The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled a series of additional webinars to discuss its draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for a planned facility in New Mexico for storage of spent fuel from commercial nuclear power plants.
In the document issued in March, staff at the federal regulator said the Holtec International project would largely have small impacts across a range of environmental areas, including land use, groundwater, geology and soils, and air quality. They preliminarily recommended approval of the license application from the New Jersey energy technology company.
Earlier webinars on the draft EIS were conducted on June 23 and July 9. “This fall, the agency planned similar public meetings in New Mexico; however, in-person meetings during the comment period will not be possible because of the COVID-19 public health emergency,” the agency said in a statement Monday.
The online meetings are scheduled to be conducted from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Aug. 20, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 25, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Aug. 26, and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sept. 2. All schedules are on Eastern time. Additional information will be posted on the NRC public meeting web page.
The extended public comment period for the draft environmental impact statement ends on Sept. 22. Comments can be submitted at the regulations.gov website, Docket ID NRC-2018-0052; by email to [email protected]; or by mail, to the Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWFN-7-A60M, ATTN: Program Management, Announcements and Editing Staff, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
Holtec in March 2017 applied for a 40-year license for just-underground storage of 8,680 metric tons of radioactive used fuel in Lea County, in southeastern New Mexico. With additional approvals from the NRC, the facility could hold over 100,000 metric tons of material for 120 years.
The EIS is part of a broader technical review that is due to be completed next spring, but the NRC has said the schedule could be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency ruling on the application should follow shortly after completion of the review.