The White House on Jan. 6 nominated Nuclear Regulatory Commission member David Wright to a full five-year term, through June 30, 2025.
The move came as no surprise – the Trump administration had stated in November it intended to reappoint Wright.
Wright’s nomination was referred to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. As of Friday, the panel had not announced a hearing on confirmation.
Wright joined the commission in May 2018. He took a seat that had previously been held by Commissioner Jeff Baran and expires on June 30 of this year. Baran, who has served on the commission since 2014, in 2018 himself received a five-year term to the end of June 2023.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the federal regulator for U.S. nuclear power and waste operations. The commission has a maximum of five members, with four spots currently filled by Chairman Kristine Svinicki and Commissioners Wright, Baran, and Annie Caputo. The fifth seat on the commission has been vacant since the April 2019 retirement of Stephen Burns.
There was no word this week regarding a nomination to fill out the commission. Several names have been rumored as potential candidates, including Christopher Hanson, a Democratic staffer on the Senate Appropriations Committee. Hanson did not respond to a query Thursday regarding his potential nomination.
Before becoming an NRC commissioner, Wright was an energy and water consultant in South Carolina. He previously held several positions at the South Carolina Public Service Commission from 2004 to 2013, including vice chairman and chairman. He was president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners from 2011 to 2012.
In 2018, the state of Nevada asked Wright to voluntarily recuse himself from NRC decision-making on the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, then requested a federal court force recusal when he declined. Wright’s previous actions and statements showed an unfair bias in favor of the repository that would be built about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, according to the state. Wright said he had no pro-Yucca bias, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the state petition in December 2018.
A radioactively contaminated property in New York City was among 34 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Superfund cleanup jobs that went unfunded in fiscal 2019 despite being ready for construction.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), and two other Democrats on the panel, on Thursday demanded an explanation from EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler on the “dramatic increase in the backlog of unfunded cleanup projects at Superfund program sites under the Trump Administration.”
The Wolff-Alport Chemical Co. site, in Queens near its border with Brooklyn, was home from the 1920s to 1954 to the extraction of rare earth metals from monazite sand shipped from the Belgian Congo. For much of that time, thorium waste from the operation was deposited in the sewer system and potentially buried on-site, according to the EPA. There is still contamination on the three-fourths acre property and in the vicinity of the downstream sewer lines.
In July 2017, the EPA announced a nearly $40 million program for remediating the site, including demolishing contaminated buildings and removing more than 24,000 cubic yards of contaminated soils and other material.
However, Wolff-Alport was on the EPA’s list of unfunded Superfund projects in both the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years. Fiscal 2020 began on Oct. 1 of last year.
The count of unfunded Superfund cleanup sites as of 2019 was the largest in no less than 15 years, The Associated Press reported earlier this month. It encompassed properties in 18 states and Puerto Rico.
In their letter to Wheeler, Pallone and Energy and Commerce subcommittee chairs Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) requested an EPA briefing that would address several questions. These include: any agency evaluations on the root case of the list of unfunded projects; EPA budget or other measures to address the situation; and EPA findings on the economic effects of pushing back cleanup of the sites.
The logistics branch of nuclear company Orano at the end of 2019 wrapped up the transfer to dry storage of spent fuel canisters with the highest heat load to date at U.S. power plants, according to a Jan. 15 press release.
At the customer’s request, Orano is not identifying the nuclear power plant where the operation occurred, spokesman Curtis Roberts said last week. He also said only that the “pool to pad” operation was completed at the end of the year.
Orano TN transferred 296 used fuel assemblies from the facility’s cooling pool to its independent spent fuel storage installation (ISFSI) within eight NUHOMS EOS 379PTH canisters, the release says.
The average head load of the canisters was 44.75 kilowatts. Heat load is used to measure the decay heat of spent fuel.
The Orano Extended Optimized Storage system “is the first dry storage system to load and store used nuclear fuel with heat loads well above industry experience to date, which has ranged between 14-34 kW per canister,” the release says.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has licensed the Orano system to hold material with heat loads as high as 50 kilowatts per canister.
Spent fuel is moved out of cooling pools when it is considered safe for dry storage. The Orano technology provides operators of active and retired nuclear power plants with greater flexibility to schedule the transfer, as the necessary cooling period will be shorter, Roberts said.
He said discussions are underway for contracts at additional power plants, but could not discuss details.
Massachusetts-based UniTech Services Group has made Michael Bovino its new vice president, effective Jan. 1.
Bovino brings 35 years of management and contamination control experience to the post at the nuclear services company. The executive is a 29-year veteran of UniTech and its parent, UniFirst Corp., most recently serving as division general manager responsible for profit and loss at the UniClean branch, according to a December press release.
Joining UniTech in 1990, Bovino spent six years in health physics and engineering before moving into senior management. Prior to UniTech, Bovino worked for New Jersey-based Public Service Electric & Gas.
The Unitech manager has also been a voting member of the State University of New York (SUNY) Cortland Alumni Association Board since 2018.
Bovino replaces George Bakevich, who recently retired after 36 years as vice president, helping oversee company expansions in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
In the 1950s, UniTech became the first U.S. licensed provider of a radiological laundry service. Today it is one of the world’s largest suppliers of nuclear protective clothing and accessories. It also provides decontamination and testing of respirators and radiological equipment for both domestic and international nuclear markets. UniFirst is a supplier of industry textile services and work clothes.
From The Wires
From The Buffalo News: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completes removal of radioactive waste from landfill at Tonawanda, N,Y.
From WHIO.com: Local organization ends effort to block the Ohio state government’s financial support program for nuclear power plants.
From South Coast Today: Massachusetts state lawmakers file bills on decommissioning of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station.
From Rolling Stone: Investigation of potential dangers from radioactive materials in “brine” generated in oil and gas extraction.
