A major environmental group continued to spar with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission this week in attempts to delay federal approval on two proposed interim storage sites for nuclear waste, according to court records and an agency memo.
For all its maneuvering, however, the Sierra Club did not gain much ground this week. The NRC rejected an appeal from the group to reconsider five objections lodged against the proposed Holtec International consolidated interim storage facility (CISF) in southeastern New Mexico, according to a commission memo published Thursday.
The group’s contentions were first dismissed by the commission’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board in April 2020, the NRC’s memo said. In the contentions, the San Francisco-based Sierra Club raised concerns about the proposed Holtec site effects on groundwater in the area and cast doubt on the company’s estimated timelines for moving spent fuel to the site from power plants over 40 years, the memo said. However, the commission reaffirmed the board’s opinion that these objections had no standing and closed the appeal.
The commission’s Thursday memo comes on the heels of the Sierra Club’s Feb. 9 petition in the D.C. circuit court in which the group asked the court to reopen nine moribund appeals of contentions to industry’s other proposed spent fuel site, Interim Storage Partners’ (ISP) planned facility in Andrews County, Texas. Those appeals, filed in 2018, were closed by the commission in December.
The commission previously engaged with one of the contentions over ISP’s site, in which the Sierra Club raised concerns about potential effects on local wildlife populations. The commission asked ISP to provide more information on the issue, which the company did in 2019. NRC then closed the contention.
Initial filings in the Feb. 9 petition, which challenges the commission’s December decision, are due from both parties by the end of March, according to the court docket.
Both proposed interim storage sites are undergoing a federal environmental impact review by NRC. The commission has said that these processes may take until the summer to complete.
