The chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was preparing a response to a request by the governor of New Mexico that the commission stop working on a license for a proposed interim storage site in the state.
That’s according to a letter the NRC sent to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) on Friday. The NRC posted the letter, signed by NRC secretary Brooke Clark, on its website. Commission Chair Christopher Hanson will formally replied to Lujan Grisham “shortly,” an NRC spokesperson wrote Thursday in an email.
The local Carlsbad Current Argus reported last week that Lujan Grisham asked the NRC to suspend consideration of a license application Holtec International filed with the commission for an interim spent fuel storage site in southeastern New Mexico near Lea and Eddy counties.
The locals have generally supported Holtec’s proposed site, but the New Mexico state government has not.
On March 18, Lujan Grisham signed into a law a statewide ban on spent fuel storage in the Land of Enchantment. Days after that, citing “unforeseen resources constraints,” the NRC informed Holtec that the commission would not be able to make a decision about the company’s interim storage license until May at least.
NRC had previously said that Holtec’s HI-STORE facility should get a license decision by the end of March. NRC staff have endorsed licensing the facility, which if built could store 8,700 tons of spent nuclear fuel in 500 canisters, or roughly 9.5% of the total inventory of U.S. spent fuel from nuclear power plants.
Holtec has said New Mexico’s new law is preempted by federal law.
NRC in 2021 licensed an interim spent fuel storage site proposed in Texas by Interim Storage Partners, a joint venture of Orana and Waste Control Specialists. The same year, Texas banned transportation of high-level nuclear waste in the state.
