We are pleased to announce two new appointments to the Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee! Gov. Dennis Daugaard appointed Nick Emme from the South Dakota Department of Natural Resources and Gov. Pete Ricketts appointed Bryan Tuma with the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency. An up-to-date Committee roster is available on the committee's webpage.

We hope to meet both Nick and Bryan at the Committee's fall meeting on November 30-December 1 in St. Louis. Online meeting registration is open at this site and will remain open until November 7. The meeting will be held at the Embassy Suites by Hilton St. Louis Downtown.

A preliminary agenda is available and will be updated as we get closer to the meeting. An optional Rail Field Trip (see second article for more information) will be offered from 8 am to 2 pm on November 30, and the Committee will hold a business session from 2:30 to 5:30 pm. Meeting attendees are invited to join a Group Dinner that evening from 6 to 8 pm. On December 1, the Committee will meet from 8:30 am to 5 pm. Members should plan to attend the entire meeting, beginning on November 30 and continuing through the end of the day on December 1. Rooms are available at the Embassy Suites on the night of December 1 and lodging expenses for Committee members will be reimbursed through that night.

Finally, the U.S. Department of Energy's Spent Nuclear Fuel Rail/Routing Ad Hoc Working Group will be co-locating its meeting with the Committee on November 29 from 9 am to 5 pm. For convenience, CSG Midwest has set up a single registration site for both meetings. When you register, make sure to specify whether you are attending one or both meetings. Committee members are encouraged to invite colleagues from state rail safety programs to attend the AHWG meeting. A limited amount of travel funding is available for this purpose. If you are interested in learning more about travel funding for rail safety personnel or have any other meeting-related questions, please contact Lisa Janairo .

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held a public meeting on Sept. 20 in La Crosse, Wisconsin, to gather feedback on a license termination plan and a partial site release request submitted by the La Crosse Boiling Water Reactor license owner, LaCrosse Solutions.

According to WIZM News Talk, during the public meeting, NRC representative Bruce Watson recognized the decommissioning process was worrisome to neighbors of the facility, specifically "the removal of the radioactive waste and the transportation of it."

A NRC press release says, "the license termination plan provides site radiological information, the planned demolition and decommissioning tasks, and the planned final radiological surveys and data needed to allow termination of the plant's NRC license. The partial site release request asks that areas of the La Crosse site that have been demonstrated to not be impacted by the operation of the nuclear plant be released for unrestricted use and removed from the plant's licensed area."

The NRC estimates the decommissioning project will be complete in 2018, but an NRC staffer told residents at the public meeting the area will never be available for residential use, reports WIZM.

Chalk River Shipments Delayed Until Next Year
A coalition of environmentalists and two members of Congress were successful in delaying shipments of highly enriched uranium by truck from Ontario, Canada, to DOE's Savannah River Site in South Carolina, according to an announcement by nuclear watchdog group Savannah River Site Watch. The shipping campaign was scheduled to begin last month.

In August, Savannah River Site Watch and six other groups filed a lawsuit against DOE, demanding an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be completed before starting shipments, reports The Tribune-Democrat. U.S. Senator Kristen Gillibrand and U.S. Congressman Brian Higgins (both of New York) joined the cause last month, and issued a joint letter to DOE Secretary Ernest Moniz saying a new EIS was legally required under the National Environmental Policy Act. Previous studies had evaluated only solid waste, while the Chalk River waste is in liquid form.

A U.S. District Court document filed on September 20 states that DOE has agreed to postpone the shipments until February 17, 2017, at the latest, "in order to ensure compliance with all legal and contractual obligations." A hearing on the case has been proposed for January 13, 2017.

Federal Program Provides Supplemental Radiation Detection Equipment for State, Local, and Tribal Emergency Responders
Through an agreement between the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) and DOE, state, local, and tribal entities can request a mobile trailer of extra equipment for first responders to support existing radiological and nuclear detection and reporting capabilities.

According to the DNDO website, each Mobile Detection Deployment Unit (MDDU) contains radiation detection equipment for approximately 40 emergency responders. These detection packages are spread out across the country and are accompanied by technical support staff to train personnel on the use of equipment and how to integrate it into existing operations.

Federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial governments may request a unit through DNDO_MDDU_Request@hq.dhs.gov.

A fact sheet on the MDDUs is available online.

Thank you to Steve Maheras (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) for sharing information about this opportunity.