Minutes - 12-06-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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preparing an environmental assessment. The possibility of a severe accident has always been the most significant concern that he has had. The technical contentions had to do with quality assurance of some piping and with criticality concerns. The board ruled against this on both contentions earlier in the year. Chair Halkiotis said that CP&L has been transporting spent fuel rods by rail from its two nuclear power plants near Southport, NC and Darlington, SC for storage at the Shearon Harris site. He asked if any special precautions were taken right now for the rail shipments. He raised this issue based on the number of rail accidents in this country in the last few years. Dr. Thompson said that there were irregular shipments of spent fuel. The shipments are based on an as needed basis. He said that there was a whole body of regulations far the transport of spent fuel by road or rail. Commissioner Gordon asked far an explanation of how far apart the assemblies were currently, in the proposed configuration, and in a nuclear reactor. She commented on how close the assemblies were proposed to be, namely, almost as close as in a reactor. Dr. Thompson said that the assemblies were side by side in the reactor core. The rack is na longer an open frame rack, but is a closed configuration with neutron absorbing material in the walls of each tube. It is this close packed configuration that causes the fuel to overheat if water is lost. Commissioner Gordon asked for an explanation of how the backup cooling and the nuclear reactor might interact. Dr. Thompson said that the Harris reactor has numerous cooling systems and failure of some of those systems can cause the reactor to suffer a core melt accident. He said that if electricity is lost, then all of the systems fail so that the core will dry out and melt and mayor may not release radioactivity into the environment. The loss of electricity will also interrupt any cooling to the spent fuel pools. Commissioner Gordon said that she was struck by the range of problems that could occur at the plant. Commissioner Jacobs made reference to how the process was stacked against those who want to challenge the NRC. He asked if the NRC staff voluntarily did an environmental assessment or if that was part of what Orange County has argued for to this point. Dr. Thompson said that this was a question for the NRC's attorney. His recollection was that the staff chose itself to perform the environmental assessment. He said that the environmental assessment really said nothing of interest and was like every other that had been produced in the past. Commissioner Brown said that she was concerned about the evacuation plan for the Harris plant. She said that the current evaluation plan was 20 years old. Dr. Thompson said that off-site emergency planning regulations were introduced in 1980 as a direct result of the TMI accident and were based on technical analyses that had been done in 1978. As a result of the requirement, every licensed plant in the country has to have an emergency plan that involves state and local governments. The concern with a pool fire is more towards the long-term effects from contaminating very large areas of land. There are no regulations for evacuation in the event of a pool fire. 5. QUESTIONS ANDIOR COMMENTS FROM CITIZENS Citizens were asked to write their questions on cards, which were submitted to the Commissioners and read by Commissioner Brown. Has the NRC ever granted an open evidentiary hearing on a similar case? Is this case somewhat unique in this respect? Dr. Thompson was not certain on whether an evidentiary hearing has ever been held on the pool fire issue. However, the issue has been raised several times. His direct experience is that he has been involved in attempts to raise the issue of pool fires. He said that this is the first time, over the period of 20 years, that he has gotten anywhere close to discussing this issue in a regulatory