WASHINGTON — AREVA Federal Services is preparing for the Energy Department to formally announce plans to restart the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada “in the coming weeks,” according to an undated, internal company document.
Weapons Complex Morning Briefing obtained a copy of the document, which an AREVA spokesperson on Wednesday confirmed was a page from the company’s quarterly internal newsletter for employees. The timeline for the Yucca restart was conjecture by the company based on the budget proposal the Donald Trump administration released in March. The White House said it plans to request $120 million for nuclear waste activities in fiscal 2018, with some part of that going to resume Yucca licensing.
The AREVA document surfaced the same day Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) met with Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and the House Energy and Commerce environment subcommittee held a hearing on a draft bill that would make it easier to reopen the Energy Department’s license application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the state’s objections.
AREVA Federal Services is part of Yucca Mountain management and operations contractor USA Repository Services, along with AECOM and CB&I.
In its employee newsletter, AREVA Federal Services said it could be called on to provide “an estimated 350 engineers” for the Yucca project.
Early work, which AREVA is planning along with its joint venture partners, would include “necessary site reconnaissance and infrastructure upgrades, and preparations for commencement of hearings to adjudicate several hundred contentions” Nevada raised before the NRC Atomic Safety and Licensing Board over the Yucca license application DOE filed in 2008.
That adjudication process came up during the Capitol Hill hearing, where a former DOE official estimated it would take up to four years to litigate the concerns Nevada raised in the waning months of the George W. Bush administration.
“Both the NRC and the Department of Energy must be adequately funded to adequately litigate those contentions,” Ward Sproat, former director of the defunct Energy Department office of civilian radioactive waste management, said during a hearing on the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017.
The bill, currently in draft form, is sponsored by Yucca champion Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.). After the hearing, Shimkus told reporters he thought there was support for the legislative language as written, but that he had no timetable for formally filing the bill. Previously, Shimkus said he wanted the House to pass the bill before leaving town for its annual summer recess in August.
Shimkus, citing a meeting with Perry “a couple weeks ago,” told reporters President Donald Trump’s DOE was “all on board” with a Yucca restart.
The administration has proposed some part of $120 million for nuclear waste management be used to resume Yucca activities in fiscal 2018, which begins Oct. 1.