The Sierra Club intends to intervene in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s technical review of Holtec International’s application for a consolidated interim storage facility for spent nuclear reactor fuel, an attorney representing the environmental organization said Monday.
The intervention request would be filed when the regulatory agency releases its schedule for that process, Wallace Taylor, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, told Weapons Complex Morning Briefing.
New Jersey-based Holtec in March 2017 filed its application for a facility that could eventually hold up to 120,000 metric tons of used fuel now kept on-site at nuclear power plants around the nation. The initially licensed part of the facility would cover 8,680 metric tons of waste.
The NRC in February completed its acceptance review of the application and has moved into the full technical review covering environmental, safety, and security matters. It expects to complete its evaluation by July 2020.
Authorization to intervene in the proceeding would enable the Sierra Club to present witnesses and information addressing its concerns about the Holtec project, Taylor said. Those include the hydrology and geology of the planned Lea County site in southeastern New Mexico and whether it would be safer simply to keep the used fuel on-site at the nuclear plants.
“We think that’s probably the least bad solution, but it needs to be done in a much safer fashion than it has been,” he said.
Taylor said he believes other parties also intend to intervene in the NRC review, but that he did not immediately know who they are.
