The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should finish its final environmental impact statement for Holtec International’s interim storage site proposed for Lea County, N.M., in November, an agency spokesperson told RadWaste Monitor this week.
The final licensing decision and a safety analysis are both still planned for January, the spokesperson said in an email Thursday.
That schedule is consistent with the one laid out by commission chair Christopher Hanson in July while testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. NRC bumped the environmental review back to the fall earlier that month while it awaited additional information it needed from Holtec to complete the survey.
Meanwhile, NRC and Holtec are battling the state of New Mexico in federal court. The agency has asked the U.S. District Court for New Mexico to toss state attorney general Hector Balderas’s suit challenging the proposed interim storage site. NRC has said that it’s ready for judgement in that case.
As deliberations continue on the proposed Holtec site, a similar location already got its federal go-ahead last month. NRC licensed Interim Storage Partners’ planned west Texas site in early September.
