A draft federal environmental impact statement (EIS) for a proposed used nuclear fuel storage site in New Mexico only looks at the next 40 years, and does not sufficiently consider that the radioactive material might remain there long past that point, opponents of the project argued Tuesday.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a public meeting via teleconference on its draft EIS for Holtec International’s planned consolidated interim storage facility in Lea County, between the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs. About 60 people spoke before the more-than-five-hour session ended.
The bottom line for critics Tuesday was that New Mexico could end up as one of the nation’s permanent nuclear fuel repositories by default, if the federal government remains unable to build a geologic repository elsewhere.
“Yucca Mountain is not in the cards right now. … We don’t want New Mexico holding the bag as a permanent repository,” said Dave McCoy of Citizen Action New Mexico.
In March 2017, Holtec applied for an NRC license to build and operate a site for underground storage of 500 canisters containing 8,680 metric tons of spent fuel from U.S. nuclear power plants. The license would be good for 40 years, but with additional NRC approvals it could be extended to 120 years and over 100,000 metric tons of the radioactive waste in 10,000 canisters. A similar project by Interim Storage Partners — a joint venture of Orano and Waste Control Specialists — is in the works in western Texas.
The draft EIS concluded the Holtec facility would have little environmental impact on that portion of New Mexico in both the 500-canister and 10,000-canister scenarios. Agency staff preliminarily recommended approval of the license.
“It shows minimal impact will be felt by everyone in this area,” Carlsbad City Council member Edward Rodriguez said during the NRC event.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has planned to finalize the draft EIS by next March. However, last week the agency or a second time extended the public comment period on the document, to Sept. 22.
