The California Coastal Commission said it has effectively been forced to approve permits for spent fuel storage at three nuclear power plants because the federal government has yet to establish a permanent national repository for the radioactive waste.
Coastal Commission Chair Dayna Bochco emphasized the danger presented by coastal storage of radioactive material from the Humboldt Bay, San Onofre, and Diablo Canyon facilities in a Nov. 2, 2017, letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Kristine Svinicki.
Wet and dry storage facilities at all three sites are, “to varying degrees, subject to natural hazards such as ground shaking from earthquakes, coastal erosion, and flooding from storms or tsunamis,” Bochco wrote on behalf of the 12-person commission in her letter, which was posted Jan. 12 on the NRC website. “Though the on-site storage facilities were sited and designed to withstand these hazards in the near term, they were never designed to store spent fuel in perpetuity.”
The Energy Department is required under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act to site and build a permanent repository for U.S. spent reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste. A 1987 amendment to the law designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the repository site, but it remains unlicensed and unbuilt. The Trump administration asked for $150 million in the current budget year for the Department of Energy and Nuclear Regulatory Commission to resume licensing efforts suspended by the Obama administration, but Congress has yet to approve the request or even a full-year budget.
Bochco urged DOE and the NRC to work with Congress to site and build a long-term disposal facility for what is now more than 75,000 metric tons of spent fuel stored at nuclear power plants around the country.
The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in San Diego County, which closed permanently in 2013, alone currently stores about 3.5 million pounds of spent fuel. Waste from reactor Unit 1 is already held in dry-storage containers near the Pacific Ocean, while the used fuel from the plants’ two other reactors for now remains in cooling pools. SONGS majority owner Southern California Edison’s (SCE) plans to place all the material in an expanded dry storage pad has faced community opposition and two lawsuits.
The Coastal Commission is the state’s regulator for use of the California coastal zone, including management of used nuclear fuel in that area.
The commission in 2015 approved SCE’s request to place all spent fuel from SONGS on the storage pad, drawing a legal challenge from California watchdog group Citizens’ Oversight. The parties in August 2017 reached a settlement that allows the utility to move ahead with its existing waste transfer strategy while pursuing “commercially reasonable” efforts to find an off-site location for the used fuel.
The Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County, which is scheduled for closure in 2025, held about 2.98 million pounds of spent fuel as of June 2016, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported at the time.
There are 68,000 pounds of spent fuel at the retired Humboldt Bay Power Plant in Humboldt County, which last operated in 1976, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“Action on finding a permanent waste repository or consolidated interim storage facility suitable for long-term storage has long been a vital national goal, and one which we wholeheartedly share,” Bochco wrote to Svinicki and Perry. “Meeting this goal is particularly urgent now, in order to alleviate the need for on-going storage at coastal power plants, which may be at risk from natural hazards such as earthquakes, erosion, flooding and sea level rise in the coming decades.”
In a Jan. 5 response, Svinicki reaffirmed that the NRC has determined it is safe to keep spent fuel at power reactors until the repository is ready. Meanwhile, the federal agency is continuing its acceptance review of Holtec International’s application to build an interim storage facility in New Mexico for spent fuel. The NRC has also in recent years continued licensing work on the long-planned permanent repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, Svinicki noted.
“The adjudicatory hearing, which must be completed before a licensing decision can be made, remains suspended due to a lack of appropriated funds,” the NRC chair wrote. “Should Congress provide funding to support continuation of the Yucca Mountain licensing activities, the Commission would provide direction to the staff on the next steps for the licensing proceeding.”
The Energy Department has yet to respond to Bochco’s letter, California Coastal Commission spokeswoman Noaki Schwartz said this week. All responses will be presented to the full commission in February, after which the panel will determine whether to pursue the matter further, she said by email.
