Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
9/26/2014
The Department of Energy still has not delivered to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission its updated technical report needed for the Yucca Mountain supplemental environment impact statement. DOE had said earlier this year it would not complete the supplemental EIS, but it would complete an update to its 2009 technical review that is basis of the EIS. According to NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane’s latest report to Congress on Yucca Mountain licensing review expenditures, submitted this week, the NRC has still not received the technical report. “On April 7, 2014, NRC staff met with DOE staff in a public meeting to discuss DOE’s revision of this report, titled, Analysis of Post-closure Groundwater Impacts for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada,” Macfarlane wrote. “The NRC is awaiting receipt of the update to the 2009 technical report. Staff sent a letter to DOE on August 21, 2014, requesting an estimated delivery date for the NRC to receive this report.”
In April, William Boyle, DOE’s director of the Office of Used Nuclear Fuel Disposition R&D, said that not much information within the report needed updating, and that the report could be delivered to the NRC “as early as the end of April.” According to NRC spokesman David McIntyre, the NRC still does not have the report and has no indication from DOE when it will be delivered. DOE did not respond to calls for comment this week.
The NRC issued an order last November setting forth a pathway to re-start the Yucca Mountain licensing review, including the request for a supplemental EIS from DOE on groundwater issues to satisfy requirements set forth in the National Environmental Policy Act. DOE had initially planned to move forward with the NRC’s request for the study, but in February, DOE argued that since it submitted a groundwater EIS in 2008, it did not have to update the EIS to fulfill its Nuclear Waste Policy Act legal obligations. The NRC will complete the EIS in DOE’s stead, but a cost estimate update is needed before it can move forward.
