The Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects in March to issue a final report on revising its inspection program for independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSIs) at U.S. nuclear power plants.
“The final report and recommendations, incorporating internal and external feedback, is undergoing internal review,” agency spokesman David McIntyre said by email on Jan. 29. “Once this review is complete and NRC has made a final decision, the report will be made publicly available. We anticipate doing so by the end of March.”
The recommendations were developed by a working group comprised of staffers from NRC headquarters in Rockville, Md., and the regulator’s four regional offices. They call for the agency to offer 35 hours of annual inspection time per site of used nuclear fuel from cooling pools to dry storage, reduced from the current 62 hours. That would tighten dry-storage site inspectors from 2.94 full-time equivalents (FTE) to 1.56, with each FTE representing 1,500 hours of annual work.
The director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, John Lubinski, will have final say on the recommendations, McIntyre said.
The proposal is intended to reduce redundancies in the NRC’s operations, Executive Director for Operations Margaret Doane said during a Jan. 15 hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Committee Ranking Member Tom Carper (D-Del.) and other members of Congress have expressed concerns about the recommendations.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article misidentified the director of the NRC Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.