The following subject matter has gotten little to no attention in NRC's ISP/WCS CISF DEIS, a far cry from NEPA's legally binding "hard look" requirement:
Responses to NRC's call-in public comment sessions
As we have commented previously, the summary (variously referred to by NRC as the "Overview" or the "Reader's Guide"), mentioned in NRC's slideshow presentation during the public comment call-in sessions, contains a glaring error, which in fact contradicts the DEIS itself. The Reader's Guide/Overview states that the Private Fuel Storage, LLC CISF license, targeting the Skull Valley Goshutes Indian Reservation in Utah, has been terminated. But this is a false statement. The license has not been terminated. PFS's request to terminate the license was withdrawn.
Also, the 40-year scope of the DEIS, we have also protested in previous comments.
The reasonably foreseeable need for a Dry Transfer System (DTS), from day one at ISP, makes NRC's decision not to require one, and ISP's decision not to voluntarily build one, all the more outrageous. It is reasonably foreseeable that a problem cask, whether one just arrives from off-site, or one that has degraded after decades of "temporary" storage on-site, would need to have a DTS available, to handle the emergency situation. The emergency situation could be very fast-breaking. There would be no time or ability to instantly construct a very expensive and complicated DTS, ad hoc, willy nilly, thus making a fast-breaking emergency situation all the worse.
Also during the call-in session introductory slideshows, James Park of NRC claimed there is no liquid in the canisters. But what about the water remaining inside the canisters? Vacuum drying the inner canisters when they are loaded with irradiated nuclear fuel in wet storage pools does not get out all the water. There is at least a trace amount left, sealed within the then welded shut or otherwise sealed inner canister.
And what about tritium? There is certainly a significant amount of tritium present in irradiated nuclear fuel. In fact, tritium is able to escape straight through the wall of certain grades of steel. The metallurgy of the steel is incapable of containing the very small tritium molecules, which pass straight through the steel wall. And could not tritium combine with oxygen to form tritiated water molecules inside the canister? While escape of tritium in gaseous or vapor form is bad enough, so too would be escape of tritiated water.
As the irradiated nuclear fuel cools over time, the condensation of water (tritiated or not) within the canister could initiate a corrosion risk, eating from the inside-out.
Also, there is a significant risk that surface (as due to extreme rainfall flooding) and/or groundwater could interact with the irradiated nuclear fuel containers, introducing infiltrating water into the container. In that way, liquid in the canisters -- which James Park denied was or even could be a problem -- could well become a problem. Not just in terms of corrosion potential, but even in terms of criticality risk. If a critical mass were to form in the irradiated nuclear fuel -- as by fuel failure, creating a pile of irradiated nuclear fuel debris on the bottom of the container, right where water would/could itself build up -- infiltrating or accumulating liquid water could spark an inadvertent criticality. This would be an extreme risk for health, safety, and environment, and could have extreme consequences.
NRC's slide show presentations claimed that less than 30,000 scoping comments were received. But by our coalition's own count, actually more than 45,000 comments opposed to the CISF were generated during the environmental scoping phase alone.
Now for a word on technical issues with the NRC's process itself. I gave up on regulations.gov two years ago, during the CISF environmental scoping phase, when regulations.gov was dysfunctional more often than it was functional. I've submitted written comments entirely by email in both CISF DEIS proceedings. In the Holtec proceeding, I had many problems with the email as well. I registered this with NRC staff at the time. The problems were eventually resolved. But I had to wonder how many others were similarly hitting a brick wall with NRC's Holtec submission email address. And sure enough, I learned from colleagues that the Holtec regulations.gov page was also not working on multiple occasions. Such dysfunctions with the regulations.gov and email address are a form of suppression of public participation rights under NEPA. The burden should not be on the public to have to constantly inform NRC its systems are not working properly. And yet, that has been our experience, time after time.
And sure enough, I just learned from a colleague today, who had his emails rejected by the ISP DEIS NRC email. He eventually succeeded in submitting it via regulations.gov. But again, the public should not hit brick walls when submitting comments to the very email address NRC has provided for this purpose.
Similarly, I stopped trying to make NRC's WebEx work on my laptop computer. I would simply phone into the call-in, and follow along during the NRC slideshow presentation, by listening to the audio via the phone line, while scrolling through a copy of the slideshow I'd downloaded onto my computer. Again, such Rube Goldberg Machine workarounds, because of the complexity or dysfunctionality of the NRC's own systems, makes for more burdens on the public.
During the slideshow presentations, James Park verbally said out loud that a person, at 100 feet distance, passed by every single one of the 3,400 irradiated nuclear fuel casks bound for ISP, would receive only a 1.09 milli-Rem dose of radioactivity, altogether. First of all, the written text in the slideshow said 1.9 mR. So which is it? 1.09 or 1.9? Because the latter figure is nearly twice that of the former. Which is mistaken, James Park's verbal statement, or the written figure in the slideshow itself?
But besides that, what about if that person were closer than 100 feet away? The radiation dose would increase significantly, the closer the person got to the shipping containers, correct? NRC's regulations allow for a dose of 10 mR/hr, at a distance of 6.6 feet. At the shipping container surface, a dose of 200 mR/hr is allowed.
Also, it seems NRC's assumption is that those 3,400 shipments would continue to roll on past that hypothetical person, without ever stopping, pausing, idling, etc. in front of them.
The longer the shipment takes to pass by the person, the higher the dose to the person, right? These are like Mobile X-ray Machines That Can't Be Turned Off. The longer they linger nearby, the higher the exposure dose.
And what if one or more of those shipments is externally contaminated? Orano (formerly Areva) had a terrible problem with severely contaminated shipments in the 1990s in France. One-quarter to one-third of all shipments inbound to La Hague for reprocessing (amounting to several hundreds of shipments) were externally contaminated above permissible dose rate levels. On average, these contaminated shipments exceeded permissible dose rates 500-fold. In one case, the exceedance was 3,300-fold.
So NRC has made a number of optimistic assumptions, in order to arrive at its figure of 1.9 mR dose to a person passed by every single one of the 3,400 shipments en route to ISP, at a distance of 100 feet. How about if that person is closer to the shipping container than 100 feet? What if the shipment pauses for an extended period of time, further exposing the person? What if the shipment is externally contaminated? NRC should do the "hard look" at all these real world risk possibilities.
As I've commented elsewhere, there is evidence that people, members of the public, can get much closer to train cars than 100 feet away. Just look at all the graffiti on the sides of train cars, for example.
And what about the scenario of a car stopped at a railroad crossing by a train hauling irradiated nuclear fuel. What if the lead car, closest to the tracks, includes a pregnant woman in the front seat? She and her fetus are much closer than 100 feet to the passing train car hauling irradiated nuclear fuel, correct? What if that train car comes to a pause right in front of her, for an extended period? What if that side of the container holding the irradiated nuclear fuel is externally contaminated? What if the radiation shielding on that side of the container is flawed or damaged? NRC must address such real world risks. For, it has been known since the pioneering work of Alice Stewart et al. in the 1950s that a single X-ray to the fetus increases the baby's risk of cancer by 50%. These are very significant risks that NRC has done little to no analysis about.
NRC said in its slideshow presentations that "No accidental release of canistered fuel [would occur] under the most severe impacts studied." So NRC has simply assumed safety? Isn't that convenient, to ISP's (and NRC's for that matter) purposes? There are any number of real world severe accident possibilities that could breach a shipping container and release significant amounts of hazardous ionizing radioactivity. These could include long lasting, high temperature fires; long lasting, deep underwater submersion; powerful explosions, whether accidental or intentional. The list goes on.
To make matters worse, industry and NRC whistleblowers have documented widespread quality assurance violations associated with the design and fabrication of shipping and storage casks and canisters. Thus, the structural integrity of the containers sitting still is questionable, let alone in transport on trains, trucks, or barges, where severe forces could come to bear in accident (or attack) scenarios, testing the containers to the breaking point.
While transport is a weak link, even on-site storage at ISP would be quite vulnerable to intentional attack. ISP would be one of the single greatest accumulations of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel in the world. In that sense, it would be a giant radioactive bull's eye on the landscape, at risk of being attacked from the air, or by sophisticated weapons, such as anti-tank missiles, shaped charges, etc. NRC cannot and should not simply assume that "no accidental release of canistered fuel [would occur] under the most severe impacts studied." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in SLOMFP v. NRC, has ruled that NRC must address such risks of attack in EISs. As irradiated nuclear fuel from the 9th Circuit, including from Diablo Canyon as but one example, could well be shipped to ISP, it is all the more legally-compelling that NRC must include such security analyses in its ISP EIS. Yet NRC has refused to do so thus far.
Please address the subject matter above, re: our many objections to NRC's outrageous conduct of this ISP/WCS CISF public comment proceeding.
And please acknowledge your receipt of these comments, and confirm their inclusion as official public comments in the record of this docket.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Kay Drey, President, Board of Directors, Beyond Nuclear
and
Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Specialist, Beyond Nuclear