The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last week sought to allay the concerns of the Texas county slated to host a commercial interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel, according to a letter to the county’s chief executive.
“NRC staff is conducting a detailed review of the license application from Interim Storage Partners, LLC, to determine whether the proposed [Waste Control Specialists] Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) will meet the NRC’s regulatory requirements,” said Christopher Regan, deputy director of the agency’s fuel management division, in the Aug. 27 letter to Andrews County, Texas judge Charlie Falcon.
Falcon and the Andrews County Commissioners’ Court voted unanimously in July to oppose the proposed Interim Storage Partners (ISP) site, which would be constructed in Andrews at Waste Control Specialists’ (WCS) existing low-level waste storage facility. The decision was made after members of the public turned out to a county meeting July 15 to express their concerns about the site’s safety and environmental impacts.
WCS president David Carlson said at the July 15 meeting that his company has “proven to be a good citizen for many years.”
“There is no safety or environmental issue,” Carlson said. “There’s recently been misleading statements about the safety of WCS in general. Many of these are not based on facts that are actually related to our site.”
In the Aug. 27 letter, Regan thanked Falcon and the county commission for providing their input. He invited Falcon to meet with NRC to “discuss our roles, responsibilities, and the review process for a CISF.”
The commission’s licensing review is playing out against a wide range of opposition from Texas stakeholders. In Austin, a bill banning the storage of high-level nuclear waste including spent fuel is on its way to Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) desk this week. A swath of state legislators also penned a letter to the agency in July arguing that the proposed ISP site violates federal law — a subject of some contention.
Regardless, NRC staff July 29 recommended that the commission grant ISP a license in an environmental review. The agency has said that it should come to a final decision this month.
The proposed Andrews site is just one of two such interim storage facilities under federal licensing review. NRC is scheduled to give the final go-ahead to Holtec International for its own site in Lea County, N.M. in January.
