A senior Nuclear Regulatory Commission official said the agency is not quite ready to decide whether to proceed with an environmental review for Waste Control Specialists’ license application to build and operate an interim nuclear waste storage facility in West Texas.
Waste Control Specialists in July requested that the NRC proceed with a notice of intent to deliver an environmental impact statement, which is required for the facility. That would mean NRC taking up that effort while also reviewing supplemental information the agency has requested from WCS before proceeding with the license application review.
“We’re not ready to make that decision yet, but it doesn’t mean it’s a closed door. It’s still an open door. We just need to look at more information before we move forward on it,” NRC Spent Fuel Management Division Director Mark Lombard said Monday during the company’s first public meeting with the agency on the application. Lombard described the licensing action as a big decision for the country, adding that the agency wants to make a quality decision and needs more time to review the supplemental responses.
WCS plans to build a 40,000-metric-ton-capacity interim storage facility near the New Mexico border, likely fitting into the Obama administration’s “consent-based” program for long-term nuclear waste storage.
Management in July clarified various details concerning its application following an NRC determination that the 3,000-page document, filed in April, lacked the technical information necessary for agency staff to conduct its full review. The company plans to submit all responses by October.
WCS CEO and President Rod Baltzer said Monday during the meeting at NRC headquarters that the company has completed a second workshop on responses and anticipates the next filing with the NRC at the end of August. Two more filings are due in September and October, he said. Baltzer also noted the resignation of Scott Kirk, WCS’ vice president of licensing and regulatory affairs, who accepted a new position this month at BWX Technologies.
“It’s nothing that will really impact us other than the timing was fairly poor,” Baltzer said, adding that the company has been relying on Mike Callahan, president of Governmental Strategies Inc., and others as it works through the application’s regulatory hurdles. He said the company hopes to announce Kirk’s replacement in September.
