ML20080D431

Contends That Shipment of Irradiated Nuclear Fuel from West Valley Reprocessing Plant Back to Respective Utils Hazardous & Unnecessary.License Amend,Safety Evaluation & Pertinent Repts Should Be Submitted Before Decision

ML20080D431
Person / Time
Site:	West Valley Demonstration Project
Issue date:	08/24/1983
From:	Resnikoff M Sierra Club
To:	Jennifer Davis, Harold Denton NRC OFFICE OF NUCLEAR MATERIAL SAFETY & SAFEGUARDS (NMSS), Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
References
TAC-52693, TAC-52694, NUDOCS 8308300449
Download: ML20080D431 (3)

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73 Elmwood Avenue . Buffalo, New York 14201 (716) 884-1000 i

' 00CKETED  !

River Road, Columbia, NJ 07832 (201)841-9529 USNRv 1

s - I Harold Denton, Director 83 Al]G 29 All:54  !

- - Office of Nuclear Reactor Recuhtion John G. Davis, Director OFFICE OF SECREIMY

' Office o[ Nu: lear Material Safety ar.d Safeguards 00CKETING & SERVICE U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Comission, BRANCH Washington, D.C. 20555 -

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Lic. No. CSF-1 Docket No. 50-201 Gentlemen: ,

In order -to ship irradiated nucinar fuel from the former West Valley repro-cessing facility back to the respective utilities we are of the opinion that eith-er the respective utility licenses or~ license no. CSF-1 must be amended. Under license no. CSF-1, ' issued hpril 19, 1966 (attached) ,_ the Ntr: lear Fuel Services reprocessing plant was licensed to receive and proce'ss ' irradiated nuclear fuel and to dispose of nuclear waste, but not to ship' irradiated nuclear fuel. Of

course, the utilities were never licensed, to package and transport nuclear f uel from the West Valley facility. Important ' safety, environental and policy issues need to be resolved before these shipments take place. We request that proper

And timely. notice of a pending license amendment appear in the Federal Register Sni' thr.t public and state representatives be granted the opportunity to intervene.

LICENSING AMENDMENT REQUIRED IP NYSEEDA IS 'IHE LICENSEE:

It is our understanding that either the utilities, NYSERDA or DOE will be resp-onsible for the " shipments. _If NYSERDA is to be the licensee, we are of the opin-ion that a license amendment is required before the shipments can proceed. Under Section 2 of license no. CSF-1, h'ISERDA and NFS were licensed to operate the facil-ity as a production facility, to receive, possess and use special, byproduct and and source material from irradiated nuclear fuel and to bury solid radioactive waste. A staff safety evaluation, perforand in 1977, approved the safe shutdown status of the facility. The proposed actions call for loading and transporting nuclear fuel stored at West Valley to the respective . utility owners. No safety evaluation has been performed by NFS, NYSERDA or the NRC for shipping nuclear fuel from the West Valley facility. Important safety, environmental and policy quest-ions need to be addressed by the staff and an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

i j Under licensing change #31 to CSF-1, DOE took. possession of those parts of l the West Wiley site needed to implement the West Valley Demonstration Project

! Act. An agreement between NYSERDA and DOE has NYSERDA retaining responsibility

! for the state-licensed burial ground and the nuclear fuel. NYSERDA presently l has no license to ship nuclear fuel and DOE has no Congressional authority to l ship this nuclear fuel. Further, this fuel is commercial fuel. It would estab-i lish a peor precedent to have DOE begin to take over the functions of comerc-8308300449 830524 PDR P

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2 Denton, Dsvis August 24, 1983

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, hTSERDA presently has no license to ship nielear fuel. A license amendment toJCSF-1 is required if NYSERDA is to become the licensee for these shipments.

The technical qualifications of NYSERDA for assuming operational responsibil-ity f<r the site have never been ascertained. In an opinion by Mr. Divis regard-ing licensing change no. 32 which transferred operational responsibility for the site from NFS to NYSERDA, the argument was made that NYSERDA would have no effective operational responsibility during thO period while DOE was on the site.

For this reason, NYSERDA's technical qualifications to operate the facility were never evaluated. If NYSERDA it? to ship nuclear fuel, these qualifications must be determined. If NYSERDA is +.o subcontract this work,9 the qualifications of the subcuntractor and the qtalifications of NYSERDA to oversee this work must be ascertained. .,

.. We might say parenthetically that the U.S. District Court agreement) Exhibit B, Jebruary 1982, between NFS and NYSERDA states that NFS has " responsibility for the removal and transportation from th'e Center and ultimate . disposition of" the spent if.uel at West Valley. However, the NFS license, under change #32, terminates NFS 11 censing responsibility; NFS hic only title to the fuel. NFS may have financial res$onsibility, but it cannot be the licensee for these return shipments unless

~ -licensing change #32 were amended. As you are aware, the Club opposed licensing gange. #22 as precipitous.

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[ Tied to the question of the licensee for the propo ed shipments is the quest-ion of indemnification. According to licensing cbuge #32, the West Valley fuel t

btilding 'i's' not indemnified under Price-Anderson insurance. Supposedly it is cevered under DOE's insurar.ce, but it is not clear that DOE's policy covers these mulear fuel shipments and whether they are part of the West Valley Demonstration Proj ec t. .

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' IF TIE UTILITIES ARE THE LICENSEES:

. Under 10 CFR Part 50 and 10 CFR Part 71.12, the utilities are authcrized to . load irradiated fuel at their respective reactors and to transport irrad-G

'iated. fuel in Dor-approved packaging. If the utilities or their representatives:

requer.t permission, er assuna responsibility without' requesting permission -from -

"the NRC, we are of the opinion this is a strained definition of the utility lic-Usse urder Parts 50 or 71.12. The utilities cay know something about operating

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a seactor, but they ghave never been lAcensel to operate the West Valley facility.

.jf NRC inspectors etermined h non-compliance items, wculd the NRC cite a utility ovd t700 miles away? The West Valley fuel building has been idle for eight years p ,Qhow.'

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Would the utilities file a safety evaluation for the West Valley facility?

Wmtid the : technical qualifications of the licensees for operating the West Valleyt "fa :llity be adjudged? Would the utilities be properly indemnified? We would ex- -

pect'the,above , issues and the policy anl safety issues' mentioned below to be res-olved in a probeeding, properly noticed in the Federal Register, in which inter-ssted and affected parties could present their views.

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l Denton, Davic Augudt 24, 1983

, page throo INREVIEWED SAFETY QUESTIONS ,

No safety evaluation' has been performed for shipments from the West Valley facility. The Staff has never produced a Safety Evaluation Report. Fur-ther, the NFS facility has now lied dormant for eight years. It is not clear that the equipment in the fuel receiving and storage area is safe for use. This nust he reviewed by staff. NYSERDA or the utilities should file a safety evaluation and the NRC Staff should prepare a Safety Analysis Report. The use of the TN-9 cask at the fuel building is an unreviewed safety question. As you may be aware, Commonwealth Edison wishes to use the 35 ton TN-9 cask for Dresden-1 fuel. The TN-9 cask may be too heavy for local bridges. If the rail spur into the fuel re-ceiving and storage building is to be used, we have serious questions about its safety since the line has deteriorated badly. The interaction between DOE oper-ations and irradiated nuclear fuel movement must be clarified.

POLICY QUES"fIONS

1. As the NRC is well aware, the need to ship this irradiated nuclear fuel hack to the utilities is open to question. NYSERDA needs to move fuel out of the West Valley pool by September 1985 to allegedly nake room for DOE operations, but NYSERDA has no need to move this fuel from the West Valley site.. This fuel could well remain at the site in dry storage until a federal repository is operable.

2. This nuclear fuel would be returned to the utilities for temporary stor-age, than perhaps to a federal away-from-reactor storage facility. for temporary storage before moving to a federak repository. This is inconsistent with Cong-ressional intent under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1962, to minimize trensport-ation and to employ an AFR as a lost resort facility. Since the number of trans-portation accidents is directly proportional to the number of miles driven, mov-ing this ntclear fuel from one temporary location to another simply increases the chance of an accident.

3. As you are aware, the NRC has never prepared a general environmental imp-act statement en nuclear transportation, including a discussion of accidents in rucci areas, and has never prepared an EIS on the West Valley facility, either operating or standby. The NRC docunents are environmental statements or environ-mental assessments, but not an EIS under NEPA. The MRC has also prepared Table S-4 which is insarted into a reactor EIS, but Table S-4 is not an EIS either.

Citizens and state and local officiale all along the proposed transpcrtation routes are concerned and aLsrmed at the proposed shipments. These shipments are hazardous and unnecessary. Tne publicly responsible coutsc is to require any pros-pective licensee to submit a license amendnent, safety evaluation and reports which address the issues raised here. Please inform us of your decision in this natter, cc: E. Blauner G. Abrams, Esq. J. Kenp Sincerely yours, G. Coan E. Bialik, Esq S. Lundine M. DuBois L. Finaldi R. Cotter M. Cuomo D. feynihan R. Ottinger

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H. Fox, Esq. P. G3 tlen, Esq. T. Weiss rvin W. Liebold D. Muchnicki, Esq.F. Millar Sierra Club R. Lippes, Esq.P. Wollman, Esq. C. Mongerson River Road l V. Parker, Esq. A.T. Clark, NRC Columbia, NJ 07832 P. Weinberg, Esq. J. Kltcsik, NRC P. Woywod / Secretary, NRC

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