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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes - 20080731 Orange County Page 1 of 6 APPROVED 9/16/2008 Orange County Board of County Commissioners Special Meeting Thursday,July 31, 2008 6:00 pm The Orange County Board of Commissioners met for a Special Meeting on Thursday, July 31, 2008 at 6:00 at the Link Government Services Center in Hillsborough, N.C. COUNTY COMMISSIONERS PRESENT: Chair Barry Jacobs and Commissioners Moses Carey, Jr., Valerie Foushee, and Alice M. Gordon COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ABSENT: Mike Nelson • COUNTY ATTORNEY PRESENT: Geof Gledhill COUNTY STAFF PRESENT: County Manager Laura Blackmon and Clerk to the Board Donna S. Baker(All other staff members will be identified appropriately below) 1. Opening Remarks Chair Jacobs went through the information at the Commissioners' places. There was an updated calendar, an email regarding an IT issue, an email submission from a concerned citizen regarding the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, a letter to the State Utilities Commission regarding Shearon Harris (blue), a summary from the Manager related to Shearon Harris (pink), a timeline for the Attorney search (melon), and the search consultant information. Chair Jacobs said that Commissioner Nelson was traveling and, because his father was having surgery, might or might not call in to participate. 2. Discussion of the Qualifications of Consultants to Engage in a Search Process for a County Attorney Chair Jacobs said that the Clerk gathered information from the consultants who applied. There are two permutations from Slavin -the Mercer Group and Springsted. He asked Geof Gledhill to attend in case there were any legal issues. Commissioner Carey suggested beginning by clarifying the difference between a full search and a modified search. He asked what is included in a full search and what role the consultant should play in the interview process. Chair Jacobs said that with a modified search, the consultant gives the Board 20 candidates and the Board narrows it down. The full search has the consultant working with the Board to narrow the selection down to 3-5 candidates. He said that Springsted is not that much different in cost for a lot more work, but he was put off by some of the things in the application. Commissioner Carey suggested proceeding by deciding which consultants the Board does not want to consider. Commissioner Gordon suggested deciding on the process and said that she was satisfied with the Manager's search where the Board winnows it down, and then bringing in the consultants for the actual setting up of interviews. Commissioner Foushee agreed. Chair Jacobs said that if the Board wanted, then the consultants could manage the search and bring the Board 20 applications, meet with the consultants to talk through and narrow it down, and then the consultant could do background checks, etc. Commissioner Carey said that there would be no background checks until the Board winnows it down to 3-5. The Board agreed to the process as outlined by Chair Jacobs-the consultant brings back 20 candidates, the Board narrows it down to 3-5, and then there is in-depth consultant investigation of the candidates. Commissioner Carey said to piggyback these consultant meetings with other meetings. Commissioner Gordon said not to piggyback too much because the Board needs enough time. Commissioner Carey said that the meetings where the Board talks with candidates need to be separate meetings, but other meetings should be piggybacked. Chair Jacobs said that the Board would need to meet with the consultant at first; then meet to cut from 20 applicants to 5; meet to set up review process; meet to interview final candidates; and then meet to choose the final candidate. Commissioner Carey said that the County has worked with two of the consultants before and he likes the idea of doing business with companies that are in N.C., and that is The Mercer Group. He said that their proposal and fee structure complied with what he envisioned the cost structure might be. He said that he is more favorably inclined to The Mercer Group. He said that all proposals were good, the costs differed only slightly mhtml:file://S:\Minutes\20080731.mht 9/11/2008 Orange County Page 2 of 6 between them, and $21,000 seemed to be the common figure. He said that he is not sure a position profile is needed. Commissioner Gordon disagreed and said that the position profile is needed. Commissioner Carey said that the Board should describe what it wants in this organization and use that as the basis for recruiting someone. Chair Jacobs said that the first bullet on page one of Mercer's proposal is Position Analysis. He thinks that one of the proposals indicated that it would work with the Board to develop the definition of the position. Commissioner Foushee said that when the Board was involved in the search for the County Manager, it was a part of determining the position profile and the consultant met with each member of the Board and drew ideas before there was a presentation. She found it interesting that this same process was not suggested here. This is what happened in the last process with Mercer. Chair Jacobs said that Springsted described exactly what Commissioner Foushee just said. He said that Mercer's proposal may be a boiled down version. Commissioner Foushee pointed out that on Mercer's page two, it describes that the profile is based on meetings with the Board of County Commissioners. This is what happened with the Manager search. Commissioner Foushee said that she would prefer the Slavin or Mercer proposals, because the County has worked with them before, and Mercer does have offices in N.C. and Slavin has clone a lot of work in N.C. She said that she does not recall any searches from Springsted for a county attorney and there have been none for county searches. Commissioner Gordon said that she thought all of the proposals were competitive. Chair Jacobs asked how everyone perceived the references. Commissioner Gordon said that she does not have strong feelings about any of them. She said that there is a process the County has to go through and there are costs involved, but she would like to pay someone to do the entire process. She does not see items to cut out. A motion was made by Commissioner Carey, seconded by Commissioner Foushee to choose The Mercer Group and authorize the Chair to work with The Mercer Group to review the process the Board has discussed and define it and see if there any savings to be achieved in the process. Geof Gledhill suggested adding to bring back a contract for approval on August 19th. The Board agreed to add this to the motion. VOTE: UNANIMOUS Commissioner Gordon said that when the profile is developed, she would like input from Geof Gledhill. All agreed. 3. Board Consideration of Hiring Attorney to File Necessary Documents with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to Request an Extension for Comment on a Proposed Expansion of the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, leading to the possibility of a Subsequent Intervention by Orange County. Chair Jacobs said that this item was based on the fact that there was a deadline, should the County choose to ask for an extension from the NRC for the purpose of intervening of August 4th and there was no way that the Chair and the Vice-Chair were empowered to make any kind of decision like this. He said that the County Commissioners have received information from County Engineer Paul Thames. There were two people from Progress Energy in attendance that only wanted to listen. Rick Kimball was one of the representatives. Paul Thames said that the actual deadline to submit intentions is August 4th and that is also the final deadline to submit a motion to extend the deadline. NCWarn submitted a motion to the NRC a month ago to suspend the deadline indefinitely. NCWarn was looking at the fact that the NRC has not approved and is not going to approve the adequate design of the reactor for two or three more years. His conversations with Diane Curran indicated that she believed that NCWarn made a tactical mistake by asking for an indefinite suspension of the deadline as opposed to a date certain. Progress Energy is looking at permitting two more reactors at Shearon Harris based on a Westinghouse design, which is supposed to be based on a prototype design. He said that there are a number of issues about that design that Orange County has objected to before such as the spent fuel rods. It is not known what Progress Energy plans to do with the fuel once the five years of cooling off have passed. There are some other issues such as the Shearon Harris lake, which is used for cooling for the single reactor, that does not have sufficient water capacity to cool two more reactors, so Progress Energy has proposed to draw as much as 80 million gallons a day from the Cape Fear River downstream of Jordan Lake. Also, the fire issue that was discussed last year is still unresolved and the 10-mile as opposed to the 50- mile emergency planning issue is still limited to the 10-mile NRC minimum. Gordon Thompson, who did the technical work for the fire potential of the fuel storage has had his work accepted by the National Academy of Sciences and a number of other organizations. The first contention that the County had was right during the time of 9/11 and the County was not allowed to use mhtml:file://S:\Minutes\20080731.mht 9/11/2008 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 Orange County Page 4 of 6 said that, regardless of whether the extension is granted, the County could submit the resolution to the NRC that Paul Thames drafted. Chair Jacobs suggested, whether the County does or does not hire Diane Curran, that the Board deal with the resolution before adjourning and make sure it gets into the public record. He would also be willing to suggest the duration of the deadline. Commissioner Carey said that there is no doubt that the investment last time had good outcomes, but Orange County did not get any return on its investment. A motion was made by Commissioner Carey, seconded by Commissioner Foushee to adopt the Resolution In Opposition to the Progress Energy Plan and Permit Application to US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Opposition to any Application for a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity to the NC Utilities Commission for the Expansion of the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant by the Construction of One or More Additional Nuclear Reactors and Associated Storage Pools for Spent Fuel Rods. Commissioner Gordon made reference to the third, "Whereas" and suggested a different wording than "spontaneous combustion." Chair Jacobs suggested just saying, "combustion." Chair Jacobs said that he removed the subordinate clause and the"whereas" and took out the references to CP&L. There were also a few spelling mistakes. Geof Gledhill pointed out that this resolution does not mention the water issue and the fact that 80 million gallons a day would be needed for cooling. Chair Jacobs said that he is not sure that there is specific data to make a "whereas"about this. Geof Gledhill suggested adding some wording to the effect that both the NRC and the Utilities Commission should consider the implications of additional water needed to cool two additional reactors. Commissioner Carey said that he would allow a friendly amendment for the Chair and the Attorney to incorporate a substantive comment about the cooling capacity. Chair Jacobs made a wording suggestion as follows: "Whereas, in the light of persistent drought conditions and the demands for water, there are serious concerns about the adequacy of sufficient cooling water for additional reactors at Shearon Harris." The Board agreed with this. Commissioner Gordon made reference to the last"Whereas" on page 5, and asked if it is true that additional power generation capacity in this area is unnecessary for the foreseeable future. Paul Thames said that the analytical studies by organizations such as NCWARN have said that this is the case. Chair Jacobs suggested saying "may be unnecessary." He also suggested the "Now, therefore, be it resolved," have only the first bullet, because the County is not committing itself to a formal intervention or the acquisition of the necessary consulting support to submit the intervention. Commissioner Gordon said that there is another bullet, which is to authorize Diane Curran to file for the extension. Commissioner Carey amended the motion to eliminate the latter two bullets and not to incorporate anything about Diane Curran. VOTE: UNANIMOUS ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS A Resolution In Opposition to the Progress Energy Plan and Permit Application to US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Opposition to any Application for a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity to the NC Utilities Commission for the Expansion of the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant by the Construction of One or More Additional Nuclear Reactors and Associated Storage Pools for Spent Fuel Rods WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners has a long and well-established practice of opposing activities that could prove harmful to the public health, safety and welfare, particularly in regard to feasible threats to that health, safety and welfare; and WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners has a long and well-established record of concern regarding security and safety issues at the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant and the potential magnitude and catastrophic consequences of a nuclear power plant fire leading to an airborne release of nuclear waste materials; and mhtml:file://S:\Minutes\20080731.mht 9/11/2008 Orange County Page 5 of 6 WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners, through the work of Dr. Gordon Thompson and Diane Curran, Esq., has established to the satisfaction of the scientific community the potential for combustion of spent nuclear fuel rods during low water conditions in the spent fuel rod storage pools; and WHEREAS, the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant already has the largest quantity of pool-stored spent nuclear fuel rods in the United States; and WHEREAS, the expansion of the pool storage of fuel rods at Shearon Harris nuclear power plant would be vastly increased by the addition of one or two new reactors, and associated fuel rod storage pools at the facility would only exacerbate the consequences of a fuel rod fire; and - spent fuel rods at Shearon Harris nuclear WHEREAS, the vastly increased quantity of pool stored s p power plant will serve to enhance the attraction of this facility for terrorist attack; and WHEREAS, regardless of the safety and security findings made by NRC inspections of the plant, NRC and Progress Energy policies and procedures promote inadequate security measures to protect the plant and spent fuel pool storage area from terrorist activities culminating in fire and airborne release of toxic nuclear waste materials; and WHEREAS, absent terrorist attack, approximately 50 percent of the risks of catastrophic nuclear plant failure (as calculated by the NRC) are associated with fire-related accidents; and WHEREAS, information has been presented to the community at large and the Orange County Board of Commissioners as to ongoing problems with fire safety practices at the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant; and WHEREAS, Progress Energy has indicated that it will take seven to ten more years to bring the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant into compliance with the NRC's adopted fire safety standards and regulations; and WHEREAS, Progress Energy has indicated that it has or will apply to the NRC for a twenty year extension of its operating license for the Shearon Harris plant while the plant is not in compliance with existing fire safety standards and regulations; and WHEREAS, Progress Energy is in the process of evaluating, permitting, designing and constructing two nuclear power reactors at the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant while the existing plant is not in compliance with existing fire safety standards and regulations; and WHEREAS, The permanent storage facility for spent nuclear fuel rods and other high level radioactive waste at the proposed federal Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada appears to be no closer to fruition than it was twenty years ago and will probably not be available for another twenty years, if ever; and WHEREAS, the Orange County Board of Commissioners and the community have grave concerns about the NRC's objectivity in evaluating the nuclear power industry's proposals and programs related to the concerns outlined above; and WHEREAS, numerous technical reports and papers by environmental groups, the utilities themselves and the NRC have shown that additional power generation capacity in this region may be mhtml:file://S:\Minutes\20080731.mht 9/11/2008 Orange County Page 6 of 6 unnecessary for the foreseeable future; and WHEREAS, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has set a deadline of August 4, 2008 for submitting objections to the issuance of a permit for the construction of two new reactors at the Shearon Harris plant, even though the Westinghouse Model AP4100 reactor technology proposed for use is not expected to be designed, reviewed and permitted by the NRC before 2011; and WHEREAS, in the light of persistent drought conditions and demands for water, there are serious concerns about the adequacy of cooling water available for additional reactors at Shearon Harris. NOW, THEREFORE, do we, that the Orange County Board of Commissioners, hereby resolve to: • Oppose in the strongest terms possible the issuance of a permit by the NRC or of a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity by the NC Utilities for the Progress Energy plan to permit, design and construct one or more nuclear power reactors at the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant. This is the 31 day of July, 2008. Chair Jacobs said that the other issue is what other action to take. A motion was made by Commissioner Gordon to authorize staff to file a motion to extend the time to file comments, at a cost not to exceed $4,000, and that this is the only commitment that Orange County is making and it will bring up the question of further actions at a regular meeting, at which time it will have a public hearing and to explicitly solicit partners to help with financial implications. Chair Jacobs suggested asking for an extension of 60 days. Geof Gledhill suggested giving Diane Curran some discretion based on her assessment of the NRC, at least 60 days. Chair Jacobs seconded the motion. VOTE: Ayes, 3;No, 1 (Commissioner Carey) Chair Jacobs asked Laura Blackmon to start contacting other Mayors/Chairs/Managers to see if they are interested in participating. Commissioner Gordon said to get an assessment of what the costs are. Chair Jacobs said that Diane Curran said that she could have a contract by tomorrow morning. He said that he would call her tonight and express the concerns. This probably should be brought to the public on September 2nd 3. Adjournment A motion was made by Commissioner Gordon, seconded by Commissioner Carey to adjourn the meeting at 7:30 pm. Barry Jacobs, Chair Donna S. Baker, CMC Clerk to the Board mhtml:file://S:\Minutes\20080731.mht 9/11/2008