Holtec International has canceled plans to build an interim nuclear waste storage facility in New Mexico, months after an U.S. Supreme Court ruling that made way for such projects in New Mexico and Texas.
“After discussions with our longtime partner in the HI-STORE project, the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance [ELEA], and due to the untenable path forward for used fuel storage in New Mexico, we mutually agreed upon cancelling the agreement,” Holtec said in a statement emailed Thursday to Exchange Monitor. The project was to be located about 12 miles from the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) issued a statement praising Holtec’s decision to cancel the New Mexico project.
Management for a Y-12 building found its emergency notification system in “degrading condition” due to its volume levels lowering, according to a September nuclear watchdog report.
The buildings in question are Building 9204-2E and Building 9204-2, which are conjoined by a section of a wall. While work orders have been placed to repair the emergency system in 9204-2, the orders were not reported by maintenance, the report said. A “severe weather event” in September degraded the emergency system “to the point where only short portions of announcements could be heard,” DNFSB said, so the request was elevated.
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) wrote in its report that Building 9204-2 relies on speakers throughout the building to sound an alarm to communicate an emergency with a system extended from a “credited” system in Building 9204-2E. Consolidated Nuclear Security (CNS), the joint-venture management and operating contractor in charge of Y-12, reportedly replaced the speakers and detection probes in 9204-2E recently, but “did not upgrade or repair the aging portion” of the emergency system in 9204-2, the report said. As part of compensatory measures, management required personnel to carry radios in Building 9204-2 after the system in 9204-2E was deemed “operable,” DNFSB said.
President Donald Trump last week signed an order extending the lifespan of 19 federal advisory committees, including one devoted to the study of radiation and worker health, by two years.
According to the order, signed Sept. 29 and published in the Monday Federal Register, the advisory committees will continue to operate until at least Sept. 30, 2027.One of those extended was the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health. The board was created in December 2000 to provide advice to the Department of Health and Human Services.
According to its website, the board includes members of the public who “represent a balance of scientific, medical, and worker points of view.” Its guidelines are used to help assess the chances that a worker’s cancer stemmed from their work at a Department of Energy facility.