ML19345E984
| ML19345E984 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | Consolidated Interim Storage Facility |
| Issue date: | 12/11/2019 |
| From: | Annette Vietti-Cook NRC/SECY |
| To: | Thomas Taylor Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd |
| SECY RAS | |
| References | |
| 72-1050-ISFSI, ASLBP 19-959-01-ISFSI-BD01, RAS 55459 | |
| Download: ML19345E984 (9) | |
Text
UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION WASHINGTON, D.C. 20555.()001 SECRETARY Tommy Taylor Director of Oil and Gas Operations Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd.
6101 Holiday Hill Road Midland, TX 79707
Dear Mr. Taylor:
December 11, 2019 On behalf of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), I am responding to the letter you submitted via both Regulations.gov and e-mail on November 19, 2019, regarding a Draft Regulatory Basis for the Disposal of Greater-than-Class-C (GTCC) Waste. Your letter was sent to an email address managed by the NRC's Office of the Secretary. Accordingly, your letter has been added to the NRC's rulemaking docket (NRC-2017-0081) and your comments regarding GTCC waste will be considered during that process.
In addition to your comments on the GTCC rulemaking, your letter references subjects raised during adjudication of the license application of Interim Storage Partners/WCS for a consolidated interim storage facility (CISF). Some of these subjects are currently before the Commission on appeal. The Office of the Secretary is comprised of "adjudicatory employees" who advise the Commission on various adjudicatory matters, thus, it would be inappropriate for the Office of the Secretary to comment on any references i~ your letter to the CISF application proceeding.
A copy of your letter and this response will be served on the participants in the ISPNVCS CISF proceeding.
Sincerely,
~U~-~
Annette L. Vietti-Cook
November 19, 2019 Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 ATTN: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff Submitted via www.regulations.gov Re: Docket ID NRC-2017-0081, Greater than Class C and Transuranic Waste This letter is written in opposition to the proposed regulatory changes that will provide for the near-surface disposal of GTCC waste, GTCC-like waste and transuranic waste. Specifically, this letter opposes, in general, the changes recommended in the NRCs Draft Regulatory Basis for Disposal of Greater-than-Class C (GTCC) and Transuranic Waste; RIN number: 3150-AK00; NRC Docket ID: NRC-2017-0081.
In writing, I represent my own interests as well as those of Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd., where I serve as Director of Oil and Gas Development and Vice President. Fasken owns approximately 1/8th (one-eighth) of Andrews County, Texas - home to Waste Control Specialists (WCS) disposal facility.
Fasken has engaged in ranching in this area of West Texas for more than 100 years. We are a significant producer of oil and gas and have noteworthy business interests across several states.
Fasken employs approximately 230 persons in West Texas and creates hundreds of additional jobs in the area through contract and vendor employment.
The proposed change to the regulatory basis for the disposal of GTCC, GTCC-like and transuranic waste is enabling rulemaking first proposed July 21, 2014, at the behest of and for the benefit of a private entity.
On June 20, 2014, Waste Control Specialists, LLC, (WCS), filed (and resubmitted on July 21, 2014) a Petition for Rulemaking with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) requesting the State of Texas to revise the Texas Administrative Code to remove prohibitions on disposal of GTCC LLRW, GTCC-like waste and TRU waste at its TCEQ licensed facilities. On
January 30, 2015, TCEQ sent a letter to the NRC requesting guidance on the State of Texas authority to license disposal of GTCC LLRW, GTCC-like waste and TRU waste.
While 10 CFR 61.55(a)(2)(iv) gives the NRC authority to consider alternative disposal methods for GTCC waste, the characteristics of the facility should be similar to that of a geologic repository which does not exist outside of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP). It is also of significant note to our company, that the WIPP Land Withdrawal Act 1 allowed WIPP to receive and dispose of high-level radioactive waste that was also contaminated with hazardous waste.
No such provisions are proposed or suggested for the existing WCS facility, and the disposal of GTCC waste that is mixed with hazardous waste poses additional environmental risks that have not been addressed in this Draft Regulatory Basis.
When combined with WCSs joint venture partners (Interim Storage Partners, ISP) application for the storage of 40,000 MTHM of spent nuclear fuel and the number of rail shipments required to complete that inventory, the addition of a total of 12,600 truck shipments or about 5,000 rail shipments required to transfer the GTCC waste to WCS must also be considered. Currently, the Environmental Assessment for the Disposal of Greater-Than-Class C (GTCC) Low-Level Radioactive Waste and GTCC-Like Waste at Waste Control Specialists (the Assessment), as prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy, references transportation impacts upon the WIPP site as being representative of the WCS site. It is references such as these that demonstrate a lack of awareness for the targeted region. In September 2019, the Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance, Inc. (MOTRAN), reported a 91% increase in rail related crashes in the twelve counties within its district. The area surrounding WCS has seen an overwhelming surge of truck and rail traffic which has coincided with increased accidents. As such, this casual failure of the DOE and WCS to acknowledge the facts lends to the notion that these Assessments are not forthright.
In regard to any proof of safety with respect to the modeling of radiation doses either 1,000 or 10,000 years into the future, the preposterous concept of conducting such dose modeling for a period of 100, 500, or 10,000 years can never be verified or validated by any meaningful measure and to make such assurances is highly misleading.
In short, this draft regulatory basis for the commercial disposal of GTCC waste is a naked attempt to benefit one single private company. Influence of government decisions is a frequent and recurring theme with WCS, and there is enough unobscured lobbying and resulting action that one cannot be convinced otherwise.
Each Texas legislative session, WCS seeks favorable changes to state legislation and regulations that govern its operations. Although it only has a small fraction of its facility filled with waste, WCS continually seeks to expand its capacity while concurrently seeking to avoid or reduce fees paid to the state and local community, along with any assurances of performance; thus eroding away its obligations to the State of Texas, which will eventually take title to the WCS site and waste.
1 WIPP Land Withdrawal Act, P.L. 102-579, as amended by P.L. 104-201
At the federal level, WCS is lobbying for legislation to unravel regulations that prohibit interim storage of spent nuclear fuel without a permanent disposal site and is vigorously attempting to define consent, in consent-based siting, to that which it can control.
Given the continued negative financial performance of WCS (operating over 20 years in the red),
its demonstrated desire to reduce its financial obligations to the State of Texas and Andrews County, it would seem prudent for the State of Texas and the NRC to recognize the poor business model of WCS and to cut their losses, so to speak, while acknowledging that continually accommodating WCS only increases the eventual burden the State is predestined to inherit.
Finally, as a related observation and of significant concern, it is noted by this commenter that the Draft Regulatory Basis document provided by the NRC for review here2 was readable to the eye, but was not searchable (except for section headings and titles), and the text could not be copied for referencing within the context of these comments because the body of the document (with the exception of the headings) was populated by random, incoherent text. Such a document containing searchable headings and unsearchable body text is not produced accidentally.
As this process continues to move forward with limited public engagement and without complete transparency or objectivity, our company shall continue to point out the flawed methodology, the generalizations; where substantiated facts are essential, the failure to balance the interests of the public with those of WCS and, especially, where those communities and industries neighboring the WCS site are disregarded altogether.
Sincerely, Tommy Taylor Director of Oil and Gas Operations Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd.
Cc:
President Donald Trump Senator John Cornyn Senator Ted Cruz Congressman Louie Gohmert, Jr.
Congressman Dan Crenshaw Congressman Van Taylor Congressman John Ratcliffe Congressman Lance Gooden 2 https://www.nrc.gov/waste/llw-disposal/llw-pa/gtcc-transuranic-waste-disposal.html#public
Congressman Ron Wright Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher Congressman Kevin Brady Congressman Al Green Congressman Michael McCaul Congressman Michael Conaway Congresswoman Kay Granger Congressman Mac Thornberry Congressman Randy Weber Congressman Vicente Gonzalez Congresswoman Veronica Escobar Congressman Bill Flores Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee Congressman Jodey Arrington Congressman Joaquin Castro Congressman Chip Roy Congressman Pete Olson Congressman Will Hurd Congressman Kenny Marchant Congressman Roger Williams Congressman Michael Burgess Congressman Michael Cloud Congressman Henry Cuellar Congresswoman Sylvia Garcia Congresswoman Eddie Johnson Congressman John Carter Congressman Colin Allred Congressman Marc Veasey
Congressman Filemon Vela Congressman Lloyd Doggett Congressman Brian Babin Governor Greg Abbott
From:
Monica Perales To:
RulemakingComments Resource Cc:
Maupin, Cardelia; McCartin, Timothy; NRCExecSec Resource; OCA_Web Resource
Subject:
[External_Sender] RE: NRC Docket ID: NRC-2017-0081 RE: GTCC and TRU Date:
Tuesday, November 19, 2019 11:15:37 PM Attachments:
Comments of Tommy Taylor (11.19.2019)pdf.pdf Please see the attached.
Thank you, Monica Perales Fasken Oil and Ranch, Ltd.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION In the Matter of
)
)
INTERIM STORAGE PARTNERS LLC
) Docket No. 72-1050-ISFSI
)
(WCS Consolidated Interim Storage Facility) )
)
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I hereby certify that copies of the foregoing Letter from NRC Secretary, Annette Vietti-Cook, to Tommy Taylor of Fasken Oil and Ranch have been served upon the following persons by the Electronic Information Exchange:
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Commission Appellate Adjudication Mail Stop: O16-B33 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: ocaamail@nrc.gov U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel Mail Stop: T-3F23 Washington, DC 20555-0001 Paul S. Ryerson, Chair Administrative Judge E-mail: paul.ryerson@nrc.gov Nicholas G. Trikouros Administrative Judge E-mail: nicholas.trikouros@nrc.gov Dr. Gary S. Arnold Administrative Judge E-mail: gary.arnold@nrc.gov Ian Curry, Law Clerk Stephanie Fishman, Law Clerk Molly Mattison, Law Clerk Taylor Mayhall, Law Clerk E-mail: ian.curry@nrc.gov stephanie.fishman@nrc.gov molly.mattison@nrc.gov taylor.mayhall@nrc.gov U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of the Secretary of the Commission Mail Stop: O16-B33 Washington, DC 20555-0001 Hearing Docket E-mail: Hearing.Docket@nrc.gov U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of the General Counsel Mail Stop - O-14A44 Washington, DC 20555-0001 Joe Gillespie, Esq.
Sara Kirkwood, Esq.
Mauri Lemoncelli, Esq.
Patrick Moulding, Esq.
Kevin Roach, Esq.
Carrie Safford, Esq.
Thomas Steinfeldt Alana Wase, Esq.
Brian Newell, Senior Paralegal Nicholas Moran, Legal Intern E-mail: joe.gillespie@nrc.gov sara.kirkwood@nrc.gov mauri.lemoncelli@nrc.gov patrick.moulding@nrc.gov kevin.roach@nrc.gov carrie.safford@nrc.gov thomas.steinfeldt@nrc.gov alana.wase@nrc.gov brian.newell@nrc.gov nicholas.moran@nrc.gov
WCS CISF - Docket No. 72-1050-ISFSI Letter from NRC Secretary, Annette Vietti-Cook, to Tommy Taylor, Fasken Oil and Ranch 2
Counsel for Beyond Nuclear Diane Curran, Esq.
Harmon, Curran, Spielberg and Eisenberg 1725 DeSales Street NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20036 E-mail: dcurran@harmoncurran.com Mindy Goldstein, Esq.
Emory University School of Law Turner Environmental Law Clinic 1301 Clifton Road Atlanta, GA 30322 E-mail: magolds@emory.edu Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS)
Diane DArrigo 6930 Carroll Avenue Suite 340 Takoma Park, MD 20912 Email: dianed@nirs.org Sustainable Energy and Economic Development (SEED) Coalition Karen D. Hadden Executive Director, 605 Carismatic Lane Austin, TX 78748 E-mail: karendhadden@gmail.com Counsel for Interim Storage Partners LLC Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP 1111 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20004 Grant Eskelsen, Esq.
Timothy Matthews, Esq.
Ryan Lighty, Esq.
Paul Bessette, Esq.
E-mail: grant.eskelsen@morganlewis.com timothy.matthews@morganlewis.com ryan.lighty@morganlewis.com paul.bessette@morganlewis.com Chris Hebner, Esq.
City of San Antonio, TX P.O. Box 839966 San Antonio, TX 78283 E-mail: chris.hebner@sanantonio.gov Counsel for Sierra Club Wallace Taylor 4403 1st Avenue S.E.
Suite 402 Cedar Rapids, IA 52402 E-mail: wtaylorlaw@aol.com Counsel for Dont Waste Michigan, et al Terry Lodge, Esq.
316 N. Michigan Street Suite 520 Toledo, OH 43604 E-mail: tjlodge50@yahoo.com Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 11th day of December 2019 Counsel for Fasken Land and Oil and Permian Basin Land and Royalty Owners Robert V. Eye Law Office, L.L.C.
4840 Bob Billings Parkway, Suite 1010 Lawrence, KS 66049 Timothy Laughlin, Esq.
E-mail: tijay1300@gmail.com Kanner & Whiteley, LLC 701 Camp Street New Orleans, LA 70130 Allan Kanner, Esq.
Elizabeth Petersen, Esq.
Cynthia St. Amant, Esq Conlee Whiteley, Esq.
E-mail: a.kanner@kanner-law.com e.petersen@kanner-law.com c.stamant@kanner-law.com c.whiteley@kanner-law.com
[Original signed by Herald M. Speiser ]
Office of the Secretary of the Commission