Interim Storage Partners (ISP) on Monday petitioned for dismissal of the sole permitted contention against federal licensing of its planned consolidated interim storage facility in West Texas for spent fuel from nuclear power plants.
Upon rejecting the contention from the Sierra Club, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board should close out the entire proceeding of petitions for adjudicatory hearings and intervention by several advocacy organizations, ISP added in its motion.
“As Sierra Club’s sole contention must be dismissed as moot, there remains no pending contention – nor any other contested matter – before the Board in this proceeding,” lawyers for the joint venture wrote.
The Sierra Club on Thursday filed a counter-brief, saying it would file an amended contention that should be allowed to proceed to a hearing.
Interim Storage Partners is a collaboration of the U.S. branch of French nuclear firm Orano (formerly AREVA) and Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists (WCS). It has pursued a spent-fuel storage project that previously had been planned solely by WCS at its Andrews County waste disposal complex.
In June 2018, ISP applied for a 40-year NRC license for a facility to store up to 5,000 metric tons of used fuel. With additional authorization from the agency, the facility could hold a maximum of 40,000 metric tons of material for up to 120 years.
That project, along with a larger facility planned by Holtec International just across the state border in New Mexico, could provide the Department of Energy the means to finally meet its legal requirement to dispose of the nation’s used nuclear fuel.
The Sierra Club, Beyond Nuclear, and a number of other advocacy groups filed requests for hearings in which they could present contentions against the license application. On Aug. 23, the three-member, quasi-judicial Atomic Safety and Licensing Board said the Sierra Club had demonstrated standing to intervene in the proceeding because a member lives within 6 miles of the proposed ISP site – but it allowed only one of the environmental organization’s 17 submitted contentions. If the contention stands, the Sierra Club would be allowed to argue the case in an adjudicatory hearing before the board.
The board rejected all other intervention petitions based what it said were the groups’ lack of standing or inadmissible contentions.
All the organizations have said they will appeal the August ruling to the full commission. But the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board must first address all contentions before it, Sierra Club attorney Wallace Taylor said by email this week.
The Sierra Club “contention of omission” allowed by the board posited that ISP’s environmental report for its license application failed to adequately describe five reference documents used in evaluating the potential impact of the project on the Texas horned and dunes sagebrush lizards. The documents are also difficult for the public to find.
Interim Storage Partners said the contention should be dismissed because, as of Sept. 4, it has attached the ecological studies to the license application.
In the Sierra Club response, Taylor stated that the documents in question are all between 11 and 22 years old and address lizard habits in relation to WCS’ existing low-level radioactive waste disposal site rather than the anticipated locations of the used fuel storage facility. “Taking all of these sources into consideration, the important conclusion is that the statements in Chapter 4 of the [environmental report] that there will be no adverse impact on the two lizard species or their habitat are demonstrably false,” he wrote.
Nuclear Regulatory Commssion staff is continuing its technical review of the ISP license application. On Monday, it told the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board it expects to issue a draft environmental impact statement by next May and the final version a year later. The final safety evaluation report is also due by May 2021.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board last week scheduled a conference call for Sept. 18 on the intervention petition with attorneys for the Sierra Club, Interim Storage Partners, and NRC staff. The call is intended to establish a schedule for the proceeding.
Most of the groups that petitioned for intervention in the Interim Storage Partners licensing filed similar requests on licensing of the Holtec facility in Lea County, N.M.. The same Atomic Safety and Licensing Board rejected all petitions in that matter. Of the petitioners, only used fuel management company NAC International, which is working on the ISP project, did not appeal the board decision to the commission.
