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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) with any questions or concerns about any
of these issues.
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 By
the Book
Ever wanted a single source for all
of your radioactive waste transportation document needs? Thought
the T-REX website would do the job only to be sadly mistaken?
Well, thanks to a recent bout of spring organizing, Lisa and
Sarah are now making available the contents of their
bookshelves. The Midwest Transportation Library is a
comprehensive list of all documents, reports, letters, and
comments on radioactive waste transportation issues from the
last decade and a half. OK, we don't have everything, but we
have a lot and we're ready and willing to share. The long-term
goal is to make a searchable, online database, but for right now
we have searchable PDFs organized by category and author, and an
alphabetical list of titles. The categories are broad (Emergency
Response, Yucca Mountain, etc.) and many documents fall into
more than one category, but the documents by category list is
useful if you don't know exactly what you are looking for.
Please look over the lists, and if you see a document you'd like
to peruse, contact Lisa and she'll send it to you. Please note
that since some of these documents are quite old they are not
available in PDF format, so we'll have to send them the good
old-fashioned way.
Click here to view a list of documents by category.
Click here for a list of documents by author.
Click here for an alphabetical list of documents.
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 Storage
Forum Anything But Dry
On May 13-15, Sarah and committee
co-chair Jane Beetem were in Bonita Springs, Florida, to attend
the Nuclear Energy Institute's (NEI) Dry Storage Information
Forum. The meeting, organized by NEI with participation from the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), brought together utilities
and regulators to discuss new developments in dry cask storage,
long-term storage options, and regulatory issues in spent fuel
storage, among other topics. Included in the mix of panels was
one on intermodal transportation of spent fuel, a topic that the
Rail Topic Group recently took interest in. Members of the
Intermodal Subgroup of the Rail Topic Group asked the panelists
questions developed by the subgroup members. Below are the
highlights from the panel and the rest of the meeting:
- NRC Commissioner
Gregory Jaczko said that in his opinion, spent fuel storage
in Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) was
an optimal and logical way to store fuel until a permanent
solution is available. Bill Brach, Director of the NRC's
Division of Spent Fuel Storage and Transportation said that
he expects to see 65-68 licensed ISFSIs by 2010. Currently
there are 50 ISFSIs in 30 states.
- Jack Davis, who will oversee the NRC's
review of DOE's license application for the Yucca Mountain
repository, said that the NRC is committed to docketing the
application in the 3-month timeframe outlined in the Nuclear
Waste Policy Act. Docketing the application confirms that
all necessary elements are present and the application
review can go forward. The NRC expects the license
application in early June. Mr. Davis also said that the
review period would mean a significantly greater role for
all stakeholders, especially those in Nevada. He said he
expects stakeholders to present 500-1,000 contentions to the
application. Each contention will be considered and those
found legitimate will be formally reviewed with stakeholder
input.
- Steve Kraft and Marshall Cohen of NEI
outlined their plan to identify communities interested in
housing an interim spent fuel storage site. NEI, in
partnership with the utilities, is contacting communities
across the nation to find volunteers, with the hopes of
getting something operational within 10 years. This project
is similar to Private Fuel Storage (PFS), except that NEI is
looking for any community, not just a Native American
community, that may be interested. NEI will also only
consider sites that have gubernatorial support, which PFS
did not.
- On the intermodal
transportation panel, Bob Halstead of Nevada, Ed Wilds of
Connecticut, Sandra Threat of South Carolina, and several
others discussed their experience with intermodal
radioactive waste shipments. The state panelists outlined
the need for a long planning process and the multiple
agencies and groups that need to be involved in the planning
and execution. The panel also included industry experts who
guided the audience through the detailed process for moving
spent fuel by intermodal shipment. Mark Lewis of EnergySolutions
said that some shipments may require 6-8 intermodal
transfers, and that, depending on location, each transfer
could involve a separate permit, separate law enforcement
involvement, and separate logistical considerations. He and
the other panelists encouraged the states, utilities, and
DOE to begin working on the issue as soon as possible.
The Midwestern Radioactive Materials
Transportation Committee will have an opportunity to hear more
about the intermodal panel at the upcoming committee meeting in
June.
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 Game
Plan
It is time once again to finalize the committee's
"game plan" when it comes to shipments of radioactive materials. The
Planning Guide for Shipments of Radioactive Waste through the
Midwestern States is the region's "how-to" guide for shippers.
It includes information on shipment planning, inspections, escorts,
etc., as well as state-specific contact and regulation information.
In the last month, members of the committee reviewed and revised the
text of the Planning Guide. Lisa sent the revised text to
committee members on May 20, and she is seeking feedback on the
proposed changes by June 9
from anyone who is not attending the June committee meeting. Thanks
to all for updating the state-specific sections of the Planning
Guide.
Click here to view the state-specific sections. If you have
additional changes to your state's information, please forward it to
Lisa as soon as possible. The committee will finalize the text at
the Indianapolis meeting and the printed document will be
distributed in July.
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Thanks for reading! Look for
our next update in your inbox in two weeks.
Sincerely,
Lisa Janairo and Sarah Wochos
Committee Staff
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Midwestern
Radioactive Materials