The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is moving quickly to meet Waste Control Specialists’ request that the agency suspend review of its license application for a spent nuclear fuel storage site in West Texas.
“As requested by WCS, the staff is taking the appropriate actions to properly suspend its review and contract support. Managers are working with the staff to close out their work to prepare for a future resumption, and to reassign them to other casework,” NRC spokeswoman Maureen Conley said by email Wednesday.
Waste Control Specialists President and CEO Rod Baltzer requested suspension of the license review in a letter sent Tuesday to the regulator. He said the Dallas-based company first wants to complete its $367 million merger with radioactive waste management peer EnergySolutions, of Salt Lake City, which the executive said should happen by late summer.
The Department of Justice in November filed an antitrust lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Delaware to stop the deal; the case is due to go to trial Monday. Waste Control Specialists spokesman Chuck McDonald said Wednesday there was no sign the trial would not begin as scheduled.
In his letter to the NRC, Baltzer also stressed that proceeding with the license review now would exacerbate the “enormous financial challenges” facing his company, noting its annual operating losses in recent years and the projected $7.5 million bill from the NRC. Still, he said Waste Control Specialists would proceed with the spent fuel facility plan at the “earliest possible opportunity” after the company is sold from current parent Valhi to EnergySolutions’ parent Rockwell Holdco.
“Resumption of our review at a later date will depend, in part, on the availability of review staff who are now being reassigned to other higher priority work,” the NRC’s Conley stated.
If built, the WCS site would be able to hold up to 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel now stranded on-site at U.S. nuclear power plants.
