As a reminder, registration is now open for the 2018 Annual Meeting of the National Transportation Stakeholders Forum (NTSF). The meeting will take place on June 4-7 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Omaha Downtown in Omaha, Nebraska. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), CSG Midwest, and the Tribal Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee (TRMTC) are the co-hosts of this year's meeting. A preliminary agenda is available on the NTSF Annual Meeting website. If you are interested in attending either of the tours on June 7 (to the Harriman Dispatching Center or the shutdown Fort Calhoun nuclear plant), please be sure to register early due to space limitations.

The NTSF Planning Committee is continuing to finalize meeting speakers, as well as plenary and breakout sessions. With the meeting just three months away, the Planning Committee will begin holding bi-monthly calls this month.

The NTSF Meeting Evaluation Team will hold a conference call on March 14 at 10:00 am Central to discuss plans for the post-meeting survey.

Information on page 44 of DOE's FY 2019 Budget in Brief, which describes the budget request in further detail, indicates that part of the $120 million for Yucca Mountain and interim storage programs is dedicated to Program Direction that is "structured to support both licensing ($19.6 million) and interim storage ($3.4 million)."

In a letter dated Feb. 28, the NRC notified Holtec International (Holtec) that its application for an independent spent fuel storage license had been accepted for a detailed safety, security, and environmental review by the agency. According to the letter, the NRC will issue a first round of requests for additional information (RAI) in conjunction with the review in March-Aug. 2018 and, if necessary, issue a second round of RAIs beginning in Feb. 2019. NRC staff are expected to complete the review by July 2020.

A Holtec announcement about the NRC's action provides additional details about the proposed consolidated interim storage (CIS) facility, known as HI-STORE CIS, which would have the capacity to store 10,000 canisters of spent nuclear fuel in southeastern New Mexico. The Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, a consortium of four New Mexico governmental entities, has partnered with Holtec in support of the interim storage site. In a San Diego Union-Tribune articlefrom May 2017, a senior Holtec official reported that, if the application is approved by the NRC, the company "would commence construction immediately" and could be operational by 2022.

Thank you to Steve Maheras (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) for sharing the letter from the NRC.

HBO Documentary Spotlights Nuclear Waste Contamination in St. Louis Area, Fuels Community Outrage

A documentary that first aired on HBO last month, called Atomic Homefront, charts the history of low-level radioactive waste contamination in two St. Louis communities associated with the Manhattan Project. The film, according to HBO, "exposes the lasting toxic effects nuclear waste can have on communities." The film's website provides more details, saying that residents in those communities have documented high rates of very rare cancers, birth defects, and various autoimmune disorders that are "potentially linked to ionizing radiation poisoning."

Under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is responsible for the remediation of parks and residences along Coldwater Creek, which was contaminated with uranium processing residues that were improperly stored near the creek. In conjunction with the Midwest's 2016 fall meeting in St. Louis, members of the Committee and the NTSF Rail/Routing Ad Hoc Working Group visited two locations -- St. Cin Park and the St. Louis Airport Site -- that are part of the FUSRAP program. These sites are featured in the documentary.

Not long after Atomic Homeland was released, the USACE hosted a public meeting to provide updates on its remediation efforts. While many of the 100 attendees had known about the waste for several years, some had only learned about it from the documentary, according to a St. Louis Public Radio article.

Atomic Homefront presents only one side of the issue. CSG Midwest staff are not endorsing Atomic Homefront, but felt it was important to share because of its relevance to the Midwest's 2016 meeting. The film also is a good illustration of the public's fear of all things nuclear, providing a glimpse of what might be expected when DOE tries to site a waste storage or disposal facility or make shipments of spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste.

Thanks to Heather Westra (Prairie Island Indian Community) for sharing the information about the documentary.

FDA Approves Molybdenum-99 Production at Wisconsin's NorthStar

In early February, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved the production of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) by NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes in Beloit, Wisconsin, due in part to NNSA's support of the program. NorthStar will use its RadioGenix™ System (technology developed in partnership with the NNSA) to produce Mo-99 without the use of uranium. Mo-99 is the parent isotope of technetium-99m, which, according to the announcement, is used in about 40,000 medical procedures in the U.S. each day.

As covered in last month's e-newsletter, another Wisconsin-based company, SHINE Medical Technologies, recently received NRC approval to construct a Mo-99 production facility in Janesville, Wisconsin. The Committee is considering holding its next fall meeting in Madison, Wisconsin, and inviting speakers from NorthStar and/or SHINE to discuss their production facilities and the potential impact of shipments on the Midwestern states.