Waste Control Specialists has not provided sufficient information to enable the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to carry out a technical review of its license application to build an interim consolidated storage facility for spent nuclear fuel and reactor-related greater-than-Class C low-level waste, according to a senior NRC official.
That was the finding of an acceptance assessment of the application submitted on April 28, the NRC said in a June 22 letter to WCS Vice President of Licensing Affairs Scott Kirk, which was posted on the NRC website Wednesday.
“The purpose of this letter is to advise you, based on the NRC staff’s acceptance review, the application does not contain sufficient technical information,” wrote Mark Lombard, director of the NRC Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards’ Spent Fuel Management Division.
Waste Control Specialists has 28 days from the date of the letter to deliver the requested supplemental information, but does not have to resubmit the license application. It has two weeks from June 22 to inform the NRC whether it can provide the information in that time period, according to Lombard. “If WCS is not able to respond within this time frame or RSI responses provided to the NRC do not provide sufficient information, the application may not be accepted for review.”
Waste Control Specialists spokesman Chuck McDonald said the company has already begun compiling the requested data and hopes to meet the schedule laid out in the letter.
“It is not unexpected. We were expecting a letter and we are working on a schedule and responses to them now,” he said in a telephone interview. He added: “It’s a lot of information, but we’re working on it.”
The company is seeking a 40-year license to build and operate a facility that could hold up to 40,000 metric tons of nuclear waste at the WCS complex in Andrews County, Texas. An NRC license application from Holtec International for a similar facility in New Mexico is expected in November.
The two sites together could store the more than 70,000 metric tons of spent fuel now kept on-site at commercial nuclear power facilities around the country. They – or facilities like them — would be key to the Obama administration’s consent-based siting plan for storage of nuclear waste, which calls for operation of a pilot storage facility by 2021; one or more interim facilities by 2025; and at least one permanent geologic repository by 2048.
The NRC letter cites three broad areas in which supplemental information is needed for the license application to advance:
- Waste Control Specialists has not “clearly defined” the licensing basis for the dry casks that would be used to store the fuel, including failing to submit references that form the safety basis. As the term indicates, the license basis encompasses the documents and technical criterial upon which the NRC will determine whether to approve the application.
- Rather than being restricted to already-approved storage casks, the application seems to include “future certificate of compliance (CoC) amendments that have not yet been reviewed and approved by the NRC.”
- Some sections of the application feature insufficient amounts of detail, including specifics on physical security and other mandatory programs at the facility.
A 30-page document attached to the letter features numerous specific requests for supplemental information, along with various “observations” – questions that do not necessarily need to be answered for the application to be accepted for NRC review, but which “may need further clarification” during the review process.
