The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will meet on April 6 to get additional public input on the scope of an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a planned interim spent nuclear fuel storage facility in West Texas.
Waste Control Specialists last April submitted a license application for a facility with a capacity to hold 40,000 metric tons of material until the Department of Energy establishes a permanent storage site — possibly decades from now. The EIS is part of the regulator’s review of the license application.
The upcoming meeting follows corresponding NRC public events on the EIS last month in Andrews, Texas, and Hobbs, N.M. It is scheduled for 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at NRC headquarters, 11555 Rockville Pike in Rockville, Md. “At the meeting, the NRC will receive comments from the public on the appropriate scope of issues to be considered in, and the content of the EIS,” according to an NRC announcement.
On Monday, the NRC also posted well over 100 identical emails expressing opposition to the project to its document website. The emails, submitted in late February based on a template from the website of the watchdog organization Public Citizen, call on the NRC to consider several issues in preparing the EIS: the danger of transporting the material to Texas from nuclear plants around the country; the potential for an accident in shipment or storage of the waste; the potential danger to groundwater once the material is at the WCS facility; and the possibility that interim storage might become permanent storage. “These risks – when included in your review – make the decision to reject WCSs application clear,” the emails state.
Waste Control Specialists CEO Rod Baltzer has sought to allay those concerns in a series of blog posts in February and March. He noted the “exemplary” safety record of spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive materials relative to other hazardous substances; and that more than 600 borings at the WCS site turned up no drinkable groundwater.
