Free Reply to Response to Motion - District Court of Federal Claims - federal

Case 1:98-cv-00126-JFM

Document 856-13

Filed 09/03/2004

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EXHIBIT 1

Case 1:98-cv-00126-JFM

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EXHIBIT
Plaintiff's Counter Designations to Defendant' s Counter Designations
VICTOR TREBULES
April!? 2002

59:18- 60:14
106:14- 107:6
124:2-

151:11- 152:10 161:12- 162:9

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Case 1:98-cv-00126-JFM

Document 856-13

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Victor W. Trebules, Jr.
t~~
Page 1

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS

YANKEE ATOMIC ELECTRIC COMPANY

(98- 126C)

(Merow, S.

CONNECTICUT YANKEE ATOMIC POWER COMPANY

(98- 154C) (Merow, S. J. )
MAINE YANKEE ATOMIC POWER COMPANY

(98- 474C)

(Merow, S.

FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT COMPANY

(98- 483C)(Wilson, J.
NORTHERN STATES POWER COMPANY

(98- 484C)(Wiese, J.
DUKE POWER, a Division of DUKE ENERGY CORP.

(98- 485C)
(98- 486C)

(Sypolt, J. (Hodges, J.

INDIANA MICHIGAN POWER COMPANY

SACRAMENTO MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT ( 98 - 488 C) (Y oc k , S. J SOUTHERN NUCLEAR OPERATING COMPANY, et

(98- 614C)
(98- 621C)

ale :

(Merow, S.

COMMONWEALTH EDISON COM~ANY
(Hewitt, J.

BOSTON EDISON COMPANY (99- 447C) (Allegra, J. GPU NUCLEAR, INCORPORATED (OO- 440C)(Bush, J. WISCONSIN ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY (OO- 697C) (Merow, S. POWER AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

: VOLUME

(00- 703C)

(Damich, J.
(Bush, J.

OMAHA PUBLIC POWER DISTRICT

(01- 115C)

NEBRASKA PUBLIC POWER DISTRICT

(01- 116C)(Sypolt, J.
TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY

Discovery
: Judge: : (Judge

(01- 249C)

(Bruggink, J.

Plaintiffs,

: Sypolt)
: PAGES

:1 - 241

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Victor W. Trebules, Jr.
Page 2
THE UNITED STATES,

Defendant.

Deposi tion of victor W. Trebules ,
Washington, DC

Jr.

Wednesday, April 17, 2002

Reported by:
JOB NO.

Denise Dobner Vickery, RMR , CRR

144458
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Document 856-13

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Victor W. Trebules, Jr.
Page 59
m sorry.

You had said that you recall

there being discussions regarding whether or not

accepting one spent fuel element in 1998 would comply
with the Nuclear Waste Policy

Act.

My question was whether or not you personally reached a conclusion as to whether or not accepting

only one spent fuel element in
the act?

1998 would comply with

MR. SHULTIS:
THE WITNESS:

Same objection.

m not quite sure how to

answer that because at the time I was, you know, a
fairly low level staff person.
I was given an

assignment.

So I I m not sure if my conclusion would

have mattered much.
frivolous, but I don

I mean, I I m not trying to be I t know that I consciously thought
time.
I mean --

of the implications of that at the
BY MR. EIDUKAS:
Have you -- I I m sorry.

I was going to ask

you whether or not you have since come to such a

conclusion or thought about the implications.
MR. SHULTIS:

Same objections and

relevance.
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Victor W. Trebules,

Filed 09/03/2004

Page 6 of 15

Jr.
Page 60
I think I would personally

THE WITNESS:

feel that one could argue since the Act was not

specific, if we only accepted one fuel assembly, you
know, we met the intent of the words.
However, I also

would be sympathetic to the additional phrase in here

that where it

says, " However,

we did not believe that

that meets the intent of the Act.

I believe the intent of the Act was for

the government to develop the facilities to solve the

nuclear waste problem, which isn I t

accepting just one

assembly, and we were to develop the

facilities.

And

we were trying to do that as expeditiously as we

could,

you know, to really deal with the overall problem of

the accumulation of spent
BY MR. EIDUKAS:

fuel.

Okay.

And was there ever a schedule or plan

developed that called for only receiving one spent fuel
element in 1998?
MR. SHULTIS:

Objection, calls for

speculation.

It I S vague.
THE WITNESS:
I don

I t ever

remember

developing a schedule that only called for one assembly
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Victor W. Trebules, Jr.
Page 106
and not have them generate or not have them have to add
any on-site storage.

I think you said when you started, someone gave you that language or told you that
you know who it was?
MR. SHULTIS:
THE WITNESS:

language.

Object.
I don

I t remember

specifically, but it ' s
BY MR. EIDUKAS:

similar to what, you know,

appeared in that other exhibit.

Robert Morgan?

And that became sort of a program -- again, it
was a program objective that we were trying to

meet.

Okay.

Do you know why that was a program

objective?
MR. SHULTIS:

Objection, calls for

speculation.
THE WITNESS:

Yeah.

I would be

speculating.

I mean, I I m inclined

to answer and say

that, you know, we were trying to accommodate the

utili ties, who

are in fact our customers.

That I s what

the program was designed, you know, to deal with, which
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Victor W. Trebules , Jr.
Page 107
is the spent fuel being generated by nuclear power

plants.

And we knew it would be a financial burden

for them to add on-site

storage.

So we were trying to

develop a program, again, to accept waste in 1998, but
again with all the caveats that that was optimistic and

success oriented.
BY MR. EIDUKAS:

Okay.

And just again while we were comparing

the acceptance schedule in Exhibit 4, the December 1983

draft, and the waste acceptance schedule in Exhibit
the 1984 draft, you said the ramp-up rate was revised
down between Exhibit 4 and Exhibit S, but the steady
state rate or the maximum rate is 3, 000 in both
documents, correct?

That I S correct.

Okay.
Steady state rate is 3, 000 in both documents.

So that remained a constant at this point in

time as to what was planned for the repository '
acceptance rate to be?

That I S my recollection, that I s

right.
the

Okay.

Focusing on Exhibit

S, it I s like

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Victor W. Trebules, Jr.
Page 124
wanted to make sure we could accommodate

that.
rate,

,.-2

Okay.

To your knowledge, was the objective

of having a rate that would meet the generation
did that objective ever change over time?
MR. SHULTIS:

Objection, asks for a legal

conclusion.
THE WITNESS:

I think we tried to malntain

that as an objective and that sort of became
institutionalized with this 3, 000 metric tons per year,

you know, acceptance capability for one repository, and
again when the second one would come online with an

additional 3, 000

metric tons, then we

d be able to

reduce the backlog.

That remained a planning

objective or assumption for a number of years but got

seriously set back when Congress I believe in 1987
pretty much put the second repository program on

hold.

So, at that time we sort of had to regroup and figure

out what we were going to
BY MR. EIDUKAS:

do.

Looking again at the schedule in Exhibit S, it

provides for schedules for the first and second
reposi tory, but there s no acceptance schedule in this

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Victor "V. Trebules , Jr.
Page 241

ESQUIRE DEPOSITION SERVICES
1020 19TH STREET, NORTHWEST

SUITE 620
WASHINGTON, D. C.

20036
ERRATA SHEET

Case Name:

Yankee Atomic Electric Co., et al. V.

The United States

witness Name:
Job No.

vi~tor W.

Trebules, Jr.
2002

Depos i tion Date:

April 17,
Change

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Line 5, change II ground" to " round" ; Page 126, Line 17, change overview " to II for review ; Page 138, Line 12, change 11 199411 to 1984" ; Page 153, Line 14, change " change ll to II changed" ; Page 168,

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\Vitness Name: Victor \'1. Treb-ules, Jr.
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bring Line 18 up to Line 17 , should be incorporated as

same p~ragraph , should read as " ... Waste Negotiator. 'Nnen Congress created..
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MR. SHULTIS:

Objection, calls for legal

conclusion.

Document speaks for
THE WITNESS:

itself.

My recollection is just as

we wrote

it.

We had developed some program

objectives, you know, which we felt would be responsive
to insure that we meant to implement the provisions in
the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

We tried to summarize

them in these five key areas that are identified on

this page
BY MR. EIDUKAS:

Okay.

Did you understand the objectives of

the program to be different than what the Act required?
MR. SHULTIS:

Objection, calls for legal

conclusion, speculation.
THE WITNESS:

My understanding was that

the objectives we wrote that we established would be
responsive to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

Again,

the primary one was to construct the repository as
indicated here.

We also had the authority to make a

proposal to Congress for a monitored retrievable
storage facility.

One of our targets, as I indicated

before, was to begin the system by 1998 to begin to
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Case 1:98-cv-00126-JFM Document 856-13 Filed 09/03/2004 Page 13 of 15

Victor W. Trebules, Jr.
Page 152

accept spent fuel.
There was a provision for at-reactor

storage if that was determined to be

needed, and the

fifth one, we felt we had a responsibility to
efficiently manage the resources of the program,

particularly the money from the Nuclear Waste Fund.
We highlighted those.

We said those were our main

program objectives, and if we did these efficiently, we
would ?e responsive to the provisions of the
BY MR. EIDUKAS:

Act.

Earlier in your testimony, you testified that
the language that you wrote in the sections that you

worked on in the mission plan had to be approved by

your supervisor.

Is that an accurate restatement of

what you had testified to earlier?

Yes.
Okay.
you

recall having

strike that.

Could you say, again,

the time you wrote

this chapter of the mission plan who was your immediate

supervisor?

Was that Charlie Head at this time or was

this -- I have the name in my notes -- Mr. Easterling
at this time?
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Document 856-13
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Jr.
Page 161

plants, other than, you know, it talked about the
environmental problem that had to be resolved with
nuclear waste in general.
You know, it said that it'

going to be the policy of the nation to deal with that

and that. s why they
Act.
BY MR. EIDUKAS:

passed the Nuclear Waste Policy

Okay.
There may have been a reference to continuing
the orderly operation of nuclear power plants.
I just

don t remember one.

Okay.

I guess maybe what I' m re err1ng 0

the part that talks about continuing to dispose of the

waste.

Was it your understanding that the Act didn

just require that the Department of Energy begin

accepting waste in 1998 and then stop; that there had
to be continuation of waste acceptance until all the
waste was accepted?
MR. SHULTIS:

Objection, calls for a legal

conclusion.
THE WITNESS:

It was my understanding that

the Act was intended to deal with the problem and the
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Victor W. Trebules, Jr.
Page 162
problem is not just to begin, but, you know, to resolve
the problem, which is why we focused on the waste
acceptance schedules we did, which had beginning, you
know, as an objective in 1998 in trying to reach a
level that would, as I said before, preclude the

utili ties from

having to add additional storage and
already --

ultimately reducing the backlog that ' was

that would have already been accumulated until it was

all placed in, you know, in a repository.
BY MR. EIDUKAS:

Okay.
the page 17.

Why don t we go on and let' s turn to
This is Section 2. 3 The Improved

Performance Plan.

Is this ~he section that you were

referring to earlier that Mr. Isaacs' authored that you
had referred to earlier in your testimony?

Yes.
Okay.
And, again, could you explain what --

strike that.
And, again, this is an addition or a change
from the April 1984 draft mission plan that we looked
at earlier, correct?

Yes.
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