Beyond Nuclear's 31st set of comments, re: Docket ID NRC-2018-0052, NRC's Holtec/ELEA CISF DEIS
As submitted via <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov>
Dear Holtec-CISFEIS Resource and NRC Staff,
This is Beyond Nuclear's 31st set of public comments in this proceeding.
I submit these comments on behalf of our members and supporters, not only in New Mexico, near the targeted Holtec/ELEA Laguna Gatuna site, but across New Mexico, and the rest of the country, along road, rail, and waterway routes that would be used for high risk, highly radioactive waste shipments to Holtec's CISF, as well as to Yucca Mountain, Nevada, on Western Shoshone land -- illegally and improperly assumed by Holtec, as well as NRC, to someday become a permanent disposal repository.
Due especially to the numerous problems I have experienced submitting public comments via this <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov> email address, please acknowledge receipt of these comments, and please provide me with confirmation of their proper placement in the official public record for this proceeding.
This set of comments is in regards to process elements of the public comment proceeding, but also substance elements of the DEIS, and related documentation. As mentioned at the very end of my 29th set of comments, this 31st set picks up where the 29th set left off. (To be clear, the 30th set of comments submitted by Beyond Nuclear was submitted on behalf of 113 organizations, comprising the coalition's public comment letter.)
Returning to the June 23rd slideshow's Slide 8, re: "NEPA – National Environmental Policy Act...•Disclosure of environmental impacts," I am left wondering how many times, in how many different ways, NRC violated NEPA in its DEIS? As mentioned in my previously submitted comments, as well as by others undoubtedly, NRC essentially did not do a transportation risk analysis; it failed to consider the very large ("EXTRA LARGE," as Sue Schuurman of NISG put it in her previous verbal comments) impacts associated with the high risk that the Holtec CISF, rather than being "interim" or "temporary," would actually become, by default, a de facto permanent, surface storage, parking lot dump; NRC's DEIS EJ analysis itself violates EJ; etc.
Re: "ASLB issues findings," as I previously commented, ASLB terminated the licensing proceeding so abruptly (in May 2019), slamming the door in the public's face, that the filing of new contentions based on material, new information contained in the DEIS itself (not published till March 2020), placed an inappropriately heavy burden intervenors. In the case of Beyond Nuclear and Don't Waste MI et al., the NRC Commissioners' unanimous agreement with the ASLB that Beyond Nuclear had no contentions worthy of hearing on the merits, and that Don't Waste MI et al. not only had no contentions worthy of hearing, but also that Don't Waste MI et al. had no legal standing in the licensing, clearly revealed ASLB's and the NRC Commissioners' bias in favor of Holtec's scheme and the CISF concept in general, but also attempted to gut intervenors' options for legal recourse, based on the content of the NRC Staff DEIS. And as commented previously, NRC Staff has also clearly demonstrated its bias in favor of the Holtec scheme, and CISFs in general, on multiple occasions.
June 23rd's Slide #9 mentions "quality assurance." our 6th set of comments, reproduced directly below, addressed Holtec's flagrant, widespread, safety-significant QA violations, which NRC has done little to nothing about, even though having been notified two decades ago by whistle-blowers:
Beyond Nuclear public comments #6, re: NRC's Holtec/ELEA CISF DEIS, Docket ID NRC-2018-0052 -- re: Shirani and Landsman whistle-blowing about Holtec's quality assurance (QA) violations; Holtec engagement in bribery, lying about it, and resultant criminal investigation
Submitted via: <holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov>
Dear NRC Staff,
Here is a summary of Shirani and Landsman's allegations, contained within brackets below, which I wrote on July 22, 2004 (as posted online here: <https://web.archive.org/web/20160130044911/http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/atreactorstorage/shiranialleg04.htm>:
[Summary of Oscar Shirani’s Allegations of Quality Assurance Violations Against Holtec Storage/Transport Casks
Holtec storage/transport casks are the first dual purpose container for irradiated nuclear fuel certified by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). According to Holtec International's website ( http://www.holtecinternational.com), Holtec casks are already deployed at 33 U.S. nuclear power plants. Up to 4,000 rail-sized Holtec storage/transport casks would also be used at the proposed Private Fuel Storage interim storage facility in Utah. Given the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) recent decision to use “mostly rail” transport to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, Holtec casks could very well become among the most used shipping containers for highly radioactive waste.
Exelon, the largest nuclear utility in U.S., uses Holtec casks for irradiated fuel storage at its reactor sites. In 1999 and 2000, Oscar Shirani, as a lead quality assurance (QA) auditor for Exelon, identified numerous “major design and fabrication issues” during a QA inspection of Holtec International (the cask designer), Omni Fabrication, and U.S. Tool & Die (the subcontractors responsible for manufacturing the casks). In fact, he identified a “major breakdown” in the QA program itself. The problems were so severe that Shirani sought a Stop Work Order against the manufacturer of the casks until the problems were addressed. Instead, he was run out of Exelon. According to Shirani, these design and manufacturing flaws mean that the structural integrity of the Holtec casks is indeterminate and unreliable, especially under heat-related stress such as during a severe transportation accident.
Although NRC has dismissed Shirani’s concerns, NRC Region III ( Chicago office) dry cask inspector Ross Landsman refused to sign and approve the NRC’s resolution of Shirani’s concerns, concluding that this same kind of thinking led to NASA’s Space Shuttle disasters.[1] He stated in September 2003, “Holtec, as far as I’m concerned, has a non-effective QA program, and U.S. Tool & Die has no QA program whatsoever.”[2] Landsman added that NRC’s Nuclear Reactor Regulation division did a poor follow-up on the significant issues identified, and pre-maturely closed them.
Shirani alleges that all existing Holtec casks, some of which are already loaded with highly radioactive waste, as well as the casks under construction now, still flagrantly violate engineering codes (such as those of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers [ASME] and American National Standards Institute [ANSI]), as well as NRC regulations. He concludes that the Holtec casks are “nothing but garbage cans” if they are not made in accordance with government specifications.[3]
Specific examples of the QA violations and related problems alleged by Shirani include:
- Welding problems, such improper “fast cooling” of hot cask welds and metal using fans and air conditioning equipment, which are in violation of ASME and ANSI codes and risk tearing and cracking of the unevenly cooling welds and metal, in order to meet production goals. Welds on the casks were also performed by unqualified welders. Even NRC has acknowledged that “weld quality records are not in agreement with the code requirements.”[4]
- Inadequate controls on the quality of materials used in the manufacturing process, risking brittleness and weakness in the casks.
- Holtec’s failure to report holes in neutron shielding material (neutrons are especially hazardous emissions from highly radioactive waste).
- US Tool & Die’s failure to use coupon (a small physical sample of metal) testing, and Post Weld Heat Treatment on a regular basis, as required by ASME code and in violation of the codes that were part of the license agreement with NRC.
- Holtec and U.S. Tool & Die quality control inspectors’ bypass of hundreds of non-conforming conditions, departures from the original design during cask manufacture. The departures from the original design amount to design changes that require revised analysis to guarantee that manufactured casks actually live up to the structural integrity of the original design. The fact that this revised analysis was never done is in violation of ASME and ANSI codes, and thus NRC regulations, and means the actual manufactured casks' structural integrity is questionable, according to Shirani.
- Holtec’s consent to allow U.S. Tool & Die to make design decisions and changes, despite the fact that U.S. Tool & Die does not have design control capability under its QA program.
- Failure to conduct a “root cause investigation” of Holtec’s QA program, even though root causes are the main reason for repeated deficiencies.
- Exelon’s obstruction of Shirani from performing any follow-up of the audit to confirm that problems had been solved, despite knowing that the fabrication issues identified would have a detrimental impact on the design.
- Exelon’s falsified quality-assurance documents and the misleading of the NRC investigation, stating that Shirani’s allegations of QA violations were resolved when in fact they were not.
- Lack of understanding in the NRC of the design control process and Holtec's QA program, relating to flaws in welding, design, manufacturing, and materials procurement control. NRC lacks a corrective action mechanism for repeated findings. Shirani alleges his audit findings embarrassed NRC because it had also audited the Holtec casks just a few months previously but found no problems whatsoever.
Shirani concludes that these numerous design and manufacturing flaws call into question the structural integrity of the Holtec casks, especially under heat-related stress such as during severe transportation accidents. He also warns that his eight-day audit showed him only a snap shot of problems, and that there could in fact be additional ones yet to be identified.
[1] Elizabeth Brackett, "Nuclear Controversy," " Chicago Tonight," WTTW Channel 11 Television, Chicago, Illinois, January 29, 2004.
[2] J.A. Savage, "Whistleblower Alleges PG&E Proposed Dry Casks Slipshod," California Energy Circuit, Vol. 1, No. 1, Berkeley, California, September 5, 2003.
[3]Ibid.
[4] April 2002 NRC review panel memo, cited in J.A. Savage, "Whistleblower Alleges PG&E Proposed Dry Casks Slipshod," California Energy Circuit, Vol. 1, No. 1, Berkeley, California, September 5, 2003.
* This summary was prepared by Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Specialist at Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C. July 22, 2004.]
Neither Holtec nor NRC have rectified this problem much, or at all, since. Thus, Shirani questioned the integrity of Holtec containers sitting still, going zero miles per hour, let alone 60 miles per hour, or faster, down the railroad tracks, subject to the extreme forces of severe accidents. Dr. Landsman compared NRC's decision making to that of NASA's, which led to Space Shuttles hitting the ground.
Holtec CEO Krishna Singh also attempted to bribe Shirani and Landsman into silence. Shirani told me that Singh told him that he could name his own salary, into the many hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, to come and join Holtec. But of course he would have to shut up about the Holtec QA violations. Both Landsman and Shirani refused and rejected Singh's bribe offer, and continued to blow the whistle.
Singh was separately implicated in a $55,000 bribe made to a Tennessee Valley Authority Browns Ferry nuclear power plant official in Alabama, made in order to secure a contract there.
When asked on a tax break application form, under oath, by a State of NJ agency, Krishna Singh answered that Holtec had never been banned nor barred from doing business with a federal agency or state government. This was a lie. Holtec had been banned and barred from doing business with TVA, after the bribery scandal at Browns Ferry. Singh's falsehood on the tax break application form was uncovered by ProPublic and WNYC in May 2019. It has led to a major scandal in New Jersey (Holtec's home base), with ongoing investigations. Singh's lie secured a $260 million tax break for Holtec, which was used to build a brand new, major manufacturing plant in Camden, NJ, which bears Singh's name. Should a company like Holtec, and a CEO like Krishna Singh, be entrusted with 173,600 metric tons of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel? The rogue behaviors they have exhibited would make that a resounding NO!
Relatedly, on June 25, 2020, Colin A. Young with the Statehouse News Service reported at WBUR (the Boston, MA NPR radio station), an article entitled "Report: Company Decommissioning Pilgrim Nuclear Plant Under Criminal Investigation."
The article is posted online here: <https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2020/06/25/plymouth-nuclear-plant-decommissioning-company-criminal-investigation>
The article reports:
[Holtec International, a subsidiary of which owns and is decommissioning the inactive nuclear plant in Plymouth, is under criminal investigation, Politico New Jersey reported based on a legal brief filed by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.
According to the report, New Jersey-based Holtec International sued the NJ EDA in March over the payment of $26 million of a $260 million New Jersey tax incentive, which the agency held up because Holtec allegedy gave a false answer on its 2014 tax credit application.
"Holtec's misrepresentations — which include its failure to disclose a prior government debarment by the Tennessee Valley Authority (the 'TVA') for bribing an official of that agency — first came to light during an investigation conducted by the Governor's Task Force on the Economic Development Authority's Tax Incentive Program, and they are now the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation," the brief read, according to Politico.]
Again, should NRC rubber-stamp a license for Holtec's CISF, when the company is under "an ongoing criminal investigation" in its home state of New Jersey? The answer is NO! Obviously, Holtec cannot be trusted.
Slide #9 also mentions "Hazards from...transportation." As mentioned above and in previous sets of Beyond Nuclear's submitted comments, NRC has effectively excluded a transportation risk analysis from its DEIS, a violation of NEPA. If NRC tries to claim, as it does, that such transportation risk analysis will be carried out during the Safety Analysis Report/Safety Evaluation Report finalization phase, this is bogus. As mentioned previously, the ASLB abruptly terminated the licensing proceeding on May 7, 2019. The NRC Commissioners largely backed up the ASLB's rulings, most relevantly in regards to Don't Waste MI et al.'s transport safety risk-related contentions. Thus, ASLB and the NRC Commissioners (with the full backing of the NRC Staff) have put impossible burdens on the back of Don't Waste MI, et al., in its efforts to have NRC do its job, and address transport safety risks. NRC has thumbed its nose at federal laws, such as NEPA, the AEA, and the APA, in such regards, attempting to make a mockery of them, to Holtec's benefit, at the expense of public safety, health, and environmental protection.
June 23rd's Slide #10 highlights additional NRC failures. As mentioned, NRC Staff's "Transportation" and "Environmental Justice" analyses (more appropriately, lack thereof), for example, are so bad (or even non-existent), so as to constitute a violation of NEPA's long established, legally mandated requirements.
Ironically, the map NRC includes in Slide #13 makes our EJ point. It shows that not only the proposed Holtec/ELEA CISF in the future, but the long established and operational WIPP, LES, and WCS facilities, as well as proposed future facilities as International Isotopes and LWA (as well as the ISP CISF targeted at WCS), mean that southeastern NM has long suffered under a heavy burden of nuclear, radioactive and toxic pollution. This is in addition to very intense fossil fuel pollution in the co-located Permian Basin. The population in certain areas of this region is majority or near-majority BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color), specifically many majority Hispanic/LatinX communities, the Mescalero Apache Reservation, etc. This is a classic textbook example of environmental injustice, but NRC has willfully blinded itself to this, and is attempting to obscure such facts to hide them from the impacted communities and the general public as well.
Re: Slide #15, it was confirmed by NEI's spokesman during his public comment that the photo shows a scene from San Onofre. This is most ironic. The Holtec ISFSI at San Onofre experienced a near-drop of a fully loaded, 50 ton canister in August of 2018. The only way the public found out about the incident was thanks to a courageous whistle-blower, who was then punished by being fired. Such drop risks will exist, 10,000-fold, at a fully developed Holtec CISF. Yet NRC has not adequately addressed, or addressed at all, such drop risks, in its DEIS.
In addition, at San Onofre, as documented by local watch-dogs, Holtec containers have been significantly gouged and scratched on their exterior surfaces during their insertion in the storage pits, due to the poor design of the Holtec UMAX system, handling errors, etc. Such gouges and scratches have introduced accelerated corrosion pathway scenarios on the San Onofre Holtec irradiated nuclear fuel canisters. This begs the question, has similar gouging and scratching occured on Holtec canisters at other UMAX sites, like at the Callaway nuclear power plant in MO, or at the proto-UMAX design at Humboldt Bay, CA?
Combined with the QA violations cited above, these accelerated canister degradation pathways due to the gouging and scratching could prove to be a significant safety, environmental, and health risk for workers and the public, at the Holtec CISF site in NM. And yet, NRC has given these risks little to no attention in the DEIS, certainly not the required NEPA "hard look."
On Slide #17, it states:
"• EIS evaluates potentially impacts of up to 20 PHASES" (emphasis added)
Potentially should, of course, be potential. This may seem nit-picky to point out. But it is one example of something to be found not only in the slideshow, but throughout the DEIS itself and related documents -- a sloppiness on NRC's part, that is entirely inappropriate in its review of the license application for the single largest high-level radioactive waste dump on the planet, where the risks could not be larger.
Slide #17 also states:
"Note that the safety review evaluates Phase 1 storage facility and any other facilities that are important to safety (i.e. transfer building components)"
This is entirely wrongheaded. The safety review should of course evaluate the project filled out to all 20 phases, as the site at completion of Phase 20 will have significantly larger safety and security risks than it had at Phase 1 -- although Phase 1's safety and security risks will already be very high, in and of themselves.
No DTS (Dry Transfer System) required by NRC before the CISF goes operational compounds the safety, security, environmental and health risks significantly, even though NRC will not acknowledge this. It is most ironic, because NRC's Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel GEIS and Rule relies largely on NRC's assumption that DTSs will assure safety, security, health and environmental protection at away-from-reactor ISFSIs, such as this Holtec CISF. But now that the rubber meets the road, and Holtec has applied to construct and operate a CISF, it is not voluntarily going to build a DTS, and NRC is not requiring it.
But such a DTS needs to be in place from the very beginning of operations, for there is a chance that the very first shipment to arrive on-site could prove problematic. In fact, as with toasters and atomic reactors, the break-in phase risks are significantly elevated, due to bugs in the systems, structures, and components of both transport and storage technologies, vehicles, and infrastructure, operator inexperience, human errors, etc.
NRC not requiring a DTS at Holtec's CISF from the very beginning makes a mockery of NRC's Continued Storage safety assurances -- the rug has been pulled out from under them. NRC's "nuclear waste confidence" has yet again been proven to be false. It is nothing more than a nuclear waste confidence game, run by con men (and women).
Re: Slide 19's claims:
"• Comments –– 6,665 pieces of comment correspondence– Approximately 3,900 unique comments"
there is something wrong with NRC's figures. Opponents to Holtec's CISF generated on the order of 30,000 to 35,000 public comments opposed to Holtec's CISF during the environmental scoping public comment period in 2018. Either NRC has applied some clever tricks to discount the number of public comments actually filed in opposition to Holtec's CISF, or else there is something seriously wrong with NRC's systems for acceptance of public comment.
My experience in this very DEIS public comment period itself deepens my concern about the latter possibility. As NRC Staff is fully aware, I had significant problems myself submitting comments via the email address holtec-cisfeis@nrc.gov.
These problems took days to work out.
NRC staff tried telling me such problems were unique to me. Actually, I've heard from others that they experienced the same difficulties with the email address.
I didn't even try to use the regulations.gov option during this DEIS public comment period. Why not? Because when I tried to use regulations.gov during the environmental scoping period, it didn't work about half the time. As I've told NRC staff, I don't have that kind of time to waste on their dysfunctional systems -- which they then tried to blame on other government agencies, and did not take responsibility for themselves. So much for "the buck stops here" -- Truman must be rolling in his grave! NRC gave the regulations.gov site as an official public comment submission option. It was outrageous that NRC then attempted to shirk any responsibility for that site not working properly, all the time!
And sure enough, I learned from colleagues that regulations.gov did not work on multiple occasions during this DEIS public comment period.
And of course, the USPS mails are significantly slowed right now.
All of this added up is quite outrageous.
Finally, I protest the holding of this 180-day public comment period during a deadly, highly infectious pandemic emergency. 25 US Senate Democrats, as well as 14 Democratic US House committee chairs, wrote OMB in early April, calling for such public comment periods as this one to be suspended until the pandemic was over. Altogether, hundreds of environmental groups called on NRC for the same. All these calls fell on deaf ears. This public comment proceeding has been an outrage.
Sincerely,
Kevin Kamps
September 22, 2020