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APPROVED 9/7/99 . ,�,„, ¢ \ ti! / � 1 2 • MINUTES 3 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS ( 4 Regular Meeting 5 February 9� 1999 6 7 The Orange County Board of Commissioners met in special session on February 9, 1999 at 7:30 8 p.m. at the Southern Human Services Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 9 10 COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT• ChairAlice M. Gordon,�and Commissioners 11 Margaret W. Brown, Moses Carey; Jr., Stephen H. Halkiotis and Barry Jacobs 12 �OUNTY ATTORNEY PRESENT• Geoffrey Gledhill ,, 13 �OUNTY STAFF PRESENT• County Manager John M. Link, Jr., Assistant County Manager 14 Rod Visser, County Engineer Paul Thames, and Clerk to the Board Beveriy A. Blythe (All other staff 15 members will be identified appropriately below) 16 17 NOTEi AI �, DOCUMENTS REFERRED IQ IN THESE MINUTE$AR��J�pERMANENT �$ B�N�A�..��I��RK'S FI E. � RECORDINGS Q�T� MEETING ' •19 WILL B�K��T F�C ,g�YEARS• 20 21 . 22 Introduction ��ie to i�c�Pu ose��ig Work Session: Chair Gordon convened the meeting. 23 5he said that the purpose of the work session is to decide if Orange County should ask the Nuclear 24 Regulatory Commission (NRC)to hold a public hearing on the expansion of the spent fuel pool 25 storage capacity at the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant. This is a formal process called 26 °Intervention." This process provides a very tight time frame for the Count�r to present its case. ?7 Because of the time constraints public comments will not be accepted. CP&L filed its petitiorr for ( 3 expansion in December of 1998. In a Federal Register Notice issued on January 13, 1999 the NRC 19 announced its intention to amend the Shearon Harris license to permit expansion of its spent fuel pool 30 capacity and offered the public the opportunity to request a pubiic hearing by February 12, 1999. The� 31 hearing is guaranteed to anyone who can show"standing." In order to do that it is necessary to file a 32 Request for Hearing and Petition to Intervene. That is one of the decisions that will be made tonight. 33 In mid-January the Orange County Board of County Commissioners asked its staff to recommend 34 consultants who would be qualified to assist in this matter. The Commissioners decided to gather the 35 necessary information to inform them about the CP&L application and to open a dialogue with CP&L 36 officials: The Board of County Commissioners also decided that they wanted to be in a position to ask 37 for a public hearing if it was appropriate. Therefore, the County hired Dr. Gordon Thompson, a 38 recognized nuclear expert, who is in attendance tonight. Also, Diane Curran, an experienced � 39 attorney, wili be availabie by telephone. Chair Gordon pointed out that it is estimated to cost Orange 40 County $20,000 to try to get the NRC to hold a public hearing. The governing boards who have 41 formally joined Orange County in requesting this public hearing include the municipalities of Chapel 42 Hill, Carrboro, Hillsborough, Mebane, Sanford, and Garner as weil as the Counties of Durham and 43 Lee and the Orange County and Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Systems. Those entities who have 44 contributed funds are Durham County and the Town of Chapel Hill. Chair Gordon then reviewed the 45 process for this meeting and the steps that had been taken to this point. 46 47 R�nort on Carolina Power and Light's A��Ilcation and Evaluation of Risks Associated with 48 High Densi y Pool Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel �t Shearon Harris Plant• Dr. Gordon Thompson 49 reviewed the general layout of the Harris Nuclear Plant which is a one unit plant with one containment 50 buiiding. It was originally designed to be a four-unit plant and consequently there are undeveloped j 1 areas for three other containment buildings. A fuel handling building was constructed which has a �2 capacity that would aliow it to serve four reactors. He described the Fuel Handling Building and 53 indicated that pools A& B are licensed and being used. The current application is for the use of poois 54 C & D. The cooling of pools C & D was to be provided by the 2"d unit, which was not built. Now the