ML20267A329
| ML20267A329 | |
| Person / Time | |
|---|---|
| Site: | HI-STORE |
| Issue date: | 09/22/2020 |
| From: | Snyder M Western Interstate Energy Board |
| To: | Office of Administration |
| References | |
| 85FR16150 00102, NRC-2018-0052 | |
| Download: ML20267A329 (1) | |
Text
PUBLIC SUBMISSION As of: 9/23/20 7:52 AM Received: September 22, 2020 Status: Pending_Post Tracking No. kfe-fmvl-phz0 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-0410 Comment on FR Doc # 2020-17536 Submitter Information Email: msnyder@westernenergyboard.org Government Agency Type: Regional Government Agency: Western Interstate Energy Board, High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee General Comment See attached file(s)
Attachments HLRWC comments on DEIS for Holtec CISF Page 1 of 1 09/23/2020 https://www.fdms.gov/fdms/getcontent?objectId=090000648487164b&format=xml&showorig=false SUNSI Review Complete Template = ADM-013 E-RIDS=ADM-03 ADD: Jill Caverly COMMENT (102)
PUBLICATION DATE:
3/20/2020 CITATION 85 FR 16150
WIEB HLRW Committee comments, Holtec DEIS 1
September 22, 2020 May Ma Office of Administration Mail Stop: TWFN-7-A60M U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Washington, DC 20555-0001 Re: Docket No. 72-1051; NRC-2018-0052-0300; Federal Register v. 85, no. 55, Friday, March 20, 2020 and NRC-2018-0052-0376, v.85 no.157, Thursday, August 13, 2020 Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Holtec International HI-STORE Consolidated Interim Storage Facility (CISF) Project
Dear Ms. Ma and NRC Staff:
The Western Interstate Energy Board (WIEB) High-Level Radioactive Waste (HLRW) Committee appreciates the opportunity to offer comments on the draft EIS for the Holtec spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste CISF application. WIEB is an organization of eleven Western states and two Canadian provinces which focuses on promoting energy policies developed through the cooperative efforts of WIEBs members in collaboration with the federal government. WIEBs HLRW Committee is composed of representatives from eleven Western states who have expertise in the realm of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste (SNF/HLW) transportation. For over thirty years, the HLRW Committee has examined the issues that surround this topic, offering comments, developing policies, and interacting with federal, industry, tribal, and other state interests in this space. The HLRW Committee would now like to leverage this experience in offering comments on the DEIS for the Holtec CISF project [hereinafter referred to as the Holtec DEIS].
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), lead agency in the development of the Holtec DEIS, has consistently listed transportation in the scope of the environmental resources to be evaluated as a part of its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review of the proposed major federal action of licensing Holtecs proposed CISF.1 The NRC also received dozens of public comments on the transportation impacts related to this licensing action during their scoping process - including from this group, the WIEB HLRW Committee.2 The necessity of including transportation in the scope of the EIS for this project was well-captured by the HLRW Committees scoping comments, excerpted here:
The SNF/HLW that Holtec proposes to store at its CISF is scattered across the Nation. If Holtec actually intends to store any of this material at its CISF, then it must first be transported there.
The storage of SNF/HLW cannot proceed unless transportation actions are taken previously.
Therefore, transportation is an action that is connected to the CISF application within the 1 See, e.g., Federal Register v.83, no.62, Friday, March 30, 2018, pg. 13802.
2 Environmental Impact Statement Scoping Process, Summary Report: The Holtec Environmental Impact Statement Public Scoping Period, June 2019, ADAMS accession no. ML19121A296, pgs. B B-28.
WIEB HLRW Committee comments, Holtec DEIS 2
meaning of 40 CFR § 1508.25 (a)(1)(ii), and it must be included within the scope of the EIS for this application.3 Accordingly, the NRC did include a minor transportation component in their Holtec DEIS. Unfortunately, there are serious deficiencies in the transportation evaluation that raise doubts about the NRCs conclusions regarding the proposed actions effect on the environment and the public. First, the transportation evaluation is cursory, not taking into consideration key operational factors. Second, it depends on an existing guidance document that is outdated and inapplicable to the proposed action. Third, it relies on unsubstantiated and unrealistic transportation cost data. Fourth, it makes implausible claims about the likely shipping schedule. Fifth, the transportation evaluation neglects to consider the effects of a lack of an on-site repackaging and handling facility. Lastly, it fails to consider worst-case scenarios such as the possibility of natural disasters, or sabotage and terrorism in transit.
- 1. The transportation evaluation in the Holtec DEIS does not consider key operational factors.
In our comments on the scope of the EIS, the HLRW Committee encouraged the NRC to consider all facets of a SNF/HLW transportation program that could influence the safety of the public and the environment. The HLRW Committee offered the following as some of the factors that should have been fully considered:
an analysis of the effects of different transportation operating protocols on shipment safety; of the level of emergency preparedness along likely shipping routes; of requisite coordination and communication with affected states, tribes, and other important stakeholders; and, an analysis of the impact on shipment numbers and safety of using any of the variety of transportation casks that are licensed for use.
Most importantly, the HLRW Committee encouraged the NRC to fully evaluate all reasonable modes and routes that could be used for SNF/HLW transportation to the Holtec CISF.
Unfortunately, the Holtec DEIS takes into account none of these factors. Instead, the transportation analysis ignores both operational details and alternatives that could have important effects on the NRCs conclusions about the proposed actions effects on the environment. Perhaps the most telling omission is that of an evaluation of the different transportation modes that could be used to move SNF/HLW to the CISF. The DEIS states that, The following analysis of SNF transportation focuses on the proposed use of rail transportation.4 This follows from Holtecs Environmental Report/license application, which states that, SNF would be transported to the CIS Facility by rail.5 However, the statement immediately preceding this pronouncement by Holtec says, DOE [U.S. Department of Energy]... would be responsible for transporting SNF from existing commercial nuclear power reactor storage facilities to the CIS Facility. DOE has made it abundantly clear, though, that under current law it is not allowed to move commercial SNF to a non-federally-owned CISF. Holtecs faulty assertion about who would be 3 Letter from Western Interstate Energy Board High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee to May Ma and NRC staff on Scoping of Environmental Impact Statement of Holtec International HI-STORE Consolidated Interim Storage Facility Project, July 27, 2018.
4 Holtec DEIS, pg. 4-12.
5 Environmental Report on the HI-STORE CIS Facility, Rev. 7, Holtec International, August 2019, ADAMS accession no. ML19309E337, pg. 3-117.
WIEB HLRW Committee comments, Holtec DEIS 3
transporting the SNF also draws into question their assertion about how the SNF would be transported -
an assertion that the NRC has adopted in its DEIS transportation analysis without question or limitation.
The choice of transportation mode has ramifications throughout the transportation analysis. For example, in the DEIS the radiological impact of incident-free transportation of SNF is determined by calculating the accumulated radiological dose of a maximally exposed individual member of the public.6 This theoretical person could receive a much higher dose from passing SNF shipments relative to other members of the public based on their close proximity to the rail track, a distance which for this calculation is located 30 m [98 ft] from the rail track.7 However, the calculation for the maximally exposed individual would likely require use of a distance much closer than 30 meters if it were based on analysis of a road used for trucks rather than one used for rail. This is so because people are much more likely to live close to a trucking road than a railroad. Modal choice also affects factors such as shipment numbers, packaging, and all considerations associated with the routes, including the vitally important factor of emergency preparedness. The NRC must take these factors into account in the final EIS in order to properly evaluate the possible effects of licensing the Holtec CISF.
- 2. NUREG-2125 is an obsolete and inapplicable reference for an environmental impact analysis of the Holtec CISF.
The NRC uses NUREG-2125, Spent Fuel Transportation Risk Assessment, as the basis for much of its evaluation of the possible radiological impacts of SNF transportation to the CISF.8 However, NUREG-2125 is a deficient source to use for this analysis for various reasons. One overarching reason is that the most current iteration was prepared to validate a set of new analytical tools rather than support an environmental impact analysis of specific routes.
Also, the risk analysis in NUREG-2125 no longer reflects current accident conditions. NUREG-2125 states that the average freight rail accident frequency is 1.32
- 10-7 per railcar mile based on U.S.
Department of Transportation historic accident frequencies from 1991 to 2007.9 However, the DOT Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) database reveals that from 2010 to 2018, the accident frequency is 3.4915 *10-6, or 26 times greater than the figure contained in NUREG-2125 and used by the Holtec DEIS. Because few rail accidents involve passenger trains, it can be assumed that a more accurate freight accident frequency is 4.83 *10-6, or 36 times the NRC/DOT estimate (the number of freight train accidents per freight train mile). Using the Holtec DEIS estimates suggests a mere 8 accidents over a 20-year period to the proposed CISF.
Another issue is that NUREG-2125 considers only mid burnup fuel, 45 GWd/MTU [gigawatt-days per metric ton of uranium] and not the higher burnup fuel, between 60 to 70 GWd/MTU, which is the increasing norm for commercial SNF. High burnup fuel contains more fission products, particularly the semi-volatile Cs-137, which could account for higher gamma doses to the population.
NUREG-2125 is also obsolete because of current industry practice. NUREG-2125 evaluated shipping up to 24-26 pressurized water reactor (PWR) assemblies in a single cask. Current industry practice, though, is to load waste packages with more assemblies (up to 37 PWR spent fuel assemblies in the case of the Holtec HI-STAR 190 XL) rather than 24-26 PWR in a cask. The significant increase in weight from these 6 Holtec DEIS, pg. 4-16.
7 Id.
8 Holtec DEIS, pg. 4-13.
9 NUREG-2125, U.S. NRC, January 2014, ADAMS accession no. ML14031A232, pg. E-2.
WIEB HLRW Committee comments, Holtec DEIS 4
additional assemblies means that the new, untried railcars carrying the casks will perform differently from previously analyzed shipments. Also, the weight carried over a bridge is greater than earlier casks and raises issues about the infrastructure. The NRC also claims that a derailment would not result in a release from a transportation cask, but that assertion is not supported by the Holtec or NRC references.
As a result of its reliance on outdated data, scaling up the risk numbers from NUREG-2125 and applying them to transportation to the Holtec CISF is not a valid analytical approach.
Another deficiency of the Holtec DEISs reliance on NUREG-2125 is that the affected radiological region of influence analyzed in NUREG-2125 does not reflect the likely shipment routes of the proposed action.
In numerous EISs, DOE has identified the radiological region of influence (ROI) as an area extending 800 meters on either side of the centerline of the transportation route. DOE codified this approach in 2002 in A Resource Handbook on DOE Transportation Risk Assessment. Using this standard and the 2010 Census, there are more than 9 million people living within the ROI of the shortest path routes from US nuclear power plants to the proposed Holtec CISF. 10 In contrast, there are only almost one million residents within the ROI along the route between Maine Yankee and Deaf Smith. 11 The Holtec DEIS should recognize that all of the residents within the ROI are part of the affected environment created by the proposed action. The Holtec DEISs use of a single route from Main Yankee to Deaf Smith, TX as a template for environmental impacts is inadequate.
10 The calculation was performed using the QGIS software and data provided by the US Dept. of Transportation National Transportation Atlas Database.
11 The representative route selected from NUREG-2125 for the NRC staffs CISF analysis was rail transport from the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant to the town of Deaf Smith, Texas. Holtec DEIS, pg. 4-14.
WIEB HLRW Committee comments, Holtec DEIS 5
Figure 1: Route considered by the Holtec DEIS A thorough assessment of these routes is possible using freely available tools and data. The maps presented here were prepared using the opensource QGIS software and data from the National Transportation Atlas Database.
WIEB HLRW Committee comments, Holtec DEIS 6
Figure 2: All routes to Holtec CISF A comparison of the map of the single route used by NRC to scale-up its analysis for the entire program versus the map showing other possible rail routes to the facility reveals that the route chosen by NRC does not traverse states with similar rail characteristics. Thus, the route chosen does not provide a realistic appraisal of the impacts, since shipping routes have impacts that are highly specific to infrastructure, railroad transportation practices, and communities. Scaling up the impacts from a single route is inadequate to capture these unique, route-specific impacts.
The Holtec DEIS was remiss in casually mentioning that the US Department of Energy was responsible for the transportation of spent nuclear fuel to the proposed Holtec CISF, then reporting that use of a single route from Main Yankee to Deaf Smith, TX should serve as a template for environmental impacts.
Clearly, neither Holtec nor the NRC chose to engage with the Association of American Railroads. If they had, the complexities of routing hazardous materials nationwide would have illuminated the oversight by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The railroads have the responsibility to partner with local, state, and federal entities on hazardous materials-related issues, including train routing
WIEB HLRW Committee comments, Holtec DEIS 7
and security.12, 13 A single routing template does not represent the multitude of environmental differences between rural and urban routing.
In the final EIS, the NRC should not rely so heavily on the outdated NUREG-2125 and should provide a more realistic and thorough examination of the likely SNF transportation routes to the Holtec CISF.
- 3. The transportation cost expectations in the Holtec DEIS are based on unsupported assumptions.
The Holtec DEIS says: The proposed action is the issuance of an NRC license authorizing the initial phase (Phase I) of the project to store up to 8,680 metric tons of uranium [9,568 short tons] in 500 canisters for a license period of 40 years.14 It goes on to assert that the SNF can be shipped for $26,000 per metric ton of uranium, for a total cost of $225,680,000 for Phase 1.15 The DEIS relies on the Holtec Environmental Report for this figure, which relies in turn on a 2014 Government Accountability Report on Spent Nuclear Fuel Management.16 By contrast, the DOEs own analysis of SNF/HLW transportation costs found that the year 2000 cost to ship SNF was $650,000 per MTHM [metric tons heavy metal].17 Multiplying this same cost factor to the Phase 1 proposed action to ship 8,680 MTU, yields a cost of
$5,642,000,000 in year 2000 dollars. Adjusting that to the year 2020 dollars presents a Phase I transportation cost of $8,687,540,000.18 This is a more than $8 billion cost difference between DOEs estimates and Holtecs estimates. This is an incredible cost difference, especially for a transportation program which Holtec, as mentioned previously, improperly laid at the feet of DOE in their license application. If DOE truly was intended to perform the SNF transportation to the Holtec CISF, then surely it would have made the most sense to use DOEs own cost estimates for this transportation. Even more questionable is that the $26,000/MTU figure credited to the GAO by Holtec in its Environmental Report is nowhere to be found in the cited SNF Management report. The Holtec DEIS appears to have no substantiated SNF transportation cost information. This glaring error calls into question the claimed financial viability of the entire project. The NRC must require better information from Holtec for this project, and provide more accurate and substantiated transportation cost information in the final EIS.
- 4. The proposed shipment schedule of SNF from storage sites to the CISF in the Holtec DEIS is implausible.
The Holtec DEIS claims that transportation of the initial Phase 1 SNF would require three years.19 This is a shipping rate of approximately 2,893 MTU or 167 canisters per year, assuming that each storage canister is also moved as one transportation canister unit. This is plausible since the Holtec DEIS says nothing about repackaging any of the storage canisters, whether for transport or any other reason. This 12 https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-hazmat-regulations 13 https://public.railinc.com/sites/default/files/documents/OT-55.pdf 14 Holtec DEIS, pg. iii.
15 Holtec DEIS, pg. C-3.
16 U.S. Government Accountability Office, Spent Nuclear Fuel Management: Outreach Needed to Help Gain Public Acceptance for Federal Activities that Address Liability, Report GAO-15-141, Washington, D.C., October 2014.
17 U.S. Department of Energy, Analysis of the Total System Life Cycle Cost (TSLCC) of the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Program, DOE/RW-0591, Washington, D.C., July 2008, pg. vi, Table ES-2.
18 Rate calculated using the Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator at https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm comparing $5,642 in January 2000 dollars to August 2020 dollars.
19 Holtec DEIS, pg. C-1, Table C-1.
WIEB HLRW Committee comments, Holtec DEIS 8
works out to about three canisters shipped per week. Each canister would need to have its own transportation cask, which are generally licensed for use with particular canister types.20 There is no transportation cask that is currently licensed to transport every type of storage canister currently in use; instead, there are 17 different transportation cask designs. The Holtec DEIS only refers to use of the HI-STAR 190 transportation cask to transport SNF to the CISF, but use of only this transportation cask is not regulatorily possible unless the HI-STAR 190 receives licensing authority to transport more types of storage canisters than its current license allows.21 Further, none of the transportation casks currently licensed for use with modern-day storage canisters have actually been manufactured. So, transportation casks for the individual canister types would have to be manufactured, and enough would have to be available to support transportation of three canisters of various types per week.
Also, there would have to be enough railcars (assuming a mostly-rail transportation system) to support this shipment rate, and the railcars would have to be compliant with the Association of American Railroads (AAR) S-2043 standard.22 As of now, there are no manufactured railcars that are compliant with this standard. DOEs Atlas railcar design is currently being tested to certify its compliance with S-2043, but this certification is not expected to be complete until 2022 at the earliest.23 Assuming this schedule holds, enough Atlas railcars would have to be manufactured to support the three canister shipments per week schedule. Lets assume that all three canisters are being moved together from the same site, and that each round trip takes two weeks. That means that at least six of the DOE-designed Atlas railcars would be required to ship three canisters per week, since it would take about a week for empty railcars to return to the SNF storage sites to pick up more canisters. DOEs estimate is that each Atlas railcar will cost approximately $1.5 million each in 2016 dollars.24 Six railcars would thus cost about $9 million.
So, in order to support the suggested shipment schedule in the Holtec DEIS, an unidentified/misidentified shipping entity would have to manufacture, purchase, and/or lease sufficient transportation casks and railcars, none of which currently exist, all of which are quite expensive. In addition, the transporting entity or entities would have to coordinate the shipment schedule with the origin site, the destination site, the inspectors, the regulators, and the rail/truck/barge carriers, at a minimum. Also, transportation operations would have to run perfectly - no delays caused by weather, wildfires, large public events, loss of requisite personnel, accidents or other emergencies, equipment damage or failure, or any of the other myriad things that can affect a transportation schedule. In the alternative, the shipping entity would have to have contingency plans or more of the necessary transportation casks, railcars, and other requisite equipment in order to maintain the shipment schedule when complications inevitably arose.
20 The NRC grants a general license to its licensees to transport their SNF, or to deliver their SNF to a carrier for transport, provided (among other things) that the transport package has been approved in an NRC rulemaking. See 10 C.F.R. § 71.17. The requisite NRC approval is in the form of a certificate of compliance (a so-called CoC). A CoC will include package descriptions and related conditions for use, including a requirement to use the particular canister type (or types) described in the CoC application along with the approved overpack. See e.g., CoC No. 9373, Rev. 1, for the HI-STAR-190 system (NRC ADAMS No. ML18332A027). In effect, the descriptions and related conditions for use in the CoC are also conditions of the general license.
21 Holtec DEIS, pg. 4-91.
22 Association of American Railroads, Performance Specification for Trains Used to Carry High-Level Radioactive Material, (S-2043), last revised September 2017.
23 Progress Update on DOEs Development and Testing of the Atlas Railcar, National Transportation Stakeholders Forum webinar, July 30, 2019.
24 Id.
WIEB HLRW Committee comments, Holtec DEIS 9
None of these complicating factors are addressed in the Holtec DEIS, which strains the credulity of the suggested shipment schedule past believability. And if this shipment timeframe is indeed not plausible, as we have shown, then the NRCs analysis of the transportation impacts is not plausible either. For instance, the Holtec DEIS says, Because the [radiological] dose estimates were presented for single shipments and for each kilometer traveled and for each hour of transportation, the NRC staff scaled the results by these variables (e.g., number of shipments, distance, and time) to generate estimates that were applicable to the proposed CISF project.25 If the number of shipments and time variables are indeed inaccurate, then the radiological dose estimates must be inaccurate as well. Since possible radiological impacts form the bulk of the NRCs analysis of the transportation effects of licensing the Holtec CISF, this inaccurate scaling brings into question the NRCs entire conclusion about the proposed actions effects on the environment. The NRC must do a more thorough evaluation in the final EIS that takes into account the complicating factors that would affect the SNF shipment schedule to the Holtec CISF in order to provide a realistic appraisal of this proposed action.
- 5. The Holtec DEIS does not evaluate the impacts of the absence of an emergency waste handling facility at the CISF site.
In section 2.2.1.3, Facility Construction, the Holtec DEIS discusses the construction of a cask transfer building, where transportation casks would be brought in and the canisters removed from the casks and prepared for storage.26 The Holtec DEIS does discuss the proposed service crane and the gantry crane that would be used to facilitate these activities. However, the facility construction does not include a proposed pool to be used in conjunction with an overhead crane for SNF repair and repackaging in the event of cask or canister failure. Also, there is no discussion of emergency operations actions in the event of canister degradation during receipt of fuel, during storage, or even for accidents that might occur during cask transfer or defueling to a repository. In the GAO report Nuclear Waste Management: Key Attributes, Challenges, and Costs for the Yucca Mountain Repository and Two Potential Alternatives, experts looked at the implications of dry cask systems over time and provided the following:
Over time, the storage systems may degrade and institutional controls may be disrupted, which could result in increased risk of radioactive exposure to humans or the environment. For example, according to several experts on dry cask systems, the vents on the caskswhich allow for passive coolingmust be periodically inspected to ensure no debris clogs them, particularly during the first several decades when the spent nuclear fuel is thermally hot. If the vents become clogged, the temperature in the canister could rise, which could impact the life of the dry cask storage system. Over a longer time frame, concrete on the exterior casks could degrade, requiring more active maintenance. 27 As suggested by the GAO report, the ageing and degrading of SNF canisters are an immediate concern that could impact safety and overall operations at the site as well as the transportation schedule. Some of the SNF canisters proposed for shipment to the Holtec CISF have already been stored for decades. As fuel rods age they are subject to corrosion, damage of the cladding, and the potential for explosive levels of hydrogen to build up inside the canisters. As canisters are stored at the CISF, they too are subject to the same degradation. The Holtec facility has no way to handle these degraded canisters or fuel, and the NRC did not include any of these potential impacts to facility operations, safety, or shipments in its analysis. In the final EIS, the NRC must include the impacts associated with expected outcomes of not having an 25 Holtec DEIS, pg. 4-14.
26 Holtec DEIS, pg. 2-6.
27 GAO-10-48
WIEB HLRW Committee comments, Holtec DEIS 10 onsite waste handling facility for emergency operations at the CISF. Not only is this necessary for a proper evaluation of the environmental impacts of the proposed action, but the inadequate waste handling facility and proposed operations will also impact the ultimate choice of repository design/location.
- 6. The Holtec DEIS fails to consider the possible effects of terrorism, sabotage, or natural disasters on transportation.
The United States is currently experiencing a high level of unrest in urban areas. The SNF shipments to the Holtec CISF will be clearly marked in extremely visible containers traversing major urban areas for a long time. They will be impossible to conceal and easily targeted. However, the Holtec DEIS never mentions the possible effects of terrorist or sabotage attacks on these shipments. This is a glaring and dramatic omission.
One can only assume that with Holtecs casual reference that transportation will be handled by DOE, that they and by extension the NRC have washed their hands of any responsibilities in this area. Both entities may even assume that the railroads have the responsibility to prepare for and respond to man-caused incidents or natural disasters. Indeed, freight railroads have safety as a top priority and have developed a robust system to continue to play their part in the national supply chain. Being placed in the position of having to prioritize freight shipments during an incident or natural disaster could remove the transportation of spent nuclear fuel from the railroads top priorities. Further, the Holtec DEIS does not mention what the environmental ramifications would be in the case of transportation service interruption owing to environmental and infrastructure damage as the result of man-caused incidents or natural disasters.
At pg. 8-6, the Holtec DEIS states: "At this time the safety analysis has not identified any credible accidents [EITHER at the CISF or during transportation of the waste]. Therefore, this EIS will not estimate the costs of an accident specific to this proposed CISF," and "the NRC staff has not attempted to quantify the economic cost of any particular accident in this EIS." The NRC may find this easy write-off of the possibility of accidents or incidents to be supported by their modeling, but the HLRW Committee does not find this credible nor comforting. The public deserves a more thorough analysis of what the effects of these possible incidents or accidents might be.
Further, the Holtec DEIS fails to evaluate the possible impacts of transportation terrorist or sabotage events. NEPA case law for the United States Court of Appeals (USCA) for the Ninth Circuit requires impact evaluation for SNF shipments originating at reactor sites in, or shipments traversing, AZ, CA, ID, NV, OR, and WA; and, shipments from NM to NV traversing AZ, CA, and NV, would require sabotage evaluation.28 This is the reason that DOE was required to address sabotage in the 2008 FSEIS for the Yucca Mountain repository application.29 Fortunately, the railroads have a long history of development of an industry-wide security plan30 and a security protocol en route31 in order to detect and prevent illicit activities such as sabotage and terrorism. However, this does not relieve the NRC of considering the 28 See, e.g., San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace v. Nuclear Regulatory Comm'n, 449 F.3d 1016, 1035 (9th Cir.
2006).
29 EIS-0250-S1: Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement, Geologic Repository for the Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste at Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada https://www.energy.gov/nepa/downloads/eis-0250-s1-final-supplemental-environmental-impact-statement 30 https://www.aar.org/article/freight-rail-physical-cybersecurity 31 https://railroads.dot.gov/elibrary/federal-railroad-administration-issues-emergency-order-prevent-unintended-hazardous
WIEB HLRW Committee comments, Holtec DEIS 11 possible environmental effects of a transportation terrorist or sabotage event in the final EIS for the Holtec CISF.
In conclusion, the HLRW Committee strongly urges the NRC to revisit its transportation evaluation for the Holtec DEIS and remedy the flaws identified in these comments. Only a thorough and true analysis of the potential impacts of licensing this facility can adequately inform decision-making and prepare all involved to protect the public from the environmental impacts of this major federal action. The HLRW Committee would be pleased to answer any questions or participate in future dialogue with NRC about these comments, or about SNF/HLW transportation in general.
Sincerely, Fred C. Dilger, PhD.
Melanie K Snyder, Esq.
Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, Western Interstate Energy Board, Planning Administrator Program Manager - Nuclear Waste Interim Vice-Chair, WIEB HLRW Committee Transportation and Disposition