Idaho’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) on Feb. 15 expressed no misgivings about a preliminary federal finding that there would be no major impact in renewing the license for continued in-state storage of waste from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.
The state agency, though, reminded the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the material must be removed from the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory no later than the end of 2034.
“[A]s noted within the Draft [environmental assessment] document and per the 1995 Settlement Agreement, spent nuclear fuel (including the TMI spent nuclear fuel) must be shipped out of the State of Idaho prior to January 1, 2035. The renewal of the TMI Unit 2 Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI) license through 2039 does not impact this requirement in any way,” Mark Clough, INL settlement agreement coordinator for DEQ, wrote in a letter to Cinthya Roman, chief of the Environmental Review Branch of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
The Energy Department has pledged to meet the waste-removal deadline set by the 1995 deal between Idaho, DOE, and the U.S. Navy, which set the terms for nuclear waste management at the Idaho National Laboratory. That agreement encompasses 341 canisters for spent nuclear fuel core debris from the March 1979 partial meltdown of reactor Unit 2 at Three Mile Island.
The NRC license for the spent fuel storage pad is set to expire on March 31 of this year. The Energy Department has applied for a 20-year renewal, which it says will not lead to bringing in any more waste or expanding the ISFSI.
In September, the NRC sent a draft version of the environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact (FONSI) on the license renewal to the Department of Environmental Quality. The final document is expected to be issued within a few months.
The industry regulator is conducting both an environmental review and technical review of the license renewal application. “The environmental review of the TMI-2 ISFSI license renewal application is currently ahead of the technical review,” NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said Wednesday by email.
On Feb. 5, the agency asked the Energy Department for clarifications regarding its response in September to an earlier request for additional information on the application. The clarifications, anticipated by April 1, are necessary for the NRC to complete the technical review and issue the safety evaluation report for the application, Burnell said.
The latest query follows up on 10 specific items from the original request for additional information, covering issues including dose rates, spent fuel transfer cask spacers, and criticality calculations.
A final decision on the license renewal application is due around July from the head of the NRC’s Renewals and Materials Branch within the Division of Spent Fuel Management.
