ML20267A233
| ML20267A233 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | HI-STORE |
| Issue date: | 09/22/2020 |
| From: | Lodge T Citizens Environmental Coalition, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Don't Waste Michigan, Nuclear Energy Information Service, Nuclear Issues Study Group, Public Citizen, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace |
| To: | Office of Administration |
| References | |
| 85FR16150 00119, NRC-2018-0052 | |
| Download: ML20267A233 (23) | |
Text
PUBLIC SUBMISSION As of: 9/23/20 9:36 AM Received: September 22, 2020 Status: Pending_Post Tracking No. kfe-ukee-4irt Comments Due: September 22, 2020 Submission Type: Web Docket: NRC-2018-0052 Holtec International HI-STORE Consolidated Interim Storage Facility Project Comment On: NRC-2018-0052-0376 Holtec International HI-STORE Consolidated Interim Storage Facility Project Document: NRC-2018-0052-DRAFT-0427 Comment on FR Doc # 2020-17536 Submitter Information Name: Terry Lodge Address:
Toledo, OH, 43604 Email: tjlodge50@yahoo.com Phone: (419) 205-7084 General Comment See attached file(s)
Attachments Comment letter FINAL Page 1 of 1 09/23/2020 https://www.fdms.gov/fdms/getcontent?objectId=0900006484871f84&format=xml&showorig=false SUNSI Review Complete Template = ADM-013 E-RIDS=ADM-03 ADD: Jill Caverly COMMENT (119)
PUBLICATION DATE:
3/20/2020 CITATION 85 FR 16150
Law Office TERRY JONATHAN LODGE 316 N. Michigan Street, Suite 520 Phone (419) 205-7084 Toledo, Ohio 43604-5627 Fax (419) 932-6625 lodgelaw@yahoo.com September 22, 2020 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioners and Staff c/o Regulations.gov @ Docket ID NRC-2018-0052 Holtec-CISFEIS Resource, Holtec-CISFEIS@nrc.gov Stacey.Imboden@nrc.gov Jill.Caverly@nrc.gov Jose.Cuadrado-Caraballo@nrc.gov Jessie.Quintero@nrc.gov RE: Holtec International CISF, Docket ID NRC-2018-0052, Draft Environmental Impact Statement, Public Comments of
Dear NRC Commissioners and Staff:
Dont Waste Michigan, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Public Citizen, Inc., San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, Nuclear Energy Information Service, Citizens Environmental Coalition, and Nuclear Issues Study Group hereby submit their 1
comments on the Environmental Impact Statement for the Holtec Internationals License Application for a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility for Spent Nuclear Fuel and High Level Waste (Draft Report for Comment) (hereinafter DEIS), Docket ID NRC-2018-0052 (NUREG-2237) that has been compiled regarding Holtec Internationals application for a license to build and operate a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) for spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste.
On behalf of these seven organizations, I write to express their opposition to the Holtec proposal, and I ask that the NRC halt its licensing in order to protect public health and safety, the environment and our economy.
I. The Environmental Impact Statement Is Arbitrarily Limited To Analysis Of Holtecs First 40 Years Of Existence Each of these organizations sought to formally intervene and participate in the underlying 1
proceedings to determine whether Holtec International should be granted an NRC license to build and operate a CISF in New Mexico.
Page 1 of 22
The NRC's limitation on the scope of the DEIS to the initial license period of 40 years is 2
unlawful and arbitrary. This is so because of considerable contemplated activity beyond the initial 40-year period, discussed below.
There is overwhelming evidence that the Holtec CISF operations and post-operation activity will proceed for much longer than the initial license term:
! Holtec's own admission in the license application to NRC that interim storage could persist for 120 years, or even longer. See Holtec Environmental Report (ER), Rev. 1, p. 13/543 (up to 120 years); also id. at 19/543 of.pdf: Holtec anticipates the SNF could be stored at the CIS Facility for up to 120 years, or until a permanent geologic repository is opened consistent with the NRCs Continued Storage Rule. (Emphasis added).
! The NRC Staff admits in the DEIS itself the likelihood of a far longer storage period:
The proposed CISF would be licensed by the NRC to operate for a period of 40 years. Holtec has indicated that it may seek to renew the license for two additional renewal periods of up to 40 years each for a total of up to 120 years (Holtec, 2019a).
Renewal of the 40-year license would require Holtec to submit a license amendment request, which would be subject to a new safety and environmental review
[Environmental Assessment (EA) or EIS]. Therefore, the period analyzed in this EIS is the licensing period of 40 years. By the end of the license term of the proposed CISF, the NRC expects that the SNF would have been shipped to a permanent repository.
DEIS p. 2-2.
! Joy Russell, Holtec Vice-President, has told the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE),
in her emailed Response to RFI on Private Initiatives to Develop Consolidated SNF Storage Facilities, 1/27/2017, that The CIS should have a minimum service life of 300 years.
3
! The NRC's own 2014 Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel (Continued Storage GEIS), which contemplates the potential that 4
storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) at a Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) might continue indefinitely. Id. at, inter alia, pp. xxxii, l, liii, lvi, lxii, 2-35, 4-2, 4-28, 5-8, 5-10, 5-18.
See Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) at pp. xxii and 1-2 (The proposed 2
CISF is needed to provide away-from-reactor SNF storage capacity that would allow SNF to be transferred from existing reactor sites and stored for the 40-year license term before a permanent repository is available.);
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/02/f34/Jan%2027%2C%202017%20-3
%20Joy%20Russell%20-%20Response%20to%20the%20RFI%20on%20Private%20Initiatives.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1419/ML14196A105.pdf 4
Page 2 of 22
! Then-Secretary of the DOE Rick Perry testified to a subcommittee of the U.S. House Appropriations Committee on March 26, 2019 that, as governor of Texas, he was very supportive of the notion that the Interim Storage Partners/Waste Control Specialists low-level radioactive waste dump site in Andrews County, Texas should become a permanent site for SNF. It is not a stretch to extrapolate this official Texas posture on the proposed ISP/WCS 5
CISF to Holtec.
Considerable activity is planned to take place beyond the artificial and arbitrary 40-year term of the project. If the NRC has guessed wrong and there is no deep geological repository by the fortieth year, questions of continued institutional control will have to be resolved, meaning relicensing.
Without adequate institutional controls, failed spent nuclear fuel (SNF) containers could release catastrophic amounts of hazardous radioactivity directly into the surface environment, to blow downwind, flow downstream, bioconcentrate up the food chain, and harm people for generations.
There will also be a very expensive and logistically complicated repackaging of SNF from the canisters in which it arrives at Holtec into DOE-required standardized canisters for later transport and disposition in a geological repository. The NRC does not intend to require a Dry Transfer System (DTS) during the initial 40-year license. But a DTS may be needed within the first 40 years to safely remediate or repackage SNF from failing or failed containers in order to protect worker and public health and the environment. Emergent circumstances might pose a critical need for the capability during the initial period and beyond (the NRC does not expect to require a DTS until the end of the first century of CISF operations).
Holtec proposes to use a Start Clean/Stay Clean policy for problematic containers.
Arriving SNF canisters that are leaking, contaminated, damaged, or otherwise failed or failing will be returned to the originating reactor site. Holtec will officially be allowed to put hundreds of thousands or even millions of Americans at risk with these return to sender shipments instead of being required to have DTS capability on-site to take care of the problem at Holtecs facility. Dangerous return shipments could violate not only NRC regulations, but multiple federal and state laws. A problem container could arrive as soon Holtec CISF opens, and at any time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgtHCsQzffc&feature=youtu.be (at 27:50 - 28:55):
5 Q (Congressman Simpson): Let me ask you a question, even the site in Texas, do you think that they would be willing to accept permanent storage?
A (DOE Secretary Rick Perry): You know, Im gonna leave that up to the current governor to answer for you directly, but I can tell you what the previous governor said, and he was very supportive of it being a permanent site, worked that way, we had a low level nuclear commission that worked towards that while I was the governor. Again, Im not gonna speak for the current governor or the current legislature but for 14 years prior to those individuals coming on the scene there was a clear effort to make
- and the people of Andrews, the citizens of that county are very very supportive of that. My point is we've got to find a solution to this, 39 states as final repositories is not an appropriate solution to this.
Page 3 of 22
after that. Absent an operating DTS, the Holtec CISF would be profoundly unable to deal with a problem cask or canister.
During the 40-year licensing term, problems can, and likely will, develop with SNF containers. Even if they first arrive at the CISF in acceptable condition, age-related degradation over time is inevitable. If a DTS is never built at the Holtec CISF, then catastrophic releases of hazardous radioactivity into the environment are increasingly likely, especially if there are subsequent relicensings. Absent a DTS, which is a fundamental presumption for applicability of the NRC's Continued Storage Rule, loss of institutional control may come significantly sooner to the Holtec CISF.
Also, the NRC Staff makes only passing references to the decommissioning stage of the Holtec CISF, and confines it to discussions of local environmental effects from dismantling the facility (and unspoken magical thinking that there will be 100% containment of the radiation 6
onsite). But decommissioning, whether at the end of 40, 80 or 120 years, will be an extremely complicated and involved project. Perhaps 173,600 MTU of SNF will have to be transported offsite to a permanent repository. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the SNF will have to be repackaged in up to 80,000 uniform, specially-designed containers. Assuming for purposes of example that the waste will be repackaged into several tens of thousands of containers and Yucca Mountain will be the destination repository, a transport campaign of up to 80,000 trips traveling the approximately 950 miles to Nevada equals 76,000,000 transport miles.
This campaign will require many years, possibly decades and unless it commences during the initial 40-year licensing period, it will take place outside of it.
In forcing the most dramatic radioactive repackaging effort imaginable, decommissioning will generate thousands of tons of low-level radioactive waste (LLRW), far greater volume than predicted in the DEIS. Repackaging will take years, with attendant risks of error, equipment failure, and material failure, but the entire repackaging obligation is omitted from the DEIS.
II. The First 40 Years Of Operations Comprise An Irretrievable Commitment Of Resources, Compelling NEPA Analysis Of Relicensings And De Facto Permanent Disposition At Holtec From DEIS p. 2-9: Decommissioning and reclamation of the proposed facility would include 6
the dismantling of the proposed facility and rail spur. The decommissioning evaluation in this EIS is based on currently available information and plans. At the end of the license term of the proposed CISF project, once the SNF inventory is removed, the facility would be decommissioned such that the proposed project area and remaining facilities 8 could be released and the license terminated.
Decommissioning activities, in accordance with 10 CFR Part 72 requirements, would include conducting radiological surveys and decontaminating, if necessary. Holtec has committed to reclamation of nonradiological-related aspects of the proposed project area (Holtec, 2019a). Reclamation would include dismantling and removing equipment, materials, buildings, roads, the rail spur, and other onsite structures; cleaning up areas; waste disposal; controlling erosion; and restoring and reclaiming disturbed areas.
Page 4 of 22
Successful delivery of the 10,000 SNF shipments projected by Holtec will wreak an irreversible change, with dramatic environmental effects, in southeastern New Mexico. The largest concentration of highly-irradiated nuclear waste on the planet will have been achieved; a launching place for up to 80,000 dispatches of SNF will be in the making; and entropy in the form of weathering, corrosion and chemical and deterioration will be under way. Tens of billions of dollars will have been expended by ratepayers and taxpayers to create the SNF consolidation accomplishment. In other words, forty years from now, there will be abundant physical evidence that Holtec CISF represents an irretrievable commitment of resources. The certainty of that irretrievable commitment obligates the policy makers of 2020 to conduct a much more comprehensive NEPA investigation than has taken place to date.
Section 102 of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (42 U.S.C. § 4332) requires that all agencies of the Federal Government:
© include in every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, a detailed statement by the responsible official on --
(I-iv)... ;
(v) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented.
Likewise, Council of Environmental Quality regulation, 40 C.F.R. § 1502.16, requires deep EIS analysis of irreversible or irretrievable resource commitments:
This section [Environmental Consequences] forms the scientific and analytic basis for the comparisons [of alternatives].... The discussion will include the environmental impacts of the alternatives including the proposed action, any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented, the relationship between short-term uses of mans environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity, and any irreversible or irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposal should it be implemented.
Additionally, 10 C.F.R. § 51.71(a) of the NRCs NEPA implementation regulations requires that the EIS disclose any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action.
Once there has been an irretrievable commitment of resources in the technology development stage, the balance of environmental costs and economic and other benefits shifts in favor of ultimate application of the technology. Scientists' Institute for Public Information, Inc.
- v. Atomic Energy Commission, 481 F.2d 1079, 1090 (D.C. Cir. 1973). That is, the overall impact from implementing a large-scale program is that implementation controls or restricts options from the time of implementation forward. The EIS must therefore take a pragmatic and realistic view of the scope of the action being contemplated. The view must be one neither confined by the literal limits of the specific proposal nor one unbounded except by the limits of the designer's Page 5 of 22
imagination. Swain v. Brinegar, 542 F.2d 364, 369 (7 Cir. 1976).
th Where approval of the segment under consideration will result in irreversible or irretrievable commitments to remaining segments of the proposed action, the agency must address the activities of that segment as a whole with the other segments. United States Dept of Energy et al. (Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant), CLI-82-23, 16 NRC 412, 424 (1982).
III. The EIS Must Encompass and Address Environmental Impacts Associated With Relicensing And Decommissioning, Because Relicensing And Decommissioning Are Reasonably Foreseeable The evidence cited above from the DEIS and other sources shows that relicensing of operations at the end of 40 years is a reasonably foreseeable future action. Even if the facility is not relicensed, decommissioning in the form of transporting up to 80,000 canisters of SNF to a repository is beyond a reasonably foreseeable action, it is a certainty. Consequently, site-specific activities that are foreseeable because they will be unavoidably necessary will take place outside the initial 40-year license period. Those activities must be encompassed within the EIS and not be presumed to be addressed by the Continued Storage GEIS.
An EIS is required for major Federal actions, which are actions with effects that may be major and which are potentially subject to Federal control and responsibility. Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen, 541 U.S. 752, 763, 124 S.C. 2204, 159 L.Ed.2d 60 (2004)
(quoting 40 C.F.R. § 1508.18). Consolidation of SNF at the Holtec CISF, as well as managing it for 40 years and more is undoubtedly major and subject to Federal control and responsibility.
Effects, according to NEPA regulations, are (1) direct, which are caused by the action and occur at the same time and place, and (2) indirect, caused by the action and are later in time or farther removed in distance, but are still reasonably foreseeable.
An EIS must analyze not only the direct impacts of a proposed action, but also the indirect and cumulative impacts of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions regardless of what agency (Federal or non-Federal) or person undertakes such other actions.
Colorado Envtl. Coalition v. Dombeck, 185 F.3d 1162, 1176 (10th Cir.1999) (quoting 40 C.F.R.
§ 1508.7). Federal regulations do not explicitly require an EIS to include a discussion of cumulative impacts, Edwardsen v. United States Dep't of Interior, 268 F.3d 781, 786 (9th Cir.
2001), but they do direct[ ] agencies to consider cumulative impacts in determining the scope of an EIS. Id., citing 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(c)(3) (the scope of an EIS includes consideration of cumulative impacts).
The types of impacts that must be considered include ecological (such as the effects on natural resources and on the components, structures, and functioning of affected ecosystems),
aesthetic, historic, cultural, economic, social, or health [effects]. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.8. Agencies
... have a duty to discuss in the FEIS impacts that are reasonably foreseeable. Utahns for Better Transp. v. U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 305 F.3d 1152 (10th Cir. 2002) (citing Sierra Club v.
Marsh, 976 F.2d 763, 767 (1st Cir.1992)).
Page 6 of 22
The scope of an agency's NEPA inquiry must include both connected actions and similar actions. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a)(1), (3). Actions are connected if they trigger other actions, cannot proceed without previous or simultaneous actions, or are interdependent parts of a larger action and depend on the larger action for their justification. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a)(1).
It is legally inappropriate to defer consideration of cumulative impacts to a future date because NEPA requires consideration of the potential impact of an action before the action takes place. City of Tenakee Springs v. Clough, 915 F.2d 1308, 1313 (9 Cir. 1990) (citing 42 th U.S.C. § 4332(2))( C)(v) irretrievable commitments). [C]umulative impact analysis must be timely. It is not appropriate to defer consideration of cumulative impacts to a future date when meaningful consideration can be given now. Kern v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 284 F.3d 1062, 1075 (9th Cir. 2002).
The treatment of multiple relicensings of CISF operations across a possible 120-year span is unlawful piecemealing or segmentation. Such artificial subdivision of the overall project ignores the obvious interdependence of the license periods. Consolidation of SNF and the operation of the Holtec CISF will compel a massive transport campaign at the back end of CISF operations to move the SNF to a repository. Decommissioning encompasses more than remediation of the damage done by the project to the local environment in New Mexico; it embraces the notion of further disposition of the SNF stored at Holtec. The common timing and geography of the two or three Holtec CISF licenses are similarities that provide a basis for evaluating their environmental consequences together.... 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a)(3).
Looming decisions over license extensions and after that, abandonment or decommissioning, are all causally connected to the huge project of SNF centralization at the CISF in the first place.
Since transport, storage operations and decommissioning or abandonment all tie directly back to the original decision to license the CISF, each phase and possibility must be identified and analyzed now, within this 2020 EIS.
IV. The Predominant Activity Of SNF Repackaging During Holtec Operations Goes Wholly Unmentioned In The DEIS The NRC Staffs utter failure to acknowledge and consider Holtecs massive canister repackaging obligation within the DEIS is a fatal deficiency.
In the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada, Vol. I (2008) (Yucca SEIS), the DOE stated:
In 2006, DOE proposed a modified approach to repository design, development, and operation. Central to this proposed approach is the use of a canister concept for commercial spent nuclear fuel that minimizes handling of individual spent fuel assemblies; limits the need for complex surface facilities; and simplifies repository design, licensing, construction, and operation. DOE would use a TAD canister to transport, age, and dispose of commercial spent nuclear fuel without ever reopening the Page 7 of 22
canister, thereby simplifying and reducing the number of handling operations involved in the packaging of spent nuclear fuel for disposal. In addition, the canistered approach offers the advantage of the use of practices that are familiar to the nuclear industry and the NRC, which would make the repository easier to design, license, construct, and operate. Although DOE has a small amount of spent nuclear fuel of commercial origin that it could ship to the repository uncanistered in a cask, consistent with the analysis in the Yucca Mountain FEIS, this Repository SEIS assumes that it would transport and receive all DOE spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in disposable canisters. On October 13, 2006, in the Notice of Intent to prepare Supplement to the Final Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, NV (71 FR 60490), DOE announced that it would prepare a supplement to the Yucca Mountain FEIS to evaluate potential environmental impacts of the modified repository design and operational plans. In its Notice of Intent, DOE described the primarily canistered approach whereby most commercial sites would package their spent nuclear fuel in TAD canisters, and all DOE materials would be packaged in disposable canisters at DOE sites.
Id. at p. 1-5 (Emphasis added).
As a result, the DOEs present approach involves:
... a primarily canistered approach to operate the repository; under this approach, most commercial spent nuclear fuel would be packaged at the reactor sites in TAD canisters.
DOE would repackage commercial spent nuclear fuel that arrived in packages other than TAD canisters into these canisters in newly designed surface facilities at the repository.
The Department would package essentially all DOE material in disposable canisters at the DOE sites. Most spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste would arrive at the repository by rail. Some shipments would arrive by truck. At the repository, DOE would place the TAD and other disposable canisters in waste packages that were manufactured from corrosion resistant materials. DOE would array the waste packages in the subsurface facility in tunnels (emplacement drifts).
Id. at § 1.4.2, p. 1-14.
Robert Alvarez, a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies who is a former senior policy adviser to the Secretary of Energy and deputy assistant secretary for national security and the environment from 1993 to 1999, provided expert testimony in support of the undersigned commenters during their pursuit of intervenor status in this licensing proceeding.
According to Alvarez, a 2012 Energy Department study concluded that waste package sizes for the geologic media under consideration are significantly smaller than the canisters Page 8 of 22
being used for on-site dry storage by the nuclear utilities. And a nuclear industry study found 7
in 2014 that casks and canisters being used by the power utilities will be at least partially, and maybe largely, incompatible with future transport and repository requirements, meaning that some, if not all, of the [used nuclear fuel] that is moved to dry storage by the utilities will ultimately need to be repackaged.8 After analyzing the volume of SNF and the Holtec plan to store up to 173,600 tons, Mr.
Alvarez has determined that Repackaging for disposal may require approximately 80,000 small canisters.9 Yet there is zero mention, not to mention analysis, of this looming obligation in the DEIS.
It has implications for site contamination, worker safety, public safety, potential damage to the environment, decommissioning, low-level radioactive waste volumes generated at the Holtec site, and the need to have a Dry Transfer System (DTS) capability at Holtec commencing effectively when the CISF opens for acceptance of SNF.
The NRC Staff projects that it will take 20 years for delivery of 10,000 cargoes of SNF to Holtec. How many decades will be required to transport that SNF offsite, once it is recombined into 8 times the number of canisters?
This is an enormous omission from the DEIS. The DEIS must fulfill and satisfy to the fullest extent possible the requirements established for final environmental impact statements in section 102(2)(C) of NEPA. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(a). If a draft statement is so inadequate as to preclude meaningful analysis, the agency shall prepare and circulate a revised draft of the appropriate portion. Id.
A revised DEIS coupled with additional public participation is required here.
V. Holtecs Controversial Return To Sender Policy Is Marginalized And Unanalyzed In The DEIS In the Holtec Environmental Report, the applicant announced a bizarre SNF return policy to justify the lack of need to have DTS capability available onsite. Holtecs return to sender http://www.beyondnuclear.org/storage/kk-links/Alvarez%20SNF%20at%20close 7
d%20reactors%20rev%202.pdf Chris Phillips, Ivan Thomas and Steven McNiven, Nuclear Industry Study on the Feasibility of 8
Standardized Transportation, Aging and Disposal Canisters for Used Nuclear Fuel, Energy Solutions Federal EPC. WM2014 Conference, March 2-6, 2014, Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
http://www.wmsym.org/archives/2014/papers/14011.pdf http://www.beyondnuclear.org/storage/kk-links/Alvarez%20SNF%20at%20closed%20reactors 9
%20rev%202.pdf Page 9 of 22
protocol receives scant mention, devoid of explanation or rationale, in the DEIS.
According to Holtecs Start Clean/Stay Clean policy for problematic containers - the term appears only in the ER and nowhere in the DEIS - arriving SNF canisters that are leaking, contaminated, damaged, or otherwise failed or failing will be returned to the originating reactor site. Holtec will officially be allowed to put hundreds of thousands or even millions of Americans at risk by returning damaged and unacceptably contaminated canisters back to the nuclear utilities that had them transported to New Mexico instead of having DTS capability on-10 site to take care of the problem at Holtecs facility. Dangerous return shipments could violate not only NRC regulations, but multiple federal and state laws. Lacking DTS capability, the Holtec 11 CISF would be profoundly unable to deal with a serious problem cask or canister.
Return to sender is obscurely and briefly referenced in exactly three places in the DEIS:
! In a prediction of minimal low-level radiological waste (LLRW) during the decommissioning phase:
[G]enerated radioactive waste would be limited to small volumes because SNF canisters would remain sealed during storage, and external contamination would have been limited by required surveys at the reactor site prior to shipment, and canister inspections upon arrival at the proposed CISF project.
DEIS p. 2-18.
! In a chart of mitigation measures: Return of canisters that do not meet acceptance criteria adds confidence that canisters stored at the CISF meet safety specifications. DEIS p. 6-7.
! In an account of the factors that supposedly will completely prevent leaking canisters at Holtec:
Factors that contribute to the containment of SNF during normal operations include the use of sealed (welded closure) canisters that would remain closed for the duration of storage, the engineered features of the cask system, and plans to reject and return canisters that have unacceptable external contamination (Holtec, 2019b).
DEIS p. 4-91.
It is a serious act to put contaminated, damaged or leaking canisters or casks back on the road, to return them to the point of origin. Nowhere does the DEIS disclose any other details Holtec ER, Rev. 1, p. 214/543 of.pdf.
10 In the HI-STORE CIS Safety Analysis Report, Revision 0A (October 6, 2017), Holtec 11 asserts:
In order to uphold the HI-STORE philosophy of Start Clean/Stay Clean HP personnel ensure that contamination levels on the canisters of incoming shipments meet site requirements.
Canisters exceeding the limits will be returned to the originating power plant for dispositioning.
Id., p. 179/581 of.pdf. (Emphasis added).
Page 10 of 22
about this policy. Possibly the NRC Staff has forsworn meaningful DEIS discussion of the return to sender policy because of its dangers, its unsupportably magical thinking, or that it 12 will be highly controversial to deliberately expose the public to unnecessary radiological harm by the very fact of returning unacceptably contaminated canisters to closed reactor sites which lack any means of handling remediation. Only if the harm in question is so remote and speculative as to reduce the effective probability of its occurrence to zero may the agency dispense with the consequences portion of the analysis. State of New York v. Nuclear Regulatory Com'n, 681 F.3d 471, 482 (D.C.Cir. 2012).
General statements about possible effects and some risk do not constitute NEPAs hard look absent a justification regarding why more definitive information could not be provided. Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain v. United States Forest Service, 137 F.3d 1372, 1380 (9 Cir. 1998). [S]ome quantified or detailed information is required. Without such information, th neither the courts nor the public... can be assured that the [agency] provided the hard look that it is required to provide. Id. at 1379. In order to rely on mitigation to obviate further analysis, the measure must be identified and its effectiveness analyzed. Nat'l Parks & Conservation Ass'n v.
Babbitt, 241 F.3d 722, 733-736 (9th Cir. 2001) (holding EIS must be prepared where monitoring and mitigation measures were uncertain). The agency must provide analytic data on the efficacy of a proposed measure, and the court must decide whether it will render such impacts so minor as to not warrant an EIS. Id. at 734.
There being no disclosure in the DEIS of details of this controversial planned policy, and no identification of its environmental dangers and human health implications, the DEIS is seriously flawed. It is axiomatic that the EIS shall be supported by evidence that the agency has made the necessary environmental analyses. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.1. The DEIS must fulfill and satisfy to the fullest extent possible the requirements established for final environmental impact statements in section 102(2)(C) of NEPA. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(a). If a draft statement is so inadequate as to preclude meaningful analysis, the agency shall prepare and circulate a revised draft of the appropriate portion. Id.
A revised DEIS and subsequent public participation is required here.
VI. The Omission Of Serious Transportation Analysis From The DEIS Comprises Segmentation And Fails To Fulfill NEPA Disclosure Obligations From the Holtec ER, Rev. 1: Given the CIS Facility start clean/stay clean philosophy (i.e., CIS 12 Facility plans to reject and return canisters that have unacceptable external contamination), as well as the fact that no canisters would be opened at the proposed CIS Facility, and considering the engineered features of the canister/cask, there appears to be no viable mechanism by which significant radioactive materials would migrate off-site, or even away from the casks. Thus, while the latter two exposure routes are possible, radioactive material is unlikely to be available for ingestion or inhalation via those pathways during normal conditions, and hence, there is no opportunity for impacts from these pathways. (NRC 2001, page 4-46). Id. at p. 214/543 of.pdf.
Page 11 of 22
The paucity of discussion of truck, barge and rail transport of SNF to the New Mexico CISF is especially egregious. Holtec predicts the receipt of 10,000 shipments and up to 173,600 MTU of SNF, on the one hand, but purports to have no idea whatsoever the sources of the SNF.
Put another way, Holtec ambitiously expects to consolidate and store more than twice the existing output of SNF in the United States commercial nuclear power industry inventory, yet cannot imagine which utilities will be using their services.
Because of this Great Unknown, the NRC Staff didnt even provide a representative bounding rail route map in the DEIS, meekly echoing Holtecs feigned ignorance:
While the actual rail configurations and routes that would be used to ship SNF to the proposed CISF would be determined prior to shipping and are currently unknown, considering the previously described bounding representative route with a distance of 3,362 km [2,101 mi] and assuming a 3-car train, after 10,000 shipments, eight accidents would be expected to occur over a 20-year period.
DEIS p. 4-17.
The agency is unlawfully attempting to predetermine the outcome of this national policy decision by keeping the public from obtaining an accurate, graphic understanding of the implications and transit corridors of millions of miles of mostly rail-delivered SNF. The Holtec DEIS adopts by mention the probable rail and truck routes contained in maps published by the DOE in the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada, Vol. I (2008) (Yucca SEIS) but the NRC Staff has declined even to 13 reproduce those maps within the DEIS itself:
The exact routes for SNF transportation to and from the proposed CISF would be determined in the future, prior to making the shipments. However, to evaluate the potential impacts of these shipments, representative or bounding routes applicable to a national SNF shipping campaign [such as those described and evaluated in Section 2.1.7.2 of DOEs final supplemental environmental impact statement for a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain (DOE, 2008) or NRCs most recent spent nuclear fuel transportation risk assessment in NUREG-2125 (NRC, 2014)] provide sufficient information about potential transportation routes to support the analysis of impacts in Chapter 4 of this EIS. The NRC staff consider the routes evaluated in these prior transportation analyses to be representative or bounding for SNF shipments to and from the proposed CISF project because they were derived based on typical transportation industry route selection practices, they considered existing power plant locations, and they cover large distances across the U.S. with diverse transportation characteristics.
The maps appear at Yucca SEIS pp. 2-46 and 2-47.
13 Page 12 of 22
DEIS, p. 3-12.
Moreover, when the NRC Staff borrowed selectively from the Yucca SEIS, it has not embraced important collateral transportation policies to which DOE has committed for a geological repository. The Holtec DEIS does not contemplate dedicated trains or the use of special DOE-prescribed transport canisters. The Yucca SEIS strongly assumes that uniform TAD canisters will be loaded at commercial reactor sites. Instead of the use of more expensive dedicated trains, the DEIS assumes that While SNF shipments would be traveling at a slower speed than other trains, the NRC staff reasonably assumes that assume that rail carriers would make adjustments to account for SNF shipments. DEIS at 5-20. This unsupported and naive statement will be belied by perishables, cattle and fossil fuel freight being assigned more urgent delivery priority than SNF, resulting in SNF being consigned for irregular and unpredictable period to rail sidings. The DEIS transportation analysis is a shallow glance, not a hard look.
More than 90% of the SNF will travel exclusively or predominantly by rail. In many instances, rail segments will have to be reconstructed from closed and cleared former nuclear plant sites to get to the dry casks stored there. While the DEIS acknowledges that there is likely to be need for serious and expensive reconstruction of infrastructure simply to move the waste from its current locations, the NRC Staff inexcusably balked in the DEIS at making any attempt to quantify the expense:
Some reactor sites, in particular those that have been shut down or decommissioned but continue to store SNF in dry storage casks, may require local transportation infrastructure upgrades to remove the SNF from the site (DOE, 2014).
These upgrades, for example, could include installing or upgrading rail track, roads, or barge slips necessary to transfer SNF offsite. Because these infrastructure upgrades would be needed (regardless of whether the proposed CISF project is approved) to allow shipment of SNF from reactor sites to a repository in accordance with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, these enhancements are beyond the scope of the proposed action and are therefore not evaluated further.
DEIS p. 4-13. The Staff showed the same aversion to documenting the true costs of the Holtec undertaking in terms of necessitating national infrastructure upgrades:
It is also possible that transporting SNF across the country would require infrastructure improvements along the national rail route. This could be the case for both the proposed CISF and the No-Action alternative. However, because the routes for transportation have not yet been established, the need for (and hypothetical cost of) infrastructure upgrades is speculative and beyond the scope of this EIS.
DEIS p. 8-10.
While all probable routes from reactor sites to Holtec are known or knowable, the specific routing and infrastructure details somehow are not worthy of NRC Staff attention and Page 13 of 22
disclosure during the short window of public participation in this vital national decision. In 2017, Fred Dilger, using the Yucca SEIS transportation data on behalf of the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, published a set of route maps, showing road and rail routes admitted by DOE as the most likely to be used to haul highly radioactive wastes to Yucca Mountain, NV.14 As might be expected, the further away from the American Southwest such shipments originate, the more similar or even identical the routes for hauling highly radioactive wastes become, whether bound for NV or NM.
DOE also published barge route maps in its February 2002 Final EIS on Yucca.15 Yucca SEIS maps, however, have their limitations. The Holtec CISF, after all, is located about 950 miles from Yucca Mountain, so at some point, the routes to Yucca and Holtec diverge significantly. Even using the Yucca SEIS maps as a starting point to understand the range of the SNF transportation campaign from reactor sites to Holtec, it remains that thousands of miles of rail, highway and waterway routes to Holtec are completely undisclosed within the Holtec DEIS.
There are additional omissions of considerable technical and practical importance as they relate to transporting SNF, questions concerning the unique thermal traits of the waste to be shipped, the stability of fuel cladding, differential energy levels between generations of nuclear fuel, and more. To that end, the undersigned commenters adopt and incorporate by reference as though fully stated herein as their comments, pp. 11-17 of the comments made by the Sierra Club and filed in this DEIS proceeding on or about September 21, 2020.
The DEIS fails to present a meaningful discussion of the sundry risk factors that accompany SNF transport and is quite unclear about transport routes. Transportation of SNF to Holtec (and ultimately away from Holtec) is the sine qua non of the project. But apart from the sparse explanation in the DEIS, multiple transportation issues have been segmented from, or excluded from, coverage under NEPA.
Agencies must consider connected actions within the same EIS. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a)(1). This prevents segmentation, the attempt to circumvent [the] NEPA by breaking up one project into smaller projects and not studying the overall impacts of the single overall project. Coalition on W. Valley Nuclear Wastes v. Chu, 592 F.3d 306, 311 (2d Cir. 2009)
(quoting Stewart Park & Reserve Coal., Inc. v. Slater, 352 F.3d 545, 559 (2d Cir.2003)) (internal quotation marks omitted). Connected actions include those that (1) [a]utomatically trigger other actions which may require environmental impact statements; that (2) [c]annot or will not Dilger's route maps are posted online under the year 2017 at 14 http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/trans.htmt http://www.beyondnuclear.org/waste-transportation/2017/6/29/potential-barge-rou 15 tes-on-us-surface-waters-to-ship-high-lev.html Page 14 of 22
proceed unless other actions are taken previously or simultaneously; or that (3) [a]re interdependent parts of a larger action and depend on the larger action for their justification. 40
§ 1508.25(a)(1).
Generally, in determining whether actions are connected so as to require consideration in the same EIS, courts employ an independent utility test, which asks whether each project would have taken place in the other's absence. See, e.g., N. Plains Res. Council, Inc. v. Surface Transp. Bd., 668 F.3d 1067, 1087 (9th Cir. 2011); Wilderness Workshop v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 531 F.3d 1220, 1228-29 (10th Cir. 2008). If so, they have independent utility, and are not considered connected actions. N. Plains Res. Council, 668 F.3d at 1087-88. Here, transportation is the sine qua non of the ISP CISF; without shipment and delivery of SNF and GTCC waste, there is nothing to store.
The NRC must ensure, and find, that the rail, truck and barge routes used for delivery from reactor sites to Holtec will not pose the potential for, or cause, disparate environmental impacts on the minority and low-income populations found in those transportation corridors.
Severance of transportation aspects from the Holtec application means that there will be no equitable steps taken to share the burdens and risks of accident, sabotage, terrorism, and/or routine radioactive exposure from the shipments. Segmentation is a serious legal mistake from an overall NEPA perspective as well as from the standpoint of Environmental Justice. Absent an embrace of EJ obligations under NEPA, the selection of transportation delivery routes is likely to disproportionately burden local minority and low-income populations found in the respective transportation corridors, from the reactor sites all the way through to the Holtec CISF.
The NRC Staff has not identified, nor analyzed, several critical issues related to SNF transportation. By effectively segmenting or excluding identification and analysis of transportation matters from the EIS, the NRC Staff is predetermining the outcome of the NEPA stage of Holtecs application. Predetermination occurs when an agency irreversibly and irretrievably commits itself to a plan of action that is dependent upon the NEPA environmental analysis producing a certain outcome, before the agency has completed that environmental analysis which of course is supposed to involve an objective, good faith inquiry into the environmental consequences of the agency's proposed action. Forest Guardians v. U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Serv., 611 F.3d 692, 714 (10th Cir.2010). [I]f an agency predetermines the NEPA analysis by committing itself to an outcome, the agency likely has failed to take a hard look at the environmental consequences of its actions due to its bias in favor of that outcome and, therefore, has acted arbitrarily and capriciously. Id. at 713.
The DEIS must fulfill and satisfy to the fullest extent possible the requirements established for final environmental impact statements in section 102(2)( C) of NEPA. 40 C.F.R.
§ 1502.9(a). If a draft statement is so inadequate as to preclude meaningful analysis, the agency shall prepare and circulate a revised draft of the appropriate portion. Id. A revised DEIS is certainly required as to transportation aspects of the project.
Page 15 of 22
VII. Failure to Consider Reasonable Alternatives Renders DEIS Inadequate And Incomplete There are several reasonable alternatives which have not been identified nor analyzed in the DEIS.
Construction and operation of the licensed Private Fuel Storage CISF in Utah instead of Holtec is an unconsidered reasonable alternative.16 Licensing, construction and operation of the ISP/WCS CISF in Andrews County, Texas, is an unconsidered reasonable alternative.17 Construction of the Holtec proposal, but including a Dry Transfer System, is a reasonable alternative to the pending application.
The evaluation of alternatives mandated by NEPA is to be an evaluation of alternative means to accomplish the general goal of an action; it is not an evaluation of the alternative means by which a particular applicant can reach his goals. Van Abbema v. Fornell, 807 F.2d 633, 638 (7th Cir. 1986)); also, Sierra Club v. Marsh, 714 F.Supp. 539, 577 (D.Me. 1989). The existence of a reasonable, but unexamined, alternative renders the EIS inadequate. See DuBois v. U.S.
Dept. of Agric., 102 F.3d 1273, 1287 (1st Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 117 S.C. 1567 (1997).
The DEIS must fulfill and satisfy to the fullest extent possible the requirements established for final environmental impact statements in section 102(2)(C) of NEPA. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(a). If a draft statement is so inadequate as to preclude meaningful analysis, the agency shall prepare and circulate a revised draft of the appropriate portion. Id. A revised DEIS is required here.
VIII. Incomplete Off-Normal Events Analysis Renders DEIS Inadequate Design Events II are associated with off-normal operations that can be expected to occur with moderate frequency, approximately once per year. These events could result in members of the general public being exposed to additional levels of radiation beyond those associated with normal operations. During normal operations and off-normal conditions, the requirements of 10 CFR Part 20 must be met. In addition, the annual dose equivalent to any individual located beyond the controlled area must not exceed 0.25 mSv [25 mrem] to the whole body, 0.75 mSv The PFS license is still in effect. See ML14255A395, 16 https://adamswebsearch2.nrc.gov/webSearch2/main.jsp?AccessionNumber=ML14255A395 The NRC has recently validated the viability of WCS as an alternative site by virtue of 17 publication of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement. See https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr2239/
Page 16 of 22
[75 mrem] to the thyroid, and 0.25 mSv [25 mrem] to any other organ.
Holtec evaluated these off-normal events for the CISF project: off-normal pressure within a SNF storage canister, off-normal environmental temperature, leakage of an SNF storage canister seal weld, partial blockage of air inlet and outlet ducts in a SNF cask, hypothetical wind, and cask drop below the design allowable height. DEIS p. 4-102. Holtecs safety evaluation of these off-normal events concluded that the proposed storage system would not exceed applicable 10 CFR 72.106(b) dose limits to individuals at or beyond the controlled area boundary and satisfies applicable acceptance criteria for maintaining safe operations regarding criticality, confinement, retrievability, and instruments and control systems. Id.
However, the DEIS does not contain the NRC staffs review and acceptance of the Holtec off-normal design basis events analysis, because that is contingent upon the completion of the NRC SER for the proposed CISF project, which remains unfinished. Id. Consequently, the NRC Staff cannot make a finding of the environmental impacts associated with off-normal events. Id.
A mere listing of mitigating measures, without supporting analytical data, is inadequate compliance with NEPA. Idaho Sporting Cong. v. Thomas, 137 F.3d 1146, 1151 (9th Cir. 1998).
The DEIS must fulfill and satisfy to the fullest extent possible the requirements established for final environmental impact statements in section 102(2)(C) of NEPA. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(a). If a draft statement is so inadequate as to preclude meaningful analysis, the agency shall prepare and circulate a revised draft of the appropriate portion. Id. A revised DEIS is required here.
IX. The Staff Has Not Completed The FSER, So The DEIS Contains No Radiological Accident Analysis And Is Incomplete The NRC staffs review and acceptance of the Holtec accident analysis is contingent upon the completion of the NRC FSER for the proposed CISF project. The NRC safety review staff has not yet evaluated Holtecs accident analysis to determine if the required safety criteria have been met with an acceptable safety margin. Nor, of course, has that review been documented in the FSER. DEIS p. 4-103. The NRC cannot grant a license for construction and operation of the proposed CISF project until it determines that all regulatory requirements of the AEA and NRC are satisfied.
The DEIS must fulfill and satisfy to the fullest extent possible the requirements established for final environmental impact statements in Section 102(2)© of NEPA. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(a). This means that maximum efforts are required to make the EIS information available to the public during the comment period. If a draft statement is so inadequate as to preclude meaningful analysis, the agency shall prepare and circulate a revised draft of the appropriate portion. Id. A revised DEIS with new public comment opportunity is required here.
X. The Continued Storage Rule Statement Is Inapplicable To Holtecs First 120 Years Page 17 of 22
Holtec has defined a site-specific spent nuclear fuel storage facility that does not qualify for the exclusions and automatic assumptions conferred by the Continued Storage GEIS.
Consequently, severe accident mitigation during transportation to and from the CISF and at the CISF, and SNF and GTCC storage and management operations at the CISF site, may not be treated as generic issues and excused from consideration within the EIS.
The Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel: Final Report, Volume 1" (Continued Storage GEIS) allows an applicant to bypass NEPA analysis of certain aspects of a nuclear waste storage proposal. The Holtec proposal departs significantly from the Continued Storage GEIS parameters and assumptions, and so should not be buffered by the GEIS.
Holtec proposes no means of dealing with the arrival of a leaky, cracked or externally contaminated cask or canister at its facility except to rely on a policy of return to sender, viz., to return leaking, damaged or contaminated casks to their points of origin. This practice does not appear in the Continued Storage GEIS and contradicts the GEIS assumption that the facility will have as a component a dry transfer system (DTS) as a technologically protective means of addressing cask problems during facility operations. According to the Continued Storage GEIS finds that there is no DTS capability anywhere in the United States, including at all of the nuclear plant sites from which spent nuclear fuel shipments to Holtec will originate. Thus it appears 18 that there may be leaking, damaged and/or externally contaminated casks that cannot be remediated anywhere, that may be sent to Holtec and end up being returned to sender, unduly endangering workers, the public and the environment.
Even the NRC Staff concedes that:
For human health, the proposed action (Phase 1) operations stage of the proposed facility would require shipment of SNF to and from the facility and hazardous, mixed, and low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) to disposal facilities. Potential accident scenarios associated with rail transportation could result in members of the general public being exposed to additional levels of radiation beyond those associated with normal operations (EIS Section 4.15)....
DEIS p. 4-84 (Emphasis added). Moreover, the Staff admits that the radiological impact to workers from incident-free transportation of SNF to and from the proposed CISF project would be SMALL. Id. at 4-85 (Emphasis added).
The potential capacity of the Holtec CISF, at 173,600 MTU, is more than four times the anticipated volume discussed in the Continued Storage GEIS, which assumes that the nuclear power industry could develop an away-from-reactor ISFSI that would store up to 40,000 Generic Environmental Impact Statement for Continued Storage of Spent Nuclear Fuel, 18 NUREG-2157 (Continued Storage GEIS) p. 2-20.
Page 18 of 22
MTU of spent fuel from various nuclear power plant sites using existing technologies. Id. at p.
2-18. Absent convincing risk analysis, the possibilities of radiological mishaps at Holtec must be presumed to be multiples of what might befall the smaller facility.
The determination of when Holtecs license would expire, and when the GEIS waivers and protections would attach, is not clear. Holtec ostensibly is seeking licensure for one 40-year term, and holds open the option of at least two additional 40-year license renewals. The GEIS bulwark is inapropos so long as the Holtec CISF continues to be licensed and operating.
The NRC Staff superficially agrees with this notion, that the license term for Holtec ranges up to 120 years (DEIS pp. 1-5, 5-16), but then reveals that the license term is 40 years, after which the Continued Storage Rule applies. DEIS p. xxii (The proposed CISF is needed to provide away-from-reactor SNF storage capacity that would allow SNF to be transferred from existing reactor sites and stored for the 40-year license term before a permanent repository is available.; p. xxxv (license term (i.e., 40 years)). This contradictory interpretation improperly facilitates invocation of the GEIS to prevent site-specific scrutiny of any transportation, operations or decommissioning matters that extend beyond the first 40 years.
XI. The DEIS Misrepresents The Availability Of Federal Price-Anderson Insurance As Mitigation For Transportation Accidents The NRC Staff asserts that accidents involving SNF shipments would be tiny and not worth the trouble of calculating with any precision:
Concerning SNF transportation, only a small fraction of accidents would result in any release of radioactive material and the probability of a significant release is very small. As determined in NUREG-2125, Spent Fuel Transportation Risk Assessment (NRC, 2014), more than 99.999999 percent of all accident scenarios do not lead to either a release of radioactive material or a loss of lead shielding. Therefore, the NRC staff has not attempted to quantify the economic cost of any particular accident in this EIS. Any attempt to calculate the economic costs of unlikely accidents with any precision is difficult because the costs can differ significantly depending on variables such as the location and conditions of the accident; the nature of the contamination dispersion and deposition; level of development; and land use.
But the Staff also notes that the DOE has estimated costs for a severe, maximum radiological transportation accident:
The NRC staff note that for the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for a Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada, final Yucca Mountain EIS (DOE, 2008) the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimated that the costs for a severe, maximum reasonably foreseeable SNF transportation accident could range from $1 million to $10 billion.
Page 19 of 22
Finally, to placate any doubters, the Staff incorrectly states that there is federal nuclear accident insurance available just in case:
The Price-Anderson Act provides accident liability for incidents (including those caused by sabotage) involving the release of nuclear material for SNF transportation (NRC, 2019). Currently the amount of coverage per incident this Act provided is over
$13 billion. In addition, Congress enacted legislation that developed a method to promptly consider compensation claims of the public for liabilities resulting from nuclear incidents that exceed this designated limit.
This is false as to the Holtec project. The Price-Anderson Act covers contractors who operate Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear facilities. P.L. 109-58 set the liability limit on DOE contractors at $10 billion per incident within the United States, to be adjusted for inflation every five years. The most recent inflation adjustment, in 2013, increased the limit to $12.7 billion.
Price-Anderson authorizes DOE to indemnify its contractors for the entire amount of their liability, so that damage payments for nuclear incidents at DOE facilities would be paid by the Federal Government. Holtec will not be a federal government contractor, and under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, DOE has no authority to take title to, and manage, SNF waste that is destined for CISF storage (viz., DOE has no power to make Holtec a DOE contractor). Since there is no scenario under which Holtec will be a federal contractor for DOE, Price-Anderson coverage will not be available, and the representations in the DEIS are false and misleading.
An agency's action is held to be arbitrary and capricious when it relies on factors Congress did not want considered, or utterly fails to analyze an important aspect of the problem, or offers an explanation contrary to the evidence before it, or its explanation - as is apt here--is so implausible that it cannot be ascribed to differing views or agency expertise. See Motor Vehicles Mfrs. Assn. v. State Farm Mut., 463 U.S. 29, 43, 103 S.C. 2856, 2867, 77 L.Ed.2d 443 (1983).
XII. The Low-Level Radioactive Waste Analysis Fails To Account For Canister Repackaging The DEIS proclaims the various stages of activity at Holtec will generate fewer than 28 tons of low-level radiological waste (LLRW). DEIS pp. 2-12, 2-13. The NRC staff then predicts minimal LLRW volumes from the massive decommissioning stage, which, as explained above, will of necessity involve onsite repackaging for shipment offsite of as many as 80,000 transport, aging and disposal (TAD) canisters. The Staff says of the decommissioning stage:
Decommissioning activities would be limited based on the design and expected performance of the dry storage cask systems. Regarding the potential for LLRW shipments, the NRC staff expects that generated radioactive waste would be limited to small volumes because SNF canisters would remain sealed during storage, and external contamination would have been limited by required surveys at the reactor site prior to shipment, and canister inspections upon arrival at the proposed CISF project. Therefore, Page 20 of 22
the volume of low-level radioactive waste shipments would be very low during decommissioning activities.
DEIS p. 2-18.
The vacuousness of this conclusion is breathtaking. General statements about [S]ome quantified or detailed information is required. Without such information, neither the courts nor the public... can be assured that the [agency] provided the hard look that it is required to provide. Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain v. United States Forest Service, 137 F.3d 1372, 1379 (9 Cir. 1998).
th XIII. Objection To Recent Alterations To NEPA Regulations And Interpretations The undersigned commenters object to any reliance on or application of President Trumps June 4, 2020 Executive Order on Accelerating the Nations Economic Recovery from the COVID-19 Emergency by Expediting Infrastructure Investments and Other Activities on the ground that it is unconstitutional, violates NEPA, violates the federal Administrative Procedures Act, violates the Atomic Energy Act and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, and comprises an unlawful rulemaking.
The undersigned commenters further object to any reliance on, or application of the Council on Environmental Qualitys new NEPA regulations issued July 16, 2020 because they are unconstitutional, violate NEPA and violate the Administrative Procedure Act. The below commenters state that the objectionable proposals of the CEQ are in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right. 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)( C).
XIV. Conclusion Taken as a whole, this DEIS does not fulfill and satisfy to the fullest extent possible the requirements established for final statements in section 102(2)© of the Act. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(a). The agency must insure that environmental information is available to public officials and citizens and this information must be of high quality as [a]ccurate scientific analysis, expert agency comments, and public scrutiny are essential to implementing NEPA. 40 C.F.R. § 1500.1(b). NEPA emphasizes the importance of coherent and comprehensive up-front environmental analysis to ensure informed decision making to the end that the agency will not act on incomplete information, only to regret its decision after it is too late to correct. Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. Blackwood, 161 F.3d 1208, 1216 (9th Cir. 1998) (quoting Marsh v. Or. Natural Res. Council, 490 U.S. 360, 371, 109 S.C. 1851, 104 L.Ed.2d 377 (1989)).
Here, the NRC asks the public to assume the adequacy and accuracy of partial data without providing any basis for doing so. NEPA requires more. WildEarth Guardians v. Montana Snowmobile Ass'n, 790 F.3d 920, 927, (9 Cir. 2015).
th The NRCs Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Holtec CISF must be rewritten and republished for public review and comment.
Page 21 of 22
Thank you.
Sincerely,
/s/ Terry J. Lodge Terry J. Lodge, Esq.
Counsel for Dont Waste Michigan, Citizens for Alternatives to Chemical Contamination, Public Citizen, Inc., San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, Nuclear Energy Information Service, Citizens Environmental Coalition, and Nuclear Issues Study Group cc: clients Page 22 of 22