Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
3/7/2014
The Department of Energy will not complete a supplemental environmental impact statement that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission requested to support its review of the Yucca Mountain license application, although DOE will give NRC all the information it has and has suggested the NRC complete the EIS itself. DOE had indicated previously that it would complete the supplemental EIS, but according to a letter late last week from William Boyle, director of the Department’s Office of Used Fuel Nuclear Fuel Disposition Research and Development, this does not appear to be the case anymore.
DOE is arguing that since it submitted a groundwater EIS in 2008, it does not have to update the EIS to fulfill its Nuclear Waste Policy Act legal obligations. “The Department respectfully notes, however, that the NRC is the ultimate adjudicator in this proceeding, and that the NRC, rather than the Department, must eventually determine whether any groundwater analysis is ‘sufficient,’ and whether adoption of the Department’s environmental review, as supplemented, is ‘practicable,’” Boyle wrote. “Accordingly, the Department respectfully submits that it will provide to the NRC an updated version of the report it provided to the NRC on July 30, 2009, entitled, "Analysis of Postclosure Groundwater Impacts for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada." This updated analysis will, in the view of Department staff, provide the NRC with substantially all of the technical information necessary to inform a draft EIS.”
NRC Considering Path Forward
The NRC plans to examine how it will now proceed, a Commission spokesman said this week. “We’re still evaluating DOE’s response and have not yet determined how that will affect our environmental review,” NRC spokesman David McIntyre said. “It will of course have no effect on the Safety Evaluation Reports, which are a separate review.” It is estimated that the completion of the SERs would take up most of the remaining funds the NRC has earmarked for the licensing review. According to NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane’s monthly update to Congress, the NRC has approximately $11.5 million in funds left for the review, with an estimate of $8.3 million needed for the SERs. With only $3.2 million left after the SERs completion, it does not appear the NRC will have enough funds to complete the supplemental EIS itself.
The NRC issued an Order in November setting forth a pathway to re-start the Yucca Mountain licensing review, including the request for a supplemental EIS from DOE on groundwater issues to satisfy requirements set forth in the National Environmental Policy Act. DOE had initially planned to move forward with the NRC’s request for the study, and Assistant Energy Secretary for Nuclear Energy Peter Lyons told House lawmakers in January that the Department had taken steps to prepare the EIS.
