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Orange County Page 3 of 6 terrorism as one of the causes of fuel storage fire, but that is not the case now. He thinks that if the Board of County Commissioners does decide to intervene, the costs should be less than last time because the work that the County paid to have done has been used, updated, and modified in other places. Chair Jacobs said that, according to Diane Curran's email, it could cost 1/3 of the last time, which would be$100,000. Chair Jacobs said that Mr. Clayton from Progress Energy called him and suggested that representatives of Progress Energy wanted to meet with the Board at some point. He said that Mr. Clayton led him to believe that there may be different receptivity to some of the things that the County has said, since there are new personnel at Progress Energy. Chair Jacobs said that Commissioner Carey has stated his position in an email. Commissioner Carey said that his concern as a public official that the County Commissioners owe it to the public to express their concern where there is a risk to the public. The Board has expressed this concern to some extent. His concern is that litigation has some costs attached to it, and the costs decisions should be made in open session. He said that the cost factor has not captured the public's attention. He asked how much was received from "partners" out of the$300,000 last time and Paul Thames said only $20,000. He said that the Board of Commissioners has gone down this route before and it is the unknown costs of consultants to support their litigation that is a concern to him. He said that at a time when the County has cut$5 million from its budget this year, he is not sure it should spend money on litigation and the unknown costs. He would like public input on the costs. He asked if the County should mitigate this time as it did last time, or if there were other ways. Maybe the public has some ideas about this. Commissioner Gordon said that her understanding is that the Board's decision today is whether it wants to ask for an extension of the time period to investigate what it wants to do, and this would be about$3,000. Chair Jacobs said that the decision for tonight is whether or not to file a request for an extension, and the the County is committing itself to follow u . issue is whether or not, de facto, in filing a request for an extension, y g p Geof Gledhill confirmed that the financial implications were about$3,000. Commissioner Gordon said that she agrees with most everything Commissioner Carey said, but she thinks that it is worthwhile to file an extension. She does not think that the County is irrevocably committing itself to anything further than the extension. She said that if the County Commissioners were concerned before, then they should be even more concerned with two proposed reactors. She said that the rods could be packed very densely and if water goes away, there could be a fire. She would like to go ahead and buy some time, find out what the situation is and see if other entities want to join. She said that this could be a definite public'health and safety issue. Commissioner Foushee said that she does share Commissioner Carey's concerns about how much the County is committed financially. She said that she would be agreeable to the extension if this means at this point that it is the only commitment until the public can weigh in and how much finances would be committed from Orange County. Commissioner Carey said that it is sheer folly to assume that an extension is made without also committing to take the action if the extension is granted. He said that the County will not stop with just an extension. He said that the County is dealing with people who are going to be assisting and will be paid to assist, who make their living convincing people to invest in these kinds of interventions. He would like to get public input. He said that the County would not stop at just the extension, because that is not the purpose of getting an extension. Commissioner Gordon said that she does not believe that the attorneys would convince the Board to do something against its will. She does not believe the County Commissioners have to commit themselves to more. She thinks that if the Board does not take this step today, then it will not even have an option to make a decision. She said that she is just arguing that it would be worth spending $3,000 to try and buy some more time and bring it to the public. Chair Jacobs said that the Board should recognize that as a result of the County's intervention last time, a lot of the information that Gordon Thompson developed was used in other interventions successfully in other parts of the country. He agrees that there should be a public process. He suspects that if there is a public process, then people will come and urge the County to do this. He said that he is reminded that the County griped about this before, but the NRC process is set up for the County to lose. So, whatever the County does or spends, the chances are that the County will lose. He thinks that the issue of partners is a big part of this for him. He said that if the worst case scenario were to take place here, there is no amount of money that would be too much to spend to fight it, and there are a tremendous number of issues about having this facility in a highly populated area, even if it was the best operated facility in the United States. His question is what is the point of asking for an extension. He asked Diane Curran if the County could just resubmit what it submitted before and he was told that there is more updated scientific information, more case law, etc. He said that he is concerned about having an open-ended commitment financially, and he is concerned about having a danger that has not been confronted. He said that he could compromise and try to get the extension, see what the public has to say, • charge someone with soliciting funds from the other governments, and find out if an extension is granted. He mhtml:file://S:\Minutes\20080731.mht 9/11/2008