A coalition of four jurisdictions supporting development of a storage facility in New Mexico for spent nuclear fuel has supported giving the public more time to comment on a key document from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Stakeholders currently have until May 22 to comment on the NRC draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for Holtec International’s planned consolidated interim storage facility in Lea County.
In the March 10 draft, agency staff preliminary recommended approval of a federal license for the site. The document says the project would largely have small impacts on air quality, water resources, and other environmental areas.
New Mexico’s entire congressional delegation in March requested an extension of the comment period in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic. A group of 50 advocacy organizations issued a similar plea later in the month.
“Asking for extensions and using any motive they are able to conceive to delay the EIS process is a normal, old, tired tactic,” John Heaton, chairman of the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance (ELEA), wrote in an April letter to the NRC commissioners that was made public this week. Still, extending the public comment period for 60 to 120 days “seems reasonable” as long as the NRC does not foresee that slowing the overall licensing proceeding, he added.
The NRC, as of Friday morning, had not announced its decision on an extension.
The Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance is comprised of the cities of Carlsbad and Hobbs and Eddy and Lea counties, in southeastern New Mexico. It bought 1,000 acres of land on which the Holtec facility would be built.
Holtec, an energy technology company based in Camden, N.J., filed its license application with the NRC in March 2017. The federal agency expects to finalize the environmental impact statement by next March, followed shortly afterward by a decision on a 40-year license for storage of up to 8,680 metric tons of spent fuel from nuclear power plants. With further NRC approvals, the facility could hold more than 170,000 metric tons of material for as long as 120 years.
The administration of New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) opposes the project, warning of its potential impact on the state’s agriculture and energy industries. Grisham and other state leaders have also said New Mexico could become permanent home to the waste if the federal government remains unable to license and build a final repository.
The 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act made the Department of Energy responisble for disposition of the nation’s stockpile of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste from defense nuclear operatioms. The agency in 2008 filed a license application for a repository under Yucca Mountain, Nev., with the NRC, but the Obama administration defunded the proceeding two years later. Congress rebuffed requests from the Trump administration in three consecutive budget proposals for funding to resume licensing, and the White House for the upcoming fiscal 2021 is instead seeking $27.5 million for an Interim Storage and Nuclear Waste Fund Oversight program
The Holtec facility, along with a smaller storage operation planned for West Texas, could offer DOE an option for finally meeting its legal mandate to do something with over 80,000 metric tons of spent fuel, now mostly stored at active and retired nuclear power plants around the country.
The Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance has emphasized the safety and economic benefits of the facility. The project would create 215 jobs for construction and operations workers, along with at least $2.4 billion in capital investment over its life cycle, according to ELEA. “A complete build out will probably be in the area of $3 billion,” Heaton told RadWaste Monitor on Friday by email.
The radioactive material, meanwhile, would be held within four layers of storage in a geologically stable region, the groups says.
“To be sure we, as well as the NRC and Holtec are anxious to be presented with any scientific, evidenced based information dispelling the findings of the DEIS,” Heaton stated in his letter. “So far, all that has been presented by those that oppose the project are non-technical emotional attitudes with no real basis for their opposition.”
The NRC has not yet scheduled in-person or virtual meetings to discuss the draft environmental impact statement. A previous round of meetings on the license application were convened in 2018 in the New Mexico cities of Hobbs, Carlsbad, Roswell, Albuquerque, and Gallup.
Heaton also argued in favor of virtual public hearings on the draft EIS rather than live in-person sessions. Conducting the sessions “via tele-communications or other such medium platforms” would be better for several reasons, he wrote, leaving little doubt his concerns are focused on the project’s opponents.
Tele-sessions of some sort would ensure that one person would speak one time at a single event, preventing local residents from being crowded out, according to Heaton. He said opponents appear at multiple hearings, repeating their cases “and then claim to have this large number opposing the project when there are only a few.”
