A bill aimed at preventing a private company from building a proposed interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico without prior state approval cleared on Tuesday its first legislative hurdle in Santa Fe.
The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D), was favorably reported out of the state Senate Conservation Committee Tuesday on a 6-1 vote. Its next stop is the upper chamber’s judiciary panel, which next meets Friday.
If signed, Steinborn’s bill would amend state law to ban disposal of spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico “until the state has consented to or concurred in the creation of” a disposal facility. The measure would also bar spent-fuel storage sites in New Mexico until a permanent federal nuclear waste repository is in operation, and adjust the duties of an existing statewide radioactive waste task force and allow the body to examine the effects of proposed private nuclear waste disposal facilities. Currently, the task force considers only federal sites.
This is Steinborn’s latest attempt to block decommissioning company Holtec International from building its proposed interim storage site — the state senator in New Mexico’s last two legislative sessions stood up similar bills, but neither made it out of the state house.
Ed Mayer, program director for Holtec’s proposed interim storage site, defended the project before the state conservation committee Tuesday.
“Holtec International has an unblemished safety record,” Mayer said. “Holtec has loaded over 95,000 spent fuel assemblies into over 1,800 casks: no accidents, no release of radioactivity, no uncontrolled contamination, no personal injury.”
Mayer also slammed a recent poll from anti-interim storage group which, in its question to respondents, claimed that “up to 13 accidents” will occur during rail shipments of spent fuel to the proposed New Mexico site.
“This is categorically incorrect,” Mayer said. “The poll took an official statement by the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission] out of context and linked it to unsubstantiated data. The poll has no merit.”
NRC, the agency responsible for licensing private spent fuel storage, said in a July environmental impact statement for the proposed Holtec site that 13 rail accidents “of any type” could be possible during spent fuel shipments, but “because the most frequent accidents are not severe there is a higher likelihood that these accidents will not be severe.”
NRC is still weighing whether to approve the proposed Holtec site. The commission has said that it could make a final decision as early as March — NRC staff in July recommended the project receive a license.
If it gets built, Holtec has said that its site would initially be able to store around 8,700 tons of spent nuclear fuel in 500 canisters, with capacity for an additional 10,000 canisters that could be added through future license amendments.
