The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is going through the process of review for the transport of spent nuclear reactor fuel from Canada to the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) in South Carolina.
In a Nov. 9 letter to a spent fuel transport company, NRC Fuel Cycle and Transportation Security Branch chief William Gott said the agency had approved a truck route for spent fuel from the Sweetgrass Port of Entry in Montana to SRS. The letter did not specify the amount of material to be shipped or the route, but the approval is scheduled to expire on Dec. 31, 2021.
The NRC, meanwhile, is reviewing a transport container that would carry material from the SLOWPOKE reactor at the University of Alberta, according to an Oct. 19 letter from Huda Akhavannik, of the NRC’s Spent Fuel Licensing Branch, to Richard Boyle, of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. NRC staff could request additional information this month and issue a safety evaluation report next March, “based on the applicant responding to RAIs in January 2017,” the letter says. “If no RAI is needed, and based on the staff’s evaluation, the approval may be issued at approximately that time.”
DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration said Thursday it would not comment on the matter.
The material is designated under federal law as high-level waste, the nongovernmental Savannah River Site Watch said in a press release. It would be stored at the Savannah River Site’s L-Basin storage pool, “with no clear plans for its long-term disposition out of South Carolina,” the watchdog organization said.
Shipment of U.S.-origin nuclear material from other nations to the Savannah River Site has been a sore spot in relations between DOE and the state of South Carolina. “South Carolina will not be a permanent dumping ground for nuclear waste,” Gov. Nikki Haley said in June.
SRS has received several shipments of highly enriched uranium in recent years through multiple agreements. In September 2015, the site received 1 kilogram of HEU from Jamaica and 2.2 kilograms from Switzerland.
