Citing Water/Land Ownership Issues, Staff Recommends Against Construction Authorization
Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
1/30/2015
While the Yucca Mountain Safety Evaluation Report meets most applicable regulatory requirements for safety, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should not issue a construction authorization until land and ownership rights by the Department of Energy are resolved, the NRC Staff found in a key safety report released this week. The release of the Yucca Mountain Safety Evaluation Reports Volumes Two and Five this week completes the final chapters of the full Yucca SER as well as the technical safety review of DOE’s license application. That falls within the January 2015 timeframe put forth by the NRC over the past year following the August 2013 court order mandating the restart of the license review until all appropriated funds were expended.
The application met the majority of NRC requirements, but land and water ownership rights remain a hurdle to be addressed before the project can move forward, according to the SER Volume Five. “The NRC staff has found that DOE has met the applicable regulatory requirements, subject to the proposed conditions of construction authorization identified in Table 2.5-1 in SER Volume 1 (General information), Volume 2 (repository safety before permanent closure), Volume 3 (repository safety after permanent closure); Volume 4 (administrative and programmatic requirements), and Volume 5 (with respect to probable subjects of license specifications), except for the requirements in 10 CFR 63.121(a) and 10 CFR 63.121(d)(1) regarding ownership of land and water rights, respectively,” the report states. “The NRC staff is not recommending issuance of a construction authorization at this time because the NRC staff determined that DOE has not met these regulatory requirements regarding ownership and control of the land where the [geologic repository operations area ] would be located and certain water rights. In addition, a supplement to DOE’s environmental impact statement has not yet been completed.”
The issue of land and water rights ownership emerged last month when the NRC released Volume Four of the SER. Volume Four said that the Yucca Mountain license application met most administrative and programmatic requirements, except land ownership and water rights. “Specifically, DOE has not acquired ownership or jurisdiction over the land where the geologic repository operations area would be located, and the land is not free of significant encumbrances such as mining rights, deeds, rights-of-way or other legal rights,” NRC spokesman David McIntyre said at the time. “DOE also has not acquired water rights it determined are needed to accomplish the purpose of the geologic repository operations area.”
Land Split Between Three Agencies
According to McIntyre’s NRC blog post from this week, three federal agencies own the land needed for Yucca Mountain, including the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Defense, and efforts to acquire it have been unsuccessful. “Legislation was introduced in Congress in 2007 to appropriate the land for the repository, but it did not pass,” McIntyre wrote. “The water rights DOE needs are owned by the state of Nevada, which refused to appropriate the water in 1997. Litigation challenging that refusal is stayed.”
Pre-Closure Safety Design Confirmed
Volume Two, which looks at pre-closure safety requirements, concluded that the license application met regulatory standards. “Based on its review, and subject to the proposed conditions of Construction Authorization documented in Volume Two of this SER, the NRC staff finds, with reasonable assurance, that DOE has demonstrated compliance with the NRC regulatory requirements for pre-closure safety,” Volume Two states. That includes “Performance objectives for the geologic repository operations area through permanent closure,” as well as “Requirements for pre-closure safety analysis of the geologic repository operations area” and “Pre-closure Public Health and Environmental Standards” in 10 CFR Part 63, Subpart K.”
The conclusions of previous volumes of the SER released last year have bolstered both pro-Yucca and anti-Yucca support. Volume Three said that the Yucca Mountain design met NRC regulatory requirements for post-closure. Volume Four concluded that the license application meets most administrative and programmatic requirements, except for a lack of land ownership and water rights by Department of Energy for the site.
SER Issuance Does Not Equal Endorsement, NRC Says
As it has said in the past, the NRC maintained that the publication of or any of the SERS does not constitute a final decision on Yucca Mountain. “Completion of the safety evaluation report does not represent an agency decision on whether to authorize construction,” the NRC said in a statement this week. “A final licensing decision, should funds beyond those currently available be appropriated, could come only after completion of a supplement to the Department of Energy’s environmental impact statement, hearings on contentions in the adjudication, and Commission review.”
There are still 300 contentions filed by Nevada and other parties challenging the repository that would need adjudication before a construction authorization permit is needed, according to the NRC. The NRC has also not yet decided if it will complete the Supplement Environmental Impact Statement needed to complete the application in DOE’s stead. DOE had originally said it would complete the supplemental EIS, but last year, it said it would only give the NRC the technical information needed to complete it. While the NRC could have enough funding to complete the EIS, it will lack the necessary funding to complete the adjudication process. As of Dec. 31, 2014, the NRC had $4,729,087 of unexpended funding remaining, according to McIntyre. Congress did not appropriate additional funding in Fiscal Year 2015 to support the NRC’s license review, and with the Obama Administration unwilling to move forward with Yucca the possibility of future funding remains uncertain.
Senate E&W Approps Chair: ‘Yucca Part of Solution’
Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) cited the report’s conclusions of regulatory compliance as enough to move the project forward. “Today’s report settles it: To continue to oppose Yucca Mountain because of radiation concerns is to ignore science,” Alexander said in a statement. “There is no reason Congress shouldn’t make Yucca Mountain part of the solution to end the stalemate on nuclear waste – paving the way for nuclear power to be a larger source of the clean, cheap, reliable electricity we need to power our 21st-century economy.”
Reid: Yucca ‘Inherently Flawed’
The Senate’s Minority Leader and long-time Yucca opponent Harry Reid (D-Nev.) focused on the ownership and water rights problem as a ‘major weakness’ in the Yucca argument. Reid was instrumental in Yucca’s collapse in 2010 when the Department of Energy deemed the site unworkable. “The final volumes of NRC’s Safety Evaluation Report reiterate what we have known for years – Yucca Mountain is inherently flawed,” Reid said in a statement. “It is flawed because the Department of Energy lacks the required land and water rights and has no reason to expect that it will obtain them in the future. Therefore the NRC staff does not recommend authorizing construction of Yucca Mountain. This project will never see the light of day and everyone should accept that and move on.”
DOE: Yucca Still Unworkable
DOE, meanwhile, maintained this week its opposition to Yucca Mountain, and committed to a consent based siting approach. “As Secretary Moniz has consistently said, Yucca Mountain is not a workable solution,” a DOE spokesperson said in a statement. “The siting of any facility for storage or disposal of nuclear waste should be done consistent with the phased, adaptive, and consent-based approach that has been endorsed by the National Academies and the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future and is an essential element of the Administration’s Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste. The Department is committed to pursue a consent-based siting process that assures a level of public trust and confidence in decision-making throughout the process.”
