. 

25 MR. CAMERON: Thank you for those comments, 
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1 Michael. If you want to make a comment, please press star 

2 1. 

3 OPERATOR: We do have a question again, or 

4 a comment from Ace Hoffman. Your line is open. 

5 MR. HOFFMAN: Yes, thank you. Since we have 

6 a few extra minutes, I want to describe in the 1970s, 

7 this was a while ago, I visited the Connecticut Yankee 

8 Nuclear Power Plant, and I was given the small black box. 

9 In fact, it's specifically four cubic inches in size. 

10 I want to read you what it says to show how long this 

11 charade has been going on. This is from the black box 

12 on the sides of it. "Congressman Mike McCormack of 

13 Washington, a scientist by training, often sizes up the 

14 nuclear waste situation this way. The cube you are 

15 holding,” which I'm holding, "which has a volume of four 

16 cubic inches represents one person's share of the 

17 high-level waste that will be produced by present and 

18 planned nuclear power plants from 1976,” that's how old 

19 this thing is, "until 2000. The waste will be diluted 

20 and put permanently into solid glass. If the cubes for 

21 the entire year's population were stacked 12 feet high 

22 they would fit handily within a regulation football 

23 field. As they accumulate, the waste can be put into safe 

24 and permanent storage deep underground. By the end of 

25 the century, nuclear power should supply about one-half 
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1 of our nation's electricity, and about one-third of our 

2 total energy. Each year, a single nuclear plant, 1,000 

3 megawatts, saves electricity customers $50-100 million 

4 worth of fossil fuel, much of it imported oil, and takes 

5 us another step further towards solving our energy 

6 crisis.” 

7 How much of that came true? It's not going 

8 to be vitrified in glass. We can't --- since then we 

9 still haven't come up with a permanent storage solution. 

10 Nuclear power is incredibly expensive, and the 

11 alternatives are not oil. The alternatives are wind, 

12 rain, solar, all the things like that. So, I think that 

13 it's time for some honesty on the part of the Nuclear 

14 Regulatory Commission to throw your arms up and say we 

15 really can't protect the public unless we shut these 

16 reactors down. And then maybe the entire public can get 

17 together and say well, here we can build a solution 

18 because we have a finite problem instead of a constantly 

19 recurring problem; instead of enabling the nuclear 

20 power industry to continue, we only have to solve the 

21 problem that they've already created. 

22 I don't think there is a good solution, but 

23 we have to choose whatever is best. But until we stop 

24 sniffing, we can't choose a best solution. So, thank you 

25 once again, and thank you for holding this hearing even 
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1 if nobody feels like attending, or not very many people. 

2 I'm especially sorry to not hear anyone from the 

3 Southern California Edison's Community Engagement 

4 Panel, for example. You would think they would be very 

5 interested in this topic, that they'd want to get the 

6 waste out of San Onofre, but they're not here. And I 

7 don't hear any other pro-nuclear voices either, which 

8 is a little surprising. The NEI guy showed up in Las 

9 Vegas, but is not speaking today. I'm sorry to hear that. 

10 I think that we can't have a debate about it unless they 

11 try to present their best points. Thank you. 

12 MR. CAMERON: Okay, thank you. Thank you 

13 very much, Ace. I would note that we have had about 20 

14 commenters, and it seemed like it was pretty well 

15 --- the country was pretty well represented, so we're 

16 appreciative for those 20 comments, and for your 

17 comments, Ace. And we're sort of getting to the point 

18 of adjournment, but we're going to see if there is 

19 another commenter out there. Press star 1 if you want 

20 to comment. 

21 OPERATOR: Susan Carpenter does have a 

22 comment. Your line is now open. 

23 MS. CARPENTER: Yes, I live near Pilgrim 

24 Nuclear Power Plant that is just shutting down; well, 

25 it says it will. And I am wondering if the NRC is 
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1 concerned about public safety and the storage of waste. 

2 Why these closing plants are allowed to keep their fuel 

3 in the spent fuel pool for up to 60 years, rather than 

4 securing it in dry cask storage? 

5 MR. CAMERON: Susan, this is Chip. I figured 

6 you were near Pilgrim, and I think I'm going to ask the 

7 Staff to just note that on the NRC website there is a 

8 brief explanatory document on the NRC's decommissioning 

9 regulations. And it explains the rationale for why 

10 things like that might happen. And I'm just going to ask 

11 my colleagues if they want to offer any more information 

12 on that. 

13 MR. RUBENSTONE: Yes. I would just point you 

14 to the website. There is a section on decommissioning 

15 and it discusses the different options. Pilgrim, the 

16 operator just announced in the last week or so that they 

17 would be closing within several years. They have yet to 

18 submit to NRC their decommissioning plan, so we don't 

19 know exactly what will be happening there. 

20 There are a couple of, you know, plants that 

21 have been decommissioned, some of them move the fuel out 

22 of the spent fuel pool very early, some wait some time, 

23 so there's a variety of ways they're done. The Zion Plant 

24 was mentioned earlier. To my understanding, Zion has 

25 completed just this year moving all of the spent fuel 
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1 out of the pool to dry cask storage. So there are a number 

2 of ways of going, and I would point you to the NRC website 

3 to understand our regulations, and stay involved, and 

4 there will be announcements about the decommissioning 

5 plan proposed by the utility for Pilgrim. 

6 MR. CAMERON: Thank you, Jim. 

7 MS. CARPENTER: Thanks. 

8 MR. CAMERON: And thank you, Susan. Do we 

9 have anybody else on the line? Okay. I'll just say one 

10 more reminder. If you do want to make a comment, press 

11 star 1. And anybody who wants to comment, if anybody gets 

12 in before 4:00, we'll be here to listen to your comments. 

13 But at 4:00, if we don't have anybody on the line, then 

14 we're going to adjourn the meeting. And I'm going to ask 

15 at that point for Jim Rubenstone, who's our senior 

16 official here, to close the meeting out for us. So, that 

17 will happen momentarily. Anybody coming on? 

18 MR. RUBENSTONE: Give it another minute or 

19 two. 

20 MR. CAMERON: Yes, let's do that, and then 

21 we'll close out. 

22 OPERATOR: At this time, no one is queuing. 

23 MR. CAMERON: Okay. We're going to go to Jim 

24 Rubenstone to close the meeting for us, and thank all 

25 of you for your comments, and for following the 
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1 guidelines. Thank you very much. Jim? 

2 MR. RUBENSTONE: Yes. Thank you, Chip, and 

3 we very much appreciate everyone who participated in 

4 this call. We had more than 25 people make comments, 

5 which we --- this is the point of the calls. We 

6 appreciate your comments. We will look at those and take 

7 those into consideration as we complete the final 

8 document. 

9 Just a reminder, the comment period is open 

10 until November 20th. You can submit comments by mail as 

11 Christine said at Regulations.gov, and we will have one 

12 additional telecon like this on November 12th, again at 

13 2 p.m. Eastern Time. 

14 So, thank you once again to everyone who 

15 participated, and we will talk to you next time. 

16 (Whereupon, the above-entitled matter went 

17 off the record at 4:00 p.m.)