A key committee of the New Mexico Legislature appears split on whether to support plans by Holtec International to build a large-scale storage facility in the state to hold used fuel from U.S. nuclear reactors.
Seven of the 12 voting members of the legislature’s interim bicameral Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee in recent weeks signed a “Resolution of Voting Members” stating their strong support for the proposed consolidated interim storage facility in Lea County.
Committee member Gay Kernan, a Republican state senator whose district covers part of the county, said the document was presented by John Heaton, chairman of the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance. The organization – a coalition of Eddy and Lea counties and the cities of Hobbs and Carlsbad – is working with Holtec to develop the storage site.
Kernan said the participating committee members wanted to affirm their support for the project, and their belief that Holtec can carry it out safely, to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “You have to have a place for this stuff to find a home,” she told RadWaste Monitor.
Committee Chairman Jeff Steinborn was among the lawmakers who did not sign the document, which he said was not a resolution because it did not receive a vote before the full panel. The Democratic Party senator from Las Cruces, who has publicly expressed concerns about the safety of the project, called the three-page paper “a glorified letter of support.”
Holtec, an energy technology company based in Camden, N.J., hopes by 2020 to receive an NRC license to store 8,680 metric tons of spent fuel beginning in 2022. But, with additional NRC authorizations, the facility could hold well over 100,000 metric tons of material in storage canisters placed just below ground.
The facility, along with a separate site planned by Orano and Waste Control Specialists in West Texas, could enable the Department of Energy to meet its legal mandate to remove the nation’s used nuclear fuel from reactor facilities. The two properties would hold the waste until a permanent repository is ready.
The Holtec facility would provide 215 “well paid jobs” and a significant capital investment for the area near the cities of Hobbs and Carlsbad in southeastern New Mexico, the resolution says. In an email to RadWaste Monitor, Heaton estimated the amount at over $2 billion.
Casks used for moving the used fuel from reactor sites around the nation are “the strongest and most robust … ever licensed by the NRC,” featuring a 15-inch wall of steel and lead, according to the resolution. In storage, the fuel assemblies would remain sealed inside a stainless-steel canister that will stay within the cask. The lawmakers also noted the isolated, geologically stable nature of the selected storage site.
“Therefore, being as the committee has not taken a formal vote, we the undersigned voting members are a super-majority of the voting members of the Radioactive and Hazardous Committee, having had two meetings of the committee devoted to the proposed CIS Facility in southeast New Mexico where we were presented with the facts about the facility as well as the transportation casks and regulatory oversight of the transportation process are convinced of the safety and security of the facility as well as the transportation casks and do hereby strongly support the development of a CIS Facility in southeast New Mexico.”
Holtec on Aug. 9 forward the resolution to NRC Chairman Kristine Svinicki “as additional evidence of the overwhelming support” for the facility.
Heaton said the resolution was developed specifically with Steinborn in mind: “Recognizing that the chairman, even though in a small minority, would foil any attempt to pass a resolution at a meeting of the committee, the members signing on to the resolution expressed a desire to send a message to the NRC and public that the vast majority of the committee had researched the project and were supporting it, in spite of the chairman expressing an inappropriate, uneducated, fear mongering and diverse opinion from the majority of committee members.”
The Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee provides legislative oversight for “the health, safety and operations” of federal nuclear operations in New Mexico, along with private operations that could be established in the state, according to the resolution document. It has to date held two public meetings on the Holtec plan, though Kernan and Steinborn acknowledged the panel has no regulatory authority over the project.
State regulatory oversight could be shared by several agencies in Santa Fe, including the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED), Steinborn said. “I think the state needs to get in the game of reviewing our exposure,” he said in a telephone interview.
An NMED spokeswoman said any action on environmental permits for the site would follow the federal license application review by the NRC.
In July, Steinborn submitted a list of 57 questions on the Holtec facility to several state agencies. Most limited their response to directing queries to the NRC, according to local reports.
The senator said two separate incidents involving Holtec’s transfer of spent fuel to dry storage at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California demonstrate the need for scrutiny of its consolidated interim storage approach. In one case, a broken bolt was found earlier this year in a canister being used to move and store the used fuel. More recently, on Aug. 3, the rigging for a storage canister went off-target, requiring additional work to shift it into its storage slot. Neither of the incidents resulted in worker injuries or the release of radiation, though the more recent incident is as of Friday subject to an NRC special inspection.
