Beyond Nuclear - Radioactive Waste What's New

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Nuclear Waste Confidence Directorate has sent out the following email, with links to various draft environmental impact statement (EIS) documents:

[From: WCOutreach Resource [mailto:WCOutreach.Resource@nrc.gov]
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2013 4:20 PM
To: WCOutreach Resource

Subject: Waste Confidence Commission review draft documents now available

Greetings,

This e-mail provides direct web links to three important documents related to our Waste Confidence environmental review and rulemaking. These documents are staff-developed documents for the Commission’s review. The Commission could approve, modify, or disapprove these documents, and because these documents have not yet been approved by the Commission, they are not ready for public comment. However, in accordance with Commission procedures, the NRC is releasing these documents to the public. The NRC hopes that awareness of these early drafts will help interested members of the public become familiar with the staff’s proposed approach to the Waste Confidence draft generic environmental impact statement (GEIS) and proposed rule.

The first document is a Commission paper, SECY-13-0061, that informs the Commission of the NRC staff’s progress and recommends publishing the proposed rule and draft GEIS for public comment: http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1314/ML13143A371.pdf (ADAMS Accession No. ML13143A371).

The second document is a Commission review draft of the Federal Register notice (FRN) for the proposed rule: http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1314/ML13143A374.pdf (ADAMS Accession No. ML13143A374). The FRN contains the proposed rule text and a “Statement of Considerations,” or preamble, that explains the rule, the conclusions in the draft GEIS that support the rule, and the changes in format that the NRC is recommending as part of this rulemaking.

The final document is a Commission review draft of the draft generic environmental impact statement, or GEIS, on the environmental impacts of continued storage of spent nuclear fuel: http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1315/ML13150A347.pdf (ADAMS Accession No. ML13150A347). The draft GEIS analyzes three basic timeframes: development of a repository 60 years after a reactor closes, 100 years beyond the 60-year period, and never having a repository. This environmental analysis also includes a more detailed analysis of spent fuel pool leaks and fires. The draft GEIS provides the regulatory basis for the proposed rule, and is a major component of the format changes that align the Waste Confidence rulemaking with the NRC’s other rulemaking activities. For example, there is no longer a separate “Waste Confidence Decision” or policy statement. Instead, the rule draws several conclusions based on information in the draft GEIS. These differences are explained in detail in the Statement of Considerations. The draft GEIS relies on many technical reference documents. All are publicly available, and the Waste Confidence webpage provides an organized reference list with web links to many of these documents.

If the Commission approves these documents, they will be published for public comment for 75 days. We believe this publication may occur in late August or early September, but that timeframe is contingent on Commission approval. When they are published, the 75-day official public comment period will begin. You will receive another WCOutreach@nrc.gov e-mail providing direct web links to the official documents for comment, and clear direction on how and when you can submit your comments on the documents.

During the comment period, we will hold 10 public meetings around the country to present the proposed rule and draft GEIS and receive your comments. Two of these meetings will be at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md. The rest will be in New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, southern California, central California, Minnesota, Ohio, and North Carolina. Details will be announced closer to the meeting dates through another WCOutreach@nrc.gov e-mail, and will be posted on the NRC’s public meetings webpage and the Public Involvement in Waste Confidence webpage.

If you know of anyone that would like to be on our WCOutreach@nrc.gov e-mail distribution list, please tell them to send us an e-mail asking to be subscribed. Conversely, if you would like to be removed from this e-mail distribution list, simply reply to this e-mail with the word “UNSUBSCRIBE” in the subject line.

Thank you, and if you have any questions regarding these documents or upcoming Waste Confidence events, please call Sarah Lopas at (301) 287-0675 or e-mail her at Sarah.Lopas@nrc.gov.

Staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Waste Confidence Directorate]

Mindy Goldstein of the Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory University made available notes from the last monthly update conference call held by the NRC Waste Confidence Directorate.

THE NEXT MONTHLY UPDATE CALL of the NRC Waste Confidence Directorate will be Wednesday, August 14 from 1:30-2:30 pm [Eastern].

Meanwhile, in a related move, NRC has put out a press release, "NRC Seeks Public Comment on Spent Fuel Pool Study." Incredibly, NRC's draft "Consequence Study of a Beyond-Design-Basis Earthquake Affecting the Spent Fuel Pool for a U.S. Mark I Boiling Water Reactor" has found that there is little to no risk of a catastrophic pool fire due to drain down, even after a very strong earthquake. Beyond Nuclear begs to differ, and plans to submit comments to that effect by the arbritrarily short 30-day deadline.