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Important Dates
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November 3-4:
Western Interstate Energy Board High-Level Waste Committee Meeting, Spokane, Washington:
Meeting Agenda
November 17-18:
CSG Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee Meeting, Des Moines, Iowa:
Agenda
November 17-18:
Rail/Routing Ad Hoc Working Group Meeting (in conjunction with MRMTC meeting), Des Moines, Iowa
November 18-20:
Intergovernmental Meeting with DOE (STGWG and NGA), New Orleans, Louisiana:
More information
November 23, 12:00 PM CST:
NTSF Planning Committee Conference Call
December 7, 1:00 PM CST:
NTSF Webinar on Internal NTSF Communications:
Register here
December 9-10: Southern States Energy Board Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee and Transuranic Waste Transportation Working Group Meetings, New Orleans, Louisiana:
More information
December 16-17: CSG Northeast High-Level Radioactive Waste Transportation Task Force Meeting, Portsmouth, New Hampshire:
More information
2016
March 6-10:
Annual Waste Management Conference
, Phoenix, Arizona:
Register here
June 7-9:
NTSF Annual Meeting 2016, Orlando, Florida
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Join Our List
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COMMITTEE HAPPENINGS
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Countdown to the Fall Meeting
There are just two weeks left until the Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee's F
all 2015 meeting on November 17-18 in Des Moines, Iowa, and registration officially closed yesterday. The
agenda will continue to be updated as we get closer to the meeting. An up-to-date MRMTC roster is
available online.
A reminder to committee members: please complete the brief member survey that was emailed to you last week by November 6 so that results can be discussed during the meeting. If you have any questions about the survey or need the link, please contact Katelyn Tye.
Please note, the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum (NTSF)
Rail/Routing ad hoc working group will be meeting in conjunction with the MRMTC in November. The meetings have been scheduled so that those who are members of both will not have to miss out on either meeting. Please contact
Lisa Janairo with any meeting-related questions.
In other committee news, last month, the chairs and co-chairs of four state regional groups (SRGs) sent correspondence to John Kotek, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE), specifically to request his assistance with expediting the office's document review and release process. The
October 6 letter expressed the concern that, while the SRGs appreciate DOE-NE's efforts to foster a strong working relationship thus far, the office's lengthy internal review process prevents the "program from being more forthright with the timely sharing of documents with state and tribal representatives." The letter encouraged Acting Assistant Secretary Kotek to take whatever steps are necessary to remove these barriers. The SRGs hope to receive a response soon.
Finally, we would like to congratulate Mike Stead (Illinois) who was re-elected to the position of president of the Association of State Rail Safety Managers last month at the group's annual meeting. Well done, Mike!
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NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION STAKEHOLDERS FORUM
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NTSF Events
The
Rail/Routing ad hoc working group (AHWG) will be meeting
November 17 and 18 in Des Moines, Iowa, in conjunction with the MRMTC's Fall 2015 committee meeting. Members of the AHWG are welcome to attend the Midwest's meeting on November 17, if interested.
In other AHWG news, DOE's
Section 180(c) Proposed Policy Implementation Exercise continues to engage the state and tribal volunteers. The Section 180(c) AHWG plans to hold a conference call
in either December or January to discuss the Mock Merit Review Panel's feedback on the volunteers' mock training grant applications. Meanwhile, the
Management Plan Ad Hoc Working Group has a draft of the management plan in review by the NTSF Chair and will be scheduling a call in the near future.
Finally, the
Information and Communications AHWG has been working on two projects: a New Members Wiki Page and an NTSF Partnership Newsletter. Both of these new products will be unveiled during the next NTSF webinar, "
Internal NTSF Communications: Webinars, Wiki Site, and More." The webinar will be held on
Monday, December 7 at 1:00 pm CST
.
You may register now
for the webinar. Sponsored
by the
NTSF Information and Communications AHWG, the webinar
will provide a deep dive into the various methods NTSF participants use to communicate internally. For a complete webinar description, click the registration link above, or visit the
Webinars
page on the NTSF wiki site.
In other webinar news, the NTSF's October 19 webinar, "NRC Regulation of Spent Nuclear Fuel Shipments," had a record high 121 participants. During the webinar, Gerard Jackson, David Pstrak, and Stuart Easson of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) explained how selected routes for spent nuclear fuel shipments are reviewed and approved by the commission staff; discussed requirements for advance notification of shipments of spent nuclear fuel, including the timing, recipients, and restrictions on sharing safeguards information; and explained changes to NRC regulations that allow for advance notification to Tribes, plus the steps Tribes can take to begin receiving it.
If you were unable to join, a recording of the webinar and copies of the panelists' slides are available on the NTSF wiki site. Due to time constraints and a large volume of questions, we were unable to ask all of the audience-submitted questions during the webinar, but responses to those questions have been posted on the "forum" on the NTSF wiki site.
A proposed list of webinar ideas and a tentative schedule for the remaining FY 2016 series can be found here. Please send any suggestions for webinar topics or speakers to Katelyn Tye. As part of improving the webinars, we are tapping Planning Committee members and AHWG leads to help develop this series. A special thanks to Erica Bickford (DOE-NE) and David Pstrak (NRC) for coordinating our Rail 101 and NRC Regulations webinars, respectively.
For up-to-date information about NTSF events and ad hoc working groups, visit the NTSF wiki site.
Note that to view NTSF-related links in this article, you must be a member of the site. To become a member, click this link and follow the instructions for joining.
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FOCUS THIS MONTH
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Bills on Nuclear Reactor Construction and Radioactive Waste Transportation Introduced in Wisconsin Legislature
On October 6, Wisconsin State Senator Frank Lasee and Senate Majority Caucus Vice-Chair Van Wanggaard introduced legislation to repeal the state's de facto ban on construction of new nuclear power plants.
Senate Bill 288, which is cosponsored by members of the Wisconsin Assembly, also requires the state to prioritize advanced nuclear energy over nonrenewable energy resources when considering how to meet energy demands. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Natural Resources and Energy.
While Wisconsin contemplates legislation to open the door for new nuclear plants, a shutdown plant in the state is still grappling with the problem of what to do with its nuclear waste. According to articles in the Herald and Review and Door County Daily News, Kewaunee Power Plant operator Dominion Resources is in the process of building on-site spent fuel storage using decommissioning trust funds, an exemption that has been granted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In the absence of a federal repository for spent fuel, other shutdown sites, including Illinois' Zion Station, have sought and received the same approval to use decommissioning funds for construction of on-site spent fuel storage.
Legislation relating to the transportation of radiological materials was also introduced in the Wisconsin legislature last month. Assembly Bill 426, and its companion Senate Bill 320, would require a state permit and security escort for shipments of highway route controlled quantity (HRCQ) material in the state. Other states in the Midwest, specifically Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri, charge a fee for shipments of HRCQ material. To learn more about the state shipment fees in the Midwest -- their purpose and which states charge them -- check out CSG Midwest's flyer on state shipment fees.
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NUCLEAR NEWS
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Illinois' Clinton Nuclear Plant Gets One-Year Reprieve
According to an
October 29 news release, Exelon will defer any decisions on future operations of its Clinton nuclear plant for one year, pending market reforms that could aid the unprofitable plant. The company says the decision will also provide Illinois lawmakers with more time to consider policy reforms that will "best position the state of Illinois to comply with the EPA's Clean Power Plan."
In September, Exelon deferred closure decisions on two of its other Illinois plants, Byron and Quad Cities, for an additional year.
Idaho Research Shipment Cancelled
Unable to come to an agreement with Idaho state officials, DOE canceled the first of two proposed research shipments of spent nuclear fuel to the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), according to
an Associated Press article. As noted in the article, the first proposed shipment to INL, initially set for August, would have come from the Byron Nuclear Power Station in Illinois. Another potential shipment is scheduled for January 2016 from the North Anna Nuclear Power Station in Virginia.
Farewell to Two State Colleagues
 We take a moment to congratulate South Carolina's Sandra Threatt on her recent retirement. For over 34 years, Sandra worked for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, most recently as the Manager of Nuclear Response and Environmental Surveillance. She was a member of both the SSEB's Transuranic Waste Transportation Working Group and the Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee. Sandra also was an active member of the NTSF, dating back to her service on the very first ad hoc working group organized in 2010 (that group developed financial guidance for states and Tribes that receive funding in connection with WIPP shipments). We wish Sandra well in her retirement.
In closing, our thoughts go out to the friends and family of John Angil, who passed away unexpectedly on September 28.  John had been employed as Radiological Director for the Vermont Emergency Management Department of Public Safety and Homeland Security and was a career firefighter. He was also a nationally-certified paramedic who, while living in South Carolina, volunteered with several squads. He even served as the personal paramedic for Vice President Dan Quayle on a visit to Hilton Head Island. An active member of both the Northeast High-Level Radioactive Waste Transportation Task Force and the NTSF Communications Ad Hoc Working Group, John was a tireless advocate for public safety. He will be dearly missed.
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Thank you for reading. Watch for the next edition to
come out on December 1, 2015.
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Please do not reproduce or create new content from this material without the prior express written permission of CSG Midwest.
This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy under Award Numbers DE-NE0000555, DE-EM0002121, and DE-EM00002327.
This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.
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