A board of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday reversed a prior order to allow the Sierra Club to argue one case against licensing of a facility in West Texas for temporary storage of spent fuel from nuclear power plants.
The NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) also rejected the environmental organization’s motion to amend that contention. With the ruling, the three-member, quasi-judicial panel has dismissed all requests for adjudicatory hearings in the licensing of the Interim Storage Partners site.
Interim Storage Partners, a joint venture of Orano and Waste Control Specialists, is seeking a 40-year federal license to build and operate a facility with a maximum storage capacity for 40,000 metric tons of used fuel. The facility would be built on Waste Control Specialists’ disposal complex in Andrews County, Texas.
Four separate groups filed petitions for intervention and adjudicatory hearings: the Sierra Club; Beyond Nuclear; a coalition of environmental organizations led by Don’t Waste Michigan; and the partnering local energy concerns Fasken Land and Minerals and the Permian Basin Land and Royalty Organization. They raised a host of environmental, security, safety, and economic concerns regarding licensing.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board in August rejected the petitions from the other groups based on a combination of lack of standing to intervene and lack of admissible contentions. The board found the Sierra Club had standing but partially allowed just one of its 17 contentions.
That contention was that Interim Storage Partners failed to make available studies cited in the environmental report for the application to make the case that the storage facility would have no impact on two species of lizard in the region. The company subsequently attached those studies to the environmental report.
That “cured the omission,” the ASLB wrote in its order. “Sierra Club Contention 13, as initially admitted by the Board, is dismissed as moot.”
The Sierra Club requested permission to amend its original contention, saying the newly available studies do not support the case against impact on the Texas horned lizard and dunes sagebrush lizard. The board, though, determined the group had not shown good cause for the amendment or that the new contention is admissible.
