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Important Dates
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November 28-29:
NE Task Force Fall 2018 Meeting - Providence, RI
December 4-5: WIEB Fall 2018 Meeting - San Diego, CA
December 12-13:
SSEB Transportation Committees Fall 2018 Meeting - Austin, TX
2019
June 10-13:
NTSF 2019 Annual Meeting; Crystal City/Washington, DC
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Join Our List
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COMMITTEE HAPPENINGS
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Fall Committee Activities
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Greg Gothard of Michigan (left) and Kaci Studer of Indiana will co-chair the Committee in 2019
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The Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee convened on October 31 and November 1, 2018, in Madison, WI, for the fall meeting. During the Committee business session, Kaci Studer from Indiana was elected to serve as co-chair in 2019-2020. Congratulations, Kaci!
In other news of the region's leadership, Kevin Leuer (Minnesota) will become Immediate Past Chair of the Committee in 2019. In addition, Kelly Horn (Illinois) will be the first person to hold the newly created position of Committee Liaison to the Midwestern Legislative Conference.
A full recap of the Fall 2018 meeting will be featured in the December edition of this newsletter. The committee's next meeting will be held in Crystal City/Washington, D.C., the week of June 10, 2019 in conjunction with the 2019 annual meeting of the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum.
Several Committee members have received their official gubernatorial appointments. Governor Bruce Rauner from Illinois has appointed Kelly Horn to represent that state on the Committee. Kelly is with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and previously served as a designated alternate from Illinois. Tiffany Drake was appointed by Governor Michael Parson to represent Missouri, and Rob Hunt, also from the Department of Natural Resources, will be Tiffany's alternate. Tiffany was initially appointed to the committee by former Governor Nixon.
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NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION STAKEHOLDERS FORUM
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NTSF Updates
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The Fall edition of the NTSF Quarterly Newsletter was circulated on October 31, 2018. The Newsletter provides summaries of State Regional Group and Tribal activities, Ad Hoc Working Group (AHWG) updates, DOE transportation-related news, and articles on nuclear plants and their surrounding communities.
According to the NTSF Newsletter, the Communications AHWG will be picking up the task of developing fact sheets addressing the transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste in order to facilitate public state and tribal education efforts. T
he
Spent Fuel Transportation Materials AHWG commenced work on the fact sheets, but that work was terminated.
The Rail/Routing Ad Hoc Working Group has resumed its work with a web meeting held in Sept
ember. That group plans to complete its consideration of r
ail route selection process and considerations by finalizing a summary of the Rail Routing Workshop that was held in August 2017. Once that task is complete, the Rail/Routing AHWG will turn its attention to developing recommendations for a reciprocal rail safety inspection program for rail shipments of SNF.
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Midwest Officials Tour WIPP
Emergency management, hazmat, and state patrol officials from Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska joined CSG Midwest staff for a tour of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, NM, on October 16, 2018. These are the three Midwestern states that will be impacted by the upcoming shipments from Argonne National Lab to WIPP. Bad weather and canceled flights from Dallas prevented a handful of additional attendees from making it to New Mexico.
Those that did succeed in making it to New Mexico braved unseasonably cold weather and were treated to a look at WIPP, the
nation's deep geologic repository for defense-related transuranic waste. After hearing a brief history of the facility and detailed safety procedures, tour participants visited the waste handling facility where waste is received and inspected prior to being transported underground for emplacement.
The group, escorted by several WIPP staff and donning protective gear and emergency equipment, then traveled 2150 feet underground to get an up-close look at the salt mine in which packaged transuranic waste is placed for permanent disposal. Specially-trained miners at WIPP work four-hour shifts underground drilling into the salt and placing waste packages into the walls. Once a portion of the underground facility is full, it is permanently closed off and the salt naturally begins to close in on the waste packages.
Following the tour, the group convened for an overview of the Midwestern Radioactive Materials
Transportation Committee and a discussion of the states' role in planning and preparing for WIPP
shipments.
Individual states adhere to their own procedures for
inspecting and/or escorting WIPP shipments within their borders. Details of the Midwestern
states' procedures are included in the region's Planning Guide.
CSG staff provided tour attendees with a brief history of the federal waste management program, its current status, and the impacts on states. John Heaton, from the Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, discussed
two counties' efforts to host an interim storage facility for spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste in the Carlsbad area. Eddy-Lea and Holtec have a license application currently under review at the NRC for a consolidated facility to store up to 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from the nation's commercial reactors. John explained that the facility could be operational as early as 2022, but there are significant unknowns regarding the responsibility for transportation planning.
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NUCLEAR NEWS
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Article Highlights Spent Fuel Inventory on the Great Lakes
A recent story in the
Detroit Free Press provided details on the quantity of spent nuclear fuel currently stored in close proximity to the Great Lakes and detailed the potential risks of having the SNF remain at reactor sites for much longer than was anticipated. In the U.S., there are 15 operating or shutdown nuclear power plants located on the shores of four of the five Great Lakes. In the U.S., 60,000 tons of SNF is stored along the shores of Lakes
Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Another 52,000 tons are stored on the Canadian shores of the Great Lakes. Neither the U.S. nor Canada has yet been able to successfully develop a permanent repository for SNF.
Across the U.S., 88,000 tons of SNF is stored at 121 locations in 39 states. Having SNF stored at reactor sites - either in cooling pools or above-ground dry casks - raises concerns about the effects of an accident, natural disaster, or terrorist attack on this highly radioactive material. These risks may be amplified for waste located on the shores of the Great Lakes, which serve as the water supply for 40 million people and spread to the Mississippi River and adjacent agricultural land. While direct exposure to SNF would be fatal, even years after the material is removed from a nuclear reactor, other radioactive isotopes that are typically harmless can be lethal when ingested.
In the U.S., the federal government's failure to locate a permanent repository for SNF has led many to believe that a private, consolidated storage facility, such as those proposed in Andrews County, TX, and Lea County, NM, are the most promising options for moving SNF away from the nation's reactor sites. Meanwhile, the
Canadian Nuclear Waste Management Organization seeks to construct a permanent repository in a willing host community.
To read the article in the
De
troit Free Pr
ess
click
here
.
Thanks to Greg Gothard for sharing this story!
Group Formed to Save Ohio Nukes
The
Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance, a group comprised of government, business, and labor leaders, has been established for the purpose of lobbying to keep the Davis-Besse and Perry nuclear plants operational. The plants' owner, FirstEnergy Solutions Inc., has announced that, absent government intervention, it plans to close the two plants in northern Ohio in 2020 and 2021 and close the Beaver Valley plant in Pennsylvania in 2021.
The Ohio Clean Energy Jobs Alliance plans to lobby policymakers and engage with the public in advocacy of retaining the economic, environmental, and grid benefits provided by the plants. FirstEnergy Solutions has argued that the plants are needed to provide grid stability, and is supportive of the newly-formed Alliance.
Coverage in the Akron Beacon Journal can be found
here
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IAEA Report on Deferred Decommissioning
The International Atomic Energy Agency recently announced the publication of
Lessons Learned from the Deferred Dismantling of Nuclear Facilities,
which covers the issues that must be addressed when preparing a facility to be kept maintained safely over a long time period. The state in which plants are placed prior to being dismantled is referred to as "safe enclosure," though the specifics vary depending on the characteristics of the site. For instance, when a reactor is collocated with other nuclear facilities, the security and surveillance that take place during safe enclosure may not be very different from what occurs during operation. Nuclear power plants or research reactors that do not have operational facilities in close proximity will likely have only minimum surveillance during safe enclosure.
The publication discusses the activities that are conducted in preparation for safe enclosure as well as the ensuing period of time that occurs prior to the final dismantling of the facility, remediation, and eventual release of the site. The work done in preparation for safe enclosure must establish conditions in which a nuclear facility can be maintained for a long time without presenting a risk to workers, the public, or the environment. The publication draws on lessons learned from a variety of facilities with different characteristics and decommissioning strategies.
To access the report
, click
here
.
Thanks to Steve Maheras for sharing this story!
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Thank you for reading. Watch for the next edition to come out on
December 6, 2018.
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Missed a newsletter? Past issues are
archived
on the committee's webpage.
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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-NE0008604, DE-EM0004869, and DE-EM0005168.
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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