Registration will open this month for the committee's fall meeting on December 13-14 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The meeting will be held at the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza. The committee will meet for a full day on December 13 and a half day on December 14, and a preliminary agenda will be available when registration opens. The committee will be electing a new co-chair to succeed Teri Engelhart (Wisconsin) in 2018.

In more meeting news, on August 23-24, committee co-chair Kevin Leuer (Minnesota), former co-chair Kelly Horn (Illinois), and CSG Midwest staff represented the committee at the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE) Transportation Core Group meeting in Colorado Springs. A recap of the meeting, which included a tour of the Association of American Railroads' Transportation Technology Center, Inc., is featured in the newsletter's third article.

In other committee news, the new edition of the Planning Guide for Shipments of Radioactive Material through the Midwestern States is at the printer and will be mailed out in early October.

Finally, committee members will be asked to complete a survey next month indicating their satisfaction with and preferences for committee activities. The results of the survey will be presented at the committee's fall meeting.

The NTSF Planning Committee continues to plan for next year's annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on June 4-7. The meeting will be held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Omaha Downtown. The Planning Committee is currently in the process of reviewing a draft agenda structure and collecting ideas for plenary and breakout session topics. The Midwest is co-hosting the 2018 NTSF Meeting with the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee.

In ad hoc working group (AHWG) news, the draft NTSF Management Plan has been sent to AHWG members for review, with the intent to present the final draft to the Planning Committee during its next call.

The new Communications AHWG is overseeing the publication of the next edition of the NTSF Newsletter in October. The newsletter will focus solely on NTSF-related news and the October edition will be accompanied by a brief survey to gather insights and feedback to improve future editions. The articles will be authored by DOE, Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (TRMTC), and State Regional Group (SRG) staff, and the reformatted newsletter will be sent via Constant Contact (the same medium used for the Midwest's e-newsletter). 

In other AHWG news, the Rail/Routing AHWG met in Colorado Springs on August 24-25, in conjunction with the DOE-NE Transportation Core Group meeting. The AHWG members attended a tour of TTCI (see third article for more information) and participated in a one-day routing workshop. During the workshop, AHWG members and rail carrier representatives looked at hypothetical rail routes from nuclear power plants, to better understand rail carrier considerations for identifying spent fuel transportation routes. In most cases, the AHWG members' identification of routes were well-aligned with what the rail carriers expect could be used. The few exceptions related to operational conditions, for example, trains running north on some routes and south on parallel routes for traffic flow purposes. A summary of the workshop will be available on the NTSF wiki site soon. 

Finally, the Spent Fuel Transportation Materials AHWG has rescheduled its next web-meeting for September 28. During the web-meeting, members will review a Section 180(c) fact sheet and discuss proposed changes to the draft purpose statement for the DOE-NE Transportation Core Group.

DOE-NE Transportation Core Group Meeting Recap

Exelon Corp. announced last month that a $20 million construction project was underway at its Quad Cities Station in Cordova, Illinois. In a press release announcing the construction, the utility explained that $10 million was dedicated to the expansion of the station's existing used fuel storage pad.

According to the Quad-City Times, crews will build a 90-foot by 300-foot concrete pad to store 108 spent fuel casks. The project is expected to be completed in 2019.

On September 5, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that urges DOE to develop a plan for expanding the storage capacity at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico.

According to the report highlights, the GAO determined that DOE does not have sufficient space at WIPP to dispose of all of the nation's defense transuranic (TRU) waste, as is planned for in the National Nuclear Security Administration's Plutonium Disposition Program. As noted in the highlights, DOE plans to fill WIPP's existing disposal space by 2026 and acknowledges that additional space will need to be excavated to accommodate the entire TRU waste inventory; however, the agency has not analyzed or planned for that expansion. The highlights also mention that DOE has concurred with the GAO recommendations to develop an expansion plan that includes a schedule for completing the expansion before the existing space is full.

In other WIPP news, shipments of TRU waste from Oak Ridge National Laboratory resumed in August. According to Nuclear Street News, Oak Ridge anticipates making multiple shipments to WIPP each month. Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois isn't yet on the WIPP shipment schedule.

Throughout the summer, three federal agencies or their officials have made statements regarding plans for a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. Here is a recap:

As reported in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, in July, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson expressed her objections to running a rail route to Yucca Mountain through the Nevada Test and Training Range, saying "There is no route across the range that would not impact testing and training." According to the article, Secretary Wilson would oppose even a rail corridor that closely parallels the range's boundary in Nye County, Nevada, as that could raise encroachment issues.

On August 8, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) released a statement saying it had "approved further actions related to its review of the DOE's application for authorization to construct a high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada." The statement detailed the next steps the NRC would be taking, noting, "specifically, the Commission directed agency staff to hold a virtual meeting of the Licensing Support Network Advisory Review Panel to provide information to, and gather input from, advisory panel members and the public regarding reconstitution of the Licensing Support Network or a suitable replacement system. The LSN was an online database of nearly 4 million documents supporting the adjudicatory hearing on the Yucca Mountain application."

The Las Vegas Herald-Review reported earlier this month that during his remarks at the RadWaste Summit in Las Vegas, Acting Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy Edward McGinnis affirmed the Trump administration's commitment to finding a long-term disposal solution, but emphasized that the licensing process for a permanent waste repository could not restart until Congress funded the effort. According to the article, McGinnis never said the words "Yucca Mountain" during his remarks, but it was clear that he was referring to the site. As noted in the newsletter's third article, President Trump requested $120 million in FY 2018 to restart the Yucca Mountain licensing process.

Thank you to MRMTC co-chair Kevin Leuer for sharing the announcement from the NRC, and thank you to Kelly Horn for sharing the article about the Air Force secretary's remarks on routing.

During an August episode of his HBO show  Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver's monologue highlighted the shortfalls of America's current nuclear waste management system. This segment was a topic of discussion at the DOE-NE Transportation Core Group meeting, as it is unusual that issues surrounding nuclear waste management reach members of the general public.

The segment is posted below. Before watching, please note that it contains adult language.