Oral arguments scheduled later this month on petitions for interventions and hearings in the license application for a planned spent nuclear fuel storage facility in southeastern New Mexico will not be livestreamed, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission board adjudicating the requests ruled.
Eighteen entities have claimed standing to intervene in Holtec International’s request for a 40-year NRC license for underground storage of up to 173,000 metric tons of used fuel in Lea County. They will have the opportunity to make their case during a prehearing conference convened by a three-member NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board on Jan. 23 and possibly Jan. 24 at the federal courthouse in Albuquerque.
Officials from the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA), which is partnering with the New Jersey energy technology company on the project, requested livestreaming to government meeting spaces in Eddy County and the cities of Hobbs and Carlsbad. Those three municipalities, along with Lea County, are the members of the Energy Alliance. The organization, and each of its members, have petitioned to participate in the proceeding as a local interested government body.
In a Dec. 11 letter to the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, Hobbs Mayor Sam Cobb noted that the city is more than 300 miles from Albuquerque – a drive of up to five hours. That means there might be no Hobbs residents at the oral arguments, according to Cobb: “Holding the oral argument so far from our community, which is less than 35 miles from the Holtec site and located in Lea County, does a disservice to those members of our community who are interested in the Holtec facility.”
The Energy Alliance said the chief judge and chief clerk for the U.S. District Court in Albuquerque might allow livestreaming at the request of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. But the board will not file such a request, Chairman Paul Ryerson wrote in a Dec. 26 order.
“The scheduled argument will consist primarily of the Board’s questions to counsel concerning specific aspects of the hundreds of pages of pleadings we have received. A complete written transcript will be available on the NRC’s public website a few days after the argument’s conclusion,” he wrote. “Although the public is welcome to attend, it will not be an opportunity for public participation; nor will it materially differ from numerous legal arguments in matters of public interest that no doubt take place regularly before the Judges of the District Court. The oral argument does not, in our view, present any good reason to request an exception to the Court’s usual practices.”
Consolidated interim storage is seen as one means for the Department of Energy to meet Congress’ 1982 mandate to remove used fuel from U.S. nuclear power reactors – though that was supposed to start in January 1998. Along with the Holtec project, an Orano-Waste Control Specialists venture is seeking an NRC license for a facility in West Texas with a maximum storage capacity of 40,000 metric tons.
Spent fuel would eventually would be shipped to a permanent repository.
Holtec hopes to start storage operations by 2022.
The Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance has emphasized the potential economic benefits provided by the New Mexico facility, including 240 new jobs, along with the security and safety measures that would be in place. It owns 1,000 acres of land on which the storage site would be built.
The other would-be intervenors oppose the project, worried about the danger of transport and storage of radioactive waste and that interim facilities could become permanent if the federal government remains unable to build the permanent repository. Those organizations are: the Sierra Club; Beyond Nuclear; regional oil and gas concerns Fasken Land and Minerals and Permian Basin Land and Royalty Owners; NAC International, a participant in the Texas spent fuel storage project; the Alliance for Environmental Strategies, and a coalition of environmental groups led by Don’t Waste Michigan.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will determine which groups can intervene, thought its decision can be appealed to the commission itself. The three administrative judges on the board also comprise the board adjudicating intervention requests the Orano-WCS license application.
Agency staff ultimately will decide whether to issue the licenses.
