A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission advisory panel on Wednesday suggested which options it opposes for re-establishing a massive database of documents on licensing the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, but ended a two-day meeting without recommending a clear path forward.
The Licensing Support Network (LSN) was shut down in 2011, and nearly 3.7 million documents subsequently shifted to the NRC’s ADAMS online documents system, after the Obama administration suspended licensing work on Yucca at the NRC and Department of Energy. The Trump administration is trying to revive the project, meaning parties to the licensing proceeding could again need a means for filing and sharing documents.
The Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel (LSNARP) meeting at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md., included detailed discussion of four options laid out in a December 2017 agency staff report on reconstituting or replacing the system: keeping the existing network in ADAMS and sharing additional documents by means such as mail or email; using the searchable ADAMS LSN Library for all existing and new records; moving the library to the Cloud; and rebuilding the network.
Panel members, both in the conference room and calling in remotely, left little doubt that the first and fourth options were off the table. “Option four may be a nonstarter because of [White House Office of Management and Budget] policies, IT policies,” Martin Malsch, an attorney representing the state of Nevada in its battle against Yucca Mountain, said near the end of the session Wednesday.
There was some vocal support among the LSNARP members for the searchable ADAMS alternative, but also concern the NRC was promoting that option at the expense of others on the list or separate recommendations that have not yet been submitted.
A number of panel members said more expert guidance was needed in identifying the best system for housing the documents, possibly through a dedicated technical review board.
The NRC expects to provide LSNARP members with a transcript of the meeting by March 9, and they will have until March 23 to submit additional input on the network. Those comments will be provided to the commission, which will determine the way forward. No schedule has been set for this process, an NRC spokesman said.
