The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled four public meetings in late April and early May to receive input on the scope of its environmental impact statement for Holtec International’s application for a license to build an interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility in southeastern New Mexico.
“At the meeting, the NRC will receive comments from the public on the appropriate scope of issues to be considered in, and the content of the EIS,” the regulator said in notices for each meeting, which were posted March 30 on its website.
State lawmakers in New Mexico have already made their concerns known, so far focusing on the 60-day timeline allowed for public comment on the scope of the environmental review. State Sen. Jeff Steinborn (D) this week sent letters to the NRC and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, among others, citing a long list of issues that should be addressed as the license application proceeds.
In March 2017, Holtec submitted its application for a facility that would offer underground storage of used fuel now held on-site at nuclear power plants around the county. The Lea County site would provide centralized, interim holding of up to 120,000 metric tons of material until the Department of Energy meets its legal mandate to build a permanent repository for the waste.
After a nearly yearlong acceptance review, the NRC in February began a full technical analysis of the application, covering environmental, safety, and security assurances. That process is expected to be complete by July 2020. If approved, Holtec hopes to open the initially licensed part of the facility, with capacity for 8,680 metric tons of used fuel, by 2022.
The environmental impact statement will address possible effects from the facility on air quality, surface water, groundwater, transportation, geology and soils, and socioeconomics, the NRC said in a Federal Register notice. Also under review are “potential impacts of Holtec’s proposed facility on historic and cultural resources and on threatened and endangered species,” the agency said, along with the economic and technical costs and benefits.
The public meetings are scheduled as follows:
- 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. April 25 at NRC headquarters, 11555 Rockville Pike in Rockville, Md.
- 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. April 30 at Eastern New Mexico University – Roswell, Campus Union Building – Room 110, 48 University Blvd. in Roswell, N.M.
- 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. May 1 at the Lea County Event Center, 5101 N. Lovington Highway in Hobbs, N.M.
- 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. May 3 at the Eddy County Fire Service, 1400 Commerce St. in Carlsbad, N.M.
Comments can also be submitted through May 29 at www.regulations.gov, Docket ID NRC-2018-0052; or by mail, to May Ma, Office of Administration, Mail Stop: TWFN–7– A60M, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555– 0001.
The NRC expects to issue the draft EIS for the project by next summer, which would begin another round of public comments and meetings for finalizing the document.
The agency has denied a recent request from a group of New Mexico lawmakers to extend the public comment period on the scope of its environmental review of Holtec International’s license application.
In February, nine state senators and 21 state representatives asked the agency to extend the comment period into next year. They said the full New Mexico Legislature would not meet again until 2019, but that state agencies and legislative committees should have input into issues associated with the Holtec proposal, including potential water contamination and other contamination dangers, seismic concerns, and possible state liability.
The NRC responded with separate, identical letters to all of the legislators, dated March 23 and made public on Monday. In the letter, the agency said it has “an obligation to the public and the regulated community to make timely regulatory decisions.
“The NRC staff will not start its detailed technical review until all the comments from scoping have been reviewed and considered,” wrote Daniel Dorman, acting NRC deputy executive director for materials, waste, research, state, tribal, compliance, administration, and human capital programs. “Extending the scoping period until the close of your legislative session would cause a corresponding delay in our licensing review of more than one year and would not be commensurate with a timely regulatory decision-making process. Accordingly, the NRC staff has decided not to extend its scoping period per your request.”
Dorman noted that there will be a number of opportunities for state input during the regulatory proceeding, including the upcoming meetings in Maryland and New Mexico.
“The conclusion of the scoping process will not limit other meaningful opportunities for the NRC to benefit from the involvement of the New Mexico State Legislature,” he stated. “Importantly, both the legislature and the public will have additional opportunities to participate in the NRC’s environmental review process when the staff publishes the draft EIS for public comment.”
One of the state lawmakers who signed on to the original letter, Steinborn, this week expressed concerns that the review of Holtec’s license application is moving too quickly for New Mexico to prepare for the facility. Steinborn wants the NRC to brief the New Mexico Legislature’s Interim Radioactive and Hazardous Materials Committee, which he chairs, on the Holtec project this year. The state government should also conduct extensive research on the ramifications of hosting the spent fuel storage facility, he said.
Steinborn asked New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas to research legal issues pertaining to Holtec’s project. And he restated the request to the NRC to extend the public comment period long enough to allow New Mexico’s legislative committees and state agencies time to review issues related to Holtec’s application and to develop recommendations to the NRC prior to a ruling on the license.
Request for Additional Information
The NRC on March 28 sent Holtec its first request for additional information for the full application review.
Holtec had been informed when the regulator began its technical review that such requests were likely, and that NRC staff anticipated the first round would be submitted in multiple parts.
“The enclosed RAIs only address selected portions of the NRC staff review completed to date, and additional RAIs may be issued in the future as the staff’s detailed review progresses,” Jose Cuadrado, project manager for the agency’s Spent Fuel Licensing Branch, wrote to Joyce Tomlinson, adjunct licensing manager at Holtec.
All of the first-round requests are due to be delivered to Holtec by August, according to the letter, which was posted Thursday on the NRC website.
The initial questionnaire addresses two issues:
- Holtec must submit an evaluation of the annual hazard to its planned facility “from any flight-related activities” through airports in the region or aircraft flying nearby. That would include potential airplane holding patterns from nearby airports, the number of civilian and commercial aircraft that pass through local airways in any given year, and the distance of the storage site from all such airways.
- Holtec must also show that the subgrade and undergrade soils below the storage pads and canister transfer facility could withstand the weight of its storage system.
