Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
3/13/2015
Two former Idaho governors last week threatened the Department of Energy with litigation should it move forward with planned shipments of commercial spent nuclear fuel to the Idaho National Laboratory for research purposes. Former Govs. Cecil Andrus (D) and Phil Batt (R), both of whom worked to establish the 1995 Settlement Agreement banning additional spent fuel from entering the state, said last week that the state and DOE failed to adhere to National Environmental Policy Act requirements when they agreed to the waiver of the ban, and also ignored the wishes of the citizens. “The intent of this is to tell them to either comply with the policy set forth in NEPA, or the [Batt] and I will be forced to file litigation in a federal court, which we are prepared to do and which we intend to do if necessary. We hope it isn’t,” Andrus said in a press conference held last week. “The point that we can’t ignore is that to continue giving waivers means that there is just a continual stack up of waste above the aquifer. Anybody with any experience of knowledge of the situation knows that anything that comes in is going to be here a long, long time.”
Idaho Gov. Butch Otter (R) is open to providing the Department of Energy a one-time waiver to allow DOE to send the spent fuel for research purposes, but only if the Department provides an enforceable time frame for coming back into compliance with a 1995 Settlement Agreement. Otter said last week that he sees INL as an asset, not a liability. “It seems as if the former governors would be satisfied with cleaning up the INL and shutting it down,” Otter said in a statement. “Their approach ignores the asset the INL has become to eastern Idaho, the state and nation. Clean up under the terms of the agreement, including removal of ALL materials by 2035, remains our first priority, but it is not our only priority. Continuing the valuable research at the Lab with its world-class facilities and people is the future and one we should all work towards. It is clear the former governors see the Lab as a liability, while I see its possibilities.”
Studies Would Support DOE’s Understanding of Spent Fuel
The fuel shipments would be necessary to support Department’s high burnup fuel study, conducted by the Electric Power Research Institute. The research is aimed at better understanding the effects of high burn-up fuel aging on dry storage cask systems and to support DOE’s ongoing research and development to advance understanding of the long-term aging of spent fuel. The study plans to look at the technical, economic, and non-proliferation aspects of the fuel while also enabling fuel performance studies for the nuclear industry.
Researchers will examine two dozen spent fuel rods before they are placed in the cask to determine the changes that occur over long-term storage. After the casks have been dried correctly, the researchers will move it to the Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation pad, where it will be stored for a decade. DOE anticipates shipping the cask to INL in January 2016, according to a Dec. 31, 2014 letter from Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.
