Welcome to the CSG Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee Update. Below are links and summaries of several important happenings from the last few weeks. Please don't hesitate to contact Lisa (920/458-5910) or Sarah (630/925-1922) with any questions or concerns about any of these issues.

At least they didn't find any typos

Have you ever read one of DOE's many fact sheets on shipments and thought, "This needs work"? If you have, join the club. Lisa Janairo and Ken Niles (Oregon Office of Energy) teamed up last year to write a paper on this very topic: "Why DOE's Messages on Transportation Don't Resonate with the Public (and What DOE can do to Fix the Problem)." Lisa presented the paper on February 26 at Waste Management 2008 in Phoenix.

Guided by some basic principles of risk perception, Lisa and Ken reviewed 40 DOE fact sheets and other printed documents in search of messages that they considered responsive to public perceptions of risk. Unfortunately, they didn't find many examples. What they did find were several messages that had the potential to exacerbate public concerns over shipments. Topping the list of bad messages was this one, variations of which turned up in almost half the documents: "No deaths or serious injuries have resulted from exposure to the radioactive contents of these shipments." Pointing out that the absence of a serious negative does not make a positive, Lisa asked the audience to "imagine advertisers trying to sell any other product or service on the basis of it not having killed anyone or caused serious harm." Judging from the smiling faces and vigorously nodding heads, many people in the audience got the message.

Lisa and Ken recommended that DOE should a) use messages that offer tangible, meaningful benefits to people; b) use public input and communicate effectively about how it was used; c) explain the similarities between these shipments and other DOE shipments; and d) work cooperatively with more trusted sources at the state and local level. While observing that DOE could take some steps right away to improve its outreach to the public, the paper concluded that, in the long run, DOE must do a better job of soliciting and then actually using input from its stakeholders as it plans shipments to Yucca Mountain and elsewhere

Click here for a copy of the paper.

Rising Arizona

Waste Management 2008 kicked off with a keynote panel entitled "Phoenix Rising: Moving Forward in Waste Management." James Rispoli, Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management, was the leadoff speaker on the panel. Mr. Rispoli said DOE would "engage in meaningful dialogue with regulators, stakeholders, and Tribal Nations to assess existing priorities and mutually identify opportunities to complete cleanup." In other words, the administration's budget request for FY09 is less than what EM has needed in the past for site cleanup, so there won't be enough money to do all the work. Despite the reduced budget, DOE does plan to finish the closure of the Portsmouth gaseous diffusion plant by the end of FY09.

Second up was NRC Chairman Dale Klein. He reviewed the evolution of the NRC's "waste confidence" ruling. In a nutshell, before the early 1980s, the NRC didn't consider waste disposal when it licensed nuclear plants. After being on the losing side of some litigation, the NRC issued a rulemaking that made some general findings on the likelihood of waste disposal options being available. The NRC committed to revisit the ruling as circumstances warranted. Mr. Klein said he, personally, didn't feel circumstances (such as the fast receding target date for repository operations) warranted a new ruling, but the NRC recognized that this is an issue for the public and for the companies that are hoping to build new nuclear power plants. Because it's an issue, the NRC has asked the staff to prepare a memo on what a possible update to the ruling might consider.

Rounding out the panel was Steve Creamer, CEO of Energy Solutions, who emphasized that nuclear power is vital to solving problems like energy security and global warming. Mr. Creamer explained that the "players" in the field include DOE, the NRC, U.S. business and industry, and international partners. (States, tribes, local governments, and the public apparently didn't make the cut.) Mr. Creamer placed the blame for DOE's failure to develop a repository at Yucca Mountain squarely at the feet of Nevada Senator Harry Reid. He issued a challenge to the industry to clean up any messes it has created, otherwise people won't accept the construction of new facilities.

Click here for the conference website.

Odds and ends

While in Phoenix, Lisa had an opportunity to sit in on several sessions and pick up all kinds of interesting tidbits.

• Yucca Mountain chief scientist Russ Dyer reported that, despite budget cuts, DOE was still planning to release this year both a report on the need for a second repository and a report on interim storage.
• The Nuclear Energy Institute's Rod McCullom said that, because DOE's Transportation, Aging, and Disposal packages (or TADs) will have a smaller capacity than regular rail casks, DOE will need to ship approximately 50% more casks than originally planned. Mr. McCullom said this would not necessarily result in more shipments. DOE's Gary Lanthrum shed more light on this in a later panel, when he said DOE is now planning to ship five casks per train rather than three.
• Lisa's vote for the "best oral paper" went to John Devine's "The Nuclear Accident at Three Miles Island - A Practical Lesson in the Fundamental Importance of Effective Communication." Mr. Devine worked for GPU Nuclear back in 1979 when the accident occurred. Observing "things are not always what they seem," Mr. Devine said the industry tends to "look at stakeholders as trying to stand in our way. We have to get past that." He chronicled the breakdown in communications within the utility and between the utility, its regulators, the media, and the public. Mr. Devine concluded that effective communication is not peripheral to success, but rather central to it.

The proceedings from the conference are not yet available. When they are, Lisa will distribute the program listings to committee members so that they can request copies of any papers that might interest them. Committee members should also consider submitting a paper for presentation at Waste Management 2009. If the topic is related to the work of the committee, CSG Midwest might be able to reimburse travel expenses, including the registration fee. For more information, contact Lisa at 920/458-5910 or ljanairo@csg.org.

Thanks for reading! Look for our next update in your inbox in two weeks.

Sincerely,
Lisa Janairo and Sarah Wochos
Committee Staff