NRC WASTE CONFIDENCE ISSUES WILL STILL ‘TAKE SOME TIME’ TO RESOLVE

While the Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted on its Draft Waste Confidence Decision earlier this month, issues raised in the votes will “take some time” to resolve, NRC Commissioner George Apostolakis said yesterday. Last year, the NRC set a two-year schedule to update its waste confidence decision and complete an Environmental Impact Statement after a court decision found its previous decision deficient. While the NRC had planned to complete the process in August or September 2014, “that presumes that things go smoothly as one plans,” Apostolakis said at the International Symposium of the Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Materials in San Francisco. In commissioner votes on the proposed rule “some of them are raising some pretty serious issues,” he said.

Apostolakis believes that “it will take some time for commission to reach consensus, or at least majority. I would be reluctant to say that it would be ready in August or September or before that. I don’t know how long that deliberation among the commissioners will take.” He added, “We’ll try to do it in two years, but the most important thing in my mind is doing such a job so that if challenged it will not be again rejected.”