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.

FRR To Go

Ah, spring is in the air! The signs of the season are everywhere: the grass is getting greener, the birds are frolicking in the trees, and DOE is seeking comments on its transportation plan for the foreign research reactor (FRR) spent fuel shipments. Yes, this year the Midwest will once again see a shipment of FRR spent fuel pass through on its way from South Carolina to the Idaho National Laboratory. The spent fuel is returning to the country from Romania and will travel by truck in two legal-weight casks later this year.

As in past years, the shipment planning kicked off with DOE's Jim Wade soliciting comments from the states on the contents of the transportation plan and on the three potential routes DOE might use. The states that may be affected are Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. Committee members from these states should review the plan and provide their feedback to Lisa, who will consolidate the regional comments and send them on to DOE. Comments are due to DOE by May 22, so please forward all comments to Lisa no later than May 15.

Click here to view the transportation plan.

West by Midwest

On April 22-23, Lisa was in Tempe, Arizona, to attend the joint meeting of the Western Governors' Association's WIPP Transportation Technical Advisory Group and the Western Interstate Energy Board's High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee. As always, the meeting was highly informative and offered many opportunities to strengthen the ties between the Midwestern and Western regions. Here are just a few of the many highlights from the meeting:

• Jeffrey Bobeck, the director of the new Division of Communications and External Affairs within DOE's Environmental Management program, gave a presentation on the past successes and continuing challenges facing EM's cleanup of former sites used to produce nuclear weapons. The latest controversy surrounding EM is the program's request of insufficient funding to meet all the court-enforced cleanup milestones negotiated with the states. Another concern the states raised to Mr. Bobeck was DOE's failure to include the Western states in reviewing and selecting the truck carriers for the WIPP shipments -- in stark violation of the terms of the memorandum of agreement between WGA and the Secretary of Energy. Mr. Bobeck said he would investigate that decision and report back to the WGA WIPP group.
• Hitesh Nigan reported on the Enriched Uranium Disposition Project, which encompasses the planned transfers of spent fuel between Savannah River Site (SC) and Idaho National Laboratory. Mr. Nigan is the DOE Headquarters representative on DOE's Integrated Project Team, led by Scott DeClue. He said DOE hopes to publish the program's environmental assessment and amended record of decision this summer. The shipments are still scheduled to start in October 2009, depending on the budget. Ella McNeil confirmed this and said her goal was to make sure DOE kicks off the planning process in August of this year.
• Bill Mackie from the Carlsbad Field Office reported on, among other things, DOE's recent decision to ship transuranic waste from the so-called "small quantity sites" to Idaho National Laboratory for waste characterization and packaging prior to shipping to WIPP (view the March 18 committee newsletter, which featured an article on the decision). Bill indicated that DOE's ranking of sites put the additional shipments from Argonne National Laboratory-East and those from eastern sites several years out, with ANL-E and the two sites in Schenectady, New York, ranked 6, 7, and 8. (Note: the additional shipments from ANL-E are separate from those planned for this summer, which are now set to begin in August.) Bill also said the goal is to start the small-quantity site shipments in 2010, with waste at Hanford being the top priority. Bill added that all shipments will follow the WIPP Transportation Plan and the WGA WIPP Program Implementation Guide. The states will see a draft of the revised transportation plan sometime this year. When asked about potential routes, Bill said DOE would first meet with the sites, then evaluate the possible routes. The next step would be to talk to the states.
• Alex Thrower from the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) reiterated some points we've heard before: OCRWM will meet its goal of submitting the license application for Yucca Mountain to the NRC in June; the program's work on routing is ongoing, with the railroads expected to submit in the next couple of weeks their contribution to the Routing Topic Group's discussions; and OCRWM is on target to prepare a report on the second repository and another one on interim storage sometime this calendar year. Alex also reported that OCRWM and EM had developed some ideas for improving the Transportation External Coordination Working Group (TEC/WG). The two programs, which co-chair the TEC/WG, are suggesting that non-DOE representatives once again be invited to serve on the TEC Planning Committee that develops the agendas for meetings. Another suggestion is to revisit the topic groups, possibly consolidating some and bringing back the Communications Topic Group.

The Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee will have an opportunity to hear the latest developments about all these topics at the upcoming committee meeting in June.

Horn Tutors Region on Technology

On March 29, a Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance committee hosted a special meeting in Denver to give states an opportunity to review and observe demonstrations of several new technologies that may ultimately benefit the Yucca Mountain transportation system. The meeting took place in conjunction with the biannual CVSA workshop and was sponsored by the Ad Hoc RAM/Security/Information Technology Committee and the RAM Subcommittee. Kelly Horn with the Illinois Emergency Management Agency attended the session and prepared a report for the Midwestern committee. Kelly will also report to the committee in person at the committee meeting in Indianapolis on June 18-19. CVSA expects to issue a draft report to DOE on the technology evaluation project in September of this year.

Click here to view Kelly Horn's report.

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

Sincerely,
Lisa Janairo and Sarah Wochos
Committee Staff