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Important Dates
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July 18: Isotope Crossroads - Memphis
August 8: Isotope Crossroads - Fort Drum, NY
August 20-23:
Midwestern WIPP Road Show (IL, IA, NE)
October 16
Tour of WIPP for Midwestern Officials; Roswell, NM
October 31-November 1:
MRMTC Fall 2018 Meeting (tentative); Madison, WI
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Join Our List
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COMMITTEE HAPPENINGS
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The meeting summary from the committee's June 5 meeting has been posted on the committee website. Committee members and other attendees received the link to the summary and the action items earlier today via email. Members are encouraged to check for new committee work group assignments and any action items. Any members or other state personnel who wish to join one of the committee work groups for FY19 should contact
Lisa Janairo.
The tentative dates for the committee's Fall Meeting are October 31-November 1, and staff are working to secure a meeting venue in Madison, WI. Stay tuned for details!
As was discussed at the Spring Meeting, the online version of the
Planning Guide for Shipments of Radioactive Material through the Midwestern States,
which includes points of contact for radioactive shipments in each of the Midwestern states, will be updated this summer. Watch your email inbox for a request to revise or verify your state's information.
In other committee news, Kaci Studer of Indiana has been promoted to the position of Radiation Programs Director at the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. This position was previously held by Laura Dresen. Kaci assumed her new position as of June 25th and is excited to take on this new role. Congratulations, Kaci!
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NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION STAKEHOLDERS FORUM
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NTSF Updates
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Presentations from the 2018 Meeting of the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum have been posted on the NTSF Wiki site. If you aren't yet a member of the wiki site, click on the link and apply to join. Your application will be reviewed and the site administrator will respond as soon as possible.
Communications AHWG - Articles for the next edition of the NTSF newsletter are due on July 13. The newsletter will come out before the end of this month and will have a new, larger distribution list to incorporate the dozens of NTSF newcomers who attended the June meeting. Aaron Kallunki (Minnesota) represents the Midwest on the AHWG.
NTSF Planning Committee
- The Planning Committee will have a debriefing call on the 2018 meeting in early July. Kaci Studer and Mike Snee will represent the Midwest on this group in FY 2019, as Brian Folts is stepping down.
The Planning Committee's Charter Subcommittee will be holding a conference call soon to discuss the request by the Western states to include the Affected Units of Local Government (AULGs) as NTSF members. The counties are within the vicinity of Yucca Mountain and, under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, have participation rights with regard to the Yucca Mountain project. Nye County and eight other counties in Nevada and Inyo County in California have this designation. The subcommittee will make a recommendation to the Planning Committee later this year regarding whether to amend the NTSF charter to include these counties as members.
Management Plan AHWG - Comments on the draft Management Plan were due to Ellen Edge at DOE's Office of Environmental Management by July 1. The AHWG will hold a conference call to discuss the proposed changes to the plan. The Management Plan serves as a guide for anyone who has responsibilities for hosting annual meetings, leading AHWGs, or organizing webinars. The 2018 revision of the plan will be available later this year. Lisa Janairo represents the Midwest on the AHWG.
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| FOCUS THIS MONTH |
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Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board Summer Meeting Focuses on Transportation
The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB) met on June 13 in Idaho Falls to discuss the technical issues that need to be addressed in developing a nationwide program to transport spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).
The Board heard from the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the nuclear industry, and states on a variety of issues and perspectives related to planning for a large-scale program to transport the nation's commercial nuclear waste. Each speaker was asked to address specific questions from the NWTRB in his or her presentation.
Gary Lanthrum, the former director of DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM), the predecessor to the Office of Nuclear Energy, covered the safety record of nuclear waste transport in the U.S. He further noted challenges and technical considerations that will need to be addressed prior to commencing shipments. Challenges cited by Mr. Lanthrum include the diversity in casks in which SNF is currently stored and the need to identify intermodal transfer locations for shipments that begin on heavy-haul truck and are completed via rail. He noted that OCRWM's transportation program was plagued by "inconsistent, and steadily declining funding and slipping start-up dates." He concluded that there are no fundamental technical barriers to safely transporting SNF within the U.S. and that pilot storage and transportation projects could be used to resolve key transportation issues such as training, emergency preparedness, intermodal transfers, and other issues of concern to stakeholders.
Erica Bickford of the Office of Nuclear Energy presented the results of DOE's Initial Site-Specific De-Inventory Reports, which have been completed for six sites. Dr. Bickford noted that while there are site-specific considerations that will need to be considered, several common themes have emerged. These include the need to establish detailed transportation equipment needs, ensure that on-site and near-site infrastructure is available and sufficiently robust, and obtain permits for heavy-haul routes. No technical issues that would preclude transportation from any of the sites studied were identified.
Ken Niles of the Oregon Department of Energy and Western Interstate Energy Board presented on Stakeholder Perspectives on the Technical Issues to be Addressed Before Starting a Large Program to Transport Nuclear Waste. Mr. Niles noted that the states' primary goal is that transportation be
safe and uneventful and early coordination and effective communication with states and Tribes are essential in accomplishing this goal. According to Mr. Niles, the WIPP transportation program is an excellent model for coordination between states and Tribes and DOE and should be used as a model for planning for shipments of spent fuel. Because SNF shipments are expected to be transported predominantly by rail, full commitment and cooperation from the rail industry is needed. Finally, Mr. Niles advocated for all costs for the federal SNF transportation program being paid for by nuclear generators and the federal government.
Presentations and materials from the June 13 Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board Meeting can be found here.
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NUCLEAR NEWS
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WIPP Gets New Ventilation System
Construction began in June on a new ventilation system at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, NM. The project will increase airflow in WIPP's underground mine, where transuranic (TRU) nuclear waste is disposed of 2,000 feet underground. The safety significant confinement ventilation system (SSCVS) and accompanying exhaust shaft are expected to cost $373 million to construct and the project is scheduled to be completed by September 2022. The SSCVS will increase the airflow at the facility from 140,000 cubic feet per minute to 540,000 cubic feet per minute.
According to Assistant Secretary of Environmental
Management Anne White, who attended the groundbreaking ceremony, the new ventilation system will allow waste to be emplaced in Panel 7 while Panel 8 is mined. The new ventilation system could allow WIPP to continue increasing the volume of TRU waste shipments for disposal while also conducting mining operations, according to Bruce Covert, the president of Nuclear Waste Partnership, the contractor that carries out WIPP's daily operations. He expects WIPP to increase from eight to ten shipments per week, on average, by the end of the year. Prior to being closed in February of 2014, WIPP was accepting about 30 shipments per week.
To read the full article in the Carlsbad Current Argus,
click here.
Davis-Besse Closure
At the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's (NRC) annual meeting to discuss the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant's performance, discussion centered on the impact of the plant's expected closure in 2020 and whether there will be adequate funds to decommission the site.
FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC) notified the NRC in April that it intended to close Davis-Besse in addition to the Perry nuclear power plant near Cleveland and the Beaver Valley plant near Pittsburgh.
The NRC manager responsible for power plant inspections asserted that the impact of closing the plant, which employs more than 600 people, would be devastating to the community. He stated that the resident inspectors at the plant would monitor morale of plant employees in light of FENOC's decision and also ensure that the company is maintaining adequate staffing levels to operate the plant safely.
Environmental and consumer groups have raised questions about whether there will be adequate funds available to decommission the plant, given the earlier-than-planned closure. According to an NRC financial analyst, decommissioning could cost between $600 million and $1 billion and take up to 60 years. The most recent decommissioning report FENOC filed with the NRC indicated that funds were sufficient as of March 2017, according to the NRC. The next trust fund report is not required to be filed until March 2019, but some have expressed concern that the early shutdown will lead to inadequate revenue in the trust fund. FENOC will have two years from the time each reactor shuts down to provide the NRC with detailed, site-specific decommissioning cost estimates. Previous estimates have relied on generic NRC formulas.
Elizabeth Helvey, Project Manager for North Wind, has accepted a new position as Executive Director of the Durango Adult Education Center in Durango, CO. Elizabeth has been working as a consultant on DOE's federal waste management program since January 1991, and has been with North Wind since 2012. Committee members will remember Elizabeth as a regular at meetings of the NTSF and its predecessor the TEC/WG, as well as at meetings of DOE-NE's Transportation Core Group. Elizabeth is a font of institutional knowledge, an immensely productive writer, and an astute practitioner of stakeholder engagement. She has consistently advocated for involving the states and Tribes in DOE's transportation planning activities and over the years she shared many insightful, spot-on ideas for how to do it right. At various times during her career, Elizabeth either led or supported DOE's work on policy issues such as Section 180(c) funding and route selection. While Elizabeth will be missed from the daily work,
she will be available on a very part-time basis to provide historical information or answer questions. The Adult Education Center in Durango is truly privileged to have her as its leader. Best of luck, Elizabeth!
...Gone!
And in ot
her comings and goings, Midwestern Committee members and other interested parties may have noticed that DOE's CURIE website is no longer publicly available. The Office of Nuclear Energy reports that
there was a management decision to discontinue the public side of the Centralized Used Fuel Resource for Information Exchange (CURIE). Publicly-available DOE documents will now be posted on the OSTI.gov site and/or the DOE's Office of Nuclear Energy site. Documents are still be transitioned to these websites, however, so if you are having trouble locating a document, please contact Erica Bickford.
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Thank you for reading. Watch for the next edition to come out on
August 1, 2018.
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Missed a newsletter? Past issues are
archived
on the committee's webpage.
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Please do not reproduce or create new content from this material without the prior express written permission of CSG Midwest.
This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy under Award Numbers DE-NE0008604, DE-EM0004869, and DE-EM0005168.
This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.
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