Colorado Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne on Wednesday signed legislation enabling the state to establish regulations for management of certain radioactive materials.
Lynne assumed the duties of governor while Gov. John Hickenlooper was out of the state.
The state’s Radiation Control Act prohibited Colorado from establishing regulations on naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) and technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) until the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency first takes that step. But the federal agency has not done so.
State Senate Bill 18-245, from Sen. John Cooke (R) and Rep. Jeni James Arndt (D), eliminates that prohibition and specifically directs the Colorado Board of Health to adopt rules on disposal of NORM and TENORM materials by the end of 2020.
Prior to that point, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) will establish a stakeholder panel to help guide preparation of the rules and then submit a report on that process to the state General Assembly by Dec. 31, 2019.
The state agency is already preparing the stakeholder group, and is eyeing its first meeting this summer, CDPHE spokeswoman Meghan Hughes said last week. Under the legislation, the group must include representatives from the oil and gas industry, mining industry, exploration and production waste disposal sites, public water providers, public wastewater treatment providers, and solid waste landfill operators.
There are three landfills in Colorado authorized for disposal of TENORM. But the CDPHE has sought legislation on regulating the material amid concerns that other solid-waste landfills might also be receiving TENORM waste from energy exploration and production activities.
Jennifer Opila, CDPHE radiation program manager, said on June 1 the agency has no sense so far of what new regulations might involve.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in April spent $6,275 of its remaining balance from the federal Nuclear Waste Fund, leaving it with $458,599 until Congress provides another appropriation.
Most of the spending — $5,356 – reflects “trailing costs” from a two-day virtual meeting in February of the NRC’s Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel, along with information collection on potential sites for resumption of adjudication hearings for the Energy Department license application for the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The remaining $919 was spent on unspecified program planning and support, according to the NRC’s latest Nuclear Waste Fund spending report to Congress.
The Nuclear Waste Fund is intended to pay for NRC and DOE licensing of Yucca Mountain and then for construction of the repository for spent nuclear reactor fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The Obama administration stopped work in 2010, but a federal court in August 2013 ordered the NRC to continue the licensing process. The regulator as of April had spent nearly $13.1 million of the $13.5 million it had available from the fund at the time of the ruling. Nearly $11.5 million of that was spent on completing a safety evaluation report on Yucca Mountain, shifting the documents from the Licensing Support Network to the NRC’s online documents library, and preparing a supplement to the environmental impact statement for the license application.
Of the remaining $497,945 balance, $39,346 is unspent but already committed, largely for contracts with the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses and contracts from the February LNSARP meeting.
The NRC does not have enough money to actually resume the license application adjudication. The agency requested $30 million for fiscal 2018, but Congress provided no Yucca funding for DOE or the NRC. The regulator is asking for nearly $48 million in its fiscal 2019 budget proposal; the House backed the request in its energy and water funding bill, but the Senate version again offers nothing for Yucca licensing.
More than 200 more used reactor fuel assemblies were moved from wet to dry storage from April 20 to May 20 at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) in San Diego County, Calif., primary owner Southern California Edison said on June 1.
A total of 444 fuel assemblies from SONGS reactor Units 2 and 3 had been placed on the retired nuclear power plant’s independent spent fuel storage installation as of May 20, according to the utility’s latest update on the spent fuel transfer. That was up from 159 reported one month earlier. The assemblies were held in 12 storage canisters, up from seven in the prior report.
Another 2,150 assemblies remained in SONGS’ spent fuel pool on May 20, compared to 2,372 at that time a month earlier. The new June 1 report shows 74 assemblies in two canisters in transit on May 20.
SONGS was permanently retired in 2013 due to faulty steam generators in its two remaining operational reactors. Under the settlement to a lawsuit filed by a local watchdog group, Southern California Edison is allowed to move all spent fuel onto an expanded storage pad even as it pursue “commercially reasonable” opportunities to ship the waste off-site. There was no immediate update on that process Friday.
The utility expects to complete the spent fuel transfer by mid-2019. Presuming approval from the state, major decommissioning operations could then begin. An AECOM-EnergySolutions team won a $1 billion contract to oversee what is expected to be a $4.4 billion cleanup job.
From The Wires
From the Hobbs News-Sun: Jal, N.M., City Council approves resolution against plans for an interim storage facility in southeastern New Mexico for spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors.
From Euronews: 3-D scanner will enable inspection of underground nuclear waste disposal facility in Finland.
