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.

WIMS-ical Forecast

As promised, DOE recently updated their Waste Information Management System (WIMS) with new data on projected waste streams and associated shipments. WIMS is an online database of information on low-level, mixed low-level, and transuranic waste streams. DOE's Environmental Management (EM) program manages the site, but the data includes shipments made by EM, the Office of Science, and the National Nuclear Security Administration, among other DOE offices. Click here to access the site (you will need to create an account). You can search for waste streams coming from or going to specific sites, but unlike DOE's Prospective Shipment Report (PSR), WIMS does not indicate which campaigns will affect which states.

At the February TEC meeting in San Antonio, DOE indicated that they were considering using WIMS instead of the PSR to update states on upcoming shipments. Currently, DOE sends the PSR out every six months. If DOE switches to WIMS, it is unclear if they would continue to send out a report to affected states or if affected states would have to log-in to WIMS and check for updates themselves.

Three years ago, the Midwest asked DOE to make the PSR more comprehensive and useful to states by including more accurate DOE contact information and links to campaign factsheets, among other things. DOE made some of the suggested changes, but very few. More recently, at the committee's meeting in Columbus, shared with the states their mock-up of a new and improved PSR. We have populated this mock-up with actual shipment data from WIMS to create state-specific reports for committee members to review. The reports include shipment numbers, modes, potential route maps, and links to transportation plans and factsheets, where available. Sarah will be sending the state-specific reports out to affected states sometime this week. We'll then set up a conference call to discuss the layout and content and to develop a strategy for making reports like these available to the Midwestern states on a continuing basis.

PSR

In shipment planning related news, DOE still has not responded to the committee's request that the department put spent fuel shipments back on the PSR. Last fall, DOE decided not to list upcoming spent fuel shipments on the PSR because of potential safeguards violations. We reported on this development in the September 18th newsletter. The Midwest and the other regions responded by noting that the limited information provided on the PSR would not violate any regulations. We also pointed out that the removal of the spent nuclear fuel shipments diminishes the utility of the PSR as a planning tool for the states. This is particularly important given the upcoming spent fuel transfer campaign. We discussed this issue at our committee meeting in Columbus, using a rationale document that Lisa developed, and again at the February TEC meeting in San Antonio. DOE promised to follow-up with the NRC to make sure there were no violations, but had not reported on the NRC's response as of last month. So the Midwest and the West decided to take matters into our own hands and wrote the NRC directly. Click here for a copy of the letter. The Western states will discuss this at their meeting in Tempe at the end of the month, which Lisa will attend, and if the issue is not already resolved, we will discuss it at our committee meeting in Indianapolis.

In the News

Radioactive waste was prominent in the news across the country last week. Below is a recap of what's new:

• EM Director James Rispoli and RW Director Ward Sproat both testified in front of the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee. Both were on hand to answer questions about the possibility of meeting target dates and deadlines using the funding levels requested in the President's FY09 budget. Though both were supportive of the President's request, they did indicate that some deadlines would not be met. Ward Sproat stated that appropriated funding levels for FY07 and FY08 negated RW's ability to meet the 2017 'best achievable date' for starting operations at Yucca Mountain. He did not give a new target date. He also said that the funding request for FY09 will support license application and other baseline activities, but the program will need access to Nuclear Waste Fund monies in order to move forward with rail line or repository construction. To read his testimony, click here.
  
• James Rispoli testified that under the President's requested funding level, EM would miss several deadlines and milestones that are within its environmental agreements. The missed milestones affect the larger DOE sites (Hanford, Idaho, Oak Ridge, etc), but will have an impact on the Midwestern states because of changes in shipment numbers. Mr. Rispoli indicated that DOE may have to renegotiate some of the environmental agreements based on the realities of the economy and the priorities of the administration. To read his testimony, click here.
  
• All of the presidential candidates have weighed in on Yucca Mountain (click here to read more about it). But how much do they really know about the issue? That is the subject of a letter from Dr. Ruth Weiner, a risk management researcher at Sandia National Labs and fellow of the American Nuclear Society. In a letter to the editor of Radwaste Solutions magazine, Dr. Weiner points out that often the claim of 'bad science' isn't backed up with specific examples, and is an insult to many of the dedicated scientists working on the project. Click here to read the full text of the letter.
• What happens if dry cask storage facilities become permanent? This was the topic of discussion among residents of communities surrounding the Kewaunee and Point Beach nuclear reactors in Wisconsin. Point Beach already has a dry cask storage facility and Kewaunee is looking to build one. Residents felt that the utility should compensate them for the risk associated with housing the facilities. The money would come from the Nuclear Waste Fund and the contract would be negotiated every 5 years. Click here to read the full article. This type of discussion may come up in additional communities throughout the Midwest as the opening date for Yucca Mountain moves further into the future.

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

Sincerely,
Lisa Janairo and Sarah Wochos
Committee Staff