Waste Control Specialists will not need to gain unanimous consent from waste transport corridor communities for its application to operate an interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility in West Texas, a government affairs expert helping the company work through regulatory issues said Wednesday.
In its post-Yucca Mountain plan for nuclear waste storage, the Obama administration has focused on assuring consent from communities near where the material will be shipped and stored. The transportation aspect of the project will not require unanimous consent, Mike Callahan, president of Governmental Strategies Inc., said during a webinar hosted by Nuclear Energy Insider. The site proposed near the Texas-New Mexico border, which would have a 40-year Nuclear Regulatory Commission license to store 40,000 metric tons of nuclear waste, allowing WCS to take waste from 51 shut-down reactor sites, has already gained the support of stakeholders in Andrews County, Texas.
Consent, Callahan said, will be given through the scope of Department of Transportation regulations, with state input in determining routes, training, and first response procedures.
“Somebody asked, ‘Is consent required?’” Callahan said. “If consent means unanimity, you’re not going to have that. If consent means that states are satisfied that the regulations are being met and their role in the context of those regulations is being addressed and modified as it needs to be, then yes. That’s the general overview of the process in which transportation will be accomplished, and has been.”
